Ouch!!!! Another Needle!!!

Two Actually.In keeping with the water theme of my last Needles post, I am going to start off this needles post with a plug for OceanFX.Not exactly a needle OceanFX provides some of the most realistic textures I have seen for water. When coupled with Bill Lyons stunning wave FX, the appearance of the water can be breathtaking.I personally don't use Bills wonderful FX, as they tax my FX5200 Nvidia card to the tune of about 10FPS, but rather use the classic FS2002 textures located in the library, (the previous subject of my last needles thread (classic_water_texture.zip)). That way I still get some nice reflections and still don't pay the premium for the wave motion.Ocean FX actually has three components. Two of which are FS2002 files (oceansfx.zip and oceanstx.zip). A third file, (ofx20sa.zip) provides a very convienient front end for FS2004 which allows you to choose the seafloor type, texture intensity (from calm to windy) and swell direction. Simply running this front end prior to starting up FS2004 will load the appropriate textures in the right place. Very nice, Very easy.When flying over calm tropical regions with the tropical textures drawn, you can actually make out reef formations, it is amazing.The Second Needles plug goes to Airport Environment Upgrade version 6 (aeu6.zip). This upgrade greatly improves the runway textures and default building textures on "generic" airports. The results are amazing. Taxiways and Tarmacs vary from standard Cement, to the "tiled" tarmacs with expansion joints in them. Runways have visible stress fractures, and can either be a lighter cement, or darker type Asphalt. Even one of the buildings has a "payphone" located next to the door, While others have visible Air circulation fan vents on the side. (These textures will NOT fix the issues that seem to plague some main terminal hubs (such as KGEG or CVYR) in which some of the default terminal textures use a weird Window/garage/checkerboard pattern that is completely squished and out of scale.) But for the most part, the parts it DOES correct, it does so with great aplomb.Best of all version 6.0 does not seem to adversely affect frame rates. This needle as well has Ocean FX has earned a prominent place on my ADDON's CD's so that I can be sure to apply them in case my current FS9 installation crashes (knock on wood).