Thumbnails

[Jamie20013]

How do you make thumbnails to appear for add on planes.

[mrzippy]

How do you make thumbnails to appear for add on planes.

 

It's all done with smoke and mirrors!;) Take a nice screenshot of your addon airplane whether flying or sitting on the ground. Make sure it's in a JPEG format. Label that picture thumbnail.JPEG and insert it into the texture folder of that aircraft. Done

[il88pp]

the thumbnail is an image in each texture folder of the aircraft.

it is a file called: thumbnail.jpg

to add a thumbnail,

take a screenshot of the plane,

that is a .bmp file,

open it in "Paint" or other photo editor,

save it as .jpg file, and name it thumbnail.jpg

 

then place that file in the texture folder of that paint job.

done.

 

 

If there is no thumbnail.jpg file, then FSX places a generic image in the aircraft selection list instead. A gray/brown image of a plane.

[mrzippy]

If there is no thumbnail.jpg file, then FSX places a generic image in the aircraft selection list instead. A gray/brown image of a plane.

 

Or in my case, something way more interesting!;););):eek:

 

I think it's Katy Perry!

[il88pp]

You can also do this with fsx in Windowed mode.

That way you can take a screenshot with the Windows "Snipping Tool".

Those files are saved as .jpg already, so you wont need to convert it with "Paint".

 

 

If you have many to do, there is also the tool "Autothumbnail"

It runs with fsx, Stays in the menu bar. You can use it to take a screenshot by clicking Autothumbnail in the menu bar.

The package is on Flightsim.com.

To make it work it then needs an update that is available on Avsim.com (needed to make it work on modern operating systems.)

[il88pp]

Funny.

I do use a solid pink thumbnail.jpg that I sometimes install in a plane temporarily if I have a hard time finding it in the list. But nothing that outlandish!

[mrzippy]

Funny.

I do use a solid pink thumbnail.jpg that I sometimes install in a plane temporarily if I have a hard time finding it in the list. But nothing that outlandish!

 

I just use her as a replacement for the generic Question Mark aircraft that shows up when no thumbnail is in the texture folder. She's easy to spot after installing that new aircraft.

[jandjfrench]

Hi Jamie'

I highly recommend:

autothumb.zip

and

autothumbnail_fix.zip

The option to create a new, or update an existing thumbnail will appear as a menu item.

If both the disc and steam versions are installed there's a bit of a problem that requires some manual editing to correct. This is one program I would not be without. I'd be interested in hearing anything negative from anyone who has ever used this.

Jim F.

[mabe5454]

Autothumbnail, a must.

 

+1

 

Cheers,

[napamule2]

With IRFANVIEW program (it's FREE) you can grab images from your Sim, your Digital Camera, the Internet, etc. It has a small footprint. It can be simple or you can use to watch videos, and edit all kinds of formats (plug-in required = also free). Try it.

 

You pause sim. Get a view of aircraft you like. Press 'PrintScreen' key (or 'Function' (FN) + 'PrnScr' (or 'Home') key) to place a 'screenshot' to the Windows Clipboard. Open IrFanview and hit 'Paste' Icon. You then go to 'Image' then 'Resize/Resample' and click 'Save Aspect Ratio'. Then choose size. For Thumbnails it's '345 x ???'. Then go 'File', then 'Save As' and browse to texture folder (careful as it will overwrite whatever is there). Done. Thank me later.

 

IrFanview comes in handy for editing your digital camera pics that you saved to your PC. Got a pic that is too dark? Easy to fix. Go 'Image' and 'Color Correction' and move the 'brightness' slider until the 'Preview' pic looks right. Done. Priceless.

Chuck B

Napamule

[napamule2]

Katy Perry? Here is a pic of her real 'face'. Use it as a thumbnail?

Chuck B

Napamule

[mrzippy]

Katy Perry? Here is a pic of her real 'face'. Use it as a thumbnail?

Chuck B

Napamule

 

Thanks, Mine is MUCH better! ;)

[millsgf]

One word of advice that is not FS related. If you use any utility program that searches for and deletes duplicate files, make sure you exclude (if the program allows) "thumbnail.jpg" (or .jpeg, .bmp, .gif) so you don't delete all of your thumbnail images. If the program doesn't allow for exclusions, just deselect them all.

[il88pp]

No! That's not enough.

Don't delete duplicate filenames in the fsx folder at all. If you did, you would delete most files of all your textures!

 

For example. Every texture folder of the b737-800

texture.1

texture.2

etc

 

contains the following filenames

but those files in each folder are actually very different.

 

NEVER mass delete "duplicates"

If you need drive space... Buy a bigger drive.

[jandjfrench]

Hi,

I couldn't recall using the number 2 version of Autothumbnail the last time I installed. I definitely used the FSX update. As it turns out which it doesn't make any difference if either the original or the number 2 version is used as the .exe is replaced by the FSX version and that's the only difference between versions. In case anyone is interested here's the link where the versions can be found:

http://library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=autothumbnail&CatID=root&Go=Search

 

Jim F.

[mabe5454]

+1.

 

Cheers,

[Jamie20013]

OK thanks for all the relies I got it working thanks to all the input. Still trying to decide what picture to use but now I can stop looking at that shadow plane with the question mark.

Thanks.