X-Plane 10 Winter Textures Freeware?

[Humpty 751]

Ok ... few weeks might be really to little (computing the USA alone takes 3-4 more weeks with the new high settings) ... So, I still wouldn't expect it before the end of November.

 

But we are going off topic ... this is the thread for seasonal textures ...

 

Yeah off topic.  back on.

[deimos256 2]

So based on what people are reporting it automatically chooses the appropriate textures according to the date, and the remaining question is are regions defined as tropical, sub-tropical etc.

[scotchegg 4,186]

So based on what people are reporting it automatically chooses the appropriate textures according to the date, and the remaining question is are regions defined as tropical, sub-tropical etc.

No, I don't think so. It includes Autumn and Winter textures and autogen which you put in your custom scenery folder. If you put only the autumn stuff in it displays only those and same with winter. If you put both in it only displays Autumn because those folders are higher than the winter ones on the scenery list.

[MarioDonick 752]

No, I don't think so. It includes Autumn and Winter textures and autogen which you put in your custom scenery folder. If you put only the autumn stuff in it displays only those and same with winter. If you put both in it only displays Autumn because those folders are higher than the winter ones on the scenery list.

 

Then it would be nice idea if the author combined it with the Simple Season plugin which automatically replaces textures based on season. The bad thing with Simple Season is that it does not have the required textures.

[alpilotx 505]

Then it would be nice idea if the author combined it with the Simple Season plugin which automatically replaces textures based on season. The bad thing with Simple Season is that it does not have the required textures.

 

Well, in my eyes this development from some great guy(s) from Russia shows another "problem" of the greater "community" ...

 

We all live on our little islands. There are big "island groups" where at least the language barrier is not present (where, at least in theory ... everybody can communicate with the other "islands"). And then there are the "tiny" islands themselves, the forums, blogs or mailing lists. Where there are many many users, who stay on their island and - almost - never look at the other islands.

 

The result is, that even though there might be great developments on one of the islands, sometimes the other islands do not even realize that it has happened ... In this case with the Russian seasons textures for example that development (if we look  at the date of the first post) has showed up around the 7th of October (more than two weeks before it showed up here) ... and since then, not many other "island language groups" have taken notice of it ... 

 

The other way around, it seems - though, I am not sure as I am not really good at Russian - the Russian guys might not be 100% aware of "Simple Seasons" ... even if the combination of the two things might be a good idea.

 

So, my point is: a bit more openness (and willingness) to the other "islands" might be a good thing for ALL community members ... And if some of us can cross at least one or two language barriers, it might be great if those of us would help to bring the "islands" closer together (thats why I for example try to go to most larger English / German forums etc.) by spreading the word about interesting developments in the "other island groups"!

 

And yes, we all might be surprised what fantastic stuff comes out in other language groups ... not just the Russians (who surprise me every now or then ... and no, I do not even frequent their forums), but there are fantastic devs who speak French ... or Italian ... or all the good guys from South America (Portuguese, Spanish) ... or who knows what happens in the far east (Japan, Korea, maybe even China etc. etc. etc.)?

 

....

[Poppet 709]

 

 

@Poppet: NO, of course - well for X-Plane users it might be "of course" - you do not replace the entire scenery (the meta data defining the geometric structure of the landscape), only really the artwork (the texture files, and quite likely a few of the TER files defining how the textures play together for one of the thousands of terrain types). This way you can make the same scenery look very different (snowy, or even like "lollypop" land ).
 
If you need that higher def "landscape" 8really the scenery) ... then you might get happy at my site (which will work with any "texture" pack):
http://www.alpilotx....cenery-mesh-v2/
(and even more happy in a few weeks / months when V3 comes out)
 
And who knows ... there might come even more winter interpretations this ... erm ... winter ... (as it seems, that more and more parties had a hand in this topic).

 

Okkkkkkkkkk Starting with default X-Plane scenery,  i throw down my first base,  something like HD Mesh V2 "looks fantastic by the way" then some trees and Farms V2. Here's the question, would you put the Seasons on top of the HD Mesh V2 or would one cancel the other out. 

[alpilotx 505]

Okkkkkkkkkk Starting with default X-Plane scenery,  i throw down my first base,  something like HD Mesh V2 "looks fantastic by the way" then some trees and Farms V2. Here's the question, would you put the Seasons on top of the HD Mesh V2 or would one cancel the other out. 

Again: the seasons stuff is effectively ALL "only" artwork! So, it does not replace or cancel out anything from the scenery (because it is not scenery ... it is artwork content) it will make the same (any) scenery referencing anything from that new artwork set look different (and any other scenery, which does not use the same artwork content will look the same as before).

 

The whole thing might be easier to understand if I tell you, that in X-Plane the artwork is usually not referenced directly by the scenery (definitely not by the default Global Scenery or the HD Mesh Scenery) but instead it only uses "references" to some entries in so called libraries (so to any scenery element, you only have some "abstract" name - or call it pointer - attached). And then, you can make - via X-Planes library system - make those pointers from the scenery to point at "any" artwork you would like. thats why its so "simple" to just replace the whole artwork (make winter instead of summer for example) without the need to touch anything in the scenery itself.

 

To make it - hopefully - even more "understandable" ... For example the base mesh has gazillions of triangle patches depending on the terrain type they should get in the sim. So, for example we have a triangle set which has an attached terrain type of "broad_wrm_dry_fl.ter" (and really, inside the scenery this "name" is the only thing attached to that geometric entity! Its the "pointer".) ... Then the library system (which allows to combine different libraries - or replace each other) tells X-Plane: at the moment with the current set of all libraries and artwork in the system ... hmmm .... use the file "xxx\yyyy\broad_wrm_dry_fl.ter" from the file system. AND then in the - now real -  "xxx\yyyy\broad_wrm_dry_fl.ter" file, there are the pointers to one or - usually - more texture files (and shader parameters) to use for this patch of earth. So, its kind of a double indirection, with the Library system in between allowing to easily customize the final look of the same scenery. And this idea is true for almost any scenery entity you can think of in the sim (and there are many, like objects, forests, different autogen types, many road network types, facades etc. etc.)

[Poppet 709]

Thank you Alpilotx for that detailed answer, your like the smartest person I know

Yes I understand now, pretty cool. Looking forward to HD Mesh V3.

[Holton181 0]

 

Then it would be nice idea if the author combined it with the Simple Season plugin which automatically replaces textures based on season. The bad thing with Simple Season is that it does not have the required textures.

 

 

Well, the combination is very easy to do yourself. I've tried and it works perfect so far.What I did was to read the documentation for Simple Season about how to add 'WinterWorld' for XP9. Just adopt the instructions to fit XP10.

The content of '1000_autumn' and '1000_Winter' goes in to corresponding folders in 'zzzzzz1000 world terrain'

'1000 autogen_RUS_Autmn' and '1000 autogen_Winter' are only for Russia while '1000 autogen_autmn' and '1000 autogen_World_Winter' is for the entire world (a little inconsistency in naming)

The rest is self-explanatory I guess.

 

An it looks quite well indeed, even though the winter doesn't look as deep as ShePooley's 'very deep snow' in my opinion (so far).

Simple Season is indeed a fabulous plugin!

 

The winter textures are a little bit heavy on the FPS though, dropped about 15 frames flying low over my local town (helicopter), 10 over surrounding forest, compared to autumn with everything else the same. Both causes heavy FPS drop when first entering the the town borders but stabilizing on a reasonable level after a few seconds.But never the less, an interesting project worth following!

[Humpty 751]

Are the downloads huge ?

[alpilotx 505]

Are the downloads huge ?

Reading all(!) posts in this thread (in which you already participate from the beginning) answers it :rolleyes: :

• http://forum.avsim.net/topic/454336-season-for-xp10-wow/?p=3104652
• http://forum.avsim.net/topic/454336-season-for-xp10-wow/?p=3104768

[Humpty 751]

 

Reading all(!) posts in this thread (in which you already participate from the beginning) answers it :rolleyes: :

• http://forum.avsim.net/topic/454336-season-for-xp10-wow/?p=3104652
• http://forum.avsim.net/topic/454336-season-for-xp10-wow/?p=3104768

 

 

nah i never read all , i only read the first and the last 

[alpilotx 505]

The winter textures are a little bit heavy on the FPS though, dropped about 15 frames flying low over my local town (helicopter), 10 over surrounding forest, compared to autumn with everything else the same. Both causes heavy FPS drop when first entering the the town borders but stabilizing on a reasonable level after a few seconds.But never the less, an interesting project worth following!

Although answered in X-Plane.org (thats what I meant with all our "islands" ... oh well) ... I re-quote myself (so Avsim only readers see it too):

 

 

Although I didn't test it (nor will I have time anytime soon to do that) but from the look of the screenshots I suspect, that it might have something to do with the massive use of additional "normal maps" (which can be used to make that more "bumpy" effect ... and I think in its alpha channel it affect shininess too - which we see on some of the screenshots ... and which effect I don't like that much). Now these extra normal maps (imagine them like additional "textures" on top of the existing one - its just that they don't affect color, but instead other attributes of the surface) make the terrain rendering heavier, which can have some (or more) impact on your FPS (for example, if you were already tight on VRAM - the RAM on your graphics card - then the extra normal maps could have dipped you over the limit, which can lead to drastic FPS drops).

[Holton181 0]

Although answered in X-Plane.org (thats what I meant with all our "islands" ... oh well) ... I re-quote myself (so Avsim only readers see it too):

 

Thank you for that. I would (hopefuly...maybe...) add your answer to me at X-Plane.org as a quote in my post here if I just had seen it erlier ^_^

[doog 2]

Looks great, does it work with simheaven?