The new AM collection for FlightFactor Airbus A320 (FFA320)

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Keith Baxter
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Re: The new AM collection for FlightFactor Airbus A320 (FFA320)

#21 Post by Keith Baxter »

JackZ wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 6:30 am In that particular case, the font has to be embedded in the png resource, as the Korry is animated. Ie there is basically up 12 images and even more per Korry: pressed/ released, lit/unlit, upper legend/lower legend, in each case with dim and bright.

So I definitely get Alexander’s problem in having to recreate each and every korry images for this in SkinMan!
Fortunately, the legends are not that different on the overhead mostly they are ON/FAULT either in cyan or in white and amber.
There should be 5 or 6 different Korry types/legends in total. But all in all it’s like 80 png images to recreate!

Don’t bother @catflyer38 Alexander, I will do that for you if you wish, as a direct replacement, no code change required. If you could forward me the latest version you are working on, I could give a hand
Awesome offer to Alexander Jacques :)

Before you go and redo all those .png. Remember what you did in the TBM 900 cb panel. Was that some 80 odd images.......NOT
That whole panel consisted of 4 (FOUR) .png files

Each switch text could be as you have it in table and you can move that text if the switch is pressed or not and change color and intensity.
I know you like challenges. it is just a few lines of code..... :mrgreen:


For all this is what Jacques did with the TBM 900 cb
ice_screenshot_20210924-011832.png
Keith
Last edited by Keith Baxter on Thu Sep 23, 2021 11:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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JackZ
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Re: The new AM collection for FlightFactor Airbus A320 (FFA320)

#22 Post by JackZ »

Sure thing @Keith Baxter but the idea here is to avoid to recode the whole thing.
I agree that with careful planning and coding one can use text on top of an unmarked korry image, but then the whole burden of selecting all the cases (lit/unlit, bright/dim/pressed/released) and act accordingly by scaling and moving images and text belongs to the code. And a single Korry animation is WAY more complicated than a single circuit breaker that does not lit. The array idea that I implemented for the circuit breaker made more sense there as it allowed an easy customization of evenly spaced single and not lighted legend per c/b.

And I know for sure that in that particular case of the Korry legends, the current text style properties available in AM txt_add() are far less powerful than what is available in Skinman where individual character spacing can be defined and aspect ratio (read overall width) of the whole word can be adjusted. Not to mention some subtle effects of glowing text.
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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Keith Baxter
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Re: The new AM collection for FlightFactor Airbus A320 (FFA320)

#23 Post by Keith Baxter »

JackZ wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 11:47 pm Sure thing @Keith Baxter but the idea here is to avoid to recode the whole thing.
I agree that with careful planning and coding one can use text on top of an unmarked korry image, but then the whole burden of selecting all the cases (lit/unlit, bright/dim/pressed/released) and act accordingly by scaling and moving images and text belongs to the code. And a single Korry animation is WAY more complicated than a single circuit breaker that does not lit. The array idea that I implemented for the circuit breaker made more sense there as it allowed an easy customization of evenly spaced single and not lighted legend per c/b.

And I know for sure that in that particular case of the Korry legends, the current text style properties available in AM txt_add() are far less powerful than what is available in Skinman where individual character spacing can be defined and aspect ratio (read overall width) of the whole word can be adjusted. Not to mention some subtle effects of glowing text.
Yes , All good Jacques.
Just mentioning all possibility. It is the OP option to do what he feels best and is comfortable with.
Great work by the OP and I would not have known the difference had you not mentioned it.

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 

catflyer38
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Re: The new AM collection for FlightFactor Airbus A320 (FFA320)

#24 Post by catflyer38 »

Hi Folks thank you all for this discussions, its really great to share ideas and feedback.

Today I am flying with my friend in his real Cirrus to the Alps and will talk to him about his requirements of the night view. I helped building a sim for him and he brought up the request for dimming the panel brightness. Tomorrow is a region meeting of our flight simulator club and I will discuss with the folks there what they think.

My next step will be to change the logic of the Autobrake panel like Jacques suggested.

With the change of the font I am skeptical, during many discussions with the simmers in may club I never had any discussion about the fonts.
I am a German engineer and like to makes things perfect, but worked also for an American company and learned also to take things not to serious. So I try to find a good balance between the effort , the results and what is really required.

Jacques thank you so much for your offer to change the fonts in the panel(s), its highly appreciated!
You have your job, your own activities, a family and I feel not good offloading so much work to you. As explained before there are way over 30 in some case very complex panels to change.
Talk to you soon !

(I hope you understand what I try to say, this is not my native language and German English feels sometimes a bit harsh)
Regards Alexander

JackZ
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Re: The new AM collection for FlightFactor Airbus A320 (FFA320)

#25 Post by JackZ »

Hi Alexander
First off, I definitely, as a French guy, get your English, no worries at all, your English is as good if not better than mine! :lol:

As a real A320 Pilot I tend to be picky with details of a panel, especially since as you may know I spent hours developing such a set of panels in AM two years ago only to lose everything after a dreaded W10 update that went wrong in 2020 and forced me to loose everything without a proper backup (my fault).

I have researched to try and find the current font on the Korries and can tell for sure that it’s Futura condensed, but I agree apart the pleasing aspect, it’s not that much of an issue in simulation, apart a sense of crispness and added realism when having the proper font, hence my offer to enhance the korries for you!.
As per my offer, don’t worry if I didn’t want to do it because of too much work I simply would have not offered it!

As per the night lighting, in the real cockpit, the panels are mostly dark with only the backlighting visible, especially at night.
In my previous work on these panel I had a go at it.

If I remember correctly I tried different methods, and ended up with different layers, one of a dark rectangle panel with holes in it in order not to darken the switches themselves, and having the panel legends and lines on a different layer (one for day and one for backlighting) and playing with opacity of all these layers n order to have complete control over the backlighting without impacting the rest. The darkening of the panel can then be tied to something like “time of the day” variable or in extreme case sun’s position relative to the cockpit (dunno if sun’s position data is available in XP to be honest).

I have dozens of pictures of the real cockpit taken in flight which served me as a basis for this, and I have the chance to have a couple of real OEM panels that I am currently interfacing with AM.

So of course it’s up to you, but since you said you were in the process of rewriting the panels in order to have better lighting, I thought it would be nice to share my previous experience on the subject and help you complete your task, as a tribute to my forever gone previous hard work.

A careful planning of the backlighting method is required before having a jump at it, IMHO, so my offer to start to work with you on the Autobrake Panel first as a “proof of concept” to try and find an adequate method for proper backlighting of any panel.

PM me.

Jacques
[EDIT] As for the sun position data available in XPlane, turns out that the answer is yes, so I guess that some neat effects are probably achievable, some testing and tinkering required.
My YouTube Chanel on the A320 (Real SOPs by an Airline Pilot IRL):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... 0Q6SBASRqJ

catflyer38
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Re: The new AM collection for FlightFactor Airbus A320 (FFA320)

#26 Post by catflyer38 »

Hi Jacques, I agree, lets take that panel and work on the concept first.

After your feedback I am thinking of redesigning the panel layer structure to have:

1. Base panel without any text , lines but with holes and mounting screws

2. Dark overlay covering base panel (opacity 0 for total dark , 1 for no effect) in between there are to modes one for manual control and automatic mode.

Manual mode can be controlled via an additional knob on the Illumination panel captain side (this is not in the real Airplane but is in a good position next to FLOOD LT and INTE LT) .
Automatic Mode we need to find a good way here.

3. Text and separator lines for back lighting (to be dimmed via the INTEG LT knob for the Main PNL and Pedestal, for the Overhead panel use the OVHD INTEG LT)

4. Button text and annunciation lights controlled by Overhead ANN LT switch TEST, BRT and DIM

5. Korry and switch contours for back lighting (to be dark during day mode)

6. Regular switches knobs, I tend to leave them the way they are (no lighting and dimming)

I am thinking to use Inter-instrument communication, having one master pgm that is creating/maintaining one Air manager variable lets say “night mode“ Float [4 or more?] with all values needed .

Each panel subscribes to the Air manager variable and controls the different layers.

What do you think?

Regards Alexander

JackZ
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Re: The new AM collection for FlightFactor Airbus A320 (FFA320)

#27 Post by JackZ »

Yeah, that’s basically what I had in mind.
I remembered starting something like that back in the days, and two years ago the opacity() function didn’t even exist in AM, so I had designed a bunch of layers with different darkness.

IIRC the dark layer has to have holes embedded in it so no to darken the korries and switches when applied.
The holes should be slightly smaller than the original so that the layer would darken as well the Korry contour without affecting the text displays.

The panels legend (lines, circles, rectangles and texts) have to be on a separate layer apart from the panel itself, and actually IMHO there should be one for day lighting (completely white), and another copy more « orange-ish » to create the integrated lighting effect.
The later layer would be in turn dimmed probably by playing with opacity, but it has to be tested first, as I am not sure that opacity would do the trick, as I found out that opacity in AM seems not that linear, or too linear for this purpose?

So basically I would merge points 4 & 5 together, and I agree that IIC would be definitely the way to go.
I would be more than happy to do a prof of concept, but I have my laptop computer stuck and unusable at the moment, as the charger kinda fried last week and I have to wait till a new charger arrives.

So bear with me hopefully I’ll get a spare by the end of the coming week.
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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Keith Baxter
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Re: The new AM collection for FlightFactor Airbus A320 (FFA320)

#28 Post by Keith Baxter »

Hi,

Lighting of text and markings over a PNG is not only about opacity of text color.

Text color is not necessary a simple six digit hex code and that code/color can easily be changed/adjusted
Eight digit color hex codes provides for opacity. This also opens up a myriad of possibility's.

With some creativity, blending the colors as I did in the color picker and applying the 8 digit color hex code, amazing effects could be achieved.

Looking forward to how this approach enhances visual effects and the creative ideas it produces.
This was done in less than 70 lines of code and no doubt could be streamlined better.


Color Picker.siff
(3.39 KiB) Downloaded 183 times


I am excited what techniques and effects this project is going to produce.

Keith

EDIT: What the color picker is demonstrating is power of color manipulation. The code steps through hex codes and applies opacity overlays.
This instrument was done before the discovery of 8 digit color hex codes working in AM.
I am sure "clever than I" :lol: programmers will be able to produce better solutions and effects.
Last edited by Keith Baxter on Mon Sep 27, 2021 8:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
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JackZ
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Re: The new AM collection for FlightFactor Airbus A320 (FFA320)

#29 Post by JackZ »

Thanks Keith. As explained, can’t have a look at it at the moment.

As I said previously for static text such as panel legends, I feel that Skinman or any graphic editor has way more control over text than using AM text styles.

Adding inner glowing effect is definitely a 2D special FX and need quite some tinkering to get it right. I remembered I had to play with lots of parameters to achieve this subtle effect, as the lighting is not 100% inform since these are real 5V bulbs scattered all over the panel. Granted the real panel itself is made of translucent white material and laser engraved so the backlighting is quite uniform.
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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Re: The new AM collection for FlightFactor Airbus A320 (FFA320)

#30 Post by Keith Baxter »

Jacques,

Yes I am mostly referring to back lighting. I did do some flood lighting experiments some time ago. Will look that up next week and share what I did. Might be helpful.

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 

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