A few questions about GE Pro.

[spilok 1,139]

#1....Just how difficult and time-consuming is GE Pro to install?#2....Is it really THAT much better than Bev Textures?I am just about ready to "pull the trigger" on this purchase, but the installation looks very complicated (installing textures by typing numbers in a textbox), and it looks as though it takes many, many hours of sitting in front of the computer and doing nothing else.Please tell me there is a default button that installs everything automatically while I can go and do something else or just leave the house for the day. Stan

[Guest Peter Wilding]

The textures are created automatically for you Stan.a box opens and asks you how many you want. It couldn't be easier. We had no complaints!You don't have to sit and watch it work. It's done for you. Like you say go away for the day if you like and come back and you'll get all your base texture sets done.Mike did 15 sets which took 14 mins per set and he did other things I'm sure while the computer did the work for himOther people may make 5 sets or 20 depending on how many they want.We ask you to enter a vaule only.If you read another response it was a tounge in cheek joke as it's not hard to enter a value in an open box. It's certainly not complicated. It's kids stuff really easy.

[Ricardo41 5,959]

My opinion: the idea of giving the user as much choice as possible is a good one; the idea of generating textures based on actual current weather condition is a good one. However, the program appears to be user unfriendly, with little information given in the manual. I don't understand, for example, why it's not possible to just load a FS generated .pln flightplan into the program. I find the interface to be completely unintuitive. ricardo

[Guest bigun]

Stan,In a word (maybe two) Get it. Unlike Ricardo, I find the user interface very intuitive and within just a few minutes you should have no problem at all. The trick for me was to set it up to generate 5 texture sets for each atmospheric condition last night before turning in. Then I generated about 400 sky textures sets which only took about 30 seconds. Now I simply load AS6, then I start GE Pro, download the metar info for my flight and let the program load the textures based on the metars. Crank up FS and sit back and enjoy the view:-cool

[Guest JSPuonti]

Just to clarify, GE Pro works like ASV6 in that you have to generate / select the textures before flight - you can not change them during flight, right?The problem with this is, of course, that if you start the flight in stormy conditions you'll be forced to fly with "gloomy" textures even if the weather at your destination is bright and sunny :/

[altstiff 71]

That aside. Forget the weather features.Just loading the default textures blows BEV out of the water. Not to mention the awesome new night lighting AND the all new auto gen.It is simply a must have.

[Jure 36]

Janne,not necessarily... if you fill in both, departure and arrival airport codes, GE Pro will generate a set of textures which are sort of "middle of the road", taking into account conditions at both ends. If, for example, your departure airport is overcast and arrival airport sunny and clear, you'll end up with a texture set that is between the two extremes. Of course, you can always choose what to install and ignore GE recommendation.And to answer your question: yes, you cannot change the textures in midflight. Has to be done before you fire up FS. Regards,Jure

[Guest JSPuonti]

Obviously that's no fault of the GE devs and I doubt we'll see any change in this when FSX comes around (swapping textures mid-flight).Good to know there's the option to go for a compromise or a preferred choice, though. I'm not sure if GE Pro is something *I'd* use, but it's still good to know :)

[Guest Peter Wilding]

Hello there Sir,You are making a few assumptions here sir,We avoid allowing our engine to load gloomby overcast textures if the departure is overcast and the arrival is sunny. We work intellignelty so that can't happen.YOU'LL ONLY GET OVERCAST CONDITIONS LOADED BEFORE A FLIGHT IF THE METAR INFORMATION STRONGLY INDICATES YOU'LL GET CLOUD ALL THROUGH YOUR FLIGHT. YOU WILL NOT START IN OVERCAST AND END IN BRIGHT SUNNY CONDITIONS IF YOU LET OUR PROGRAM SELECT THE TILES FOR YOU.thanks for the question.

[Guest Peter Wilding]

Good suggestions Ricardo,We will be updating the program and making things better. Your idea about the flight plan is a good one. Not sure how much time that will take but really when we were working on the interface we put the metar in there to help people make a more informed decision.I'm sure the interface will grow and adapt to the customers needs. What one person finds easy another finds hard. We understand that.Ricardo, since you are struggling a bit we could really benefit from working with you to understand what it is you don't understand. The problem is what is intuitive for one person is hard for another. This area clearly needs some more work if some people are stuggling.We thank you for this input and if you would like to help us resolve this issues please contact me on p.wilding@btopenworld.comThanks again for your help.

[kparrish1 0]

I don't think the program is that hard to use but the manual could be a lot better for those of us in mid life:-lol. I would like to see step by step how to start the program with and without active sky. I have it figured out now but it took a little while and reading the forms. The idea of importing flightplans is a great idea. keith

[Dean_EGTC 57]

I'm still trying to figure out how you incorporate AS with GEP if you run AS on a second PC over WideFS.

[Guest Peter Wilding]

You've lost me a little bit here but I'll try and work it out best I can.A lot of people seem concerned about how AS works with GE PRO. AS is a weather enine and GE PRO is not a weather engine. They both do completely different jobs.What does cause some confustion is that AS, a weather engine, incoporates some textures, which are a little bit of this and a little bit of that, some sky, some lights, some clouds.Because it's so confusing and though I fully understood ASV I got lost with AS6 so I now just disable and don't use any of the graphics in AS6 at all.All that said the only graphics section in AS6 that you need to worry about is the sky.SO: fire up AS6 in the normal way and then don't fly yet.You have to open AS6 first anyway to load any textures in game so nothing new here.Really, even if AS6 has or does install some textures it's still not a problem as our textures are for ground and matching sky. Our progam can install ground or ground and sky or just sky.So: next step after starting AS6 is to start GE PRO and do what you want to do there and then install any textures either manually or via the automated METAR install.From there you can start FS9 and when you do it will have real weather from active sky and our ground textures installed that should match the AS6 conditions.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------that's now all done! I hope but I'm sure I'll get more questions about how does AS6 work with GE PRO (grin)---------------------------------------------------------------------Some extra thoughts?I don't know why so many people are worried about how our program works with AS6 as they do not use the same textures.Just use AS6 as you normally do providing that normal way does not use AS6 textures.SO: to keep it really simple and avoid exclude this or that, really it's best to simply not use any AS6 textures at all. Use ICS clouds from AS6 if you like but nothing else or you may get confused.Of course we do know and appricate that some people will like to keep it really simple so to that end we will at some point in the future be incorporating our own weather engine so it all works without the problems of how do I make FE clouds work with AS6 and how do I make GE PRO work with AS6.We always use advanced ideas that are a little out of the box and inventive so it's never going to be a simple matter of asking AS6 team to make an option to make our textures work via their program. We tried this approach in FE but since I wasn't allowed to speak to them on voice (their choice) it was far to complicated to impliment and our comunication broke down in frustration on both sides. That's no disrespect to the ASV team it's just that our approaches to doing things is so different.We wil of course be making more graphic add-ons that use this advanced technolgy that bring other elements in to our vision. For example we have alread been talking to VoZ textures and how we can import those in to our progam so they too can be adapted to conditions of the clouds.But back now to AS6 I do see a future when they will have more of what we have and we will have more of what they have. But let's face it AS6 was at one time a great weather engine and still is but it used to be just a great weather engine. They expanded in to textures and now I expand in to weather engines in small steps. We do have a weather engine on the horizon and it's going to be as out the box as GE PRO and FE so please be patient with us and by FSX we should be able to give you some really exciting weather options to use with GE PRO and FE PRO which will be out by then.

[Guest allcott]

That's gong to be a fascinating step Peter, having GE Pro integrate with FE Pro and a weather engine.I rather doubt that FSX will have anything remotely as sophisticated, which is a shame as if the textures could ALL be changed `on the fly` you could see magnificent changes in the sim.But GE Pro, even by itself, is a revelation for this real world occasional pilot. Most dedicated simmers who habitually swap out textures will know that sometimes, you get a `magic setting` where everything just gels in your minds eye. With GE Pro I have yet to see a sim session which DIDN'T. That's a massive gain IMHO.Congratulation - It is that good! :-jumpy :-jumpyAllcott

[B42L8 0]

Thank you very much for that description of the differences, sometimes I think I know what is going on but actually do not,so now I can run both without regard for causing problems with either or.......on another subject, I downloaded the Pro last nite, and the coupon, but did not finish the purchase as was confused as to how the coupon gets the discount............maybe others have some question, anybody have a simple answer, again thanks for this help B2L8