F-16XL Hangar and Loading Screen Pack

KingAlbert · May 24, 2008

F-16XL Hangar and Loading Screen Pack

1. Introduction

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When downloading addon aircrafts and new skins I always felt a bit dissatisfied with the hangar and loading screens supplied by their makers.

Not that they were wrong are bad, I simply don't like real-life pictures as either hangar screen or loading screen.

Furthermore, I did not like that their is no match between the aircraft skin you choose and the loading and hangar screen you get to see.

So I set out to find an easy way (within the confines of the simulation) to find a quick and easy way to get a match between the selected skin, hangar screen and loading screen.

I figured out a way, by working with standardized filenames. The only disadvantage is that you need to select the appropriate hangar screen/ loading screen manually.

But I suppose that most people fly in campaigns so it should be easy to set this up before you launch the simulation.

2. How does it work?

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First of all, you need to download yourself the addon aircraft and skins (don't worry I'll supply you with the appropriate links later on).

Secondly extract this pack to a temporary file/directory, where you will find several files in this pack:

Aircraft.ini file

TextureSetXXX_Loading.bmp

TextureSetXXX_Hangar.bmp

(with XXX being replaced by incremental numbers)

Each TextureSet file corresponds with the Textureset-entry of the same number in the aircraft ini.

Copy these files to your aircraft directory: \Wings Over Europe\Objects\Aircraft\aircraftdirectory\.

Only your aircraft.ini file will be overwritten, but that should not be a problem unless you have other skins installed then those mentionned in this readme.

If you open the aircraft.ini file, you will notice that its an exact match with the original aircraft.ini file except for a few edits in the [AircraftData]-section and with the entries for the skins already added.

The entries in the [AircraftData]-section should look like this:

// original authors settings

HangarScreen=...

LoadingScreen=...

//KingAlbert settings

//HangarScreen=TextureSetXXX_Hangar.bmp

//LoadingScreen=TextureSetXXX_Loading.bmp

Now the double /-symbol indicates to the simulation must ignore that line. So the only thing you have to do to select the hangarscreen and loadingscreen is remove the /-symbols in front of the line. Keep in mind that all other hangar and loading lines need to be preceded by a // otherwise the simulation will use the first instruction.

I kept in the original authors selection so you can easily revert back to his selection.

3. requirements

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You need a legal copy of one of the many Thirdwire Sims (WOV, WOE, WOI).

I only tested this pack in Wings over Europe, but I guess it should work fine in any of the other version.

4. Installing this pack

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1) download and install the addon aircraft.

Location: http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?autoc...p;showfile=5011

2) download and install additional skins

remember, you don't have to edit the aircraft.ini file yourself, I included a copy as part of this pack.

a) NASA F16XL test skin