Im loving life with REX FS9 and my other addons. I agree with someone who called it FS 9.75... Who needs FSX? (Not me.)One thing however that I still cant get right is water settings in REX. Im just not happy with how it looks so far. Either too blue or two bumpy or two reflective. I usually fly with water details turned completely OFF, but would like to experience what I have seen in screenshots of the beautiful water REX can show. I tried the presets and just dont love them.For say, northern hemisphere, Seattle type water, what settings are you guys using?Appreciate the advice and Happy New Year!Eric

It takes lots of patience and reinstalling textures from REX box in order to find what you like. I prefer the darker/dreary textures. Couple things impact the realism. First wave action. I turn off the wave effect (uncheck in options) and turn on environmental reflection...make sure you have REX SP1 installed. The wave action to me is distracting with undulation/pulses rather than waves, so I turn it off. You'll still see, however, within theme creation, a wave box--I just leave it at lake calm. Second, the textures themselves. I start with default ocean 1 and default inland textures then tweak from there. I actually achieved a darker texture by turning contrast up, then brightness down. I believe there is a point where you can no longer turn brightness down--when the mini palette fades completely away. It's primarily a function of contrast and brightness that has the biggest impact on color. Then, reduce plankton to achieve a slightly darker green. I don't really tweak the inland brown color. It took me nearly a day to "dial" in a set of textures which I prefer. Remember, with reflections on, you'll get a lighter color in the morning and late afternoon as sun angle is reduced. Another option is to turn off reflections completely in options...or you can try tweaking your water effects slider in FS9 config menu. I run with mine maxed to the right.A couple screen shots below. You can clearly see the difference between reflections on and off. Go to Airliners.net and take a look at some real-world pics (out the window) showing water color from various altitudes as a guide as well. I'd post my wing pics with airliner.net rw pics split screen to compare/contrast but they've got copyright :( Good LuckRich Perry

I use Zinertek's 'Ultimate Water' and throw in some REX options through their config (SP1) for 'Inland Water' and 'Tropical Water'. I leave off options for 'Waves', 'Ocean Water', and 'Water Env. Reflection'. Looks great on my end... The option just above my post seems a great combo as well. :(

Here's another shot on approach to KCVG...river to the right on ILS 27...contrast is dark blue against winter textures. Unfortunately I only have a summer pic flying over the Ohio River below. I'd like to achieve a more brownish/greenish look but haven't found the magic formula yet.Ideally, what I'd like to see, and I mentioned it to the REX boys, is a numerical scale (or any objective scale) near the theme palette colors in order to share a more precise setting with others instead of "ocean 1 tweaked a darker blue". For example, "I reduced my ocean brightness to 2.5 and increased my contrast to 3.2. etc". Rich

Cool. This thread is headed in the right direction. Regarding Zinertek water textures, I find them disproportionately large, as if the plane were flying as a miniature in a larger water environment. You used to see this in old movies where they would use a model in a water tank. The waves were disproportionately big compared to the model, hence no suspense of reality. Coloration looked good, but the wave action wasn't.

And since we are on the topic of REX... I have AS6.5. I read somewhere that I could combine the AS engine with REX. The idea is that AS would load the weather, but one could import the REX cloud textures into the AS graphics options.is this true?IEytan

And since we are on the topic of REX... I have AS6.5. I read somewhere that I could combine the AS engine with REX. The idea is that AS would load the weather, but one could import the REX cloud textures into the AS graphics options.is this true?IEytan

Yes absolutely...AS6.5 works like a charm with REX. If you're already using AS as your wx engine you don't have to do anything--REX will simply load the textures. I recommend not using AS graphics at all, in fact, I delete that option and use REX exclusively for weather textures and use AS only for weather engine. The reason I use AS6.5 weather engine is, they've got a proven product and have worked most of the bugs out versus the REX weather engine which is good, but is a work in progress. Just a reminder, a few things you should do in REX...and this is in user guide...1) after installation, go to configuration tab and click on what you want REX to do and not to do...if I recall, there's a box that asks whether you want REX weather engine...I unclick that. Make sure you save configuration settings. 2) go to Options tab...there you can click on what options you want loaded...from runway textures to cloud textures...I also use total black for night settings which creates a more realistic night sky IMO...also save options. 3) go to Theme Creation tab and build your specific texture settings (there's a screenie above on what it looks like)...I save that, then click on install--takes about 4-5minutes and you're done...no need to ever reinstall before each flight etc. Only reason to reinstall a theme is to tweak for example a sky or water texture setting.Bottom line--REX provides user maximum flexibility. One other thing I do for weather is increase my cloud density setting in FS9.cfg from the maximum default of 8 to 10. This really does increase the density of coverage but it may cost a few FPS depending on your system.Rich

Hi everybodyI bought Zinertek Ult Water Adv just after REX on recommendations on this forum, but now I'm going to ask a couple of really dumb questions (remember, there are no stupid questions, only stupid people :( ).What exactly is in the Zinertek product? Is it just textures, or reflections and effects as well? Does changing the water colour in REX affect the UW package? What has to selected or deselected in REX to get the most out of the two? I've deselected all the 5 boxes under water themes in REX's options page, but for some reason I can't get my water to look like Zinertek's web page (and FS9 is also set up right).I don't usually have a problem with addons, but the combo of these two is kinda doing my head in for some reason. Must be the Christmas / New Year hangover, I guess...Cheers, SLuggy

Hi everybodyI bought Zinertek Ult Water Adv just after REX on recommendations on this forum, but now I'm going to ask a couple of really dumb questions (remember, there are no stupid questions, only stupid people :( ).What exactly is in the Zinertek product? Is it just textures, or reflections and effects as well? Does changing the water colour in REX affect the UW package? What has to selected or deselected in REX to get the most out of the two? I've deselected all the 5 boxes under water themes in REX's options page, but for some reason I can't get my water to look like Zinertek's web page (and FS9 is also set up right).I don't usually have a problem with addons, but the combo of these two is kinda doing my head in for some reason. Must be the Christmas / New Year hangover, I guess...Cheers, SLuggy

SluggyI'll defer to someone who has UW and REX. However, I'm assuming since there is a finite number of textures (.bmp) within FS9 that REX and UW affect the same .bmps in similar ways to achieve similar effects. With Real Environment (predecessor to REX), I could identify a source folder which contained the exact .bmp files that were going to be modified when I installed RE. Given that, I could then pick and choose specific files so that I eventually ended up with a combined set of textures from RE, FSexcel, FSElemental, and Flight Environment. Now with REX, it's more of a consolidated package that combines texture and .xml files and therefore might be more challenging to combine UW and REX. One other thing, I don't like the wave effect in REX (pulsating distraction) but I couldn't get rid of it for some reason (even after deselecting all the boxes etc). One of the REX developers/administrators mentioned you may have to restore original textures first, then make the deselections and re-install. I took the idiot approach and completely uninstalled REX restored my pre-REX textures then reinstalled REX basic--deselected waves--then REX SP1...it worked but it was painful. :( Rich

Hi everybodyI bought Zinertek Ult Water Adv just after REX on recommendations on this forum, but now I'm going to ask a couple of really dumb questions (remember, there are no stupid questions, only stupid people :( ).What exactly is in the Zinertek product? Is it just textures, or reflections and effects as well? Does changing the water colour in REX affect the UW package? What has to selected or deselected in REX to get the most out of the two? I've deselected all the 5 boxes under water themes in REX's options page, but for some reason I can't get my water to look like Zinertek's web page (and FS9 is also set up right).I don't usually have a problem with addons, but the combo of these two is kinda doing my head in for some reason. Must be the Christmas / New Year hangover, I guess...Cheers, SLuggy

First of all make sure you have REX patched for FS9, run it and install all your REX options into FS9. After you install REX and installed all your options into FS9 go and run the installer of Zinertek's Ultimate Water. Run REX's utility again and in the options unselect everything except 'Inland Water' and 'Tropical Water'. There's some extra Coral textures that need not be in FS9 that REX did away with by using normal water textures in it's place. This works good as you don't have these big patches of light colored water in the middle of nowhere in the Caribbean. This is more involved but I'll explain it to you if you want. Either way that's about it. I use Zinerteck for the most part but a couple REX options as well for color because they just work well together. Have Fun...

Regarding Zinertek water textures, I find them disproportionately large, as if the plane were flying as a miniature in a larger water environment. You used to see this in old movies where they would use a model in a water tank. The waves were disproportionately big compared to the model, hence no suspense of reality. Coloration looked good, but the wave action wasn't.

:( Zinertek has the best water textures out there especially for those complaining about REX's set being too blue. As for the size I'm at a lose as to what you mean here because within the sim I'm seeing nothing noticable and their much nicer to look at than the effects I see using REX's options. The wave effects and the wetness of the water seems just right and the block size (I guess that's what your referring to) never stood out to me. REX's wave effects/water looks better during dawn and dusk hours but all around Zinertek's Ultimate Water looks the best especially during the day. I wish we had the option like we do with weather to have different water effects depending on the time of the day.

Yes absolutely...AS6.5 works like a charm with REX. If you're already using AS as your wx engine you don't have to do anything--REX will simply load the textures. I recommend not using AS graphics at all, in fact, I delete that option and use REX exclusively for weather textures and use AS only for weather engine. The reason I use AS6.5 weather engine is, they've got a proven product and have worked most of the bugs out versus the REX weather engine which is good, but is a work in progress. Rich

I don't get it. How can I not use ASG-it's an integral part of AS6.5.And how would I tick off the weather engine in REX, and then 'combine' it with AS?Eytan

I don't get it. How can I not use ASG-it's an integral part of AS6.5.And how would I tick off the weather engine in REX, and then 'combine' it with AS?Eytan

Turn off Enable ASG autosubmit, and turn off the weather engine in REX

I don't get it. How can I not use ASG-it's an integral part of AS6.5.And how would I tick off the weather engine in REX, and then 'combine' it with AS?Eytan

O.K. maybe I'm not understanding you correctly here but all REX is is textures, you don't have to use the weather feature. Once you upgrade your textures that's all you need from REX after that load up FS9 and start Activesky as usual for weather generation.

Gotcha! thanksEytan

Well, I'm embarrassed. :( After mucking about for hours I suddenely found that my dusk/dawn transistion and water effects in FS9 were deselected for some reason, and I have no idea why that happened. Reset the sliders and viola! FS9 water now looks very purty indeed. Thanks guys!Cheers, SLuggy