Unofficial Guide to Conversion of Liveries for MSFS 2024 (2020 legacy aircraft only)

[BilingualHarp7]

This guide is aimed at experienced livery creators, rather than livery users.
The guide assumes the person using it is already experienced in creating liveries for MSFS 2020, so is not a step by step guide for someone not familiar with livery creation.

Since I had acquired all this information for use with my own liveries, I thought it worth sharing.

Please let me know of any useful information you have come across while converting your liveries. Also let me know if you think I have it wrong. I was just stumbling around the dark, trying to work out a solution, so I may have got it wrong and taken the hard route instead of the easy one.

Sorry about all the screenshots, but this was developed to be released on Flightsim.to as downloadable guide. But they refused to publish it, as it was a “guide”. So Flightsim.to refused to publish a guide, that would most benefit the content they host. Screenshots were the quickest method to get it here without reformatting everything.

PURPOSE OF THE GUIDE

Aircraft Types

Link to Livery guide for 2024 native aircraft by drunkpupper25

MSFS 2024 livery makers guide

What Hasn’t Changed

How Dynamic Tail Numbers are Generated in 2024

Getting your Liveries Grouped with the Source Aircraft

What appears on the Variant tab and what appears on the Liveries tab

Hiding the Dynamic Tail Number for liveries Using a Fixed Tail Number

Link to Caribou livery for html_ui folder.
https://flightsim.to/file/67619/de-havilland-dhc4-caribou-ansett-mal

** Getting ATC to Use a Specific Tail Number**

Thumbnails

Thumbnail Locations

Converting Existing Thumbnails

Creating New 2024 Style Thumbnails

Livery Folder Structure Folder Example

Last updated 8 December

[Barnes1962]

Thank you very much for taking the time to put this guide together. It will be very useful!

[BilingualHarp7]

Guide updated 5 December with new information on aircraft types and the variants and livery tab. Link to guide for liveries for 2024 native aircraft added.

[MagentaLine]

Spiler alert - Neither of these methods work in 2024 and the dynamic tail number still appears

I’m just a livery user not a creator, so I’m not sure this is the right place to post this, but I’m having the opposite problem with tail numbers in 2024.
For the A2A Comanche (2020 plane), when I try to use a 3rd party livery (2020 livery), the tail registration is invisible.

I’ve experienced this with multiple liveries, but here’s the link to the one I’m using for this example:
https://flightsim.to/file/80618/a2a-comanche-elevate-dynamic-registration

FS2020, 3rd-party re-color livery, showing the “M-LINE” registration I typed into 2020’s settings:

Same livery in FS2024 displays no registration:

Using the base livery included with the Comanche itself, the (randomly assigned) registration appears as expected in FS2024:

I don’t know what’s gong on here, but maybe it could be used intentionally to hide the dynamic registration?

[BilingualHarp7]

That is very interesting as all current methods to hide the dynamic tail number fail in 2024. I had a quick look at the livery and the solution to control the tail number is complex and most likely specific to the Comanche. The comanche itself also has multiple layers to control the tail number, when most aircraft use just a single layer. I think this is just a complex process specific to the Comanche that worked in 2020 that doesn’t work in 2024, rather than a solution for hiding tail numbers generally. But thanks for bring this up.

[BilingualHarp7]

I have been able to get liveries to hide the dynamic tail number for all 2020 legacy aircraft in 2024. The Comanche livery with the missing tail number did provide some clues when I couldn’t get the process working for all aircraft initially. Interestingly, the Comanche livery uses a process I originally documented some time ago that allows a custom font to be used for a dynamic tail number. I’ll update the guide to add the process to hide the dynamic tail number when I get a chance.

[BilingualHarp7]

Have updated the guide to add instructions how to hide the dynamic tail number.