EagleSkinner

Xplane? I was angry enough every time FSX froze up and CTD'd - I did install XP, bat can't say I was very impressed. Worked OK. A bit like the difference between Commodore and Atari and later Atari vs Amiga...

I had as much fun playing that space flight game "Mercenary" (all wireframe models) to tell the truth. All improvements on Flightsim have really been about the eye candy for me. I still cheat and turn of crash detection. I do like flying low in msfs now - I just love nap of the earth stuff. hmmm So when we getting helicopters, I want to see if the BO 105 is as capable in msfs as the real thing - search youtube for BO 105 Low Level and watch Charly Zimmerman really cutting the grass...

😁

Yep - that's the method I used.

Failed.

Must be doing something wrong

Is this a “me” issue, or is there something wrong? Please correct me if my thinking is skewed…

This is not a rant either - I am quite simply trying to ask where I might be going wrong when trying to add my personal liveries to msfs 2020 aircraft. so…

So I set about making a texture with identifying markings. Using the megapack C172 I tried adding [FLTSIM.11] to the aircraft.cfg and adding all the extra lines in the layout.json but that didn't work. so I reloaded the "liveries-c172-as1000" folder to it's original status. Then I tried to create a new folder set with a different name i.e.:

"msfs\Community\eagleskinner-liveries-c172-as1000\SimObjects\Airplanes\Asobo_C172sp_AS1000\TEXTURE.Eagleskinner"

I even created MODEL.AIEagleskinner and MODEL.Eagleskinner in msfs\Community\liveries-c172-as1000\SimObjects\Airplanes\Asobo_C172sp_AS1000

Editing the layout.json seemed pretty straightforward but whe I booted msfs I lost all the megapack liveries

I actually got my texture flying by overwriting the Megapack C172SP-1000 "yellow" texture contents and re-writing all references in the layout.json to "YELLOW" to match my Eagleskinner texture. As far as MSFS was concerned, it was simply loading the yellow liveried C172, but with all exterior and interior "albd" textures were my ones.

Oh poop! The forum software doesn't allow me to upload an image! I don't have a website or other online location to save the images to, other than Facebook - and here the forum gives me the finger. 🙂

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10158624388529851&set=a.10158624393789851

As you can see - I don't have any online storage, so that link will open the picture in Facebook. I think.

On 8/29/2020 at 8:46 PM, Dangerous Beans said:

I was wondering why the aircraft,cfg for this plane is encrypted, its called aircraft.loc and is gibberish if you open it in notepad.

This is going to make it really difficult to do repaints for as you need an aircraft.cfg to add them to.

Me too!

I have seen repaints for the default aircraft that go into the community folder (anything like the "community chest" in monopoly??) and I have managed my first locator repaint for the default C172 - but I did have to overwrite one of the new community freeware textures (keeping same folder name) from the megapack to get anything workable. But doing the same in the official content folder for the Carenado C182 is a no go. As you say - there's no aircraft.cfg to change and point at your newly painted textures.

While I am on that subject - how does one create a new set of all the texture and layout files and folders to make your repaint a standalone package to upload to the library?

Here's a thought...

I heard the Windows "disconnect" chime earlier whilst pootling around ULURU

As I hadn't touched any USB connections I had a think and a look around. Could this have been caused by one of those background driver updates that windows and other developers put out automatically? I think my alert was for a backgound auto hardware update.

So either we need to turn off all and any auto-update tool or set a notify request before continuing.

Thoughts?

I usuall fly better with an aircraft strapped to my bum...

...but give me a cyclic and collective any day!

2 hours ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

Could you explain in more detail how flight is more fun for you in the Carenado Cessna? Reviews are actually quite bad for that plane as its G1000 implementation is a downgrade even compared to the stock MSFS avionics and overall it seems like a straight port from the FSX version.

Just a general feel. I have all settings in the package setup screens on "Options/General/Flight Model" set to  "Legacy", "Realistic" and all sliders to full right (100%) . All Controls settings are at maximum sensitivity - basic reason is that GA are not FBW but have direct tubes and tensioned wire links to the control surfaces. But all that is because I prefer Extras and Pitts.

I really only bought this because I did want to compare and to try out the msfs shop. Like I mentioned after being accused of a rant - I will persevere

The Carenado just feels better - things like opening doors and windows. taxiing works on the numbers. Take off and climb just feel like they do in real (I worked for Airbus in Hamburg and they have a 182 in their flying club - for the price of fuel sharing I often got a jolly with PPL members and the first thing they all say is the Cessna was designed to be gentle. Stall, and it gives you fair warning to let go of the stick It'll nose down on its own, level wings and give you time to catch your breath. The msfs Cessna is a 172, so there will be differences. I only had the retract gear 182 in FSX. The Carenado 182 isn't trying to kill me but the stock 172 feels like it might 🙂

Like I say - it's feel. The cockpit works better for my liking. I would prefer standard instruments anyway, I don't like the G1000 panels. Too fiddly without some learning time I watch the standby clocks anyway. 😉

Oh - and the artwork is prettier on the carenado. More choice.

Four pages already? Wow!

Well, feelings are obviously high - apologies to anyone who feels offended by my OP. Unfortunately I am a hippocritter 😉 - I bought a couple of addons and put a freeware one on too. Carenado C182 from the MS shop, Orcas from the MS shop, Tacoma Narrows from ORBX shop, Fairways free from the MS shop.

Now those buys were a pleasure the way they worked. What's more, the Carenado Cessna (although Carenado were not quite as good as A2A imho) proves that MS/Asobo got things wrong. The Carenado is so much of an improvement ofer the default Cessnas - windows open, doors open, flight is fun, paintwork is just outstanding compared to default.

OK, my FSX works great still. Weather addons match anything I have seen in msfs (OK 13 cloud layers...), photoreal terrains in FSX, third party airports and airfields in FSX super.

I will temper my rants and give credit where and when it's due, but I shall only start loving msfs 2020 when I can attack the textures the way I used to be able to.

Stay with me everyone - I am not the worst grumpy old git you'll meet here.

1 minute ago, omarsmak30 said:

Can moderators please close these kind of topics? Is getting very tiring reading these ranting instead of sharing tips and asking questions.

Sorry - I am not ranting. I have been using the microsoft flight sim spftware since Bruce Artwick days. Yes, this post is only my opinion, but as you point out (see your own quote) you are tired of seeing the ranting - which must mean there you are perceiving a lot of it. Are so many people unjustified? I well remember the first weeks of FS2004 and FSX too. There appear to be more saddened users now than then.

Besides, this is not a rant. If you want rants, just look elsewhere. Everything I said in OP is commented on by others a thousand times over.

Admin - please feel free to block me after 15 years of "ranting"

SDK = "Found" - start msfs and go to settings. Turn on developer mode. There is a dropdown that points to SDK download for some PC based tools and you can use SDK tools in sim.

I am slowly getting the hang of the layout of MSFS 2020 files - where models go, how third party repaints are identified and I am even understanding the confusing methods ASOBO appear to be using to apparently make life harder for third party developers and painters.

Although while I was searching and browsing I couldn't find the aircraft model files  (i.e. the Baron model is called Beech_Baron_58.mdl). Besides, in FSX the .mdl files are all huge in the order of multiple megabytes. A spot of Googling then led me to the fact that MSFS 2020 now uses .gltf files. 

For the curious layman please: What is this gltf format and why are they so small? Do the accompanying binary files have something to do with them? In the meantime, the texture files now appear to be reaching hundreds of MB for an aircraft.

How come MS can crunch the models but still need masses of disc space for the paints? Incidentally - there are some nice GA ones appearing already!

I have been rather puzzled by the way textures are stored and named in this new sim. So first off - has anyone started a thread that covers the creation of the many various separate paint textures and what JavaScript files are there fore? (the .json ones)

Is there a texture size limit such as 4096 x 4096. Do we need a Texture Max Load plugin?

Are we still using BXTBMP to convert the image sheets - incidentally DXTBMP seems unable to open some of these. What format do we save the DDS files in? Flipping - is that still an issue? Vertical or horizontal. Bump maps and speculars - what are they called now? It looks like there are now 5 or 6 different sub-sheets per texture sheet - in FSX we had paintwork, bump and spec.

Is there an SDK yet?

There's a lot going on already and I am waiting for the 3rd party devs to come up with some attractive, well modelled, dynamcally sound models. I don't do tubes, so GA aircraft are needed - and more of the exotic kind please. Not just your bog standard CessPips.

Just thinking out loud here... I'm not even sure I could be tempted to come back to repainting yet. MSFS 2020 still seems unfinished

I already had the basic download pack installed the day before, so, I started the download of the necessaries just after midnight and went to bed. My reasoning: if it doesn't work, then there is a problem. Being and "olderguy with olde guy's problems" I woke up four hours later for the usual... on checking the 'puter - "all done". I could go back to bed... er... nope. Just one try... Well, after some fumbling I did get a flight going in the Crafters Cub, which I promptly crashed.

There was a lot of cursing about why couldn't I use my joystick? Why is the cesspip only black and white? How the hell do I do this and that? Why didn't they keep the old key bindings? Oh my deity of choice, why is that marshaller walking right into my spinning props? Why are the blue taxiway marker lights so high? How do I take a screenie? Why can't I get my DA62 into the air at Grand Canyon airfield (6700 feet and HOT!)? Blast! This darn control setup is twitchier than a (expletive deleted)...? Why the heck did they put the turn and slip indicator in the CAP 10 upside down? Why are there so many "inop" buttons and switches?

You are getting my drift - I went through many of the issues nearly everyone with a RANT button goes through with a new piece of simflight software. I even railed at the French inability to create a logical tree structure for the texture filing system (there isn't one single SimObjects or Aircraft folder, but one for EACH aircraft...) Mind you, what Brit understands a Frenchman? We've not done that since William the Conqueror.

But after a couple of cups of tea, this "Rosbif" (that's what they call us) took a step back and thought a bit.

"Hey - this is FSX after a hand wash and proper waxing." We still have typical FSX problems - I think Microsoft/Asobo simple did some shuffling - The scenery is better now that they got rid of the computer generated landscapes and moved to Google/Bing/Whatever... But we had that already in FSX - except that we had to make our own terrain maps, download petabytes of Googl maps data and spend months just mapping a few square miles of our own favourite areas. We now have (only a few) beautifully hand crafted airports and cityscapes. We had them in FSX too - St. Maarten was my favourite. We now have some beautifully modelled aircraft. Well, what they've really done is made and mapped more textures per aircraft and used different naming conventions to frighten third party developers and painters... A lot of us FSX painters were already creating glossy metalflake paints, realistic bump maps, ultra high definition skins.

What they have made with FS2020 is a flight simulator that uses the realworld imageries via the Internet. It uses realworld weather (errrmmm, didn't we already have an addon that did that?) OK, the FS2020 weather system has been updated to allow many more layers, different cloud types, wind effects. The flight dynamics have been improved a lot, or so they tell us. I am already/still seeing real life pilots complaining about the over or under responsiveness of various control dynamics. Especially a couple of aerobatics pilots

Anyway, the upshot of it al is we now have a new FSX styled simulation that has been restyled enough to call it new. We will still be seing a lot of complaints and bugs and more grumbling because "It isn't using the same keypress for that function" or "How do I open the doors" or "I get ctd's when i do..." ...

...well I have news for microsoft/asobo: the users will eventually figure out your problems and make fiixes, no matter how hard you have tried to make the system unmodifiable 😁.

...and I have news, too, for us users: don't panic, we'll help each other. Just let's be patient. There'll be plenty of 3PDs along soon (that's third party developers, as opposed to P3D 😉) the baby is not even three days old. Of course we must expect poopie nappies and little accidents.

My verdict: I like FS2020 despite the teething problems (many of which are mine). The use of live streaming allows a lot more freedom for creating eye-candy on the fly. It looks good. Following the guided AI flying instructor helps a lot too.   

What about Oculus? It worked OK for me in FSX and XPlane

5 minutes ago, bernd1151 said:

Nope, haven't forgotten you at all, Chris 😉😉

I still have many of your old liveries, for example the ones you did many moons ago for the default FSX P-51 and still today I like them, although I don't fly in FSX anymore.

So, welcome back, old friend.

Bernd

Hi Bernd, long time no see.

I think I might wait until the 3rd party devs come up with some more sensible texture file systems and await their comments. It's going to be a bumpy ride.

Chris

15 minutes ago, brynair said:

Hi,

I'm looking for some info about doing my own repaints. I was used to personalise my sim in FSX (with the planes I fly IRL). I would like to do the same in ou new MSFS 🙂 But like I read before it's not the same "folder structure" and not so easy...

Do you know anything about the possibility to do our own liveries ? Is it going to be possible ?

Thanks and enjoy the new sim 😉

Brynair

Looking at the file structure, it should be relatively similar to FSX. The only issues I see are probably the need for different editors. Some of the DDS images don't seem to want to open in DXTBMP.

It will be fun trying to unravel the file trees though. Very much so! Instead of having "root\Sim Objects\Aeroplanes\aircraft modell\variant" Asobo have gone: "root \ aircraft model \ Sim Objects \ Aeroplanes \ variant

The new system looks like this:

F:\msfs\Official\OneStore\asobo-aircraft-208b-grand-caravan-ex\SimObjects\Airplanes\Asobo_208B_GRAND_CARAVAN_EX\TEXTURE
F:\msfs\Official\OneStore\asobo-aircraft-a320-neo\SimObjects\AirPlanes\Asobo_A320_NEO\TEXTURE
F:\msfs\Official\OneStore\asobo-aircraft-b787-10\SimObjects\Airplanes\Asobo_B787_10\TEXTURE

3 minutes ago, z06z33 said:

As an aircraft owner I'd love to find my plane in flight sim,just saying.

As an owner, you can happily allow repaints - if the plane has been modelled of course.

Has anyone noticed yet?

All I shall say for now is: take a look at the turn and slip indicator in the Robin!

Okaaayyyy....

I have found the liveries folders - they're in the place you told the download to go when you first start the sim after installing. The conventions ASOBO have used are mind numbing! But once you know where they are, you'll have paths like this: F:\msfs\Official\OneStore\asobo-aircraft-sr22\SimObjects\Airplanes\Asobo_SR22\TEXTURE

but take a note... they are still using a folder called "SimObjects" - but not in the way we're used to. In fact the labelling is back to front. Ther is not one "SimObjects/Airplanes" folder - but one for EACH aircraft type. if I show you a list, you'll get the drift...

F:\msfs\Official\OneStore\asobo-aircraft-208b-grand-caravan-ex\SimObjects\Airplanes\Asobo_208B_GRAND_CARAVAN_EX\TEXTURE
F:\msfs\Official\OneStore\asobo-aircraft-a320-neo\SimObjects\AirPlanes\Asobo_A320_NEO\TEXTURE
F:\msfs\Official\OneStore\asobo-aircraft-b787-10\SimObjects\Airplanes\Asobo_B787_10\TEXTURE

(That will surely give the Windows filing system a headache - an explorer search will no longer get one SimObjects and Airplanes folder but one for each aircraft, currently 30 aircraft in the deluxe install but eventually hundreds - and each one separately indexed on your hard drive. And there are more in other branches of the tree such as ai aircraft...)

The basics remain the same though. You still have texture.cfg files and aircraft.cfg and all the other contents you had in FSX. They have just made things a lot more complicated. The livery stripes, for instance, are mapped separately so painting the fuselage a new colour will still have the basic livery stripe on it. You will have to paint these separately. A possible issue there if you try to eliminate them, because there appear to be bump maps, emissives and more mapped to each sheet - touch one basic texture sheet for the exterior and you may have to modify all maps.

A note to admins: this topic / thread may well become "lively". Especially when we get down to the nitty gritties opening the artwork.

Trying to hot-swap a controller results in a "no warnings" CTD...

This could be fun. Anyone else? Basically I think There is a requirement to add all hardware first and leave well alone... but in one session a user might go fromm a yoke to a HOTAS to a plain old joystick.

Thoughts?

I notice that there is still much discussion about "free" liveries. There is "fair usage in the public domain". By way of an example: nearly all my paints were with the owner's permissions. Believe me, you don't want to go through a legal battle and "Cease and Desist" orders (I have had a couple - one was a Pitts owner...)

The legal point is that most personalised liveries are copyrighted either by the artist or the aircraft owners. On the other hand, some owners simply buy an off the peg Cesspip with a factory design. These can be considered easier to copy - no less illegal, but with easier usage if it's already in the official flightsin. Also, having worked for Airbus, I can tell you that commercial livery designs can command a six figure sum just for the artwork design - and more. Some companies even copyright the colours too.

If you are into repainting, take it from me - a small amount of research will help you find the owner/operator and they are more often than not extremely happy to say yes. For them it's recognition, and for you it's a new friend on Facebook or whatever. Remember my T6 Reno Racer paints? The midnight airforce (Tami Kuehn and family), Thumper and others were all happy to say yes - and contact with the owners usually gets you access to a great photo library. Patty Wagstaff? The lady said yes to me. Chuck Lischer? (Marchetti f260 - sadly RIP and cat 5) he said yes. Bob Bishop - BD5 acrojet - cruise missile impersonators... "Yes". Many of my Christen Eagle skins - all agreed by owners. Even a commercial carrier or three is on my list

So my advice is try to make contact with the copyright holder. It's well worth the effort and everyone is happy. Just be careful if you do it for money - the © holder might want a cut then.
 

OMG! The grumpy git is back...

Hi there - EagleSkinner could be back out of retirement if this works. You've probably forgotten me anyway 😉

Anyway, the MSFS download worked for me today, but I appear to be timezone restricted before I can fly. Ah well, no worries, I've waited this long. However... Where are all the MSFS folders - especially the ones we painters need for adding our textures? I can't find anything that remotely resembles "Sim Objects". Don't tell me these are all going to be locked online? I have found several folders that my PC refuses to let me open - even though I do have UAC opened for me as admin.

I knew Win 10 was going to be awkward. Perhaps I should stay retired...

I have been wary of Alabeo/Carenado planes in the past because there have been too many niggly inconsistencies in the past and also the just love mirroring parts. But I have recently bought the Extra 300 and am quite taken by it (even if it is a squirrely b***h  to land). But I must admit that I am looking at the Waco. 

Finished and uploaded days ago, sorry for not keeping you in touch. There are a few more fresh paints in my library too... enjoy