Can anybody help????????? When I import fs98 aircraft I cant get the
instument panel to come up. When I do get a panel you cant see anything but the
panel, outside looks dark. Its like the two windows won't mesh. any ideas?
Guess It's been awhile..I'll post this again--Hope no one minds

A lot of people are having major problems bringing in planes from FS98, mainly
concerning the black bands at the bottom of the screens, or not being able to
see out of the cockpit. After a week of searching for answers, and a lot of
trial and error by myself, I thought you might post this for others to see.

Three possibilities where problems may occur in the conversion process:

1. Check the file in the root CFS directory, combatfs.cfg (C:\Program
Files\Microsoft Games\Combat Flight Simulator is where mine is) There is an
entry there called 'panel_masking_off='. See that it is set to '0'.

2. Your imported plane has a pixel other that the color black in the 0,0
position (first pixel in far upper left hand corner) of the bitmap picture for
the panel. This pixel must be black (true black where red=0, green=0, blue=0),
as the CFS program checks this pixel to see what color is to be transparent. If
you think this might be the problem, and it is a lot of the time, fire up your
paint program (I use Paint Shop Pro, you can find it on the web as a trial
version), open up the bitmap file in the panel folder of the plane you are
trying to fix (i.e., c:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Combat Flight
Simulator\Aircraft\P51d\panel\Panel_Background_640.bmp) zoom way up, and check
the color of the first pixel. Just 'cause it looks dark don't mean it's black;
you need to be using a program that will properly identify the 'true' color,
reporting r,g, and b values. All must be zero. If it ain't, your program should
let you choose a tiny, tiny brush, chose the 'true black' color, and paint that
sucker black. Trust me, that one tiny pixel makes all the difference. Save it.
That'll fix that, if it was a problem. Check all of the bitmaps in the panel
folder, there may be others that have a problem.

3. Lastly, the panel.cfg file may need tweaking. Here's the deal:
Again, open up the panel subfolder in the folder of the plane you are trying to
fix. Open up the panel.cfg file using Notepad (Hint: Let Notepad become the
default for .cfg files. Saves a lot of fussing). You will see all the used
windows defined first, under [Window Titles], and then 'window00=p51.bmp' or
some such, and below that, all of the windows are mapped out. You'll find a
paragraph something like this:

[Window00]
file=miljet1.bmp
size_mm=1000
window_size_ratio=1.0
position=7
visible=1
ident=0

This relates to the Cockpit Panel Window. What you'll need to do is to add the
lines CFS wants to see, and remove the 'window_size_ratio=1.0', so that it
reads like this:

[Window00]
file=miljet1.bmp
position=7
size_mm=1000
window_pos=0.0,0.0
window_size=1.000,1.000
render_3d_window=1
pixel_size=0,0
sizeable=1
visible=1
ident=MAIN_PANEL

Add the necessary lines to all of the defined windows in the file.

The panels should now work without the black windows. However, if there were
operating buttons and switches on the original panels, the line
'render_3d_window=1' killed it. If this bothers you, change the entry to '0'.
In addition the lines 'window_size=1.000,1.000' may blow up some windows too
large, usually the extra panels [window01] or [window02] or whatever else there
is besides the main panel. Same goes for the 'window_pos=0.0,0.0'. Some windows
are not meant to be placed here (top left). Lastly, the 'window_size_ratio='
may be necessary for some smaller supplimentary windows to be displayed
properly. If you suspect a particular line may be causing more problems, remark
it out, like this:

//window_pos=0.0,0.0

At the bottom of the Panel cfg under [Default View] you'll see these two
lines:
SIZE_X=8191
SIZE_Y=5000

The numbers identify where the Combat Flight Sim Gunsight (and therefore the
scenery horizon) lines-up on screen. If your gunsight is too high, or if you
can see that the window is not stretched down all the way in any of the views
from the cockpit (check 'em all) then you need to increase the Y numbers. If it
is too low, then you need to decrease the Y numbers. The above numbers seem to
place it dead center, but that may still leave black bands at the bottom of
some views. The value "SIZE_Y=6150' stretches the window all the way down to
the bottom of the screen and will fix any black bands that may exist in the
alternate views from the cockpit (L,R, and rear). You cannot get the gunsight
centered with every imported plane, as these planes were not designed
specifically for CFS. Remember, FS98 has no guns. Planes designed for CFS are
done from the ground up with the gunsight in mind (panels and *.mdl files). So
you end up compromising with imported planes. If you set 'render_3d_window=0',
then you can fly the plane using all the cool controls with the mouse (if there
are any), and 'drag' the panel down just like any other window to expose the
gunsight and do your dogfighting. If all this don't fix it, you have a problem
I ain't seen yet.

Glenn McDonald
Colorado Springs, CO
EchoWars@Worldnet.att.net