The FU3 Cockpit Designer
Tutorial
5 - Instruments
IMPORTANT - | You can not use projects created with older versions You must create a new project using version 0.5 |
This version (0.5) supports only some of the instruments, more instruments may be added in future versions
Select either the VFR or IFR cockpit
view by clicking the Select View icon or by selecting Cockpit->SelectView
from the menu.
In this tutorial we will use the Mooney Bravo IFR view.
NOTE: The IFR and VFR views are not connected - if you edit instruments
in one of these views, the other will not be affected
Bravo IFR View
It is recommended you leave only the Inside Image and the Instruments visible:
Instruments are marked by a yellow
rectangle.
Place the mouse cursor on an instrument, a label will pop-up
indicating the instrument's name:
To move an instrument, click on it &
hold the left mouse button and while holding the CTRL key - move
the mouse:
Instruments Properties
Every instrument type has different properties, unfortunately, there
is almost no documentation about them.
So the best way to find out how a property affects an instrument
is to change its value and observe what happens inside FU3
It is recommended that you explore the exisiting panels of the FU3
aircraft, look at the values of the instruments and experiment
with them.
To edit the instrument's properties - double-click on it, you
will see the Edit Instrument dialog
Here's an example of the Altimeter properties dialog:
A common property of all the instruments, is the System
property, it specifies to which aircraft system (engine,
fuel etc.) this instrument is related
There is no documentation about suitable values for this
property, but here are some examples:
* For instruments that monitor the
engine (RPM, Oil Temp. etc.) the System
property specifies the engine number (0 for single engine planes,
0 or 1 for twins)
* For fuel quantity instruments the System
property specifies the fuel tank number (0 for single tank, 0 or
1 if there are two tanks etc.)
* For COM/NAV instruments the System
property specifies the Com/Nav number (0 for Com/Nav 1, 1 for Com/Nav
2)
After you change the properties as you
see fit, click the OK button, you will be able
to see some of the changes in the Cockpit Designer
view window, but
other changes can only be seen from inside FU3.
Instruments Images
Next to the Properties
tab you will find the Images tab:
The top part of the dialog shows the images used by this
instrument:
Click on the image name (in the list) to view the actual image
and filename.
The lower part of the dialog is the Images Library,
it displays a list of available images (all the instruments'
images that were found in the .res file)
(In this version it is not possible to add
new images to the library or to edit the existing images - read
further for a work-around to this limitation)
To change the image used by the instrument, first select the
desired image name from the Instrument Images
list :
Now select an image from the Images Library,
and double-click on its name (you can also double-click on the
image itself)
The image used by the instrument will change to the image you
selected:
Click OK to apply the changes, the instrument
image on the panel will change according to the new image you
have selected:
Before
After
Instruments with Modifiers
Some instruments have a modifier
associated with them, a modifier changes the instrument's
behaviour or appearance.
Instruments which have a modifier are marked by an orange
rectangle (instead of yellow) :
To change the modifier's values, double-click on the
instrument and click the Modifier tab in the Edit
Instrument dialog.
There are 5 types of modifiers:
Safe Fast (applied
to instruments with needles, somehow changes the needle
behaviour, modifier paramteres are ignored)
Clipped Needle
Pushknob Center (applied to push-knobs,
like the throttle levers of the Renegade)
No Smart Text
Attitude Bank Pointer
There is no further documentation
about modifiers so the only thing we can do is explore the
existing instruments and learn from them.
Instruments with states (switches, lights, indicators)
Instruments like switches, lights and indicators have several states, each state has a separate image, for example:
The Mooney Bravo Power Master
switch. If you look in the ResViewer
you will notice that these two images appear one after
the other:
Off
state File 173 Item 1
On state
File 173 Item 2
State images must be one after
the other in order for FU3 to correctly switch between them!
Remember this if you want to "borrow" a switch/light/indicator
from another panel.
Adding Instruments
To add an instrument that is not in the panel, select Instruments -> Add from the menu, you will be presented with a list of all supported instruments:
Select the instrument you would like to
add and click OK (or double-click on the
instrument's name)
You will be displayed with the Edit Instrument
dialog, change the default values if you like, make sure you
click on the Images tab and select
The images you would like the instrument to use.
(An example showing how to add instruments is
located at the end of this tutorial)
Adding New Images
Adding images is done from the Images
tab in the Edit Instrument dialog:
To the right of the Images Library there are two
new buttons: Add and Remove
To add an image, click on the Add button, the Add
Image dialog will open.
In this dialog you can select the .bmp file of the image you want
to add
Notice that there is a check-box in the bottom, titled Generate
Image Sets
If this check-box is checked - night images will automatically
be generated from the image you select.
If it is not checked then all image sets (day/night) will look
like the day image (the image you selected)
This check-box is checked by deafult.
To add an image select the .bmp file you want to add and click on
the Open button (or double-click on the file)
A message will tell you the name of the new image in the library
(e.g. 2819_136.art )
You can also add .art files instead of .bmp files.
An .art files is bitmap in FU3 format, you can get an art file by
exporting an image
using the ResViewer but exporting it in its original
format, without conversion
( from the ResViewer menu: Export
-> Original Format )
Anchors
A new visual feature in this version is display of Anchors.
When you view an image in the file library you will notice that
crossing purple lines are super-imposed
on each image and below the image there is an Anchor X Y
display.
Each .art file (bitmap in original FU3 format) has an anchor
which is an X,Y cooridante
That is used when FU3 renders the image to the screen.
For example: the anchor in a needle bitmap marks the pivot point
of the needle.
When you export an image to .bmp
format (with ResViewer) the anchor is NOT
preserved!
So if you want to "borrow" an image from another
aircraft, it is best to export it in its original format
And save it with an .art extension, then add the .art file to the
Images Library. this way you preserve the anchor.
When you're viewing an image in the Image Library, you can change
its anchor coordinates.
To do so, place the mouse cursor on the image in the spot you
want to place the anchor and Right-Click on it.
You will see the lines move to this spot and the Anchor
coordinates will change.
Removing Images
An image can only be removed from the library if it is the
last image in its group.
The name of the image tells you the group number and the image
number.
for example:
2819_10.art is Image 10 in
Group 2819
So if group 2819 has 135 images you can only remove image 2819_135.art
and then remove
2819_134.art then 2819_133.art and
so on.
To remove an image, select it in the Images Library and click on
the "Remove" button
WARNING! No check is made to see if an image is in use by an instrument, so be careful When you remove images, make sure they are not used by any instrument. |
Deleting Instruments
To delete an instrument, click on it with the mouse (the yellow recatngle should turn into light blue) and press the Delete key on your keyboard.
Organizing Instruments
From the menu, select Instruments -> Organize , you will be presented with the Organize Instruments dialog:
In this dialog you see a list of all the
instruments in the panel (including the unsupported instruments)
The number in parenthesis is the System
property of this instrument.
In this screen you can change the order
of the instruments by selecting an instrument and clicking on the
Up /\ and Down \/ arrows
You can delete instruments that are still not supported
and can't be selected in the panel view.
You can also select multiple instruments (using Ctrl and Shift
keys) and delete all of them at once.
To delete instruments - select the
instruments you want to delete and click on the Delete
button
Click OK to apply the changes.
Updating the .res file
After making changes to the
instruments (moving, changing properties or images) you must update the .res file for your changes to take effect. You do this by building the project - Click the ![]() |
Example - Adding Auto Pilot Switches to the Trainer
Create a new project based on the default trainer.res file, after the project is created - select the IFR view.
Trainer IFR View
From the menu select Instruments
-> Add
In the Add
Instrument dialog, select the Auto-Pilot Toggle instrument and click OK
Click on the Images tab and in the Images
Library select the image: 2819_41.art
and double-click on it :
Why did we select this image (2819_41.art) ?
Because this is an image of a switch in the Off
state and the following image (2819_42.art) is of a
switch in the On state
You only need to select the image of the first state (Off in this case)
If the images of the following states appear right after the
image of the first state - then FU3 knows how to swap between
them.
Click on the OK button.
You will notice that the switch you just added now appears on the panel (in position 400, 300 if you haven't changed the default values) :
You can now move it to a more appropriate place in the panel (click on it and while hodling the left mouse button and the CTRL key - move the mouse)
You added an Auto-Pilot Toggle
switch, this switch turns the Auto Pilot on and off.
Now you need to add the individual Auto Pilot switches like ALT,
HDG etc. :
To do this just repeat the above process, but each time select
the appropriate instrument such as Auto-Pilot
ALT and Auto-Pilot HDG
The final result should look like
this:
From left to right: Auto-Pilot Toggle, Auto-Pilot ALT and Auto-Pilot HDG
(you can re-arrange them and
position them anywhere, this is just an example)
Now build the project - Click the Build icon
or select Project -> Build from the menu.
That's it! - now you can close the Cockpit Designer, run FU3 and see the new AP switches in action :
Cockpit Designer - Copyright (C) 2000 - 2003 Gideon Pertzov