Cockpit Views
Snap views allow you to set a preset view position in the cockpit, that you can then access at the press of a button. This can be an incredibly useful tool to create custom views that you can quickly for your radar / targeting screens; even for those with headtracking / VR setups this can be a valuable addition to your workflow in the cockpit.
Basics
Please note that by default customizing your snap views is turned off, and you can only make use of the default snap views: please refer to the customisation section below to edit the specific .lua file to enable setting custom snap views in your cockpit.
In total there are 10 (customisable) snap views that you can setup and utilize in any given cockpit: changing a default snap view will permanently save the new view for that particular module. Each of these 10 snap views is bound to one of the numeric keys on your numpad (so numpad 0 - 9 accesses a different snap view).
We can use the following default commands to manipulate the snap views:
- Numpad0 (0 through 9)
- If we just hold down any of the numpad keys this will show the associated snap view (for as long as we hold the key down). Please note that Numpad 5 is the default view for the cockpit.
- Left Windows + Numpad0 (0 through 9)
- It is a parking area between elevator 1 and 2, a nice calm place to survey the busy chaos that is the typical carrier deck.
- 9. Street
Custom views
Enabling custom views
To setup a custom view ensure that the snap view functionality is enabled: this can be done by going to the following path:
\DCS World (OpenBeta)\config\view\View.lua
Be aware that when we are working with a .lua file we want a text editor that does not mess with the structure of the file itself: using the default notepad is a bad idea as this will mess with the structure of the file. I would advise using notepad++.
In this file we want to look for the following line (likely to be at line 13, but you can copy the line below and use CTRL + F to search for it):
UseDefaultSnapViews = true
and we then want to change that to be
UseDefaultSnapViews = false
so that we can use custom snapviews. Please note this requires you to quit out of DCS and restart it if you have it open in the background.
Once we have made this change to the .lua file we are ready to start setting up our custom views, so hop into your module of choice for which you wish to setup your snap views, and lets get going.
Setting up custom views
To setup any custom view, first move your in-game head position to where you would like to have the snap view to sit. You most likely want to manipulate the POV (Point of View) controls on your joystick / keyboard in conjuction with your zoom controls (default binds are numpad backslash '/' and numpad asterisk '*'); ironically the easiest way to setup any new snap view is through the use of a headtracking solution such as TrackIR.
Once you have found a view that you would like to save (for example, your radar screen or Radar Warning Receiver screen) press Left Windows and the Numpad number key that you would like to save the snap view to. For example, if you wish to save your current screen to numpad 6, we would press
Left Windows + Numpad6
to select this view: it is not yet saved! To save this view to the selected numpad numeric key (0 through 9), we can press Right Alt + Numpad 0 (Numpad Insert) to save the view to this snap view.
