How To Modify Outside View Parameters In FS2000

By Louis J. Betti

Panel designer & Executive Director of DreamFleet 2000

IMPORTANT! READ FIRST

Use of these instructions to modify FS2000 is done at your own risk, and I will not be responsible for any harm caused to you, your computer, FS2000, other applications, or other individuals, by your following these instructions.

Also, I will not provide help or support for this tutorial (I'm too busy designing panels!).

I will answer no e-mails concerning this tutorial! You're on your own!

Please read this document carefully, before proceeding to modify your outside views.

Finally, you have my permission to modify the outside views on our DreamFleet Cessna 182S panel, for your own use. However, I will offer no help or support if you mess things up!

Thank you.

INTRODUCTION

It is not for use with FS98 panel configuration files!

Many panel designers are still designing FS2000 panels with FS98 configuration files. Why? I'm not sure! The FS2000 panel configuration file is quite easy to figure out.

If you're good, you can figure out how to modify FS98 panel configuration files, in order to change them to the FS2000 format, but I cannot help you here. Just remember that once you do this, these files will only be of use in FS2000.

This tutorial is written from my own experimentation / experience with FS2000. As of this date, Microsoft has not made available the panel SDK, and as such, there may be items available for use that I fail to mention, for I have yet to discover / experiment with them. It is not a definitive tutorial on this subject, and you may feel free to experiment yourself, and advise me of any new things you learn.

Also, I will not be describing the entire panel configuration file, which is what you will be modifying to adjust these views, I will deal only with the outside view windows.

Otherwise, I feel quite confident that by following this tutorial, that you will have great success in modifying your outside views to suit your needs. Have fun!

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

In our DreamFleet 2000 Cessna 182S and 182RG panels, we used one of the outside views (the "UP") view to display a second instrument panel (the virtual panel), which contains the same bitmap and gauges as does the main panel.

We have nine (9) outside views available to us in FS2000. They are:

Of these nine view windows, only the Forward view is an adjustable window that can be resized by dragging it. The other 8 are "Fixed Windows". They cannot be dragged or re-sized, but you can adjust the view of the outside world that you see through them, regardless of whether or not you are also displaying a bitmap to show a portion of the aircraft's interior with them.

GETTING STARTED

Needless to say, you will also need to first determine which panel you wish to modify the outside views on, and which views in particular you wish to modify!

THE PROCEDURE

\FS2000

       \Aircraft

            \C182

               \PANEL <--------the panel.cfg file is in this folder

You can do this either in Note Pad (make sure "all files" are selected, not just "text files"), or Windows Explorer.

In the panel folder you will see the panel configuration file. Depending on your system settings, it will either appear as PANEL, or PANEL.cfg.

Make a back-up copy of the panel.cfg file!

This is important to have in the event you make bad mistake, and need to return to the backup.

2. Open the panel.cfg file in Note Pad. As you can see, it is nothing more than a text document with a .cfg extension.

3. Scroll down the panel.cfg file until you come to the section that is labeled [VIEWS].

NOTE: When you examine this section, you will see that not all view parameters are listed for all view windows, this is because FS2000 has certain defaults set for each view window, and when the default is used, there is no need to specify any parameters.

Example: (Some items omitted)

[VIEWS]
VIEW_FORWARD_WINDOWS=MAIN_PANEL,RADIO_STACK_PANEL,COMPASS_PANEL,ANNUNCIATOR_PANEL,GPS_PANEL

VIEW_REAR_ZOOM=1.5
VIEW_REAR_WINDOWS=25              <------ZOOM FACTOR, IDENT, AND DIRECTION LISTED
VIEW_REAR_DIR=-4.0, 0.00, 180.0      

VIEW_REAR_LEFT_ZOOM=1.5
VIEW_REAR_LEFT_WINDOWS=26         <------ONLY ZOOM FACTOR AND IDENT LISTED

VIEW_LEFT_WINDOWS=27              <------NO PARAMETERS LISTED, EXCEPT IDENT. 

VIEW_UP_WINDOWS=37
VIEW_UP_DIR=-30.0, 0.0, 0.0
VIEW_FORWARD_DIR=3.0, 0.0, 0.0    <------THIS IS THE FORWARD VIEW YOU WOULD MODIFY!

The one item that is always listed is the Window Ident. This is expressed as a number, and you will see it in each of the view examples above, as in VIEW_REAR_WINDOWS=25. Almost all view windows and panel windows have an ident--DON'T FOOL WITH IT!

You will also see that there is no ident for the forward view, which is listed first, and last in this section. If you wish to modify the forward view, you will modify the LAST listing for it, as the first one is used to reference additional panel windows that appear with it.

The next parameter possible is the zoom parameter. If one does not appear for the window you wish to modify, and you want to change the zoom factor for it, you can simply add this line, just before the IDENT listing for the window. Example: VIEW_LEFT_ZOOM=.75

The final parameter is the view direction, and again, it may not appear on all windows, as the default setting may be in use, but again, you can add it. Example: VIEW_REAR_DIR=-4.0, 0.00, 180.0

MAKING THE CHANGES

Let's start with the zoom factor. The default setting is 1.0, for practical purposes, the minimum is .25 and the maximum is 4, although you can go much higher. You will note that the default rear views often have a zoom factor of 1.5.

If you wish to zoom out (wide angle) use a number smaller than 1, say .75. If you want to zoom in a bit (telephoto) use a number larger than 1, say 1.25, or 1.5.

Example: Let's say that everything is fine with the LEFT view, except we want to zoom out a bit. As there is no zoom factor listed for the LEFT view, we will need to add it.

VIEW_LEFT_ZOOM=.75  <--------------This is the line to add.
VIEW_LEFT_WINDOWS=27

Note that I chose a moderate wide angle of .75, and added the line just above the ident line.

Now, could you put the zoom line below the ident line? Perhaps, but I have not tried it that way, and I'm just following the format Microsoft uses. I don't have time to test every possible combination, but you may feel free to do so.

Also, I used .75. Now, would .80, or .85, or .66 , or .47 work? Perhaps, but again, I have not tested such values. I would tend to think that they might work, and if not, then you would probably just get the next closest value that the sim is programmed for.

VIEW DIRECTION:

There are three sets of values for the view direction, and as with the zoom factor, the view direction may not be listed for each window, as the defaults are in use.

The three values, listed as you would put them in are:

view tilt (up/down), view tilt (left/right), view direction.

Even if you are adding just one of these parameters, you must include values for all three, even if that value is 0.00. read on to learn more about this, and why you must do it.

Let's examine what each of these does.

VIEW TILT (up/down): (This is the important one!)

The first one essentially is the one that "raises and lowers your seat", and is the one that many want to change!

The default value varies, based on the view. I am most certain that the minimum value is -180 and the maximum is 180 (total 360 degrees). Yes, the values can be either positive or negative. It would appear that in the forward views that a positive figure raises your seat, allowing a greater view over the panel, and a negative value lowers your seat, and tilts the view up. That's why the default forward view on the Cessna has a value of 3.0, and the up view has a value of -30.0.

I used a value of 8.5 on our Cessna RG panel's forward view, and it gave a nice, somewhat realistic view over the panel. The default 182RG has a value of 3.0, which tells you that its panel is much lower than ours, and requires less "seat up"!

Conversely, on the RG's rear view, I used a negative value of -4.0, which produced an angle that I felt worked best. What applies in the forward view is just the opposite of the rear view. Think of it as the plane tilting on an axis. +4 degrees up at the nose will produce -4 degrees down at the tail. If I want to look up from the rear view, I would need a positive figure, just the opposite of looking up from the forward view. In essence, -30 forward produces the same view up, as 30 will at the rear.

In the end, think of this parameter as you would a compass rose. Looking forward, -180 is straight up, and 180 is straight down. In the middle, is zero, so our forward view is going to be somewhere close to zero.

Changing this value is more a combination of raising/lowering your seat, AND tilting your head up/down.

VIEW TILT (left/right):

Default value is 0.00, and frankly, I'm not sure when you might want to use this one, as I found it had no effect on the left or right views, and on the forward and rear views, it made it look like I broke off either the left or right landing gear!

In essence, that's what it does; it banks the plane, or relatively speaking, the outside view left or right. A positive figure tilts things to the left, and a negative figure tilts things to the right.

So far, I have found no use for this parameter, and have done little experimenting with it. It may be of help with the forward/rear left/right views, and when I have time, I'll play around with it a bit, and you can feel free to do the same!

VIEW DIRECTION:

This is expressed in degrees, with the default varying based on the view, and is in the form of a relative bearing to the aircraft. Thus, when looking straight ahead, that is 0. When looking directly right, that is 90. To the rear is 180, and the left is 270, and everything in between!

Usually, on the default panel.cfg files, you'll only see these parameters listed for the forward view, but you can add it to the other views, in order to tweak them to your liking. This is an example of how I used it to modify the forward left view on our 182RG panel, so it would closely match the angle of the forward left view bitmap I used:

VIEW_FORWARD_LEFT_DIR=-8.0, 0.0, 330.0

Note that I used a negative value for the view up/down, as I wanted to look up a bit, this produced what I felt was the proper perspective, or height above the ground. I used 330 for the view direction.

IMPORTANT: When you add a view direction line to a view window that does not have one, you will negate the default values that are set for that window! Thus, if all you want to do is adjust the view up or down on your right view, you will also need to specify the other two parameters, because if you leave it at 0.00, your right view will have you looking forward, as 0.00 is the figure for looking forward. You would need to put in 90.0 in order to continue to look right.

FINAL EXAMPLES

All that appears for the right view is something like this:

VIEW_RIGHT_WINDOWS=23

That's the ident line, and it means this view is using default parameters for everything else.

To start, lets add the zoom parameter:

VIEW_RIGHT_ZOOM=.75   <------------I added this line
VIEW_RIGHT_WINDOWS=23

Now, let's tilt the view down a bit, by adding the view direction parameters.

VIEW_RIGHT_ZOOM=.75   
VIEW_RIGHT_WINDOWS=23
VIEW_RIGHT_DIR=3.0, 0.00, 90.0   <------------I added this line

Notice that I used 3.0 to look down a bit (raise my seat), but I also had to add 90.0 to re-specify the direction to the right. If I did not do that, and had left it at 0.00, I would be looking forward! I left the middle parameter at 0.00.

Here's the view settings I used on our 182RG's virtual panel. This raises the seat a lot, and zooms out a bit. You might try this on your forward view, and tweak it to your liking:

VIEW_UP_ZOOM=.80
VIEW_UP_DIR=11.0, 0.0, 0.0

Notice, I sacrificed the UP view for the virtual panel, but FS2000 doesn't care! I changed the up view from -30.0 (really looking up) to 11.0 (looking down over the panel), I then zoomed out a bit.

That's right, if you want to change one view into another, you can! If you want 8 different versions of a forward view, each one slightly different from another, you can simply modify all the views accordingly, but DO NOT CHANGE THE VIEW'S NAME OR IDENT NUMBER!

You can use settings similar to this on your forward view window.

Here's the forward view settings for our 182RG panel:

VIEW_FORWARD_DIR=8.5, 0.00, 0.00

Remember: With the forward view, a positive value raises your seat, and a negative value lowers it!

FORMAT

3.00,0.0,180.0 should produce the same result as 3.0, 0.00, 180.00. Using a space simply makes the numbers easier to read.

Of course, if you follow the exact format Microsoft uses, you should be fine.

Just remember the comma in between parameters, that is essential!

TESTING

If the view(s) are not as you had hoped, here's how you can make additonal changes "on the fly".

1. While keeping FS2000 running, bring up the panel.cfg in Note Pad.

2. Make your change, and save the work.

3. Return to FS2000, and select another aircraft (resetting the current flight will not work!)

4. Return to the aircraft you made the changes to, and see the result.

You can also exit FS2000 and re-launch it, and this will accomplish the same thing as selecting another aircraft.

Good luck! I hope this tutorial has been of some help in improving your FS2000 experience.

Lou Betti
Fort Lee, NJ USA

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