Will Ground Environment make BEV obsolete?

[Guest Rayed]

Cannot wait! Hope the price isn't $100 ;)

[Guest Peter Wilding]

Price is not yet finalized but we think it's going to be $30 all in. That's going to include the whole world and all 5 seasons and free updates.

[Guest DC10Pilot]

Great news Peter! I frequently have been visiting the Ground Environment home page and am amazed with your work. The whole world and 5 seasons for around $30 what a deal. Will be looking forward to this Friday...:) Jason

[Guest av84fun]

<>There are no silly questions. Only silly answers.:-)

[Guest]

The textures look amazing! I will definately give this a try. and what a great deal as well. Thanks for your work Peter!

[Guest Rayed]

>Price is not yet finalized but we think it's going to be $30>all in. That's going to include the whole world and all 5>seasons and free updates.Thank you! Cannot wait for friday hehe :)

[Guest Peter Wilding]

Hi there Alex.Contact me on p.wilding@btopenwold.com

[Guest grot]

I'm looking forward to and will buy the new stuff - im a scenery junky, BUT, I feel a bit obligated to point out a few things:1: it's really quite simple to add new individual textures to the BEV configurator, so theoretically you can still use that tool (which is unbelievably great) with any textures you might buy. I do get Peter's point about mixing and matching - but I'm curious how it's not the case that you couldn't go ahead and make a theme inside BEV that was just ALL GE textures - the process seems very straightforward.2: Given that a season in BEV clocks in at 200megs, or 1gig for the US, then I have to make a few assumptions: either GE is going to clock in around 5 Gigs, or there's massive substitution of textures around the world. Not saying this is a BAD thing, but it implies that the textures are going to be a lot more generic. The BEV stuff is *phenomenally* specific and customizable. I can pick the fall texture set that is absolutely, completely a perfect color match for flying over maine in October - which, subtly, is very different than flying over say Pennsylvania. I can pick exactly how much snow, on average, I want left on the roofs of houses in february. I can ban crop circles of golf courses if such thing's offend me. BEV's smarts is as much in the custimization aspect as in the beauty of the bitmaps themselves (although they're quite pretty).I was an fscene user for along time, the BEV stuff, is to my eyes, massively better *for the kind of flying i do and where I do it*. Would I get it if I flew predominately in Europe? No of course not. But then, I'm not buying VFR Netherlands 'cause I fly in the US.It's all good.

[Guest Peter Wilding]

>I'm looking forward to and will buy the new stuff - im a>scenery junky, BUT, I feel a bit obligated to point out a few>things:>>1: it's really quite simple to add new individual textures to>the BEV configurator, so theoretically you can still use that>tool (which is unbelievably great) with any textures you might>buy. I do get Peter's point about mixing and matching - but>I'm curious how it's not the case that you couldn't go ahead>and make a theme inside BEV that was just ALL GE textures ->the process seems very straightforward.>>2: Given that a season in BEV clocks in at 200megs, or 1gig>for the US, then I have to make a few assumptions: either GE>is going to clock in around 5 Gigs, or there's massive>substitution of textures around the world. Not saying this is>a BAD thing, but it implies that the textures are going to be>a lot more generic. The BEV stuff is *phenomenally* specific>and customizable. I can pick the fall texture set that is>absolutely, completely a perfect color match for flying over>maine in October - which, subtly, is very different than>flying over say Pennsylvania. I can pick exactly how much>snow, on average, I want left on the roofs of houses in>february. I can ban crop circles of golf courses if such>thing's offend me. BEV's smarts is as much in the>custimization aspect as in the beauty of the bitmaps>themselves (although they're quite pretty).>>I was an fscene user for along time, the BEV stuff, is to my>eyes, massively better *for the kind of flying i do and where>I do it*. Would I get it if I flew predominately in Europe? >No of course not. But then, I'm not buying VFR Netherlands>'cause I fly in the US.>>It's all good.>>I really don't want to get drawn in to one of those debates that ends up with us saying we know what we are doing and they don't. That's not the case. The fact is though we haved avoided complexity and Anthony and I don't like having to tweak and set things up on programs we buy. For that reason we don't want our customers having to do that either. We have gone to great lengths to ensure using our package is easy, and that will suit 90% of users very well out of the box. For the other 10% we are going to be making some updates and tweaks to add some more fun.Anthony and I have put about 3,000 man hours in to this project and we could easilly have made dozens of sets of snow and fall looks and variations. Instead we used the time to make the best possible base generic textures we could.We went the best way we felt was best to use our time to make something different to what is already out there. We saw no point in doing more of the same.This has resulted in us comming out with a all-in-one generic package that has a photo real quality about it and that has a 3D quality about it.It will gradually be expanded and some more updates and options will come without additional cost.

[B777ER 2,484]

Peter,Looks real good to me. Two questions. 1- Is there going to be a all-in-one exe file so that we can just install and fly or many seperate exe's?2-How are FR's compared with default?

[Guest Edam]

If it's anything like the ease of use and quality of Flight Environment, it's another "must have."

[Guest fox450]

Hi,1. Yes there is going to be an all-in-one executable, so you can install and fly2. could you please explain what you mean by "FR"?

[Guest jennifer]

"2. could you please explain what you mean by "FR"?"My guess he meant frame rates?

[Guest jennifer]

Just checked out the GE website. This is the 'dream team':- Peter Wilding and Voz. This is a must have! Where's the end of the queue?

[Guest fox450]

ok, yeah no impact on fps, because we use the excact same size and compression format as the microsoft default generic textures 256x256 dxt1.In fact most beta testers are actually reporting an increase in fps, because of the "smart" use of autogen.excuse me? my surname is Vos...;-)