Howto:Edit a livery

In this howto I will explain how to change the existing livery of a plane in FlightGear. The examples that are given are based on a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines livery for the Boeing 707.

Note: this method is not the best way any more. New planes will use the method described in the Livery over MP article.

Basic

1. Find all original texture files that are used by the plane. Most of the planes have stored their textures in the .../Models directory. The fileformat we use is .rgb. This format can't be opened by some common software like paint. So to open it in paint (or any other graphical editor without .rgb support) we first need to convert the image to another format. We will use Gimp, a free editor.
2. Open the .rgb texture file of the aircraft in Gimp and save it as .png.
3. Now we can open the texture in every editor. A simple image editor to use is Paint, which can be found on all Windows computers.
4. After you've edited the texture you save it. Now we open the saved file in Gimp and save it again, but now as .rgb.
5. Replace the texture(s) to the aircraft's .../Models/ directory.
6. Launch FlightGear and select your aircraft. If you did everything as described you should now see the plane with your livery!

A little further

You now know how to edit a livery. But we want to have multiple planes that we could choose in FlightGear, so we won't need to change the texture files everytime we want to "play" with another skin. That's why we need to make some extra files.

1. Copy the 707-set.xml file from your plane and rename it to 707-KLM.xml.
2. Open the 707-KLM-set.xml file with a text editor like Notepad (you'd better use a real .xml editor) and change the following things:
   • <description>Boeing 707</description> to <description>Boeing 707 KLM</description>
   • <model><path>Aircraft/707/Models/707.xml</path></model> to <model><path>Aircraft/707/Models/707-KLM.xml</path></model>
3. Copy the 707.xml file from your plane's 707/Models directory and rename it to 707-KLM.xml.
4. Save the new .rgb texture in a directory like Models/Textures/KLM/.
5. Open the 707-KLM.xml file with a text editor and add the following line, just below the <model> tags: <texture-path>Textures/KLM/</texture-path>

Now you're done and you could launch FlightGear. If you did everything as described you will see your plane now below the original plane in the FlightGear Wizard.

Sharing your liveries

Ofcourse you want other people to use and enjoy your liveries as much as you do. Therefor, other users should be able to download them.

We have some FlightGear hosts, where you can upload your liveries to:

• FlightGear Liveries largest FG repository with (almost) all available liveries, based on real aircraft.
• UnitedFreeWorld repository with lots of liveries (and scenery/aircraft), both realistic and fictional.

A Note to Those who wish to make a Livery

If you are planning to make a Livery, and your Livery is likely to be edited by other Users, Then consider making a Paintkit in addition to your Livery. A paintkit is where you create a blank Livery which shows only constructional elements like bolts, rivets, windows, doors, panels and things like those. This is done so any other users looking to create their own Livery can Make a realistic looking Livery with these construction Elements without having to redraw them or trying to avoid painting over them, and makes the process of creating a Livery a more fun and less stressful Task.

Here is an example of a Paintkit for the Bombardier CRJ-700 from Flight Sim 10: [1]

Related content

• Livery over MP you need to use this method if you want to get your liveries included in FlightGear CVS.