Backlighting
Many people wll vouch for the fact that night effects are a VERY desireable addition to a realistic flight simulator. I haven't quite figured out how to do true backlighting (i.e. backlit panel traces), but I am still working to figure it out. As of now, backlighting is reliant on the types of switches used and the design of certain "dummy" panels. The picture below is a shot of the rudder trim indicator with backlighting activated. This shows the magnitude of realism that can be acheicved with dummy instruments.
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The key to good backlighting seems to be flourescent light. When a flourescent light is placed behind an open-back instrument with a printed image in front, it causes the panel to glow. This glowing gives the instrument a CRT type of look and makes the sim look spectacular at night. It is also highly advised that dummy images be laser printed. The photograph seen at left was taken with a bubble-jet image installed as my Rudder Trim Indicator, and you can clearly see the unrealistic printer grain and image brightness. I can almost gurantee this panel will look 100% better once it is laser printed.
In Summary
To get good backlighting results try the following:
- Use laser printed images
- Use fluorescent lighting
- Cover the instrument with plexiglass (gives them a realistic reflection)
- Try to use images with data reflecting the cruise phase of flight (i.e. you may not want to use a dummy airspeed guage showing 0 as airspeed.) This is a trvial step and may differ in necessity from designer to designer.
Illuminating the switches
These two photos show the effectiveness of backlighting on the test
panels. Coincidentally, the switches used in this sim are hollow and allow light to shine
through. This allows them to be illuminated in the same way as the dummy panels. Though
the swithes are not illuminated this way in real life, it is a nice way to make up for the
otherwise absence of cockpit button illumination. When these switches are backlit using a
fluorescent light, they actually glow white, not green (the green is created by the camera
because of low light.) You can even see that the shaft of the rotary switch is illuminated
which was indeed a welcome surprise.