Transparent Vcockpit Background Color Issue in the Panel.cfg

AlphaReticuli · January 25, 2024, 11:22pm

Hello All,

With “background_color=0,0,0” set in the panel.cfg (VcockpitN section), we are not able to make the background of our “transparent” text gauges (XML or HTML) transparent.

With our simple text gauges (no background image, text on a transparent background), and the the “background_color” set to 0,0,0 in the Vcockpit, the panel background - behind the text - appears opaque black, not transparent.

We believe the issue is with the “background_color” setting in the panel.cfg and not with the gauges : if we set the “background_color” to 255,0,0 (pure red) we clearly see the text on the panel red background (which is anticipated). If the gauge was causing the issue, the text would appear surrounded with black 'boxes". In our gauges, the text is set to appear over a transparent background.

According to the SDK, when the “background_color” in the panel.cfg is set to 0,0,0, the Vcockpit panel background should be transparent, nor solid (opaque) black.

Are we missing something?

Many thanks.

Alain
Xtreme Prototypes Development Team

AlphaReticuli · February 24, 2024, 7:09pm

We are still unable to make the background of a Vcockpit transparent. Even though the “background_color” is set to 0,0,0, the background always appear black and not transparent. Is this a known issue waiting to be fixed or we are missing something?

Thank you Asobo.

Alain
Xtreme Prototypes Development Team

thealx · February 25, 2024, 6:15am

Only solution I have found is use hud=1 to add transparency to the dynamic texture, but it uses specific blending method - black is transparent, white is opaque.

AlphaReticuli · March 1, 2024, 10:05pm

Unfortunately, we were not able to make the Vcockpit background transparent. We tried hud=1 and hud=2, even though in our case it is not a hud but a simple XML (or HTML) gauge that needs to be displayed, and the background remained black even though the “background_color” for the Vcockpit in the panel.cfg is set to 0,0,0.

Note: Using a texture for the “texture” parameter does not work. It must be the name of the material for the Vcockpit “polygon” or background, not the texture, as mentioned in the SDK, unless again we are missing something. We get no display when a texture is added to the material of the Vcockpit polygon, but only a white background. The gauge is displayed in the Vcockpit only when the name of the material of the polygon is used with no texture added to the material.

In our case, it’s no big deal because our gauges are mainly luminous text displayed on a black backgound. But the issue can become problematic if we want do display black text over a white surface (for example) through a transparent Vcockpit polygon.

The SDK says to set the “background_color” for a Vcockpit in the panel.cfg to 0,0,0 for the background to be transparent. Obvioulsy, this seems not to work. The background appears opaque black.

-Alain

MartynJF · May 19, 2025, 4:11pm

Has anyone had any luck with this? We’d like to draw text of multiple colours over a transparent gauge (VCockpit) polygon in the cockpit.

Thanks,
Martyn - Just Flight

AlphaReticuli · July 15, 2025, 8:14pm

Still no luck on our side, more than a year after reporting the issue…

-Alain
Xtreme Prototypes Development Team

tracernz · July 15, 2025, 11:17pm

You can achieve that with VLivery rather than VCockpit, and material type decal. At least as long as you don’t need it to have mouse interactions.

AlphaReticuli · July 22, 2025, 3:51pm

Hello Tracernz,

Thank you for the workaround idea. Unfortunately, searching the SDK, we cannot find any reference or topic about “VLivery” (we checked both the 2020 and 2024 SDKs). Where did you find the information?

Best,

-Alain

tracernz · July 23, 2025, 12:04am

Hi Alain,

Apologies for confusion. The sections in the panel.cfg are named “VPainting”. Here’s an example:

github.com/flybywiresim/aircraft

fbw-a32nx/src/base/flybywire-aircraft-a320-neo/SimObjects/AirPlanes/FlyByWire_A320_NEO/panel/panel.cfg

master


      
          size_mm = 2048,512
          texture = $RegistrationNumber
          location = exterior
          
          painting00 = A32NX_Registration/Registration.html,	0, 0, 2048, 512
          
          [VPainting02]
          size_mm = 1024,1024
          pixel_size = 1024,1024
          texture = PRINT
          painting00 = A32NX_Printer/Printer.html?Index=0,	0, 0, 1024, 1024
          
          [VPainting03]
          size_mm = 1024,1024
          pixel_size = 1024,1024
          texture = PRINT_STATIC
          painting00 = A32NX_Printer/Printer.html?Index=1,	0, 0, 1024, 1024

This is used to render the text over the paper like this:

The HTML/JS draws the text, and no background colour.

AlphaReticuli · July 23, 2025, 5:00pm

Thank you again Tracernz,

Oh yes, I see, we’ve already used this for the registration number plaque on the main panel inside our cockpit and it’s working well in MSFS 2020:

painting00=Registration/Registration.html?font_color=black&back_color=white&font_scale=0.8,0,0,256,100

However, unless we are missing something, VPainting00 seems not to work when trying to display an HTML or XML gauge.

There might be a way to use VPainting00 to display HTML or XML gauges, but there are no explanations or topics about their VTexture stuff in the SDK.

As mentioned in my original post, we cannot get a transparent background around the text from a gauge that simply displays text over a transparent background, even though the the background_color in the VCockpit00 is set to pure black (0,0,0) and the gauge is designed to have a transparent background.

This is no big deal for us because the gauges for our current project simply consist of luminous colored text displayed on a black background. But it would be nice if they could fix this issue because that may not always be the case. Sometimes you may want to see what’s behind the text (for example, through a gauge that displays black text over a gray LCD screen mesh).

Note: When testing our cockpit in MSFS 2024, our registration number plaque that works well in 2020 appears all black (same VPainting00 configuration as shown above). There might be a path issue of some kind that needs to be fixed. The fun begins… lol

Best,

Alain
Xtreme Prototypes Development Team

Sal1800 · July 26, 2025, 12:14am

I had also found that it does not seem possible to have a transparent background for VCockpit instruments except for HUD types. But HUD only seems to work with emissive color.

VPainting can render transparent HTML/JS instruments with the limitation that they cannot interact with the mouse and the refresh rate is much lower.

LagaffeVFR5476 · August 17, 2025, 3:58pm

One remark:

my XML gauge is displayed correctly with a material “$Tablet” (without texture associated to the tablet material in Blender) when the aircraft is exported from Blender 2.83.19 and the plugin 0.41.4 from Vitus
migrating our Blender file under Blenderr 3.6.x and migrating all materials of this plane (Migrate Data button) to be compliant with the last Asobo exporter for FS20 , we obtain the same result that you noticed. All material are correctly rendered … only the tablet background is in fault.

If this can help to find a solution.

A workaround that I just thought of:

compile the plane in Blender 3.6.x with the latest export plugin
compile the tablet under Blender 2.83.19 and the Vitus’s plugin
and use a ModelAttachment to add the tablet to the plane (as I have 4 different models of exterior model, it should be cost-effective in terms of polygons and compilation time).

That said: we need to test to see if it solves our current problems.

[EDIT] Sadly, a 3D model used in Attachment can not accept inputs so this solution isn’t OK.
If Asobo can answer to this annoying problem …