Ok, so in all of the posts above I did not see exactly WHAT to do to get my 2020 liveries into 2024. I know about Flak99’s converter, (bought him a coffee! Saved me a lot of work on an airport texture thank you sir!), but is the procedure to simply convert any 2020 texture folder contents into KTX2 and json files then update the layout.json file? Is it that “simple” or what other steps need to be done? Do I still need to follow the original post above and modify my aircraft.cfg file?
It depends on the aircraft. There are three scenarios:
The aircraft is a 2020 aircraft using DDS textures. In this case your liveries should not be converted. They’ll work - albeit with various issues inherent to any 2020 liveries in 2024. One IMPORTANT thing to do is update layout.json in old liveries, since 2024 is much more stringent on requiring accurate file sizes in layout.json whereas 2020 didn’t care about the file sizes providing the file names were correct. Examples of aircraft in this category are FSW Learjet 35, Black Square Duke, FlyingIron Spitfire, IFE Tornado… basically anything that was available in 2020 and the dev has declared as “compatible” with 2024.
The aircraft developer did a conversion from 2020 to 2024 native, but retains the old non-modular sim object structure. You will need to make a new copy of your livery specifically for the 2024 version but broadly speaking it’s the same structure, I suggest appending -2024 to the various file and folder names (where applicable) to avoid any conflict - although ensure the livery texture names are whatever the aircraft expects. Then convert your images to KTX2, then update layout.json. Examples of this are: CAS J3 Cub, Just Flight Vulcan, Miltech CH47D
The aircraft developer has done a full rebuild using all the new 2024 features. This isn’t a simple conversion and I suspect any livery artwork you may have from the 2020 aircraft will be completely useless, since the model will have been split into smaller modules. This is a start over on the livery! Someone may correct me here but I’m not sure if any aircraft fall into this category yet. There are some native 3rd party aircraft (e.g. A350) but they didn’t exist in 2020 format. These will presumably start trickling through over the coming months, for example I know FlyingIron are making good progress on a full rebuild of their Spitfire for 2024; but this should be treated as a new model regarding liveries.
Well, I’m getting absolutely nowhere with this! I’m fully capable of modifying and editing anything that needs to be tweaked to make it work, and have followed the directions above, but no joy so far! I’m primarily attempting to do the C-172 to start with. I have a livery that I made (several in fact) that work wonderfully in 2020, but 2024 does not even list or show them.
I edited the aircraft.cfg as in the original post, (skipped the registration number stuff for now), no joy. All of my files are DDS. All of my textures are in the correct Community folder. I even used FLAK’s bat file to convert one of them (even though the DDS files do not need to be converted as explained above), just to see if I can make it work, still no joy. Layout.json file has been updated.
I’m also not sure what to expect! When / if I get my liveries to work, will they be displayed as a separate aircraft, or listed in with all of the other liveries?
Not sure what is preventing my liveries from displaying.
I’m not beyond sharing one of my liveries so it can be evaluated, but several are on flightsim.to and can be downloaded directly. N596FA, or AOPA sweepstakes.
I guess the other Queston I have is there are 3 scenarios of possibilities. How do you know which scenario applies to ANY aircraft you are trying to make or repurpose a livery for?
The Cessna 172 in MSFS 2024 is a modular native aircraft, meaning category 3, meaning unfortunately your old livery artwork is not applicable to the new aircraft. My suggestion here is to take a look at a livery from another livery artist for the same aircraft, such as this one from Crispy136. Review the folder structure, filenames and textures of that livery and it might give you some pointers.
You mention you are not sure what to expect - well unfortunately in this case you can expect to start the livery artwork from scratch and will need to get to grips with modular 2024 aircraft (not something I’ve attempted yet either!). Sorry this probably isn’t what you wanted to hear, but might save you wasting any more time trying to convert this livery, which is absolutely not going to work.
My script will help you generate the KTX2 files, but before you even start on that you’ll need to create the new images in whatever 2D / 3D painting tools you use.
And regarding this:
That’s a good question. If the aircraft is installed in your community folder then it is fairly easy to to browse and check the structure of the aircraft and its liveries.
If you find DDS files it’s category 1
If you find KTX2 files and a familiar 2020 folder structure then it’s category 2
If you find KTX2 files and an unfamiliar 2024 folder structure then it’s category 3
If it’s a stock Asobo aircraft or installed from the Marketplace it’s not that easy to investigate, and you’d need to poke around in the VFS to look at the structure of the aircraft; an easier method would be to hope at least one livery artist has published a livery already, then you can take a look at the structure of their livery to understand which of those 3 categories it is.
Thank you for the link, and the reply. I had considered fetching one and duplicating it with my data.
What to expect, not exactly what I meant. I was referring to how it displays in MSFS 2024. Wasn’t sure if it was it’s own aircraft, or in the liveries section
Again, about the scenario questions, not exactly what I meant. If you had NO community folder and was just starting out, how would you know which scenario the aircraft in question pertained to? I was hammering away at the 172, not knowing it was in the third category. Is there a way to tell which category any airframe is in?
I had one-person download my 2020 AOPA livery and claim he uses it in 2024 but never would respond to how he (supposedly) did it.
Again, thanks for being patient with me. I will NOT be a pest on this one.
TB2
Dissecting the 172 in the link you sent, it includes the whole aircraft. Model and all. NOT just textures. Just sayin…
I (“we”) need a way to view the KXT2 files and convert them into something I (“we”) can use in Photoshop before I (“we”) can even get started.
The livery I downloaded from the link above (used to educate myself) also includes the 3d model of the aircraft, or at least parts of it anyway. (tried viewing them using ModelConverterX, but it only shows small parts). If this is the way it has to be done, and unless there is a universal model “we” can use, then using someone else’s model isn’t proper. My hats off to Crispy136 for figuring out how to do it.
My conclusion (so far) is it is way too much trouble at this stage to get involved, which is a shame. So many wonderful liveries out there, and our hands are tied (at least for now). It got involved going from texturing for FSX then learning how to go to MSFS 2020 textures, now it’s evolved into something (probably) not worth pursuing.
I’m done. Thanks all.
It is relatively easy to get your 2020 172 textures for work for any of the Bagolu 172s or MrTommymxr’s JTA version of the 172. All of which have been modified to work in 2024. Alternately they may have disabled the 2024 172 and enabled the 2020 172. One of these methods is most likely how your 2020 172 livery was used in 2024. I guarantee your 2020 172 livery was not used with the 2024 172.
As mentioned by Flak99, liveries for the 172 from 2020 will never work for the default 2024 Asobo 172. Asobo have totally changed the 3d model for the 2024 172, and most default 2024 aircraft. The 2020 172 used 3 main textures, 1 for the fuselage, 1 for the tail & landing gear and a 3rd for the wings. By contrast the 2024 172 uses 2 textures for the fuselage, 1 texture for the tail, 1 texture for the rear landing gear, 1 texture for the front landing gear and finally 2 textures for the wings. And by the standards of some 2024 aircraft, the 172 uses less textures than most.
This is not correct. My livery only includes the 3d models necessary to control the tail numbers, not all the 3d models necessary to use the aircraft. In time I’ll replace the 3d models with xml links to the source 3d models, but that is a skill I have yet to master.
Livery design for 2024 aircraft is not a task for the faint hearted. Only for those like me with way too much spare time on their hands.
Asobo made a lot of changes to default models and it is now way harder to create liveries than it was in 2020. The DA40NG is relatively easy as you only have to deal with 1 3d model. However the 172 and SAAB 340 have multiple 3d models that each use unique sets of textures.MSFS swaps between these different 3d models as you zoom in and out in the external view. So, liveries have to be painted twice, once for each 3d model. Having to repeat a process for 2 different 3d models limits the process you can use, as you have to exactly replicate the process on the 2nd 3d model. So, a quick manual touch-up can’t be used to correct a texture.
In addition, loading 2024 3d models into blender is no longer a simple task. This is because they have to be converted to a format blender will read first. Then you have separate 3d models for each of the main parts of the aircraft. You have to cobble these together to paint your livery. Although this is a one-off task, it took me up to a whole day to do this for the DA40 NG.
We have tools available to us for this. Personally I use NVIDIA Texture Tools but I think there are a few other tools that may work too.
Be aware of issues with colour space when opening up KTX2 files - I’ve found they look washed out in the NVIDIA tool and I think this is due to differences between sRGB and Linear colour spaces. I don’t know the science behind it, but you can correct it in any image editor by editing the levels. Mid-tone to 0.45 works well in Photoshop.
