Ye can't be rotating yer images with alpha

Nick Post mentioned in a comment that he's had problems trying to get images in the 2D panels that have an alpha channel to rotate.  An astute observation!  I had to try this out myself with an XML gauge to see why it doesn't work, and sure enough, this code path simply isn't implemented.  In a debug build of flight sim (which I run most of the time) I get an assert which alerts me to this fact.  Note that you can successfully shift an image element that has alpha; the code paths diverge significantly for shifts vs. rotations.  Unfortunately, I don't see any way to work around this issue in FS9, but a bug has been logged for future reference.

I haven't tried using an image with alpha in a C-style gauge yet, but based on the code I see, it looks it shouldn't work either.

Thanks for pointing this out, Nick.

Comments

• Anonymous
  November 07, 2005
  Hey Susan-
  
  you say you're running a debug build of flight sim most of the time... Can you give us a comparison of frame rates, between release and debug builds on your PC? (I'm always interested, as when I run debug builds of our app, it's not that much different)...
• Anonymous
  November 08, 2005
  The comment has been removed
• Anonymous
  November 17, 2005
  Nice work on the tutorials, Nick. To be honest, I haven't read through all 5 million pages of .pdf's that you've written... yet. It looks like I'll have something to read on my bus ride home!
  
  Yes, you are right about the pitch/bank/heading not being implemented. And yes, the VC version is a bit of a hoax, really, because we can't use the periscope from the 2D panel in the VC. But it does let you experience the limited view capabilities that Lindberg had to some extent at least!
  
  Yes, the SDK is thin (downright anorexic, really) on the documentation of XML gauge development stuff. I'll see if I can't help rectify that in the future.
  
  I have nothing to do with the effects system whatsoever, so, um, I'll pass the message along to those guys. :)