How can I change the black background behind the Baron 58 G1000 in X-Plane 11?

That “jet black” surround behind the G1000 isn’t usually a tweakable “color value”

In X-Plane 11, that bezel/background area around the G1000 screens is almost always one of these:

• Painted into the cockpit/panel texture (most common)
• A 3D cockpit object material (still driven by a texture/texture map, just not the 2D panel)
• A livery-specific cockpit texture override (sneaky one that catches a lot of people)

So there typically isn’t a line you can edit in a .txt or .acf to “change black to gray”. It’s usually a texture/edit job.

Step-by-step: quick things to check before you start editing files

1. Rule out lighting/HDR making it look worse than it is
   Load the aircraft at midday with clear weather and re-check. If it’s still “dead black” in bright sun, it’s not just cockpit lighting.

2. Try the default livery
   A lot of aircraft include cockpit textures inside specific liveries. Switching liveries is the fastest way to tell if you’re looking at an override.

3. Check for livery cockpit texture overrides
   Go look in:
   Aircraft/<Your Baron>/liveries/<livery name>/
   If you see anything like an objects folder, “cockpit” textures, or panel texture files inside the livery, that livery can override the cockpit look.
   As a test, temporarily rename that livery’s objects folder (example: objects_OFF) and reload the aircraft.

4. Make sure you didn’t accidentally carry old mods across
   Since you mentioned REP corruption on the old Baron: double-check you didn’t copy anything “helpful” into this new Baron’s folder (panel mods, avionics tweaks, random texture replacements, etc.). Do one clean test with just the aircraft as-installed.

If you want it light gray, the practical method is editing the texture
Assuming it’s texture-based (usually is), you’re looking for a cockpit texture that contains the G1000 surround. The usual places to check:

• Aircraft/<Your Baron>/objects/
• Aircraft/<Your Baron>/cockpit_3d/

What I’d do:

1. Make a full backup of the aircraft folder (seriously—saves headaches).
2. Look for cockpit/panel texture files in those folders. Common file types are .png or .dds. Names vary wildly, but “cockpit”, “panel”, “interior”, “objects” are common themes.
3. Open the texture and find the G1000 surround area
   Repaint that region to the gray you want, save it back in the same format/resolution, then reload the aircraft in X-Plane.

If it’s a 3D material instead
If the surround isn’t “painted” on any obvious cockpit texture, then it’s likely baked into the 3D cockpit object (still texture-driven, just not the 2D panel sheet you’re expecting). At that point, you’re into “which object/which texture map is driving that material” territory. Totally doable, just more trial-and-error, and it depends a lot on how that particular Baron was authored.

A few quick questions so I can point you at the right folder/file without guesswork

• Which Baron is this exactly? (Developer/product name, and where you got it from.)
• Is the black surround visible only in the 3D cockpit, or also when you pop out the G1000 displays?
• In the aircraft folder, do you see .png or .dds cockpit textures (and are they under objects or cockpit_3d)?
• Does your current livery have its own objects folder inside liveries/<name>/?

Answer those and I can tell you where to look first (and what to edit that won’t break the cockpit or get overwritten the next time you change liveries).