Let me add all the sliders and knobs and options that I like to control to one or more custom panels. Let me assign a key to have the custom UI panel pop up.
Iād like to see a feature that would allow us to swap out instruments for others in any aircraft. For me personally, I am currently upgrading from VFR to IFR irl and Iād like to have the switches / instrument panel as close as possible to the aircraft Iāll be operating, as almost no 2 cockpits are identical.
I know because of the way 3d works, itāll probably be a hard thing for models to incorporate.
So Iād suggest allowing designers to release 2 models of their aircraft in one, one as the version they have handcrafted their instrument panel to the way they want their aircraft to be, to make it shine, the same way as it currently is, and the other is essentially a blank slate that they have defined areas that would be considered as instrument panels.
That would allow instrument developers to hand craft instruments that can be placed and resized within these instrument areas within some drag and drop / point and click interface.
Switches and buttons would need some sort of easy way to select their action(s)ā¦
Perhaps, when / if implementing this idea, you consider mine as an addon feature to it, a āCustomā or āUser Definedā variant;
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Plus one for this!! Iāve made a physical panel to match my trainerā¦ but I prefer flying in VR, so Iām stuck with default planes and their panels.
If I could just take the 530 OUT of the default Cessna (my trainer only has a 430) thatād be a start.
To follow upā¦ SOMEBODY is making entire panels from scratch, so it stands to reason that itād be possible to tweak an instrument or two, right?!?
Probably, Iām guessing itāll be a scripting thing, I might dig into the sdk and see what they have given us. I was hoping for a nice GUI like in the screenshots.
The current aircraft I am training in has an Aspen E5, GTN650 and GTN750, completely different from the default steam gauge seminole for sale on the marketplace, while Iām able to make do, the whole point of the simulator for me is to learn the procedures, and starting those things up is a procedure in itself, thus only able to practice on the real thing.
I think itād also give the marketplace another revenue avenue, Iād happily pay for instruments if they were study level. That should encourage instrument manufacturers like Garmin and Aspen to put some effort into having their instruments available to us for sale.
^^ This.
Also, my reply must be 10 characters, soā¦
I suggest you guys take a look at Air Manager. I do this already using it.
I saw that software, it says ādesktop application to manage and create 2D instrument panelsā, that statement pushed me away, I assumed it would only be the 2D static panel that got affected / created. Does it allow you to change the several, I guess 2D-ish panels, on the 3D cockpit model ?
No. It enables you to create your own panel outside of the sim and has 2 way communication with the sim for display/control.
Right, yeah, thatās a little outside the scope of this wish. This idea is to have the panels inside the current aircraft models customisable, and not require an external panel / monitor. Like @N582TC mentioned, it would be nice to get this kind of customisation for use within the VR environment - also my preferred use.
Early on I considered turning our 2nd bedroom into a sim room, with my own aircraft panels that would probably use the software you mentioned with and a couple of projectors for the outside world, however Iām currently training to fly on 8 different panels in real life, physically making them all would be impractical and expensive, VR worked out vastly cheaper and less time consuming than just one panel, but it isnāt as customisable, hence this wish.
Thanks for the suggestion though !
Thatās the whole idea of the software you can have as many different panels as you like. You donāt physically make anything. I fly with many different panels. I very much doubt that VR would of indeed worked out vastly cheaper but I guess itās a personal choice. Good luck finding a solution but I think you will be out of luck.
Itās a cool idea and something simmers have wanted for a long time. Unfortunately, it would be a huge amount of work for relatively low amount of take-up.
There is a glimmer of hope though. As developers learn more about the model format and ability to import models for modification, it may become easier to develop variations.
I was doing some experimentation on a panel for a freeware plane and found an easy way to create multiple panel layout presets.
While this is not exactly the wish of the original post, developers could do this today in their projects.
Here I have a click spot that instantly changes from one panel to the other.
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Is that 2d only, or does it change in 3d, too?
The example above is all 3D instruments and the positions are only limited by the developer creating different configurations. So the end-user would not necessarily have unlimited customization options. Itās just that the accurate 3D modeling of cockpits is very time consuming and the goals of realism and customization are to odds with one another.
Some recent 3rd-party planes have shown similar kinds of selectable customizations, so maybe we will see this trend become more common.
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Would love to see something like this
What you seem to be asking for , is what XP already has ā¦ a system where Instrumenst are self contained Modular items, and you can mix & match them into your planeās Panel.
Not se easy with the MSFS āmodelā design, where the instrumentās physical shape & controls are defined in the whole Interior Model, requiring a 3D Graphics modeling software like Blender, to change anything ā¦ and learning Blender is not an insignificant task ā¦ (Like learning to speak Chinese)
Then if the Model is encoded, you are totally stopped from doing any changes ā¦ unless it is build to allow sub-models
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I know its been suggested but it would be amazing if we could customize our own avionics stacks for some aircraft. Is this something thatās going to be a feature in MSFS2024?
Interesting that this topic was bumped because I just released an update to my freeware T206H that has fully customizable avionics. You can see from my previous posts that I had this idea quite a long time ago but didnāt figure out all the details until recently.
This is an experimental feature and I am interested to see if simmers think there is enough value in this idea. Brand new planes usually have just one configuration but for older models, you could have a mix of avionics.
I donāt see this as a feature that would be available on all addons. Itās more work for the developer. But for some projects, it might be a nice addition.
