For those who haven't seen my mention of this in the screenshots forum or who haven't seen it among the 30th's downloads, I've released a small sky environment add-on called "Soft Horizons". With this add-on I made an effort to eliminate the "hard horizon" that can be often seen during certain dates/times of day in FS9.The add-on replaces the sky environment bitmaps, so if you have one of the other popular add-ons which do the same, in the least you'll want to back up the textures I identify in my readme. What follows is a link to the file, and a link to the two threads I opened in the screenshots forum. Regards,Johnhttp://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID...misc&DLID=67829http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...topic_id=201754http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...topic_id=201644

john can u help me install it, ive followed the instructions bit the horizons absolutely no different. All the unzipping and backing up is so confusing.

I replied in the thread that you posted to in the screenshots forum. From what you said in that post, you did not follow Step #2 of the readme, or if you did, you unzipped the textures to the wrong location. -JohnEdit: Saw the comment about the unzipping. It's pretty straightforward.Step 1. : BackupStep 2. : Unzip all the bitmaps to Flight Simulator 9Texture.I suspect you may be unzipping to the wrong location. I did not want to spend three weeks spelling out every step and every keystroke, so I assume users will have some comfort level with how to unzip the files. The full path to Flight Simulator 9 is:Program FilesMicrosoft GamesFlight Simulator 9Chances are you've unzipped the files outside of that path. Perhaps one of the others can take the time to walk you through the process step by step. Also, if you can post a screenshot in the screenshots forum with what you mean when you say nothing's changed. Some dates won't look much different.In the screenshot, post:Date/Time of DaySight Distance SettingVis settingAlso note that if you are close to the ground, you won't see much haze unless you have your vis setting in the weather settings lower than 50 miles. The horizon effect is markedly improved the higher you go.I can tell if you've installed the package right if you tell me what date appears after this file: Sky_Noon_0.bmp in your texture folder I mention above. It should read 5/29/05 11:29AM

its okay, it works, what a good little update it is 2 :-)

Great news--thanks for the follow-up!

Just curiouos. How is it different than say, just turning down your visability to something like 30 miles instead of unlimited? Your "after" snapshot looks like horizon when I turn it down.

The vis in that after snapshot is 120 miles... What the program does is gradually fade the scenery as one goes into the distance vs. the sharp transition to sky as shown in the "before" snapshot. As you reduce the vis, the effect is increased even more. What I've tried to do is make the transition to sky more realistic. Even when the vis is 120 miles in real life, the ground doesn't terminate so abruptly when the vis limit is reached. Just visit some of the shots at airliners.net, and you'll see what I mean. In the real world, at altitude, the "before" shot simply isn't realistic which is what my package tries to fix.-John

So if I install this I lose all my FE skies?

Good questionI don't know the process under which FE loads different sky sets, but the short answer is yes. If you do the backup as outlined in the readme, you can always restore whatever FE sky set you have loaded. FE may very well address this issue anyway--you would need to look at the before/after shot in the upload view to determine whether your FE horizons look like my "after" examples or not. The same holds true also for FSSW, which I understand also improves the horizons (but is a much larger package than mine). Really, mine is a lightweight package perhaps best meant for simmers who are OK with the default skies, but not OK with the default horizons.-John

Thanks John. I DLed it this afternoon and it works great right out of the gate. I can't stand that straight-edge horizon. It reminds me of FS II on my Commodore 64. R-

it looks beautiful!! Thank you!

Looks like a great package! Going to get it and install right now. Thanks John! :)KP

Howdy,One very happy camper, indeed. Thanks, John.

Thanks for all your comments everyone--glad you like the package!-John

Hi John, after posing my question above, to refresh my memory, I went back to my settings and set visiabilty at 30 miles. Even at that I am seeing some hard-edge horizons. Thought I remembered them blending in the background but I if I go any smaller (10-5 miles), it's more like fog.So I am off to d/l your little addon. Gotta try it out. Thanks for the contribution!