background image with transparent boxes

Help and techniques for creating Air Manager Instrument Graphics

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Keith Baxter
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Re: background image with transparent boxes

#31 Post by Keith Baxter »

Jacques,

Yes that is what I was referring to. This is the panel by the way
ice_screenshot_20210815-141227.png

Keith
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Keith Baxter
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Re: background image with transparent boxes

#32 Post by Keith Baxter »

@jph

Sorry to others for going OT here. I just need to address my dear friend Joe's gas.

A Little out of touch with what is going on, on the discord Joe. Peeps are coming to the discord to learn how to do different things. With the community help, members are learning and creating some awesome stuff. Screen sharing and teaching AM users how to do different things is proving to be very helpful to the members, new and old.

One member creating these steam gauges for use with AM. He was taught how to create the graphics and code for this.
20210801_170051.jpg
20210801_212134.jpg

Yes the dials were printed and all else 3D printed and cut.


So before you start with your opinion on the discord, you really should have experience with the use and application, else you opinion is just giving "farty :o AIR" for the sake of it. :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

7wGNuE.gif
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Keith
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wrschultz
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Re: background image with transparent boxes

#33 Post by wrschultz »

Jacque, thanks for the help on this. I am trying to modify a SI panel for the TBM900 and first needed to change the transparent cutouts on the background. You were very helpful a short while back to provide a YouTube video of methods to follow to do this. It took me awhile to put it together but I was able modify the transparent area. I would not have been able to do this. without your helpful jump start video. I do not have much experience with the SI programming code and the Skinman graphical programming. My career in statistical and economic modeling was not helping me very much and I am now retired. My hope on building the graphics for the switches on an instrument that Keith built was to just give me some suggestions by way of your videos. More than willing to put some time in to figure things out but a running start is helpful and appreciated. If I can put the TBM900 panel together I like to offer it back to the SI community for consideration. The HotStart TBM900 is a very well constructed aircraft for X-Plane and expect many would like to fly this turboprop. Apologize for any miscommunications I may have created. Bill

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Keith Baxter
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Re: background image with transparent boxes

#34 Post by Keith Baxter »

Bill,

I have added temporary switches to the Deice system for you to use until you have time to create the correct ones.

The .sff is in the community build.

I also uploaded a WIP of the overhead. Please test and let me know how it go's so I can complete it.

Keith
Last edited by Keith Baxter on Mon Aug 16, 2021 11:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
AMD RYZEN 9 5950X CPU, Corsair H80I cooler, ASUS TUF GAMING B550-PLUS AMD Ryzen Mother Board,  32Gb ram Corsair Vengeance 3000Mh, MSI GTX960 4G graphics card 

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jph
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Re: background image with transparent boxes

#35 Post by jph »

Hi @Keith Baxter :mrgreen:
No problems.. ps, I love the Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer gif :lol: - two of my favourites - apart from you of course you old goat. ;)
The issue for me is simply that there are often 2 conversations occurring on the official support site and also the discord and it is easy for a user to believe that all have privy to both sides. They mostly would not. Hence only half the issue is seen, or often less.
Love the analogue stuff. :D
It suits people of our antiquity.... (although, cough..... you ARE 2 years older than me...)
Joe.
Joe. CISSP, MSc.

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Keith Baxter
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Re: background image with transparent boxes

#36 Post by Keith Baxter »

jph wrote: Mon Aug 16, 2021 9:21 am Hi @Keith Baxter :mrgreen:
No problems.. ps, I love the Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer gif :lol: - two of my favourites - apart from you of course you old goat. ;)
The issue for me is simply that there are often 2 conversations occurring on the official support site and also the discord and it is easy for a user to believe that all have privy to both sides. They mostly would not. Hence only half the issue is seen, or often less.
Love the analogue stuff. :D
It suits people of our antiquity.... (although, cough..... you ARE 2 years older than me...)
Joe.
No worries Joe,

All to there opinions and we respect each other.

Keith
AMD RYZEN 9 5950X CPU, Corsair H80I cooler, ASUS TUF GAMING B550-PLUS AMD Ryzen Mother Board,  32Gb ram Corsair Vengeance 3000Mh, MSI GTX960 4G graphics card 

wohnlich
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Re: background image with transparent boxes

#37 Post by wohnlich »

Thanks for the detailed explanation, Jacques! I searched high and low for an easy option to add masks - didn't want to install Gimp just for that purpose. Skinman is nice and small, and it was a 5 minute exercise to achieve what I wanted using your explanation. Given that it's 10 years old, stuck in version 1.0.1, and the sources are a bit dubious, it wouldn't have given it another try. (The fact that a google search for "Skinman" is flooded by hits to a hand saniziter of the same name doesn't help :lol:
Thanks again!

dameng
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Re: background image with transparent boxes

#38 Post by dameng »

JackZ wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 4:52 am Hi
I advise you to use Skinman, which is perfect for this purpose.
Create your background first ( say a black rectangle), then create another (can be of any color) that will be the size, position and shape of the hole you want to create on the first one and place it over the first one. This will be the mask of the hole to be created.

On the tree view list on the right, the second shape will appear below the first one.
Click on the name of the second shape, then drag it over the first one so there is a link between the first and the second, the mask should be shown as the « child » of the first one, that is with a right indent in the list.
With the second shape still selected, on the property pane on the left select the « operation mode » to be applied: use « shape- «  (shape minus) and instantly the shape of the child is removed from its parent creating a hole.

The neat thing is that you can still move/resize the mask at any time and the resulting hole will change accordingly. You can create as many holes you want, provided their mask shapes are set as « children » of the background shape.

Save your background image with its hole(s) using file/export image, using the « .png with alpha channel » format for transparency.

Jacques
fidi, fici, fuci,

I came, I found this thread, I followed accordingly !!

Thanks Jacques, this was perfect for me, as I was just starting my 2nd panel that had different background colors, and naturally I wanted to use the same png's for my toggle switches. the png's all had a black background and i was trying to figure out how to make it transparent........ then I read and followed your advice, simple and it worked great!!

from a beginner, Thanks again.
Cheers!
Dave

JackZ
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Re: background image with transparent boxes

#39 Post by JackZ »

Glad to be of some assistance

jacques
My YouTube Chanel on the A320 (Real SOPs by an Airline Pilot IRL):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... 0Q6SBASRqJ

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