Mountain textures upgrade

[martinlest2 58]

It always seems to me that one weakness in the 'out of the box' FS9 is the textures given to mountains, like the Alps, Andes, Himalayas and so on. I have bought various texture upgrade packs over the years for terrain and airports, but nothing designed to address this 'problem': I would really like to have more detailed, more realistic mountain textures. Payware would be fine, if it's good, but is there anything out there that would upgrade these textures globally? Googling didn't help, nor a search in the file library here, nor SimMarket...

 

This is a bit 'woolly' looking to me - FS9 + FSGenesis mesh. Doesn't look much like what I see from a real-world cabin when I fly over mountain ranges, far too undifferentiated:

 

 

There are some nice textures in some of the payware packages I have, like Aerosoft Lukla, but not sure how to make them global, if that is possible, or even legal! (I guess most such tweaks are OK if they are for your own use only and you have paid for the original product).

 

Ideas welcome. Thanks!

 

Martin

[Skinner_11 1]

I use the AFS texture set.

 

It's an overall texture update, I think the mountain textures look better than on your picture.

 

[gwillmot 31]

I use the AFS texture set.

 

It's an overall texture update, I think the mountain textures look better than on your picture.

 

How can you tell?  You supplied a picture where clouds cover most of the earth!  If you must, please compare apples to apples.

[martinlest2 58]

Thanks - but, yes, it would be good if you could post a shot of snow-covered mountains, so we can compare like with like. Can't really see mountains in that one.

 

That said, I decided against the AFS set when it came out because of the way it sets out scenery into square and rectangular blocks - not very realistic looking for much of the world. The default screen shots on SimMarket look so much better to me than the AFS 'improvements'

[HaraldG 559]

Hi, what about this one:

 

And from high above:

 

from here:

http://files.fsnordic.net/Flight_Simulator/Scenery/Replacement_Textures/

(the third one, FS2004 Glacier, crevasses, perpetual snow replacement textures)

 

You also may want to apply Jobia's lclookup patch from here:

http://www.jobia.de/

(Scroll down to No. 4 - LCLOOKUP_BGL Patch)

It's a little bit hard to describe what it patches - as I understand, with the stock file, mountains in certain part of the world will be either rocky or snowy but will have no transition zone between rocky and snowy ones.

[martinlest2 58]

Thanks for that, I'll certainly have a look.

 

I made some ice and snow replacement textures myself many moons ago. They are in the AVSIM library here:

 

http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004scen&DLID=85802

 

with an updated version here:

 

http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004scen&DLID=146000

 

but they don't really help so much with mountain textures when the mountains are only partially covered with snow. What I was really looking for are some nice HD bitmaps...

 

Thanks again for the links,

 

Martin

[martinlest2 58]

Yes, Holger's stuff is the kind of thing I was hoping for!

 

Have downloaded the two patches and will try them out later...

[martinlest2 58]

I can't say that I notice any differences in 'before and after' screenshots with the patches installed. I am not sure whether my bitmaps or the ones you indicated are better, but at least I have some alternatives. Maybe a developer like Zinertek could do something here!

[martinlest2 58]

Many thanks for the reply - I have in fact already got those textures installed (downloaded them some years ago, I think they date back to 2004?). I was on that Facebook page just last night, checking for updates!

 

M.

[martinlest2 58]

Oh, no I didn't install them as I hardly ever fly FSX. When I do it is usually to fly specific payware sceneries, like Aerosoft's Antarctica and so on, which have their own textures for the most part.

 

But maybe they are worth having a look at even so.

 

Thanks again.