A question about reducing the number of paints per aircraft.

[ejoiner]

I, like most of SOH members, have a lot of aircraft in my FSX-O, FSX-S, and P3D inventories. Generally, I may only use 2 or 3 of the many possible paints for most of them.

This question has probably been answered before, but I've not really understood how to proceed.

With so many paints for most models, how can I delete the ones I KNOW I will never select? I don't see a reason to back them up, or store on a different drive, etc..., when they are simply not needed (by me, anyway).

Keeping in mind you are dealing with an old Chief, and kindly explain how to do this? Thanks! NC

Really all you have to do is remove the entry from the aircraft.cfg and renumber the remaining entries in sequence. Then up to you as to whether you leave the texture file for a rainy day, or just delete it to free space. I have to do this periodically myself. I really only need a handful of A-4 and A-7 skins but I probably have 25 of the suckers. So much good work!

 

[DaveB]

An easier way to 'not see' paints you don't want is to add 'n after the panel in the aircraft.cfg.. eg panel=n. If a paint has a defined panel (eg panel=1.. just change it to panel=n //1.. it will read the n and nothing after the // but you'll still know which panel the paint used. If you want to use the paint again.. just remove the n Works for me.

ATB
DaveB

 

[Naismith]

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Can I just point out that it is often necessary, especially if you are running FSX (or the variants) whilst editing out the repaints, to go into

C:\Users\yourname\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX\SimObjects

and delete the entry for the a/c you are editing otherwise this can cause issues within the sim. i.e. it is looking for a texture within that file and cannot find the entry which results in a blank texture or sometimes even freezes up the sim.

That directory is hidden normally and you will have to unhide it.

You cannot do any damage to the sim in deleting entries here as it is rebuilt every time the select aircraft screen is clicked upon. In fact you may well ind aircraft you have deleted previously still have basic entries lurking here clogging up resources.

 

[Lane Street]

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Can I just point out that it is often necessary, especially if you are running FSX (or the variants) whilst editing out the repaints, to go into

C:\Users\yourname\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX\SimObjects

and delete the entry for the a/c you are editing otherwise this can cause issues within the sim. i.e. it is looking for a texture within that file and cannot find the entry which results in a blank texture or sometimes even freezes up the sim.

That directory is hidden normally and you will have to unhide it.

You cannot do any damage to the sim in deleting entries here as it is rebuilt every time the select aircraft screen is clicked upon. In fact you may well ind aircraft you have deleted previously still have basic entries lurking here clogging up resources.

The only info stored in those folders is the engine run time and any changes you have made to the reg number in the plane selection GUI.

No harm in deleting them except all of your Hobbs meters will be reset to 0.

Those folders have nothing to do with texture usage and are irrelevant to this conversation.

cheers,
Lane

 

[Naismith]

The only info stored in those folders is the engine run time and any changes you have made to the reg number in the plane selection GUI.

No harm in deleting them except all of your Hobbs meters will be reset to 0.

Those folders have nothing to do with texture usage and are irrelevant to this conversation.

cheers,
Lane

Entirely relevant, take some textures out of an aircraft you have flown with the texture. Then remove the texture and try reflying any aircraft of that same type but of another texture. You will find it all messed up.

 

[Lane Street]

Entirely relevant, take some textures out of an aircraft you have flown with the texture. Then remove the texture and try reflying any aircraft of that same type but of another texture. You will find it all messed up.

Not because of anything in the C:\Users\yourname\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX\SimObjects folder.

I have added and deleted hundreds of textures over the years and never had a problem caused by the state.cfg files in those folders.

If you had a problem, you did something else wrong.

cheers,
Lane

 

[Obie311]

I tend not to delete textures (which mount up on HD space I admit). However, like others I usually narrow down to 1-3 paints I like best and keep active. The trick I learned here - even easier than having to renumber the air.cfg - is simply to add a "minus" sign next to the panel entry on the paints you want to disapply, i.e., panel=-, or panel.2-. This removes all these extra paints from the boot up of FSX and keeps your aircraft main menu nice and short.

Hmm... interesting. I've not tried this method. Does commenting out (//) the texture remove said aircraft from FSX boot up as well?

 

[expat]

Hmm... interesting. I've not tried this method. Does commenting out (//) the texture remove said aircraft from FSX boot up as well?

Yes, but don't comment out (//) - could cause error messages - but simply add "-" or "n" or "anything" after each panel= " " and this will exclude it from boot up and your in game aircraft menu, i.e, it should I think be the same as taking the entire aircraft folder out of your simobjects/airplane folder.

 

[Pepere]

I tend not to delete textures (which mount up on HD space I admit). However, like others I usually narrow down to 1-3 paints I like best and keep active. The trick I learned here - even easier than having to renumber the air.cfg - is simply to add a "minus" sign next to the panel entry on the paints you want to disapply, i.e., panel=-, or panel.2-. This removes all these extra paints from the boot up of FSX and keeps your aircraft main menu nice and short.

I do almost the same thing only I use "Off" i.e. panel=Off Makes it easier to see. And, after checking, you can delete the texture file if you want and you don't have to edit the air.cfg numbering. Also, I think, lets FSX use it for AI if you leave the texture file.

David

 

[DaveB]

Putting n after each panel= entry is all you have to do. Those paints will not show in 'Select Aircraft' but will still be available for use as AI. You don't need to delete anything.

ATB
DaveB

 

[Lane Street]

FWIW, any [fltsim.nn] section in any aircraft.cfg that points to a nonexistent folder will be treated by FSX as AI and will not show up in the plane selection window.

It doesn't matter what you put in the panel= line as long as there isn't a panel folder with that name in that airplane's folder.

Also, panel=//whatever is the same thing as panel=

FSX ignores everything after //, so that will not work in an airplane folder that has a folder named panel in it.

cheers,
Lane

 

[DaveB]

Before this gets too complicated.. my mention early of using // was if a model had multiple panels.. eg panel=1, panel=, panel=2 e t c. Rather than just adding =n.. it's easier to name such entries as panel=n //1.. panel=n //2 e t c so if you want to go back to them at some point and can't remember which panel it had.. just delete the n // and Bob's your uncle. If a paint/model combination doesn't have a unique panel id.. then n will do.

There really isn't any need to over complicate what should be an easy task

ATB
DaveB

 

[falcon409]

. . . . .There really isn't any need to over complicate what should be an easy task
ATB
DaveB

I agree and since his original question was "how do I get rid of repaints "I KNOW" I'll never select. . .the easiest is to simply delete them. All these others are fine if you intend to maybe go back to a few later, but he wants to be rid of them, gain a bit of extra HHD space and so, once again. . .simply delete them.

 

[DaveB]

You're right Falcon and I apologise for missing that important point I'm not sure how many of us actually get 'short' of HD space these days but should I ever reach critical mass.. an instant saving would be to delete the unwanted paints

ATB
DaveB

 

[falcon409]

You're right Falcon and I apologise for missing that important point I'm not sure how many of us actually get 'short' of HD space these days but should I ever reach critical mass.. an instant saving would be to delete the unwanted paints
ATB
DaveB

No apology necessary, I think it's a throwback to when HDD space was at a premium and deleting old files and defraging was even more of a necessity than it is now. I have three HDD's and well over a TB of free space combined and yet I still dump every livery I'll never use from any aircraft I purchase then defrag and optimize at the end of every week. When I used to fly Military almost exclusively, I would pick one loadout and one or two liveries and dump the other10 or so that would come with an airplane plus the models associated with those loadouts/liveries. Until TacPac came along most loadouts were nothing more than eye-candy that only I was ever going to see and I really didn't care much what was hanging under the wings and I only flew US assigned aircraft so all foreign AF liveries were gone as well. . .I was just interested in flying that Jet. Anyway I just got into the habit of deleting all the irrelevant "eye-candy" and keeping the HDD's "junk free", lol