A-10 wrote on Jun 2^nd, 2010 at 12:52pm:


No, *adding* a new texture is not repainting, and usually, you do not replace the default texture, unless someone comes up with a repaint of the default texture that is better in some way.  Normally, you paste the new texture folder into the aircraft's folder, and then edit the aircraft.cfg file so the sim can see it.  Usually, texture downloads contains a readme file that has the appropriate fltsim entry, and you simply copy and paste that into the aircraft.cfg under the previous fltsim entry.  Most texture DL's contin the instructions in the "readme" file.

Repainting involves either using a "paint kit" or making a copy of a texture and editing them using a program called DXTBmp, or Imagetool to send it to an image editor, like Photoshop of PaintShop pro, where you do the actual repainting, then you save it, refress the image in DXTBmp, and save it from there as an extended BMP or DDS (FSX native textures are DDS format)  I think someone mentioned that the latest version of DXTBmp handles DDS, but earlier versions did not.

A-10 wrote on Jun 2^nd, 2010 at 10:27pm:


If you are using Vista or Windows 7, first, make a copy on the aircraft.cfg. then past it to your desktop. 

Rename to original aircraft.cfg in your aircraft's folder.  This is important, in case the aircraft.cfg gets messed up somehow.

Edit the desktop copy with the new fltsim entry.  Don't forget to edit the [sltsim.X], where "X" is the next number in the sequence.  If the aircraft has only one texture, the entry for the new texture will be [fltsim.1] 

Close the desktop aircraft.cfg and when it asks if you want to save changes, click "yes".

Copy and paste the desktop edited aircraft.cfg file into your aircraft's folder, and you should be good to go.

This also works for Windows XP, but you usually don't have to go paste a copy to the desktop.

Once you've done this a few times, it become second nature, and you can add a new texture to any aircraft in about a minute with one eye closed while playing a banjo.

Boikat wrote on Jun 3^rd, 2010 at 5:19am:


When you really get the hang of it, you'll be able to go to the bathroom and modify the cfg at the same time.

Boikat wrote on Jun 3^rd, 2010 at 10:31pm:


That's why doing it in the bathroom means you are REALLY good . . .

(Was that Freudian?)