Hi All,I Would like to congratulate the developers on a fantastic add-on, it really does bring the flight-simulator to new standards. Combining it with FE2004 and you'll get unparralelled graphical realism (until fs10 comes along, offcourse). There is one small thing I would like to say as a side note; Being a beta-tester for FE, i have worked very close with Peter Wilding to get him to the results we have come to enjoy today (Update 3 is just around the corner), and although the BEV ground textures are top-notch, their water, environment and ocean-heightfield textures IMHO are not. Firstly the Ocean-heightfields are 1st - the wrong size, 2nd wrong color (why blue? it's a bumbmap, and works with grayshades). Water textures seem to be slightly modified from fs default, and third the environment reflection maps is a matter of personal opinion, but make FE look terrible. I advise all current users of FE2004.2 to run the flight environment configurator AFTER running the BEV configurator.Anyway, i'm very pleased with BEV for what it is, a groundtexture replacement, and they should of left it at that. Leave sky and water to Peter, cause he's a master in that, and knows what he's doing to that regard!Enjoy,Anthony

>their water,>environment and ocean-heightfield textures IMHO are not.Well, but IMHO they (BEV) currently have the best water textures/effects around. The texture, reflectivity, coloring - it fits my idea of water, specially the inland water. There used way to be too much blue in rivers and lakes (btw, water in San Francisco Bay is not blue, it is green).>Anyway, i'm very pleased with BEV for what it is, a>groundtexture replacement, and they should of left it at that.Don't you think you are going a bit too far telling developers what to do and what not to do?. It is most natural to provide water for someone who is already doing scenery. Next thing you will tell people who design airports not to touch grass areas next to airport because it is not part of their job. ;)So it happens users have now a choice which water to use. Does it bother you?Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/747400.jpg

Also I would like to add; In the update 3 of FE there will be an option to use 3rd party add-on textures to your own liking (freeware and/or payware), which you can fully combine to get the best looking environment YOU like.As i said, from a technical point of view the ocean-heightfield is wrong, and IMHO they don't meet the standards of FE, or even FsWater for that matter. BUT there are a lot more environment / water textures available both freeware AND payware, so, "michal", it's not just FE water and BEV water. And personally; I think BEV is a SUPER add-on and worth every penny!!!!Best of luck with your future updates BEV, and I for one will support ya (groundtextures that is).I'll say no more on this matter.regardsAnthony

Michael, you are always so hostile to Anthony and any threads that are related directly or indirectly to FE.I do think you owe Anthony an apology.You are acting as you always do like a shcool teacher or high court judge. It's a shame that Anthony can't say something that's his honest opinion, in a way he considered thought full and polite only to find "Michael" again jumps on his thread and gives him a telling off.As for the water textures in BEV; of course it's a matter of opinion and with that in mind I've talked to the developer and assured him we will make an option in the next update 3 which allows FE users to use his textures or any other 3rd party textures.As you can apprciate far from bothering ME I welcome anyone using other textures if they want too which is why this option is made available in the next update. We listen to the customers needs and wants.All this said Michale, Anthony should be able to voice an opionion without being insensitvely attacked by you every time. I ask you politely Michael to please stay off the personal attack of Anthony and if you don't agree say simply that; that you like BEV water textures and for you they work really well. You have a right to do that and if you keep your posts postitive it would be so much nicer.But I'll be honest, as soon as I saw the thread Anthony posted I said to him it won't be long before we see "Michael J" finding fault with it. He always does.So please Michael, please just give a little more thought that Anthony may be a real person with feeling and needs to be treated with a little more respect from you.

So come on Michael, let's try and be friends and can we put any thing negative in the past behind us and move forward.Yes, I agree sometimes Anthony can be a little blunt but his he only means well and pehaps speaks his mind a little too much from time to time.What I want to work on Michael is mending what is broken and helping us all to move forward in a more positive way.My opinion is that both Anthony and you are in the wrong here and somebody owes somebody and anpology.It would be nice for the two of you to privately contact each other and maybe even try talking on the phone.If you want to speak to me Michael I'll be happy to and explain a few things I would prefer to keep private. 44-1344-412049

"Firstly the Ocean-heightfields are 1st - the wrong size, 2ndwrong color (why blue? it's a bumbmap, and works withgrayshades). Water textures seem to be slightly modified fromfs default, and third the environment reflection maps is amatter of personal opinion, but make FE look terrible. Iadvise all current users of FE2004.2 to run the flightenvironment configurator AFTER running the BEV configurator.Anyway, i'm very pleased with BEV for what it is, agroundtexture replacement, and they should of left it at that.Leave sky and water to Peter, cause he's a master in that, andknows what he's doing to that regard!"firstly Anthony is totally entitled to his opinion as we all are, but IMO that last part is arrogant sounding, but again, his opinion and nothing wrong with that. I happen to agree with Michael and don't feel he was out of line or owes an apology to anyone. If anything, I think Peter jumping in to defend his followers/team and product is what is out of line (and expected from past posts)While FE is a good product and many users love it, it is not the only option and users should experience them all to make their own minds up. Telling them the only option they should use (from a team member) is FE is wrong IMO (master or not) and it's even worse to tell a developer not to work on a certain part just because they think theirs is better or because they lack the skill to do it.Kudos to BEV for the alternative. Regards, MichaelKDFWhttp://www.calvirair.com/mcpics/mcdcvabanner.jpgCalVirAir International

Yes you are right of course Michael, as always.I should not have defended Anthony and I apologise for doing so.

Yes, maybe i was a little blunt, but in my second reply i specifically said there ARE more options out there, both freeware AND payware. The thing i wanted to point out is that the ocean-hightfield bitmap in BEV has an tripled increase in phisical size, which could have an impact on FPS.And I absolutely enjoy BEV! It's a top 1 product! ;-).Enjoy,Anthony

I appreciate the message, however blunt the delivery: I had no idea BEV included water textures. Good bit of advice that you as a user should be aware of...

Hi guys,Not meaning to sidetrack here, but it might be interesting to look at the discussion here at BEV's website: http://www.flightsim-bevs.com/smf_1-0-5/in...php?topic=408.0I, too, am very enthusiastic about BEV's beautiful autogen and texture file replacements for the summer season, but I wish something could be done for computer systems that don't manage the BEV water choices that well. Can't everybody get together on this one and work out something nice for us customers? Keep up the excellent work!

I was hoping we did not need to get too technical to explain things. I checked the thread you mentioned Eagle and I can see there is a lot of confusion.First lets' address the black water issue. Certainly in update 2 and 3 there are options to make inland water very black in FE. I did not go as black as BEV seems to have done though but if requested I can easilly do this.There is no right or wrong here but I've learned a few secrets and I don't really want to give too much learned knowlledge away. Certainly, in FS water (the older version of FE water) it suffered some trade-off of darker more convincing tonal balance causing a dark horizon effect.With FE we did something with the mips to reduce this effect so the horizon blends better. I can tell you it took a long, long time to do this and get it looking how I wanted it.When high and looking down on water in lakes etc it can look almost black or a very, very dark green. Satelite photos will show this effect. However, when lower down or looking more towards the horizontal the water will start to pick up a reflection or sky colours. This can cause the water to vary in colour depending on amount of clouds and how vivid blue the sky is.All this is balanced against how the underlying water is in FS9 and this will always show when near the horizon. The problem with dark base water rextures is that the horizon will always look wierd when at higher altitudes. FE has a lot of options to give the user choice of base water for tropical, non-tropical and inland water. I lost count but there is somthing near to 20 different sets in update 3. This will give you options from grey inland water to black inland water to vivid blues in the tropics or muted overcast water. Tons, and tons of choices.It's a pity the game engine needs us to make so much choice but MS have done a great job all things being considered.As for reflections it's all about the relationsip of height and the amount of wide angle.For example BEV water textures look much better than FE textures, IMHO, at extreme wide angle. FE has been optimized to look it's best at normal focal length or non zoomed out shots. FE has opted for a realistic feel for flying while looking out over the instrument panel rather than for screen shots. That's not to say BEV is optimized for screen shots but it does help screen shots for sure.So like I've said FE is really for flying in game and screen shots come second.That said there is also, loads and loads of alternative reflection sets to have different patterns of light to suite personal taste.I've considered making a light pattern similar to BEV, and something approaching that kind of style is available in update 3 but it's not going to suit eveyone's taste.I've tried and tried to make water look as good as possible but no matter what I do somebody is going to say this or that is better so with that in mind update 3 will have options to allow the user to put his own water in to FE.The point is if only one look of water was best or perfect then I would not have made so many options. The simple answer is there is no perfect water look. I've even got tons of wave animations choices.The combinations of water choices in update 3 goes in to the hundreds, which is rediculess really but just goes to show how hard I'm trying to give you guys the choices you need to get the looks you need.

"sailormoon" comes to mind ... (inside joke for Flight1 forum members)

>Hi All,>>Leave sky and water to Peter, cause he's a master in that, and>knows what he's doing to that regard!I remember a discussion during the development of BEV - the reason for including water textures was mainly the fact that the FE WATER textures looked so unrealistic and BEV wanted to do better.

ha! Sailormoon...chills down the spine...

Just to clarify,BEV is not intended to compete with FE. Many of us on the team have and enjoy FE. Stephen had developed some water textures he liked at one point, and as they looked good with the BEV textures, he included them. Consider them a free bonus.They can be turned off easily and you can use any water product you wish, be it default, freeware or payware. Many folks love the water, and some don't. But at this point, it's not what BEV is about.Tony=http://www.flightsim-bevs.com]