Repaint with Dynamic Registration

[pixelninja 0]

Does anyone know of a way or if it's even possible to have FSX draw the registration on the aircraft? I want to have a fleet of aircraft with the same paint job but showing different registries based on what is entered in FSX. Thanks for any help you can provide.

[ddavid 149]

Different aircraft.cfg entries and individual textures for each variant, I think.

Cheers - Dai.

[jankees 917]

some models automatically show the registration in the cockpit, and I believe the Goose does it on the tail, so I guess it is possible, but how? No idea...

[rosariomanzo 545]

You can do it for sure with default aircrafts and some payware models, such as Ant's Tecnam Sierra.

This way, you should be able to repaint once, then make as many entries as you need in the aircraft.cfg, pointing at the same texture folder and with a different tail number ("ATC_ID=", I guess).

[ddavid 149]

What's puzzling me is how you get the mdl to recognise a change in ATC I.D. and install a change in texture. Each aircraft variant will need a separate texture folder and, even if they look the same, there will, I think, need to be a specific texture (within the texture folder) which details the relevant number(s).

Mind you, if it works for Ant, then it should work for you!

Cheers - Dai.

[rosariomanzo 545]

Maybe I'm wrong, but several entries in the aircraft.cfg may point to the same texture folder.

So, assumed you have, as an example a texture folder named "texture.Example", you may have:

[fltsim.0]

title=Cessna I-AAAA

...

texture=Example

ATC_ID=I-AAAA

...

and

[fltsim.1]

title=Cessna I-AAAB

...

texture=Example //same texture folder

ATC_ID=I-AAAB

...

Did not try it myself, but I guess it should work. Of course, it only applies to the aircraft types which allow the tail number edit.

[pixelninja 0]

Finished the actual repaint on the weekend so I'll be playing with this over the coming weeks. Hopefully I figure something out and can report back. Thanks for the insights.

[pixelninja 0]

Looks like this is only possible if it was designed into the aircraft model. Haven't been able to find a way to adjust this so I either have to not put it on the paint job or have a repaint for every single aircraft. Could make my aircraft selection ugly pretty fast.

[ddavid 149]

O.K. - a couple of points:

1. Most of the default FSX aircraft (and some free/pay-ware) models have tail numbers that are dynamic because the FSX engine adds them to the fuselage. You know that you can stop this number appearing by specifying blanks in the menu screen when you select the (appropriate) aircraft. FSX will even change the colour of this number depending on time of day. In FS9, I think, you could change the colour in the aircraft.cfg file.

2. FSX has a panel gauge - "n_number_plaque!" - which will display the aircraft's ATC number on both (?) 2-D and VC panels. Have a look in the panel.cfg files for most of the default FSX aircraft and you'll find reference to this gauge. As it is a gauge, the ATC number is dynamic - and, as such, does not interfere with the textures associated with the panel.

3. I don't think that you can use gauges outside the cockpit (2-D panel or VC), so I'm fairly sure that this dynamic "trick" isn't available to the aircraft's external mdl.

But, you never know - I could be wrong (Do bears ...? - Ed)

Cheers - Dai.