Most makers get what the thumbnail is for and do the correct thing of making the thumbnail of the livery a picture of the plane in said livery. But every now and again, there are makers who put their liveries up on flightsim.to with just a logo of the liverie’s airline as the thumbnail… PLEASE STOP. If you are at least going as far as to clearly be editing the thumbnail (bc you’re adding a logo) , can we please make it a preview of the livery itself. Going to choose a plane in game and just seeing an airline logo in place of the given airplane is highly frustrating as this makes it harder to quickly determine what kind of plane it even is. Even worse, if you have multiple liveries from the same airline, you can’t even tell which is which. If the reason you are adding a logo is to make clear which airline the skin is for then for the love of God, just make the thumbnail a picture of the plane using said livery and then just add the company logo somewhere in the picture. PLEASE.
Convention has it that ContentInfo, the logo that shows up in the content manager, could be either a logo or a picture of the item in the package.
You are correct the Thumbnail should be of the contents of package. The problem is, last time I looked, Asobo has made the creation of a Thumbnail image of a livery even harder than it used to be. True, if you do this thing every day, the process becomes easier. But for those who don’t it can be confusing when attempting to compile a package.
For me, I tend to make my livery packages by hand, so it’s not so hard once you know the file structure. Other developers don’t always become as familiar with the file structure and just use the tools in the dev kit. (which also sometimes results in poorly constructed packages).
I wish livery makers wouldn’t make their liveries overwrite the default thumbnail for the plane.
Please explain what you mean?
It should obviously show the new livery.
Do you also mean you wish they put the new livery first in line? To do that, the virtual file system orders the liveries alphabetically based on the name of the directory in the SimObjects\Airplanes directory in the livery packages associated with the aircraft.
Edit: And as I was reminded below, if you do go about changing the directory name to put your favorite first in the selection path (like by adding a 1_ to the begining of the directory name), don’t forget to update the layout.json file with the new paths to the files.
I mean that some livery makers set things up so the thumbnail for the new livery becomes the thumbnail for that plane in the aircraft selection menu, and since the livery thumbnail is often a screenshot in a totally different style, it rather ruins the look of the aircraft menu. Screenshot example:
One of these things is not like the others…
(Not trying to single out or criticize any repainter here, I appreciate their efforts, I won’t think they’re doing this on purpose, and it’s a very minor thing in the grand scheme. Just a slight annoyance.!
Ahh, I get it.
Asobo has made it harder to make those “default” thumbnails.
Then again, some people think it looks cool to have an action shot instead of the the cold default config. So it becomes a 6 of that half dozen of this thing.
It’s not that hard to change the thumbnail if it really annoys you.
Well I’m not even asking people to make default-style thumbnails… just make it so your new livery doesn’t override the thumbnail that comes with the plane. Again, I assume for people who aren’t bothered by it, it never even occurs to them. Yes, I know it can be changed.
To be honest I miss the FS9 era aircraft select menu where it actually showed the plane model rotating in 3D instead of just 2D thumbnail images, would eliminate this as a hassle for everybody. Of course in those FS9 dropdown menus you also didn’t have a visual of the plane at all until you selected it so I can see the argument for the greater aesthetic appeal of having a whole lineup.
Oh, I get it, you don’t want them to reorder the liveries for the aircraft. Leave the original default one first.
Personally, I always reorder my liveries to the ones I fly the most for each plane first to avoid all the extra clicks.
Oh, I get it, you don’t want them to reorder the liveries for the aircraft. Leave the original default one first.
Precisely. This preserves the coherent unified style of the aircraft selection menu.
I think that’s to do with the order in which the liveries are loaded and there’s something you can edit in the livery config files to change the loading order but I forget how now.
I also prefer a more uniform look in the plane select screen.
It actually has to do with what I described above, the directory names…
Ahh this is something that I was not aware of. I can see how this happens so often then. Of course I don’t blame makers if they truly don’t know how to do this properly and I hope current livery posters don’t take offence. This is a plea 
Just the name of the folder you put in the community folder? So I can just rename the folder without having to change edit any files? That makes things simple if so. Cheers!
No, it’s related to the name of the folder the virtual file system sees, the one inside (packagename)\SimObjects\Airplanes. As I said above.
Another feature is, when a package is created that includes multiple liveries in a single package, each livery should have its own directory in that directory.
Oh sorry didn’t actually read your post but I have now. So you have to change the livery folder name within the aircraft folder and then edit or rebuild the layout.json folder right?
That’s correct, thanks for adding that step, I forgot to include that.
Tbh now that i think about it. Asobo REALLY needs to rework how plane select works completely bc it’s a mess right now. Aside from the logos as pictures of the livery problem. We have a situation where some plane devs are seperating plane loadouts by making them choosable through liveries and some devs have them add whole sperate planes… Which creates a ton of duplicates like the twin otter has. It’s so annoying when i know a modern ui should just use a dropdown (or two drop downs) located under the given plane enabling you to choose both load out (float version, bush version, etc) and livery…
No hate but like how did they not do it like this. Fr
There’s a couple of things that you need to be aware of when dealing with repaints/liveries and thumbnails. The way the sim stacks/orders these is two-fold.
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If the aircraft package contains multiple liveries in the SimObjects folder, it will more than likely have a single aircraft.cfg file that has all of those liveries in it. If that is the case, the sim will display those liveries in the order they are listed in the “aircraft.cfg” file. Some Devs don’t bother putting them in alphabetical order, so they show up out of order in the menu. These would be the default skins for your aircraft I’m speaking to. You can fix it by editing the “aircraft.cfg” file and manually ordering them alphabetically. Lots of work! The problem with this is when an update comes out, all your work is erased and you have to do it again or you can avoid overwriting the old aircraft.cfg file with the new one to keep this from happening. These, I leave alone for that reason. It is what it is.
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For other liveries that are stand-alone/drag-and-drop, they will be listed alphabetically by folder name. There is a catch though. I sort all of my skins by registration number and include that in the name of the folder for the aircraft. The issue is the sim will sort on the first number, then second number, etc. of the registration. I might have a reg number lik “N327MA” and the next number might be “N3458G” and they will be listed as such. But, if I have a reg of “N41ZX” it will come after both of the other folders even though 41 is less than 327 or 3458 because the sim thinks the number “4” in that registration comes after a reg starting with a “3”. So, these folders are not sorted numerically/properly in the list. Nothing you can do about that either. It’s a PITA creating screenshots for these as the folders are ordered in Windows Explorer correctly, but not in the sim.
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As far as screenshots go, You can set your camera using they keyboard to manually enter values in the camera editor for Pitch, height, FOV, etc… There are also shortcuts listed in the SDK to pan it to where you want if you choose to do it that way. Once I get my cameras set for a plane, I export it as an XML file using the editor so I can use it again.
Also, it is NOT possible for a third-party thumbnail to overwrite the default thumbnail for an aircraft. They reside in two totally different folder paths. What you are seeing there is the last aircraft selected of that type being displayed. That’s a sim thing. It is resolved by creating thumbnails for add-on skins as well as the default aircraft so they match at angle, FOV, etc. See my screens below. Lots of work and utilities involved. Certainly not as user friendly as one would hope.
I have been working for months doing screens for my entire collection. It’s almost done. I’d be happy to share my XML files so you can load them in the camera tool and get all your thumbnails looking good. It will require effort on your part though as once I went down that path, I had to rename all my aircraft folders and then I wrote some scripts to generate a new aircraft.cfg file as well as configuring the other cfg files for the aircraft. I had to do this, I must have 10,000 skins. editing them manually is not an option!
When I download a skin, I rename the folder to something like “Skin-JF PA28R Turbo III_Private (N435GX).” My scripts parse the folder title and contains all other information to write everything that is needed for the aircraft.cfg file. This does several things. It guarantees that the ATC calls to the aircraft are correct based on registration number and aircraft type as well as all other things that should be present in the “aircraft.cfg” file. It orders the skins properly in the menus, and it allows for easy finding of what you want to fly. This is the only way to achieve consistency in everything related to a repaint for an aircraft. It’s actually awesome.
Here’s what my menus looks like. I even do thumbnails for the default skins so they all match.
A sample of the default aircraft Inventory screen.
And a sample of third-party liveries once you drill down into the liveries for an aircraft.
This is legendary work!!!
My understanding was they the Plane Thumbnail.jpg were “required” to be of the full plane, on a white background, (with a faint ground shadow), and no additional text, or logos ?
At least, this is I was told was the requirement for Planes sold on the MarketPlace.
Personally, I would like to see the Developer’s name or Company Logo + name , display in a non-imposing way, on the thumbnail, so one know whose Plane one is looking at.
Becoming increasing needed when more than one developer makes the same plane.