Redbarronboy,
The following was written for me by ndicki himself, a master skinner who knows how to properly make stand-alones.
I do not think he would mind if I shared it with you now, so please copy this text to somewhere safe.
"Stand-alones from stock or added models:
Create a new folder in CFS3/aircraft. Give it an easily recognisable name, such as
P-51D_Tangerine.
Copy the contents of your P-51D folder into it. Delete all .dds files except the ones you
wish to change. That means that for a normal stand-alone, you delete all but the _t.dds,
_r.dds and _s.dds. Some aircraft have an r, some an s, some both. All have a t, as this is
the main texture file.
You will have the model, XXXX.m3d and its cockpit file(s), XXXX_cockpit0.m3d.
Rename XXXX.m3d to a new, unused name: XXXX_Tangerine.m3d, for example.
It is essential that the new model name, here XXXX_Tangerine, is identical to the first
part of the new _cockpit0.m3d file name. So rename XXXX_cockpit0.m3d to
XXXX_Tangerine_cockpit0.m3d. There may be several cockpit files, cockpit0.m3d,
cockpit1.m3d, cockpit2.m3d, etc. They must all be renamed to the new model name, but the
ending, _cockpitX.m3d, must not be changed. The order, 0, 1, 2, etc must remain intact.
You will find XXXX.air. This needs to be renamed to the same name as the model, so XXXX.air
becomes XXXX_Tangerine.air.
Do the same to the xdp file. Delete the bdp file. You will now have an xdp file named
XXXX_Tangerine.xdp.
Open the xdp file with windows notepad. Do not use any other editor – set notepad as
default for xdp and xml files.
You will see these lines:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<UnitData>
<General Allegience="0" LongName="P-51D" ShortName="P-51D" ModelName="P-51D.m3d"
BlastDamageScale="1.0" ImpactDamageScale="1.0" FireDamageScale="1.0" Priority="1"
Type="moving" EnteredService="05/01/1944" LeftService="12/1/1957" BlastDamageMod="1"
ImpactDamageMod="1" FireDamageMod="1" Category="fighter_bomber" Country="usa"
AllowSpawn="y" InfoURL="help\topics\infop51.htm" ChecklistURL="help\topics\infop51.htm">
</General>
<GunStations>
You need to change the long and short names and the model name.
Fill in P-51D Tangerine (or whatever) as long name and short name – I usually use the long
name, which is not really used by the sim, to contain some other info – pilot’s name, unit,
date, etc. Avoid funny characters, such as . or / or > because the sim won’t like it, keep
to letters and commas.
The model name must be changed to reflect the new m3d name, so here, XXXX_Tangerine.m3d.
Save and close.
Now open the aircraft.cfg file with notepad. At the top, you will find the following lines:
[fltsim.0]
title=North American P-51D
sim=P_51D
model=P_51d
Some aircraft have further lines as in CFS2/FS, but these are not used, so disregard them.
You need to change only the sim= and model= lines, to reflect the new name.
After modification, it should read:
[fltsim.0]
title=North American P-51D
sim= XXXX_Tangerine
model= XXXX_Tangerine
Save and close.
If you wish simply to add an aircraft with different flight dynamics, but without changing
the appearance of the aircraft, you have now finished. Go and fly it! It should be fine,
but if it is not, then come back out of CFS and check if a new *.bdp file has been
generated. If it has not, then you will have made an error while modifying the xdp file. It
is easy to overwrite a part of the punctuation inadvertently. Rather than search for the
mistake, it is easier simply to repeat that part of the operation.
If you have made any other mistake, CFS will warn you when you launch the sim that this
aircraft is not available. This is generally due to misnaming of parts or an error in the
aircraft.cfg file.
To change the skin: it is ESSENTIAL that each skin have a different name; CFS will look
through the ENTIRE install for files, so the old CFS2/FS trick of putting different skins
in different folders inside the aircraft’s general folder will not work. If two *.dds files
have the same name, you will have no control over which one gets used, regardless of where
they may be in the install.
You MUST change the names of the texture files. The new names MUST have precisely the same
number of characters as the ones you are replacing.
Your P-51D_Tangerine folder contains only two texture files: p_51d_t.dds and p_51d_r.dds,
the stock files. Your new texture files have the same names, and will overwrite them. Do
that. (Unless they are mine, in which case the names have already been changed)
p_51d_t.dds has 5 characters preceding the _t.dds tag. Always keep these _r.dds, _s.dds
and_t.dds tags! Change only the other letters.
Tangs_t.dds and Tangs_r.dds look good. Same number of characters, and the _t.dds and_r.dds
tags remain in place. Change the name of the .mos file to the same name as the _t.dds file
– for Tangs_t.dds, you will use Tangs_t.mos.
You now need to open the m3d files using a hex editor. I use XV132, which can be downloaded
for free. Make this the default editor for m3d files. Ensure it is set to “text mode”
(tools tab). Use “Search” – “Find” to locate the dds files referred to. Carefully type the
new names for the dds files over the old ones. DO THIS CAREFULLY! Any slip here and it will
not run. Ensure that the names are correct, and that you have used the correct number of
spaces! Trying to fit six letters into five spaces will corrupt the file. Save and close.
Do the same thing for the cockpit m3d. It may not need changing; some model cockpits do not
refer to the external textures, so if you can’t find them, don’t worry. The P-51D cockpit
actually refers to the P-51B textures – so just leave it.
Do the same to the mos file; here, you will change only the reference to the _t.dds file;
the other external texture files are not referred to.
And that is that. Finished. Go and fly!
If it won’t run at all, either you have made a mistake renaming things – see above – or the
model file is corrupted by the wrong use of the editor, usually a mistake entering the new
texture file names.
If the aircraft shows up in the game but is all white/all grey, then you have made a
mistake in the naming of texture files. Check the names referred to in the m3d files and
mos file refer to the names used for the dds files. Check the mos file is correctly named.
I cannot stress enough that EACH individual aircraft model MUST have a different model name
and sim name. If two model names are identical, putting them in different folders will
change nothing – you will have a conflict, and they will not be available – or you will
CTD.
Also if two texture file names are identical, CFS3 will use one or the other indiscriminately. You will not be able to control this at all.
Good luck!"
I would like to add that is is much better to use the Search menu in the HEXEditor. It will help immensely, and you won't miss instances of the file names in the *.m3d and _t.mos files.
:d
