Version 1.04  –  20 May 2001

last update 4th September 2001

This is a basic primer for “repainting aircraft” for in FS2000 – an entry level document for beginners.  It is designed as a guide for the very first steps a Flight Simulator enthusiast might take in changing the way their aircraft appear.  When you have completed the steps below you should have successfully added some swatches of color on one of your favorite FS2000 aircraft and be able to see those changes within FS2000 (hereafter abbreviated FS unless I need to distinguish FS2000 from other versions of the program).

 When I decided to see if I could change the way my FS aircraft looked – thinking I might give it one of my favorite planes the color scheme and insignias of the Virtual Airline for whom I fly – I assumed that somewhere “out there” I would find some simple documentation or help along the way.  What I found tended either to be somewhat outdated or to assume more technical knowledge and expertise than I possessed.  But with a little bit of digging and some trial and error I found a fairly simply way to repaint aircraft for FS.  This primer is the result.  It is offered in the hope that others might be saved some time and grief.  When you have completed this guide you should be ready to take advantage of some of the excellent – albeit more advanced – tutorials and guides that are appearing on the internet in various places.

Note: if you discover errors in this guide or have suggestions for improvement, please do contact me.  Let’s learn together!

Background:

FS is a sophisticated program that has come a long, long way since the first version of Flight Simulator came out in the early 1980’s.  This sophistication allows for a wonderful simulation experience.  But it also means that if you start digging into the “nuts and bolts” of the program – as is required if you want to repaint a plane – you can quickly find yourself in a bit over your head.  I do not possess a great deal of technical understanding of how FS works and I won’t assume you do either.  But I can assure you that with minimal effort you can change the way your aircraft looks.  The changes you will make are entirely superficial – they will not impact how the program operates or the flight characteristics of the aircraft you repaint.  But the changes can be dramatic and satisfying.

Among the many improvements introduced when FS2000 replaced its predecessors is the way the visual image of the aircraft is handled.  The images representing a FS aircraft are contained in a number of different files which the program uses.  The colors and design which you see on an airplane in FS are often called “textures” – and the same term is used for the images and representations of the ground, clouds, road, buildings, etc.  These textures are contained in files stored on your disk.  The format of the files used in FS2000 and the way they are used is quite different from previous versions of the program.  FS2000 is “backward compatible” with Flight Simulator 98 in the sense that aircraft designed for that version can be used.  But the procedures that worked for repainting aircraft for use in earlier versions of Flight Simulator will not necessarily work for FS2000.  The formats used for texture files specific to FS2000 are ‘bitmap’ files (with an extension *.bmp) which can be easily modified by many different graphics programs.  But to be properly displayed within FS, they must be first be converted into a special variation of “standard” bitmaps by means of a specialized file conversion utility.  The process for accomplishing this is not difficult, but neither is it self-evident.

Overview:

Here are the basic steps we will follow:

1.                   Select an existing aircraft to repaint

2.                   Prepare a copy of the various directories and files which FS will need in order to use your new aircraft.  This will leave the original airplane unchanged.

3.                   Modify several of these new files so that your “personalized” version of the plane flies properly.

4.                   Edit the texture files of your new airplane, giving it the colors and designs you desire it to have, and converting them into the proper format so that FS displays your new paint job.

That’s it!  This can be done fairly easily and without harm to either your existing aircraft or to FS itself.  Before you know it you will have been initiated into the elite corps of the FS2000 paint crew.

Tools Used:

1.                   Windows interface.  I am assuming the reader is able to use the Windows interface on his own to create and delete subdirectories (folders); copy, delete and rename files; and other basic Windows tasks.

2.                   A simple text editor to modify various files (for example *.cfg files).  I used WordPad for this.

3.                   A Flight Dynamics Editor (FDE).  The one I used is Flight Dynamics Editor V1.1.0.11 which is available for free download from www.flightsimdownloads.com/

4.                   A hex editor to modify binary files (such as the *.mdl file).  Hex Workshop is one such shareware program available for download at www.bpsoft.com.

5.                   A graphics program suitable for modifying aircraft textures.  A wide variety of options are possible here, from the simple Microsoft Paint program supplied with Windows to professional graphics packages.  It only needs to be able to read and write bitmapped files (those having an extension *.bmp).  I use the Paint Shop Pro 7 software available as a free 30-day evaluation version for download from the www.jasc.com website.

6.                   The utility program Bmp2000 which is available on several of the aircraft simulation sites on the internet or directly from the author’s own site at www.mwgfx.co.uk .  This program is used to convert the images you modify into the special formats needed in order to be displayed properly by FS2000.  I also recommend that you download the instruction manual (in .pdf format) for it from the  author’s website at www.mwgfx.co.uk.

Step One: Select Existing Aircraft to Repaint

This guide is only intended to help you repaint an existing aircraft, not to design an aircraft from scratch or to modify flight or other characteristics of an existing plane.  The first step, therefore, is to select an existing aircraft that  is to be repainted.  For my initial experiment with repainting I selected the Mooney-Bravo plane supplied with FS Pro -- a light single-engine plane designed exclusively for FS by Microsoft.  Because I am doing this solely for personal use and not for distribution I have not concerned myself with copyright or other legal issues.

Step Two: Prepare a Copy of the Various Directories and Files which FS Needs to Use Your New Aircraft

FS needs an “aircraft container” on your hard drive if it is to function properly.  The aircraft container is the name Microsoft gives to a particular set of files and subdirectories that reside on your disk in the \AIRCRAFT directory. It contains, as a minimum, the aircraft.cfg and aircraftname.air files as well as subdirectories for the model (the files needed for the visual model of the plane), panel (the files for the plane's instrument panel), sound (files related to airplane sounds heard while flying) and texture (files used to 'paint' the visual model with specific colors and designs).  Our first step is to create an aircraft container which contains the appropriate files FS that will use.  There are several ways of doing this, but I recommend the following:

2.1               In the \AIRCRAFT subdirectory of FS create a new folder and give the new aircraft container a name.  In my example the original aircraft container was called MOONEY_BRAVO and since I'm making my own repainted version of the plane I called the new aircraft container MOONEY_WCB (using my initials to distinguish it from the original).

2.2               Copy the files from the original aircraft container to the new aircraft container.
First create the following four new subdirectories in the new subdirectory or folder you made in step 2.1: \model, \panel, \sound, and \texture.  Then copy all of the files from the subdirectories within the original aircraft container to the appropriate subdirectories within the new container.  For example copy the files from \MOONEY_BRAVO\ to \MOONEY_WCB  (in this case the files "aircraft.cfg", "mooney_bravo.air", and the ".txt" files as well).  Then copy all of the files in \MOONEY_BRAVO\MODEL subdirectory to the \MOONEY_WCB\MODEL subdirectory -- and then do the same for the \panel, \sound and \texture files.

Note: there may be other panel subdirectories in addition to the ones noted above. These might provide an alternative instrument panel or something similar, but any such extra things can ignored for the time being.  For now what is important is to have the appropriate files in the four most basic subdirectores of the aircraft container: \model, \panel, \sound and \texture.

Step Three: Modify Various Files So That The New Version of the Plane Flies Properly.

In order for the new aircraft you are creating to work within FS several additional changes must be made to the aircraft container system before any repainting of texture files is begun.  All of the following changes are needed for FS to recognize and use your new plane.  Note: before modifying any files from this point on it is a good idea to back up the original in case something goes wrong.

3.1               Rename the .air file
Within the root directory of the aircraft container is a file with an extension ".air".  This file contains the plane's flight model which controls how the airplane flies.  Modifying the contents of this file is well beyond the scope of this tutorial (and this author!).  But we will in any case rename the file for use in our new aircraft container.  I renamed the MOONEY_BRAVO.AIR file to MOONEY_WCB.AIR.

3.2               Modify the aircraft.cfg file
Using a text editor (I use NOTEPAD but any simple text editor will do) open the aircraft.cfg file in the root directory of the aircraft container -- in this case it is located in \MOONEY_WCB.  There may be many lines in this file, but the only one we are concerned with is the section beginning with the line: "[fltsim.0]"  This is usually the first section of the file.  This section is called a "configuration set" and provides to FS information about the version of your plane which it needs and which you need to modify. Only two lines of this configuration set need to be changed.

First, change the line which begins with "title=".  Whatever you enter after this is what will appear as the title of the aircraft in FS's "Select Aircraft" dialogue.  I enetered "Mooney WCB Version" so that I can quickly identify my modified plane when I change aircraft when flying.

Second, change the line which begins with "sim=".  This line specifies to FS which file to use for the flight  model.  This must refer to the "*.air" file which is in the same root directory as the aircraft.cfg file.  Since we have just changed the name of that file, we now need to change the reference to it here.
I entered "Mooney_WCB" so the entire line reads: "sim=Mooney_WCB". 

There are other changes which can be made to the aircraft.cfg file at your discretion, but none are necessary.  (For example, I modified the atc_id line to disply my personalized registration number on the side of the plane and also set atc_id_enable to zero so that this is not changeable within FS)

3.3               Rename the .mdl file
Within the \MODEL subdirectory find the file with an extension ".mdl".  This file contains information about the airplane’s physical frame onto which FS will display the aircraft textures contained in the \TEXTURE subdirectory.  All we want to do now is to rename the .mdl file so it is specific to the new plane.
I renamed the MOONEY_BRAVO_N.MDL to MOONEY_WCB.MDL.

3.4               Modify the model.cfg file
Using a text editor open the model.cfg file within the \MODEL subdirectory.  This file specifies the visual models (.mdl files) that FS uses during normal flight and during a crash.  We are interested in the section of the file that begins with the line: "[models]".  This needs to be changed to refer to the .mdl file renamed in the previous section.  I changed the entry for "normal=" to refer to MOONEY_WCB.  If there is not a line "crash=" it is a good idea to add it and to refer to the same .mdl file.

There may be other sections in this file also, but FS only uses the "[models]" section.  Note: a "[colors]" section may also be present and you might think that this will be of interest to us in changing the paint scheme of the plane, but FS does not use this information and changing it will not help!

3.5               Verify that the new aircraft container works
Begin FS as usual using an aircraft other than the newly created one.  Now open the Select Aircraft dialog from the Aircraft menu of FS.  The drop-down list of available aircraft should contain your new plane, using the aircraft name you specified when you modified the aircraft.cfg file above.  In my case the title "Mooney WCB Version" appears.  When that plane is selected a rotating graphic of the new airplane will appear in the preview window.  This verifies that you have successfully created a new and functional aircraft.  Fly it just for fun.  At this point no actual modifications to the plane have been made and it will look exactly like the original one, but from FS's point of view this is an entirely new plane.

3.6               At this point you can further personalize your new plane by changing the text information which appears in another window as part of the Select Aircraft dialogue.  This is entirely optional, however, and will neither change the way your plane flies or looks.  It is a nice touch, however.  For this you will need a Flight Dynamics Editor (FDE) that enables you to change the *.air file – a file not normally subject to user modification.  The FDE that I used is freeware available from Abacus and works well for this limited purpose, even though it is not fully compatible with all features of FS2000.
All I changed was the “Aircraft Description” text to show that this is my own private version of the plane.  Of course after this (and all other!) changes you will want to verify that the new aircraft is working properly within FS by loading it from the Select Aircraft dialogue.

3.7               Rename the original texture files.
In the \texture subdirectory of the aircraft container being modified, copy and rename the *.bmp files that you are going to repaint.  Be sure to give the new files a name that has the same number of letters/digits (before the extension) as the original.

In my example there are just three files which display the main aircraft surfaces:  MOONEY_T1.BMP, MOONEY_T2.BMP and MOONEY_T3.BMP.  These were then copied and renamed to: MNYWCB_T1.BMP, MNYWCB_T2.BMP and MNYWCB_T3.BMP.  It is quite possible that you will find that there are quite a few *.bmp files in the \texture subdirectory.  All of them must be renamed.

3.8               Modify the .mdl file so that it will properly display the newly renamed texture files.
As indicated previously, the .mdl file (contained in the \model subdirectory) contains information about the physical structure of the aircraft which FS displays.  It provides the “frame” onto which the texture files are painted.  The .mdl file is a binary file and not normally modified by the end user.  But as an aircraft designer, you need to modify the .mdl file.  You do with is a hex-editor program, such as Hex Workshop.

The details of how to do this will vary depending on the hex editor used, but the basic task is to open the .mdl file for the aircraft you are repainting and search through the file finding each reference to the name of the original texture files and then to change each one  to refere to the newly renamed files.  In my example the .mdl file made a reference to MOONEY_T1.BMP 27 times and each time that needed to be changed to refer to MNYWCB_T1.BMP.  Thankfully, the hex editor will have a “find and replace” feature which automates this otherwise tedious process.  In Hex Workshop you can find this handy feature via the menu “Edit-Replace”. Just make sure that each reference in the .mdl file is changed to reflect the new names of the texture files.  Lots of things can go wrong here, so be sure to save a backup copy of the .mdl file somewhere else on your drive so that you can restore it for use in case you mess things up.

When all of the texture file names in the .mdl file have been changed, save a copy of it under the original name.  Make sure that only the renamed files are in the \texture subdirectory.

Start FS and select your new aircraft.  If you do not see the rotating graphic then you will need to go back and do one or more of these steps over again.  There is no point in actually repainting the texture files until you know for sure everything else is working.  The rotating graphic should look at this point exactly like the original airplane since you’ve not yet changed any of the texture images themselves.  If everything is in order then you will again see the rotating graphic.  When you are successful you will see the rotating graphic you have a properly functioning aircraft.

Congratulations -- you have now successfully entered the elite world of virtual airplane design.  Treat yourself to a cup of coffee (or whatever suits your fancy and doesn't compromise your reaction time for safe flying!).  The really fun part is just ahead…

This is of course what we have been working toward: the changing the way the aircraft actually looks within FS.  This is done by modifying a texture file and saving it in a format that FS can appropriately use.  Everything up until now has been preparation.

The actual repainting can be a very simple process or as complex as your creativity and knowledge will take you.  I suggest that you begin very simply to make sure you understand the basic process and then allow your imagination to take over.

In my example I discovered by trial and error that the image of the wings and the horizontal stabilizer (and a few other parts of the plane) are contained in the file MNYWCB_T3.BMP.  I will use this file to make a simple visual change to the “paint” on the wings.

5.1               Open the BMP2000 program.  If this is the first time you have used this utility I would suggest you set the following via the “Prefs” menu item.  First,  select the (graphics) editor to use – in my case it uses PaintShop Pro.  Then make sure the “maximum image import size” is set to 512x512. 

5.2               Load the MNYWCB_T3.BMP via the “Load Extended” button and the image should appear in the main window of the program.  It is possible that several (successively smaller) images will appear: don’t worry about that for now.

5.3               Double click on the image in the main window and your paint program will load as usual and with the MNYWCB_T3.BMP file ready for painting.  Use your paint program to modify this image as desired.  I recommend keeping it simple; now is not the time for fancy artistry.  All you need is something simple and bright: a chartreuse swatch on the wing panel or something similarly bold and obvious would be perfect..  When you are finished save the modified image as usual (do not use a “save as” option) and exit the paint program.

5.4               At this point you are back in the BMP2000 program with the unmodified image in the main window.  Now just click the “update button” and the modified image will appear in the main window.  The final step is to click the “save extended format bitmap” button using the original name of the file (thus overwriting the previous version).  Exit BMP2000.  That’s it!

What have you done here?  Nothing too difficult to understand.  You have simply used a paint program to modify a texture and then converted the modified image into something FS can use.  This was necessary because when the texture that had been usable for FS was modified by the paint program it saved a “standard” .bmp file (i.e. in a 24-bit format).  Even though it looks OK in the program and has the .bmp extension it is not usable in FS.  Not all .bmp files are created equal.  In fact, there is a whole series of kinds of “extended bitmaps” that exist and FS is very picky about what it needs in order to display properly.  The BMP2000 utility performed the needed conversion of your modified image back into the correct .bmp format.  The result was a modified “paint job” on your plane and that’s what we’ve been after all along.

To see how your changes look in practice all you need to do is to load the aircraft you’ve been working on in the Select Aircraft dialogue.  Let the plane load and then go to the Spot Plane view and adjust the view point so the modified region of the plan is clearly visible.

If you have successfully modified a texture file and been able to view the result in FS then you are to be congratulated for having mastered the basics of a repainting your aircraft!  Now you really deserve another cup of coffee!

Where to from here?  As stated previously, the example we have worked through is a very simple one.  After you have become familiar with the procedures and concepts presented here, I suggest you examine the excellent FS2000 Repainting Tutorial developed by Simon Jamie and updated by Jim Oates located on-line at (coming soon). This guide will walk you step-by-step through two complete repaints: a relatively easy modification of the Default 737 and a much more complicated treatment of the Default Learjet 45.

Good luck – and enjoy those new colors!

Walt Barrett

WBarrett@t-online.de