Crispy's Liveries

An update on the status of my liveries for MSFS 2024. Spoiler alert – it’s not good news. If you don’t want to know the details skip to the last paragraph.

You may have noticed that very few of the liveries on Flightsim.to are listed as compatible with 2024. This is the first clue that all is not right in the world of free liveries for 2024. The 2nd clue is Asobo have disabled the 2024 Marketplace. This is to stop people buying 2020 content that mostly just won’t work in 2024.

Asobo told us that they were working on backwards compatibility and that you would just need to move stuff across to 2024. I actually have this in writing from one of their blogs. For liveries at least this is just not correct, as most simply won’t work without some concerted effort to update them. The few freeware aircraft I moved across mostly worked, but they also suffer from many of the problems that plague my liveries and will require updating.

There have been a number of changes made in 2024 that present difficulties for livery creators

  1. In 2024 there are 3 types of aircraft and each requires a different structure for liveries. 2020 had one type and they all used the same structure. This creates a level of complexity I haven’t managed to wrap my head around yet.
  2. As all aircraft are now streamed, and Asobo have disabled local storage of aircraft, we can’t look at default aircraft to learn and understand how then 2024 aircraft structure works.
  3. Asobo have introduced an automatic tail number creation for the dynamic tail number in 2024 aircraft. This can’t be overridden by the end user or the livery creator. MSFS will ignore whatever anyone wants and do its own thing. The tail number it generates will be random and the format based on the country of your departing airport. Want to fly A US registered aircraft out of the UK, MSFS won’t let you.
  4. The method that we use to control the colour of the dynamic tail numbers no longer works as it did in 2020. So where a dynamic tail number is used on a livery, it now may not match the livery any more.
  5. None of the methods previously used to disable dynamic tail numbers work. Many liveries use a fixed tail number to match an airline’s unique tail number font or position on the aircraft. Aircraft like the JustFlight 146 of the Captain Sim C130 escape this problem as they don’t have a dynamic tail number, but most other aircraft and virtually all default aircraft aren’t so lucky.
  6. 2024 uses different thumbnails and more of them. Creating new ones for existing liveries is time consuming.

Liveries available for free on sites like Flightsim.to and Flightsim.com have made a huge contribution to the popularity of MSFS 2020. But Asobo haven’t consulted with or involved free livery creators when developing 2024. Asobo have also provided no assistance to free livery creators to assist them converting their liveries to work with 2024, as far as I am aware. There is the SDK (software development kit) but it is it is more geared towards developers creating an end-to-end aircraft. And liveries that are part of an aircraft, do not work in the same way as liveries created as standalone (ie standalone = virtually every livery on Flightsim.to).

Less than 10% of my liveries even show up in 2024, and those that did need work to display correctly. The other 90% are in my community folder, but are nowhere to be found in 2024. Even modifying the those few that did show up, takes a huge amount of effort to get them to work correctly. I have managed just 1 so far and while it is works, it still not right. But it’s “kinda sorta” OK.

The only bit of good news is that the textures themselves will most likely not require updating, although we don’t know that for sure for default aircraft.

When Asobo finally give us access to locally stored aircraft, livery creators will be able to look at the new structures and hopefully work out how to get their liveries working in 2024. When that might happen is anyone’s guess. I am hoping some bright young spark comes up with all the answers, and I can just look at what he (or she) has done. Monkey see, monkey do. My eyes were bleeding and my head pounding after trying to work out things from the SDK myself.

So, if you are expecting all your favourite liveries on Flightsim.to to miraculously sprout a “compatible with 2024” tag any time soon, my best guess is that you are going to be disappointed.

9 Likes

Thanks for listing this out. I made a comanche livery with a static number and it won’t keep the tail number.

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What a disaster :frowning:
Hopefully also when they DO allow local download and storage, they are not encrypted or shoved away in some unaccessible cache. I have my doubts TBH :frowning:

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That’s really disappointing news. I appreciate all the work you’ve put into it just over the past few days to try to make sense of things. Hopefully Asobo will help the community with this - be it further documentation, examples, heck maybe even a tutorial (I can dream, right?). There’s at least one plane that I only fly with a historical repaint, and several that I strongly prefer the repaints. What a stark difference from what we were told (99% of add-ons working seamlessly) and a huge bummer.

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Have updated the following liveries for use with MSFS 2024. Just click on the blue Crispy’s Liveries in the links below to be taken to the original post and download link.

Note that the liveries show up on the Variants tab when selecting an aircraft and I haven’t been able to find a way that reliably sorts the liveries after the default aircraft livery.

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Livery for the Carenado PA-44 Seminole has been updated for 2024.

My livery for the Draken L-39 is now compatible with 2024. This is the 1st livery I have been able to get working for an Asobo aircraft that has been converted to the 2024 format. Note that separate downloads are required for 2020 and 2024 as the format and textures for native 2024 aircraft are not compatible with 2020. Just click on the blue Crispy’s Liveries in the link below to be taken to the original post and download link.

Repaint of the MSFS 2024 de Havilland DHC2 in the livery of C-GZBE of Cottage Air based in Ontario Canada.
Note - this livery is not compatible with MSFS 2020.

Now available for download for MSFS 2024 now
https://flightsim.to/file/85489/2024-dhc2-beaver-c-gzbe

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Community request for this unique de Havilland Beaver livery.

Now available for download for MSFS 2024
https://flightsim.to/file/85529/2024-dhc2-beaver-d-affy

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MSFS 2024 repaint of the Douglas DC3 in the Spirit of Douglas colours.

Now available for download for 2024 only at
https://flightsim.to/file/85546/2024-douglas-dc3-spirit-of-douglas

1 Like

MSFS 2024 community request for the repaint of the 2024 Douglas DC3 in the livery of 73191 Tropical Tilly. This aircraft featured in the 1952 film, “The Thing”.

Now available for download at
https://flightsim.to/file/85657/2024-douglas-dc3-usaf-tropical-tilly

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The Joby VTOL is the star aircraft of the newly formed Reindeer Inc.’s specialised fleet. CEO of Reindeer Inc, Rudolph R.N. Reindeer, advised the new Joby is ideal for their seasonal deliveries and is a welcome addition to Reindeer Inc’s growing fleet. This Joby carries a special livery to celebrate both the season and the owner.


Now available for download at
https://flightsim.to/file/86071/2024-joby-s4-reindeer-inc

1 Like