Hide cockpit panel and/or aircraft

Thanks for your input.
Hopefully more people state exactly what they want, and then maybe we can work on some solutions.

If we removed all the instruments and dashboard, how would we retain the nose in your mind? Have a big cut out of the entire cockpit area, cut out only the forward view region (keeping side windows intact - this may be difficult for some aircraft though), or retain the cockpit dashboard and pillars, just with no instruments on it.

Just trying to understand what the community really wants.

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For me it’s all about the view you would get from the pilots seat. If you are cockpit building and are interested in this feature I guess you have the instrument panel and perhaps also the glareshield. If you take those away you are left with the windows, the items that interact with windows such as rain,ice, wipers, deice heaters etc and the view of the aircraft nose and beyond. For single engine prop aircraft this obviously also includes the prop.
I’m hoping that with the right improvements to the multi monitor support we will be able to save and recall these kinds of views on a per aircraft basis so no changes to the supplied aircraft are even required.

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It also depends on the kind of cockpit you’re building. If you’re going the whole way with a complete shell which has its own windows, you don’t want window glass or rain / ice effects on the screen because it won’t look right. You just want an unencumbered outside view to place beyond your physical window. I mean, short of having an actual rain dispenser and windscreen wipers on your actual cockpit windows, you can’t really properly simulate rain on the windscreen in that kind of cockpit setup anyway!

(I suppose you could place monitors in the window frames so as to exactly simulate the windows in the cockpit. I’ve seen that kind of setup before. But it’s complicated and MSFS can’t do the display angles necessary to do it properly anyway.)

Like this:

vs this:

image

Is there a way to completely turn off interior panels and cockpit and just have the outside view displayed ?

You used to be able to do that in earlier versions of msfs.

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You can bij editting the model.cfg of the airplane of your choice
By placing ; in front of the 2 lines interior and exterior
This in the section at the bottom which read
[Models] now in this section add ; in front of the two lines below with and save the file
Now the plane should be dissapeared with full function on control, simply remove ;
and all should be back in place again and re-appear in the sim.




Happy landings

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Awesome, thank you !

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Your welcome

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This was on my todo list to figure out. Thanks a bunch! This makes sense if you have a bunch of hardware (radios, switch box, etc) and have the 2 multi-function displays popped out to separate screens / devices. Who needs the cockpit view when you’re building your own hardware cockpit?

The only reason i can think off in this way is you mis the windshield and the rain drops
But it has less to render so and you have full benefit of the instruments stil provide their data
So a bit of trade off for against full outside view is allright i quess.

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Good point about the raindrops on the engine cowling, etc. But I can live without that if I can have a totally unimpeded view of the outside without having to see my own aircraft in my view.

This is only a workaround that will be reversed with sim updates so not ideal. The notion of not wanting to see any of the aircraft at all is also weird because that’s not what you would see if sat in the pilots seat of a real aircraft. What’s ultimately needed if we are using our own cockpits to replace the virtual cockpit is a view that represents what you see through the windshield. That includes not only the outside world but also the nose, perhaps a prop and environmental effects like rain and ice.

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How is it weird not to want to see the cockpit controls if you already have all the cockpit controls you need - flight yoke, rudder pedals, comm, nav, adf radios, flight switches, multi-function displays - already there on your desk? The cockpit view becomes rather superfluous at that point - a waste of rendering power, since it’s rendered as an overlay on the outside world. Probably gain extra fluidity without it.

I really don’t need to see the aircraft nose, the props (they’re kind of spinning to fast to really see anyway except when you stop the engine), and the rain and ice will still be visible in the outside world. Same as the sun, the moon, and the stars.

But for those who aren’t prepared to duplicate the controls in the cockpit, they’re free to continue to use the inside-the-cabin view.

Also, the external view that shows the airplane is helpful when learning, but also a bit of a cheat/wheeze when it comes to landing, for example.

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You didn’t comprehend what I said. I didn’t say it was weird to want to hide the cockpit. I have a cockpit too and also don’t want to see the yoke, instruments, switches etc so on this we agree. What I’m saying is that hiding the whole aircraft is not realistic because you would still see those elements. You can see the nose, the prop if it has one and any rain or ice as they are on the windshield. The rain and ice to which you refer are nothing like this. It’s why we have deice equipment and on some aircraft wipers. Which if fitted I’d also like to see.

So to summarise I’d like a view on my monitor as if I was looking through the windshield. That’s as natural a view as one could hope for.

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Going back years to earlier versions of MSFS (showing my age), you actually had a keyboard command, ‘toggle cockpit’ or something like that. It would be nice to just have the cowl, top of the panel for referencing the rest of it a black void. Everything but the instruments.

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Simply put ; in front of the line internal view in your model.cfg and instruments disapeare
While the nose of the airplane is still there. Just pan view down to where you want to have it positioned, and in general option under camera set homecockpit to on excactly in this order
Now you cant move the cockpit with the mouse so to look left or right require xbox controller, or tobii or ir headtracking and configure these in their own software to their dof.
The intrument will not be rendered in this way but the airframe will be visible.

My design is dual-use. I want my computer to go from flight simulator to ordinary work machine and vice versa in just a few minutes, and all the rudders, control yokes, and instruments go back on the bookcase, leaving me a clean work area. That’s why there are 2 pairs of wire clamps - quickly disconnect and reconnect everything.

It’s nice to fly, but I also have other (the original) uses for my set-up. The whole flight simulator thing was just (a) a consequence of over-building the computer last summer when I first started putting it together, and (b) everyone should have a hobby. Especially if they’re no longer able to drive due to tunnel vision, etc. (which was the original reason to put everything together - see lowvisioncomputing.com.

Sucks not to be able to drive, but not as badly as it sucked to be almost completely blind at one point. Can’t drive, but I can FLY!!! Seeing as I still have the manuals for Falcon4 from way back when, and also had bought Falcon3 and the add-ons, why not?

Just that due to the graphics card shortage, I was forced to use really low-end video cards, and I wanted something that could do 4096 x 2160, so basically, they had 2 in stock, I took them. Now that the Arcs are out, and they work great, time for an upgrade.

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Yeah I’m already doing something similar to this now and was just responding to the suggestion that all is required is to remove the whole aircraft model. Still it would be nice if we could do this without having to edit files that may get overwritten at every update and with proper per aircraft multi monitor support.

I don’t think I’d want no plane model at all. I like having the nose and prop. Also, how are you supposed to check for icing on wings, confirm flap position, and other such things without the plane model?

And if you can disable the cockpit, how would using instrument popouts work, if at all? I’m far too reliant on those for my cockpit layout.

And I agree with Sling here. Having to edit cfg files that get overwritten with every update of the software is not a viable option. This needs to be an option that can be toggled without having to leave the flight. We need 3 options - full VC, VC without instruments (save some rendering / calculations), and no model at all (for those that want that option). And it should all be controllable via a keybind while the sim is actually running.

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It (disabling the interior cockpit overlay of the view) would be nice if it could be done with a keyboard shortcut or a button. And disabling it should be good for a few frames per second, or higher detail.

The popouts are a problem - but I don’t think it’s insurmountable. What I would like to see is the option to make them persistent - not have to manually pop them out and position them every time. There’s probably a way … just gotta find the time to play around and do a bit of research, I guess. The popuouts are amazingly useful, especially when helping someone else learn. I put them on two big screens all by themselves.

I have a pair of 22" and a pair of 15.6" touch monitors plus Air Manager. It’s all fully touch enabled. Sim popouts are an essential for these setups that are quickly growing in popularity.