Backlight Instruments

[Crazierchief]

Hi. is there any plans of incorporating some kind of backlight in gauges, panels?

[Thair.nl]

The way I "solved" this problem in the past is to create an extra layer where the white digits lines and text are given another color, slightly yellowish. I also added a transparant circle around the instrumet with the same yellowish color which fade to completely transparant after a few millimeters. This layer is visible depending on the variable of the panel illumination switch. If there is an instrument with a cover of some sort, this illumination layer has to be defined before the cover so the light "shines" from under the cover. Unfortunately, due to a computer crash, I lost the SkinMan files so I cannot show you an example.

Greetings,

Theo.

[Ralph]

With 3.3 there's transparency on images, so you can adjust the transparency of your light source image. But all in all it's something you have to make yourself.

[Thair.nl]

Does that mean that in version 3.3 you can alter the transparancy on the fly just like dimming the light source? That would be great.

Greetings,

Theo.

[Sling]

Yes it does.

It's why I asked Corjan for the Opacity feature in the Shapes forum topic. He has promised it in the next BETA build. I use a few different tricks to achieve variable dimming now such as nd filters and different layered images such as Theo has suggested but the Opacity function will make all this so much easier. Add everything to a group and then do opacity(grp_id, 0.5) to set the opacity for everything to 50% in 1 line of code. If it's a backlit instrument then use it to adjust your backlight image. Maybe even a combination of the 2 methods.

The new function is listed on the wiki now but it's not available until the next BETA release.

Enjoy

Tony

[Corjan]

Hi,

There is a new BETA (5) available now which has the opacity function added.

Any feedback is welcome,

Corjan

[Thair.nl]

I have been playing around with the opacity function of this beta and I must say, it looks very promising, certainly where backlighting is concerned. I have done a reworking of the Baron B58 clock I have so that the backlighting responds not only to the Panle Light switch but, for demonstration purposes, also to the seconds. With the passing of each second the backlighting grows stronger and hence the original white color becomes less visible. I have also made light shine from the sides to get a complete feeling of an illumination of this clock. So far I have not found any faults in this function. I have enclosed this instrument.

Greetings,

Theo.

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