Shade For fs9?

[Jim Robinson 122]

Thanks Dimi, I got it working. Wow, you can do some wild stuff with that, no? I tried the "Matrix style" (the green one) from the enb documenttion site, WEIRD effect :) . I see how it works now though, and I'll bet Tim's got a great palette bmp, so I'll seek it out and give it a try. Thanks, I'll have to try this in FSX too. Incidentally, GEPro gives you nine somewhat dated sky texture sets to use as a base for the adjustments I described above. These base textures are located in subfolders of the Ground Environment Professional\Resources\Sky directory. By replacing the files (make a backup first) contained within one or more of these subfolders with the default HDEv1 or v2 sky textures or even REX sky textures for example, you can cause GEPro to make it's alterations to one of those texture sets rather than the GEPro default base. This would better emulate Shade, as Shade is applied to whichever sky textures you happen to have installed in FSX at run time. On GEPro's colorize menu click "Load Image" to load a specific base to work from, if you replaced the textures in Ground Environment Professional\Resources\Sky\Tropical with the HDEv1 textures for example, load the "Tropical" base into GEPro to create a texture set based on the HDEv1 textures. Jim

[Guest venustus01]

Glad you like it!The palette options are limitless.Experiment and see which one you like.Tim's bitmap is excellent!It creates a lovely blue hue.I never thought of doing that with GEPro!Thanks.Never been completely satisfied with the many offerings regarding sky textures.I like HDE sky color but the horizon line seems too pronouncedeven when I set vis to 40nm.I have used soft horizons by J. Cillis,which blends the horizon, but for me the sky lacks saturation.So I will try the GePro suggestions you made.Thanks again. Ps I couldnt help but notice that you are from Idaho.A very lovely place indeed Regards.

[speedbird2001 0]

Wow you learn something every day. Excellent thread !

[out 769]

Wow you learn something every day. Excellent thread !

You took the words right out of my mouth.I haven't read such an educative thread for a long time.And I naively believed I knew everything about FS9. Thank you, gentlemen!

[Jim Robinson 122]

I learned a trick too with the palette .bmp, so yeah, very cool thread :( . Since I can't edit my post above anymore, I'll add this here as an addendum to my post #16 above re swapping out the GEPro base textures. Also in the Ground Environment Professional\Resources\Sky folder you'll find a "Sunrise" and "Sunset" folder. These are apparently global base textures for all sky sets created by GEPro and get used/colorized and added to the mix regardless of which base you select (Tropical, Horizons, Pro Sky, etc). Therefore if you want to use GEPro to colorize another set of textures such as HDEv1 or REX, you'll also need to back up and populate those folders with the new sky textures, otherwise you'll still see the default GEPro base textures in the early morning or late afternoon/evening rather than HDE or whatever your choice was. I wrote a quick batch file that runs from the FS9 texture folder to create the needed folder structure and distribute copies of the appropriate sky textures into each of them. The idea is, you install the sky textures of your choice into FS9 like you normally would, then run the batch file to extract and sort the needed .bmps. It's just a matter of moving the 3 resulting folders into Ground Environment Professional\Resources\Sky (after backing up the original folders) allowing overwrites, and then deactivating and reactivating any custom colorized sets you may have made to force GEPro to re-generate the texture set using the new textures. I can upload the batch file if anyone wants to try it. Jim

[out 769]

I can upload the batch file if anyone wants to try it

That would be great, Jim. Thanks a lot in advance!Looks like there is still a lot to learn about how to make FS9 look even better.

[Jim Robinson 122]

Here's what I came up with:sort_for_GEPro.zipJim

[Guest venustus01]

Thanks Jim..Will try it out later.I am pleased that you like the palette texture option for the enb.mod.I have created several variations myself and switch between each one depending on the look I want to achieve.

[BadKarmaPT 48]

Thank you, Jim! Very nice find. Thank you for the sort file too.

[neumanix 113]

Thanks for the tip about using palettes with enb, wasn't aware of this.I read about how they work and then experimented with a few of my own.This one I think turned out pretty nice, gives a warmer look.I set the DarkeningAmountDay to 20.http://www.megaupload.com/?d=3LJGHE0D

[Guest venustus01]

Your welcome, and thanks to Jim Robinson for his invaluable insight regarding GEpro texture manipulation,and overall enthusism in providing advice.Keep in mind that by using a palette,"colorcorrection " settings take less of a precedence,since you are overiding with a palette.But still the results areexcellent! Ps.Timest(Tim Fuchs) over at the REX forums provided the initial inspiration for using a palette texture.

[Jim Robinson 122]

Thanks for the tip about using palettes with enb, wasn't aware of this.I read about how they work and then experimented with a few of my own.This one I think turned out pretty nice, gives a warmer look.I set the DarkeningAmountDay to 20.http://www.megaupload.com/?d=3LJGHE0D

I tried it in FSX, yes very nice effect, thanks :)Jim

[pilotter 254]

if we want shade for fs9, please vote on http://aussiex.org/forum/index.php?/topic/9765-shade-for-fs9-and-prepar3d/

[WallysWorld 4]

If you have GEPro you can do a similar effect by going into the "Sky color > Colorize" options to create a custom sky texture set. Once you're there, notice the top row of pixels in the image on the left, clicking on a particular pixel in the left image will allow you to adjust that pixel on the right image (which represents the custom sky texture you're about to create). Select the ground and aircraft dark shadowing pixel and turn the brightness all the way down and contrast all the way up. Do the same for the cloud dark shadowing pixel. Select the ground & acft light shadowing pixel and turn the brightness & contrast both all the way up, do the same for the cloud light shadowing pixel. Now click "accept" and type a name for you new sky texture set. Return to "manage sets" and scroll down to find your new set. It should be in red and it'll say "Activated: False". Select it and click "activate", then select it again and click install.

I tried this last week with GE Pro and really like the results. Darkens down the daytime nicely in FS9. Not quite like "Shade for FSX", but I definitely like what this does for FS9.Thanks for that tip, Jim. Edited January 25, 2012 by WallysWorld

[Johan_Dees 84]

Yes, works very well!, thanks for the tip!If you lower a 30% or so the contrast of te groundtextures then its even more pronounced, and looks better imho.I changed the water pixel also, and it gives nice shadows on the water from cliffes and so. Gives great effects.Look at the suneffect.cfg, raise the sunsize with 1000 and it looks even more attractive.

Edited January 25, 2012 by Johan_Dees