Camera Screens And Mirrors

When creating your aircraft cockpit it is possible to add in mirrors and also instrument displays for external cameras. On this page we briefly outline the process required for this to work in the simulation.

Before continuing it should be noted that the current implementation of mirrored surfaces and camera displays is “static”. This means that - once created - they will be updated automatically by the simulation, and cannot be linked to any external logic to influence their behaviour.

Mirrors#

Note that if you have more than one mirror in the aircraft, then each mirror will require it’s own unique material. So, you create your mirror model and assign the mirror material to the face where you want the reflective surface to be placed. Be sure and give the mirror object node a memorable name as this will be required in the following step.

Since mirrors are essentially considered as a type of very basic glass cockpit, the configuration of them is done in the panel.cfg. In this file you simply need to set up one [VCockpitN] section for each mirror. The actual configuration of this section is as follows:

size_mm=1024,768
pixel_size=1024,768
texture=MIRROR_MAT_1
mirror=MIRROR_1_NODE

The important things here are the texture parameter and the mirror parameter. The texture parameter should be the name of the material as defined in the modelling program, and the mirror parameter is the name of the model node. This is all the setup that is required for mirrors.

Camera Screens#

To set up a screen to show the view from an external camera, you do not need to set up any particular material, just have a model created for a screen display, much the same as you would a glass-cockpit display.

Once you have the model in the simulation you need to set up a [CAMERADEFINITION.N] for the camera(s) that you want the screen to display. Below is a schematic of the contents of this section of the cameras.cfg, showing only those parameters that are required for rendering the camera to a screen:

Title =“FixedOnPlane_Tail_PERISCOPE”
Guid ="{FC3731BA-A33B-4C72-B691-51A3CEBB20F1}"
Description =“Fixed tail camera For cockpit display.”
…
Category =“CameraToTexture”
SubCategory =“None”
SubCategoryItem =“None”
…

The parameters shown are the ones that are absolutely obligatory for making a camera display, and the other parameters should be added and set up according to the needs of the camera.

Once you have the camera defined, you just need to set up one [VCockpitN] section in the panel.cfg, one for each camera to display.

size_mm=1024,768
pixel_size=1024,768
texture=PFD_2
camera={FC3731BA-A33B-4C72-B691-51A3CEBB20F1}

The important things here are the texture parameter and the camera parameter. The texture parameter should be the name of the material as defined in the modelling program, and the camera parameter is the same GUID that you gave in the [CAMERADEFINITION.N] section. This is all the setup that is required for camera screens.