Making FS9 Look Great For Free Version 2

[Daube]

Those photorealistic trees look very good indeed, they are a quite famous addon for FS9.
But in my opinion, nothing comes close to the visual impact of TreeGen. TreeGen will change your perception of distance in the sim, that doesn't happen with any other texture addon.

 

[teson1]

Thanks! ... and got some screenshots?

Hi Obio,
thanks for the guide. Interesting collection, and an easy to follow guide for improving optics of the sim.

Question: Would you have some screenshots that display how your sim looks like?

I believe there is no question as to the benefits of detailed mesh.
However, I am asking myself whether I could benefit from some of the free texture add-ons.

Ideally shots focussing on one feature at a time, e.g. showing a region with cliffs, then different woods, grass, ec
Mega-ideally comparing with default FS9, but that's probably too much to ask for...

Alternatively (or in addition) you could also link to some of your previous representative shots in the forum to get an idea how your sim looks like. (did a search, but didn't come up with too many).

My issue/reason for asking:
I have a sim pretty beefed up with payware (that I found some of these in a bargain bin when starting with fs was a happy coincidence, but I disgress :d).

Texture add-ons:
Ground Environment (non-Pro) - Ground
REX 2004 - Clouds, sky, airport, water
(+ Treegen)

(+ non-texture add-ons:
FSGlobal 2005 mesh + more detailed local freeware meshes; UT Europe, USA, Canada; Myworld 2005 landclass +several local freeware landclass; AS6.5)

I wonder whether I would benefit from any of the additional files, thus the reason for asking for some shots.

Thanks! And good work!

Gunter

 

[OBIO]

I can't give you any screen shots of stock FS9....don't have a stock install. But I can take screen shots showing various aspects covered in the guide, such as the cliffs, clouds, runways and taxiways, grass air strips, and the like. Give me a while to get the necessary screen shots set up and taken....luckily I have nothing to do today but laundry and the machines do 99% of the work involved in that.

OBIO

 

[Terry]

OBIO,

Question about the freeware mesh you listed. I bought FSGenesis World Wide a couple years ago and it puts most of the airports on plateaus. Does this happen with the freeware mesh?

 

[teson1]

I can't give you any screen shots of stock FS9....don't have a stock install. But I can take screen shots showing various aspects covered in the guide, such as the cliffs, clouds, runways and taxiways, grass air strips, and the like. Give me a while to get the necessary screen shots set up and taken....luckily I have nothing to do today but laundry and the machines do 99% of the work involved in that.

OBIO

Vivat Oblio!

Thanks for taking up the task.
Waiting for the shots.
And I bet flying will be much more interesting than looking at the laundry machine... :isadizzy:

Gunter

> I can't give you any screen shots of stock FS9....don't have a stock install.
Thought so, and as I have a beefed up sim already would just have been for general interest.

 

[Trans_23]

OBIO,

Question about the freeware mesh you listed. I bought FSGenesis World Wide a couple years ago and it puts most of the airports on plateaus. Does this happen with the freeware mesh?

I have FS Global 2008 and it will do the same thing. It will also put some airports in holes or valleys. I think what the meshes do is correct the default FS landscape elevations but don't move airport elevations. In FS9 there is an anomaly in that puts the airport Korce Northwest (LAKO) in a big hole. It is a favorite destination for our online sessions over at Transload. With FS Global activated for that region the hole is twice as deep as default. I still made it in and out OK with a Saab 340. Fun stuff.

 

[Meshman]

OBIO,

Question about the freeware mesh you listed. I bought FSGenesis World Wide a couple years ago and it puts most of the airports on plateaus. Does this happen with the freeware mesh?

I'm not OBIO, but I stayed at a Holiday Inn a few years back...

Short answer = most every add on mesh will expose the bad terrain data surrounding default airports.

Long answer = when MS makes their mesh they eliminate the mesh surrounding the airports and fill the buffer area with artificial data to smooth the area. This artificial data extends about 1km out from the airport flatten. Adding more accurate data up to the airport flatten exposes the plateaus, sink holes, etc. So unless steps are taken to adjust things, adding mesh creates problems.

It's been guesstimated that 75% of the airports in FSX or FS9 have problems, either in location or elevation. I'm trying to formulate a programmatic solution to this, but I aint that smart about it yet...

 

[Terry]

I'm not OBIO, but I stayed at a Holiday Inn a few years back...

...

Love it, good one!

I think they are correcting the problem on the new releases but I can't afford to buy it twice.

 

[Cees Donker]

Such inspiring people here: Tom with the gem-thread and Obio doing this kinda stuff. I love it! Rami is another one I deeply respect. That guy has done a lot for cfs2. As has Obio.....




Cees

 

[wombat666]

Thanks Obio! I will look through your assements and give them a try. As far as wordy I don't think you can beat me in that department. LOL!

I am forever looking for some dark inland water textures that mimick the real thing. I've yet to find such textures.

I tried my own hand at making a dark texture which is basicly one texture that has been renamed to replace all of the 001b2wa1 through 060b2wa1 textures with. The color of the single texture is right looking at the texture itself but it does not look the same after installing the repititioned texture files. It looks it's best in dawn and dusk time of day but as the daylight advances it begins showing up at progressively lighter shades of sky blue as the daylight progresses.

Thanks for putting together and sharing your collected choice files Obio. :salute:

If anyone knows where I can get some day-long sustaining inland water textures I would like to get them into my FS9. A nice very dark brownish mono-color would be nice. Like real tanin water. FSX seems to have it incorporated in that platform. Wish it were made available for FS9.

I am highly impressed with the water textures that are included in the FS9 VOZ scenery package, big download for water textures I know but the murky inland water merging into the bays and oceans are (to my eye) right on the mark.
:ernae:

 

[norab]

Here is a screen shot just off Hawaii with all three of the water downloads I mentioned and set at tropical waters and heavy breeze waves. What the picture doen't show is that the surface of the water appears to be in constant motion
View attachment 21372

 

[vonstroheim]

Full Throttle Simulations Xtra Water (Hector Davila / freeware)

Anybody ever tried this?
"Full Throttle Simulations Xtra Water by Hector Davila"
Still available in simviation and similar places.
Easy to install, and a huge improvement for FS9 sea and inland water as well.
Now I'm looking for something similar in FSX. But do I need one? The default FSX inland water is way too blue, same with harbours and deep bay area...

 

[Motormouse]

Thanks Obio! I will look through your assements and give them a try. As far as wordy I don't think you can beat me in that department. LOL!

I am forever looking for some dark inland water textures that mimick the real thing. I've yet to find such textures.


If anyone knows where I can get some day-long sustaining inland water textures I would like to get them into my FS9. A nice very dark brownish mono-color would be nice. Like real tanin water. FSX seems to have it incorporated in that platform. Wish it were made available for FS9.

-----> http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004scen&DLID=46606


ttfn

Pete

 

[Daube]

Anybody ever tried this?
"Full Throttle Simulations Xtra Water by Hector Davila"
Still available in simviation and similar places.
Easy to install, and a huge improvement for FS9 sea and inland water as well.
Now I'm looking for something similar in FSX. But do I need one? The default FSX inland water is way too blue, same with harbours and deep bay area...

For FSX, the very first thing to do is to adjust the water reflections with FSWC (freeware). By playing with those parameters, you can get a very nice rendering which compensates the poor quality of the default water textures.

If this is not enough, then you might have to gor for addons like REX. I don't know if there's anything freeware for the FSX water, I never looked into that...

In the screeshots below, you can see what I could get with the default water and FSWC, including an alternative wave animation that can be downloaded from the FSWC website.
On the first, the water of the lakes gets really dark in the evening with bad weather condition, that looks much more realistic than the default blue-ish color:
On the second one, it's more in the early morning, somewhere in the northern seas.

Now for FS9, I remember that my favorite package was called morewatr.zip. I was using it together with another package nammed "inland water textures", that was providing a much more pleasant color to the lakes and rivers. Morewatr was bringing some new and beautiful water textures for the seas and oceans, as well as new waves and water reflections that I liked a lot. I can however remember that there was another package with better waves, I don't know the name, though...

 

[phantomx1]

Thanks Pete. I just installed these textures and are very impressed with them although they look more of a mud color.

His textures keep the rich color on up into the day which is what I was looking for.

I have tried my hand at creating a, what I thought to be a proper lake texture, but unsure of how to create a texture format that FS9 will use, I simply painted over a default texture. I think that may be why my altered texture turns bluer as the day wears on and may be picking up the color layer underneath the paint I put on it.

Not putting down the "Murky Water", but it does look like the heavy rains had come and washed mud out of the hills down into the rivers and lakes. They look very nice in dawn and dusk. I like the fact that the Murky Waters keep their rich deep color on up into the day.

What do I need to create a fresh texture that FS9 recognizes? Will MS Paint produce one or does it have to be a special paint program? I'd like to try my hand at making one using the color I think looks more of a real life color of lakes and rivers.

 

[phantomx1]

For FSX, the very first thing to do is to adjust the water reflections with FSWC (freeware). By playing with those parameters, you can get a very nice rendering which compensates the poor quality of the default water textures.

If this is not enough, then you might have to gor for addons like REX. I don't know if there's anything freeware for the FSX water, I never looked into that...

In the screeshots below, you can see what I could get with the default water and FSWC, including an alternative wave animation that can be downloaded from the FSWC website.
On the first, the water of the lakes gets really dark in the evening with bad weather condition, that looks much more realistic than the default blue-ish color:
On the second one, it's more in the early morning, somewhere in the northern seas.

Now for FS9, I remember that my favorite package was called morewatr.zip. I was using it together with another package nammed "inland water textures", that was providing a much more pleasant color to the lakes and rivers. Morewatr was bringing some new and beautiful water textures for the seas and oceans, as well as new waves and water reflections that I liked a lot. I can however remember that there was another package with better waves, I don't know the name, though...

I like the color tones of the water in those two pictures Daube. Are they for FS9 or FSX and/or where to get them?

 

[Daube]

What you see in my screenshots is FSX.
The waves can be downloaded, as I said, from the FS Water Configurator website.
http://www.strikingsoftware.com/fswc.shtml
http://www.strikingsoftware.com/downloads.shtml#dlfswc

For FS9 I suppose you'll find all the packs on avsim.

Found back some old screenshots from my FS9. Here is how the clear water around Hawai was looking like with the morewatr pack.

At dawn:

During day:

 

[phantomx1]

That water is excellent Daube. Wish someone could come up with something similar to it for FS9.

 

[Willy]

I missed the bit about the trees the first time I read this. Downloading them now. Anything to get rid of those Mexican Jumping Redwoods that lay in waiting for me at the end of the runways.

 

[OBIO]

Nice one Tim ! here's some more textures, I Use Trees V3 which I think are very realistic.

http://sites.google.com/site/aimecreations/ALCreations

I tried the Tree V3 a while back...and they bogged my system down something terrible. Feng's Tree Gen not only improved the look and size of the auto gen trees, that package actually increased frame rates on my system.

OBIO