REX Texture Direct - Has the Jury Returned a Verdict?

[Lawyer+Pilot 126]

...On the other hand those lights are awful. The halo for normal streetlights looks about the same size as half a house. Don't know why FSX / P3D just can't do realistic-sized night lighting.

 

 

I thought the same thing, although it may just be because he's skirting the treetops. It looks like hot air balloons are invading the U.S.

 

I'm enjoying the new textures ... quick video of inland water and dusk sky/clouds:

 

...

 

just low and slow around Minnesota.

Rob, is that FTX Global vector lighting that's making the enormous lights? Or is it REX? I've just never seen that before. Then again, I don't spend that much time at 100ft agl in my 777.

[Nyxx 6,993]

I would like better more detailed descriptions on clouds and sky's.

I love them to make it so you can just load the bottom row of textures and not have them as a theme because the bottom row of textures to me are a load once only job.

I would like themes to be only the top row of option. But still no big deal as they load so fast but just seems a waste to keep loading the bottom row.

 

But REX4 brings to the table far better water than I've seen before. But for me the obiloty to build themes for areas or weather condision and load these sets within 5 seconds means you have just the right mod for every flight. It's the speed that makes this a winner. Also after you load the set you want it will close itself and open you weather engine or start fsx if you wish.

 

So now it's the first thing I open before any flight. I also enjoy making the sets and naming/saving them for my flight ahead.

[curt1 79]

REX4 as others have stated is good for water.  I don't see much of an improvement otherwise, with many fewer selections for each category.  I think they were pretty much forced into this because of multiple platforms, multiple resolutions and ensuring it would work well for high end and low end systems.  To supply a huge set of textures to meet everyone's needs would be a 20 gig download, and that's not really feasible.  On a side note, I highly recommend a freeware runway bump map set with three variations that look outstanding.  The file name is   "runway_detail_texture_set_by_fsx_workshop.zip" in the library.

[tttocs 301]

1) ASN, Opus

2) REX-E

3) none

 

My internal jury is still out on some things, as I just haven't had the chance yet to really compare cloud and sky textures.  I'm not expecting miracles on clouds, as I use 1024, but hopefully some modest improvements.  Looks like perhaps there are more subtle skies changes available than before.

 

Definitely some intereresting airport stuff, including a huge variety of airport lighting.

 

As others have noted, water seems to be the biggest obvious texture improvement.

 

I'm good with the interface, as it's pretty simple and clean.  I wish it was a bit quicker/easier to see exactly what textures I have in a theme, rather than having to click on each thumbnail to bring up the names, and I'd agree that I miss having some basic starting themes with clear intents, as the old ones in REX-E served me well as starting points for my own.

 

And finally, the speed is just stunning.  With REX-E, I had one or two basic configs that I only swapped on a very occasional basis.  The speed of the texture loads in the new package make you want to experiment.

 

Scott

[Guest]

 

 

On the other hand those lights are awful.

 

Those are FTX Global 1.2 lights ... I believe the FTX Region lights are adjustable but not the Global ones.  The FTX Region ones can use REX Textures and you can set the size.  I personally like the FTX Global 1.2 lights, but it would be nice if they could be adjustable to meet everyone's taste.

 

 

To supply a huge set of textures to meet everyone's needs would be a 20 gig download, and that's not really feasible.

 

 

Sure it is, MSE downloads are often over 20GB and I've download all MSE photo stuff (well over 1TB worth) ... in this day and age 20GB is very feasible.

 

The REX 4 interface is still a little "odd" around "modification" of a theme and one's currently selected/saved theme ... I guess it's a "design" decision.  But when you "modify" a part of your existing theme it doesn't actually save you selected theme, it's saved as some internal "adjusted" theme.  So if you click on your saved theme it'll actually wipe out whatever changes you made.  This odd problem of not really being able to modify one's existing theme was present in REX OD and is now also present in REX 4.

 

So I guess it's a design decision, but traditional applications and User Interfaces will save changes with the currently selected theme - not the case in REX 4, you have to make sure you save a new theme every time you make a change -- which sorta begs the question why use a "Modify" button when you aren't really modifying your existing theme?

[Lawyer+Pilot 126]

Hmmm. Now I'm torn again. I spend most of my time above 30,000ft, so I'm much more concerned about clouds and sky textures. If water is the big sell here, I might have to pass. I like the sound of faster loading, but I'm a little bummed that you can't load weather influenced textures based on historical weather.

[Guest]

 

 

If water is the big sell here, I might have to pass.

 

P3DV2 clouds are actually pretty good, but so are the REX 4 clouds.  But there are a few bugs in P3DV2 around weather that are being or have been fixed and will be released early January ... so this is when we're likely to see weather engine folks get their P3DV2 products ready to go and some stunning weather representations.  Concern here is that cloud draw distance has a pretty big impact on fps (this is where we really need SLi/Crossfire support) and I know the FSGRW folks recommend a draw distance of 160mi with minimum at 120mi  (P3DV2 UI only allows up to 110mi, don't know if .cfg change will allow more than that).  But at 160mi frame rates are going to drop considerably and no idea of VAS impact.  So I'm hoping the weather engine folks optimize their products for a 110mi not 160mi

[Ron Attwood 3,465]

2c.

I was a great believer in REX textures for clouds. I hummed and hah-ed over REX4 for a while, then said 'sod it!'

and bought it.

I am now an even greater believer in REX4 clouds! Also, when I went over to DX10 the sea lost it's sparkle or more specifically, white caps. They have been restored. I have only one small gripe and that is the sun is tiny and I miss the larger sun.

Stop faffing about Trevor, buy it. I doubt very much you'll be disappointed.

 

:Nail Biting:

[Kattz 132]

A HUGE Thumbs up to this product.

 

Was:

AS2012 and REX ES+OD

REX Textures

No post-effect shaders

 

Now:

ASN and REX4 Tex Dct

REX4 textures

No post-effect shaders

 

• I'm with Ron in that we are now orbiting a white dwarf star, but the light is still ok.
• Water is 10X better
• Runways and taxiways are awesome
• I've noticed as well that my night runways and textures are darker.
• Clouds are the shizzle, dizzle.  Absolutely freakin' amazing.  Look at the later shots in my gallery for thunderstorms that really look like storms and not "Hello Kitty happy storms".  No post-shot processing.
• A LOT of textures to choose from.
• Running silky "smooth like buttah" at 2048 X 2048. 
• Very tiny FPS hit when looking at complex clouds, like from 30+FPS to 30+ - 2 or -3.  Unnoticable IMO.
• Not to detract from REX Studios future efforts, coupling this with ASN has just really made the sim come alive.  So now using Opus for dynamic cams, ASN for wx, and REX4 for textures.
• The lightning effects are wicked good-looking.
• Did I mention that I really like this texture set?

Here, take a look:

 

 

Worth every freakin' penny.

[adi518 73]

I definitely think they achieved more realistic sky textures than ever before. It's not just the colors, but also the way they made the gradients. Also, the sun textures and lens flare have taken a major effort and it shows. Looks like team Rex took the cool sun tweak idea from a youtube video where someone made a lens flare that sorts of "blinds" you as you look towards the sun, only they made much cooler, more defined, HD versions of that. Also worth considering, is the super fast installation, which is truly amazing.. less than 5 seconds to install an entire theme (from my mechanic to my ssd). The separate installation of individual textures is also awesome and makes it a breeze to change your current theme and try out different textures. You will spend much less time messing around and more time actually simming.

 

2c.

I was a great believer in REX textures for clouds. I hummed and hah-ed over REX4 for a while, then said 'sod it!'

and bought it.

I am now an even greater believer in REX4 clouds! Also, when I went over to DX10 the sea lost it's sparkle or more specifically, white caps. They have been restored. I have only one small gripe and that is the sun is tiny and I miss the larger sun.

Stop faffing about Trevor, buy it. I doubt very much you'll be disappointed.

 

I agree about the sun size. Easy fix though.. just go in your suneffect.cfg and change the sun size to 1600-1800.

 

Sun size = 1600 @ dawn time:

 

[Lawyer+Pilot 126]

A HUGE Thumbs up to this product.

 

...

 

Worth every freakin' penny.

We'll call that a "mixed" review. Haha!

[Ron Attwood 3,465]

 

 

I agree about the sun size. Easy fix though.. just go in your suneffect.cfg and change the sun size to 1600-1800.

Sun size = 1600 @ dawn time:

 

You're a star! Or a sun. Either way a bright spark. Thanks for that. :good:

[Pe11e 812]

I'm very dissapointed with this product. Went to my simmer friend today, and luckily he bought REX4 the day it was released. We sat for two hours reviewing most of the textures in FSX, in 1024 and 4096 res. Runway and taxiway textures are very very bad, REX Essential + OD is much better in that department. Cloud sets, hmmmm, I couldn't find the set that I like, simple as that. In REX Ess + OD I can find at least few cumulus textures that I really like. Water animation is also better in REX Ess + OD.
16.000 textures? Give me a break. Let's say - 16 sets cirrus + 16 sets cumulus + 25 of every sky set (75 total) + 20 runways + 20 taaxiways + 20 water animations + 20 water color + lights + sun = maybe 250 textures total, maybe 500 - 1000 at most?

[Nyxx 6,993]

Just.......speechless at that

[Ron Attwood 3,465]

Ditto.