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PSX Flight Deck Visuals- Option request (not urgent)

Started by cavaricooper, Tue, 1 Jan 2019 16:24

cavaricooper

Hardy-

Excited to read this!

Apologies, as usual I was clear as mud. When I get home I will post ACTUAL screens of my layouts with and without P3D. The PFD and Centerline are lined up... just not in the approximation.

Yes, the area on the left needs no work.

As ever, indebted.

C
Carl Avari-Cooper, KTPA

Hardy Heinlin

#21
Quote from: Hardy Heinlin on Fri,  4 Jan 2019 13:02
Hoppie, it's getting interesting :-)

I just put an R/G/B/alpha of "150, 0, 0, 50" on several sandwich panels on the Instructor canvas, and this is what the iMac displays:





So it seems to work -- at least on the Instructor frame. Will do some further experiments ...

I can make the entire flight deck frame transparent as well, but not the canvas that sits on the frame. The canvas is hardware accelerated via "volatile image" memory; transparent pixels are black initally. When I move flight deck objects across "transparent" areas, they will just smear and stay there like paint from a brush.

In general, also on the Instructor frame, anti-alias will not work on transparent areas, i.e. smoothed fonts get rendered multiple times without refreshing the background, and so they become fuzzy. Well, that wouldn't be a problem if it's just about a rectangle hole without anti-alias diagonals. But there is no hole in the canvas.


|-|

cavaricooper

#22
Hardy-

Here is what I see when flying PSX.

Standalone MAC without scenery generator-


CURRENT PC with ExternalSim visuals provided by P3D-


CURRENT PC without any scenery generator-


In all these layouts I have striven for the best combination of view centering vs. functionality. They are SLIGHTLY compromised re. strict centerline, but seem to work ok for the most part.

Best- C


Hoppie modified the image widths
Carl Avari-Cooper, KTPA

Hardy Heinlin

I would fill the black area on the left-hand side with something useful, e.g. with a section of the overhead panel, or with the Instructor map (with "Instructor always on top" activated on Preferences > Screen). Or with the lower EICAS, or with a section of the aisle stand etc.


|-|ardy

cagarini

In my case the initial enthusiasm with the possibility of stretching the display along my two monitors, both 1920x1080 but one smaller than the main one ( 24 and 27 inch ) was lost after I tried to find the right comination.

One option would be, since my 2nd monitor is to the right of the main one, to create a layout for a 1st officer - which also makes sense since my old X52 hotas sits to the right of my T.16000 joystick, but I soon found out that in order to maintain the original proportion of things in PSX, as I like to see them, I would actually have to invest in a "wall" of 4 monitors, all the same resolutions and sizes, like the one I have at the office - too expensive and not approved by the CEO of @Home Airlines....

Also, among the many combinations of layouts I tried, excluding those I once created to be specifically used with external "scenery browsers", the one that satisfies me the most is that default 1920x1080 layout - which is the one I adopted.

On a side note, PSX turned out to be my "Zen Sim" :-)   It's at the opposite extreme of the emotions other flight simulators used to cause me ( some still do, not because of the constant strive for performance and add-ons of quality but because of their purpose, which is something I feel ashamed to admit I use - a ww2 combat flight simulator :-/  even more than Condorsoaring which I should be using instead now that weather does not allow for RL flying... ). But I always do at least an approach in PSX before ending my daily sim slot, because of the simplicity, beauty, smoothness, consistency and completeness it provides like no other... And btw, since it's weekend, time to study a bit more of the Manual, and a few more sections of the precious stuff Jon shared with me :-)  instead of the characteristics of the DB605C that equips the Bf 109 K-4 :-) ...

Steve Hose

Hi, I find this a good compromise...



Regards, Steve.

cagarini

Quote from: Steve Hose on Sat,  5 Jan 2019 11:46
Hi, I find this a good compromise...



Regards, Steve.

Steve, are you using two instances of PSX in the PC ?

Steve Hose

Hi jcomm, no just a single instance.

The out-of-window view is in the top left pane, the upper EICAS is lower left and the PFD/ND is lower right.

The dividers are set to black.

I use the view above for takeoff & landing until established/stabilised, then use the view below to manually fly to touchdown (I control my throttles with the mouse).



My other views are all 'heads down' views zoomed in to the main panels, such as CDUs, pedestal & overheads. I figure this is more 'realistic' given in the real thing you have to be heads-down to fiddle with the box anyway.

My layout file is designed for a 4K monitor but these can easily be set up on any monitor size.

Regards, Steve

cagarini

Steve,

I would really like to give your Layouts a try !

Any chance of a link ?


Steve Hose

Hi jcomm, please email me and I'll send you the layout file.

Please note my layouts are sized for a 4K monitor, but with a bit of work you can adapt to any screen size.

With a numpad it follows the below pattern which I find realistic for a real-world workflow.

Layout 1 - flight deck overview
Layout 7 - outside view for take-off & approach with EICAS
Layout 9 - outside view for manual landing with throttle quadrant

Zoomed/detailed views:

Layout 8 - overheads/CBs
Layout 4 - capt instr panel
Layout 5 - upper & lower EICAS
Layout 6 - FO instr panel
Layout 2 - throttle quadrant
Layout 3 - pedestal

Regards, Steve.



Steve Hose

If anyone would like a 1920x1080 version of the layout please email me.

Regards, Steve.

cagarini

Me Wants it - Very Much !!!  :-)

Me Has it now too :-) - Excellent !!!! Thank you Steve !

cavaricooper

Hardy-

Can I now infer that this possibility is currently not viable? I was hopeful with your initial posts, however some of the later ones were less promising....

Should technology allow for this at some future date, it is my hope it remains on some distant to-do list.... :)

Ta- C
Carl Avari-Cooper, KTPA

Hardy Heinlin

It's not possible, I'm sorry. Even if I were to split the PSX layout system in multiple canvases, which would cost months of work, you would have to disable the volatile image memory function, and thus hardware acceleration would be lost as well, and your frame rate would drop to 5 FPS.

Just try two networked PSX instances, one at the top, one at the bottom. There you have the desired gap in the middle, without any additional costs.


|-|

cavaricooper

Hardy-

Thanks for trying, appreciated! Great idea about the extra instance- YET ANOTHER example of the supreme flexibility and capability of PSX.

Best- C
Carl Avari-Cooper, KTPA