Actually Luis I monitor this forum every day, keeping up with any possible new developments concerning Flight. It's nice to see you've figured out how to do re-paints, I'd love to have the blue Icon you've just completed. What I'd really like and what we need is for someone to successfully figure out how to convert FSX scenery to use in Flight. I don't expect that to happen, but I'm still hoping for it!

So at some point they changed something.

In the beginning it was definately not possible to do it like that!

There was a detailed thread about repainting here, or in the beta forum of MS. And it was only possible with a hack.

 

But good news it works now. Too bad i`m not a talented (re-)painter.

i would love to do some liveries , but i`m just not able.

There was a detailed thread about repainting here, or in the beta forum of MS. And it was only possible with a hack.

 

At least it was considered hacking at the time, and it was on Avsim. The guy who did it did not get a good reception. He did prove it was possible, though. If we were doing our own repaints, it would be stepping on Microsoft's toes, as they were selling us the same thing.

 

I basically forgot about it, then when Flight was cancelled one of my first thoughts was, "Can we get some repaints now?" I was reluctant to bring it up because of what happened to the last guy.

 

I'm really glad Luis is doing this, and maybe it will encourage others to give it a try, and we can get some really attractive aircraft out of it.

 

Hook

Well Luis, that Blue Icon looks fantastic!!

 

I agree, Martin Wright's DXTBmp and other utilities are some of the best ever devised for Flight Simulators. Thankfully we can still use them.

 

For repaints I use Paint .NET, it's free and it is great. ( I only do very minor repaints, some decals and tail numbers). Of course You know much more about paint programs, so I will give GIMP a try.

 

Cheers.

Will you upload the liveries here on AVSIM ?

I wonder if FS Repaint will work? I've done a little with it on FSX planes. Just one question. Where are these pak file located? I've poked around on my system and didn't see anything I recognized.

Where are these pak file located?

 

Depends upon what you are looking for? The "base" PAK file is in the Flight folder. Should have the Icon and Stearman inside. The "add on" PAK will be buried in your DLC installation folder(s).

Hi Folks

 

Not in any way detracting from Luis's achievement / lovely repaints,

but just to clarify / avoid anyone misunderstanding -

 

From what I've seen here so far,

(and he might yet have more cats in his bag), :lol:

Luis has literally demonstrated "repainting".

 

i.e.

Luis has taken an existing paint, & effectively "recoloured" it.

 

e.g.

Luis's lovely "Icon Blue" is a "recoloured" version of the Icon's original "Silver Lining 100th" paint

On FLIGHT's release, the Icon had 8 paints, and currently it still has 8 paints.

If Luis is flying his "Icon Blue" online, and you join his session,

you'll still see him flying the Icon's original "Silver Lining 100th" paint

 

 

 

That is, as distinct from an creating an "additional repaint",

which'll involve creating an additional package,

wrapped in a format that FLIGHT will accept.

 

Keep up the great work Luis. B)

 

 

 

HTH

ATB

Paul

Exactly, Paul, thanks very much for clarifying. I know nothing about the Flight protection scheme, but can only speculate that it sees nothing different with my repaints, since they are the same texture, with the same name, same format, and size.

 

Adding another livery, or aircraft, or world region (scenery) probably implies hacking the Flight data files, which may not get by the protection scheme. But, again, that is pure speculation, I do not know how it works.

 

Age is a terrible thing. I can remember something that happened 10 years ago with great precision, but could not for the life of me say what I had for lunch yesterday. :lol:

 

However, I distinctly remember that the person who first did a repaint about a year ago clearly indicated that no hacking was needed. People just assumed the contrary without bothering to check. As usual.

 

Ken, how nice to see you! Very best wishes to you. Like you, I wish it were possible to add scenery, particularly my projects. There are efforts underway, not successful so far. It seems as if the bgl format has changed. I haven't really had a chance to see if it is just a difference in the headers, or if it goes deeper than that. It would take a long and concerted effort to figure out all the changes, and even if we did, we would still not have the tools to create new scenery. And anyway I suspect that the Flight protection scheme would prevent that kind of modification. I won't say that it's impossible - that would be foolish - but it will be very difficult and rather long.

 

Ramón, hello, and it is very nice to see you back now and then. Paint.NET, from what I have seen in reviews, is always at the very top so I don't suppose that you will gain anything by changing.

 

Rick, FS Repaint should work just fine although I have never used it. Give it a try and let us know. The paks are as follows:

Core Content (Hawaii, Icon, Stearman) - C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight if you installed in the default location

DLC - C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\XLive\DLC\4d5308d2\00000002\ and make sure to change username to yours. You may not be able to get there the usual way, so just copy and paste the location in the Start - Search.

 

Guys, we have a great opportunity here. If enough of us start making repaints and Microsoft sees our enthusiasm, perhaps we could put up petitions on all the web sites asking for the release of the SDK and tools. Microsoft really has nothing to lose, and we have everything to gain. Flight is the best version of FS so far and only needs content to make it come alive.

 

Best regards.

Luis

FS Repaint will not work, I can say that without even trying it. Flight uses a format Microsoft named the .model format, which as we learned in the past from a previous poster, it is not the same as the MDL format. Therefore, FS Repaint will not be able to load the model.

Be sure to back up your files. Flight previously did employ an integrity check, and the functionality to do so is still there. The security catalog file in the root directory of Flight is digitally signed by Microsoft, and contains the SHA1 hashes of all the core files. Whether the check was disabled intentionally or accidentally, the security catalog is still present and is required for Flight to run.

What we can do: Using Microsoft Paint to Repaint!

What we can do: Using Microsoft Paint to Repaint!

 

There are free alternatives to MS Paint, such as Paint.Net and Gimp. Paint may well work? If I were an ambitious painter, I'd try Gimp first and then Paint.Net. But I really have little to no artistic talents and that's why I spend my time moving mountains around.

 

Anyone good at repainting and want to volunteer to make a poor, tired old man a birthday repaint...LMK! B)

I think using MS Paint might be more a problem than a solution. It lacks many features needed for a good quality repaint and AFAIK it won’t handle Alpha channels/ transparency.

Yeh true. I brought that up to repaint Flight aircraft because they were made by Microsoft.