Help needed: How to get rid of cockpit panel in X-Plane 11

[Norson]

I have been constructing my flight simulator for a year now. The idea was to have something which can simulate different kinds of GA planes, single and dual engines, in an immersive way and without a lot of rebuilding effort when changing the plane.

The base is a custom built frame from the simracing scene, to which the yoke, the pedals, the throttle and three air manager touchscreens are fixed. The scenery is displayed on three external monitors in front of the rig.

So far - so good. The whole story performs well and it is fun to fly with it. But here comes the problem:

X-Plane 11, at least with recent planes, uses only 3d cockpits. When I want to have the scenery displayed from inside of the plane on my external monitors, the 3d cockpit is always displayed with it. If I use the "scenery-only" option, the immersion is gone, at least for me. My workaround up to now is adjusting the pilot's view so, that the X-plane panel is hidden behind my air manager screens. But that means, that I have to adjust the viewpoint from the cockpit so, that the air manager screens just cover the x-plane panel. And that viewpoint is different for every plane, and sometimes it becomes quite unnatural.

What I would like to have, is an empty x-plane instrument panel in an otherwise unchanged plane environment. My air manager screens will then cover that panel a little bit more or a little bit less, but I will not be looking at duplicate instruments, warning lights etc.

I tried to find some useful hints on the net how to empty that instrument panel. What I found were quite some remarks that 3d cockpit modelling is complicated and has a steep learning curve. I am relatively experienced in 3d modelling with sketchup, but it looks like that cockpit building is 2 steps up from what I did up to now.

So, if anybody knows how to empty that 3d instrument panel - I would love to learn it from her or him.

Thanks in advance
Norbert

[Ralph]

View -> Forward view without panel ?

[SimPassion]

View -> Forward view without panel ?

As the OP mentioned, it's not expected, some parts should be visible, while most of other parts not
I guess the proper setting would be achieved by at first making a backup of each used aircraft folder, then editing each aircraft used with PlaneMaker and hiding every single part which shouldn't appear on screens, then save it

[jph]

Yes, before the option was there in XP to have forward view only
whilst allowing 'track ir' was implemented I used to do as Gilles sys and rip out the instruments and 3d panel from the acf file to allow track ir to function in a 3d environment.

I must confess , I still don't actually 100% understand what the OP is actually trying to do that could not be achieved by the forward view only ? can that be clarified ?
Joe

[SimPassion]

I guess he want to mix the remaining visible parts of each aircraft, with his related Air Manager instruments already organized to fit properly with the sim parts displayed

[Norson]

Simpassion is right. My physical controls (yoke, pedals, throttle) are together with the air manager panels everything, what is needed to fly the aircraft. And with air manager I was even able to make a "custom" instrumentation, which can be used in practically every GA aircraft. It consists of two Garmin G5's, a GNS 500, a GTN 750 and a 650. That covers autopilot, com and nav. So I have to learn only once how to use all that stuff and not for every plane something else - depending on what the sim designer decided to put on that specific panel.

Therefore, the original 3d cockpit of the plane is for me completely unnecessary and simply bothering. As I wrote, the forward view option is showing only the scenery without any parts of the plane (compass on top of the instrument panel, scratches on the screen, propellers, window frames, etc.).

Although I did try several times to find the right files and to edit them, I seem to be too stupid. So if somebody knows and tells me, I would be very happy.

Norbert

[SimPassion]

Simpassion is right. My physical controls (yoke, pedals, throttle) are together with the air manager panels everything, what is needed to fly the aircraft. And with air manager I was even able to make a "custom" instrumentation, which can be used in practically every GA aircraft. It consists of two Garmin G5's, a GNS 500, a GTN 750 and a 650. That covers autopilot, com and nav. So I have to learn only once how to use all that stuff and not for every plane something else - depending on what the sim designer decided to put on that specific panel.

Therefore, the original 3d cockpit of the plane is for me completely unnecessary and simply bothering. As I wrote, the forward view option is showing only the scenery without any parts of the plane (compass on top of the instrument panel, scratches on the screen, propellers, window frames, etc.).

Although I did try several times to find the right files and to edit them, I seem to be too stupid. So if somebody knows and tells me, I would be very happy.

Norbert

I've already answered here : https://siminnovations.com/forums/viewt ... 061#p51061
So it's just a matter to start PlaneMaker after having made a backup of each single aircraft you're flying, then open the first aircraft ACF file and we'll starting from here

[Norson]

Sorry, didn't read that first answer of yours right. I tried to open and modify an .acf file with planemaker and the according .obj file with ac3d, before I posted my question here. The visual parts of the open files looked in both cases quite like garbage, so I gave that up.

I will try that once again, also with another aircraft. Will take 8 days, though, because I'm not at home. In any case: thx for time and effort!

Norbert

[SimPassion]

Sorry, didn't read that first answer of yours right. I tried to open and modify an .acf file with planemaker and the according .obj file with ac3d, before I posted my question here. The visual parts of the open files looked in both cases quite like garbage, so I gave that up.

I will try that once again, also with another aircraft. Will take 8 days, though, because I'm not at home. In any case: thx for time and effort!

Norbert

Please, make backups before in a safe place, for each single aircraft. I couldn't ever think it could be done without it !

[Sling]

When I played with this some time back I found that not every aircraft has the same model structure and as such some are easier to tear down than others. If the models are split out into many component parts then it’s easy to remove the ones you don’t want but be prepared for aircraft that have parts that you want to remove and parts you want to keep merged into the same model.