Ok, I understand some but not all the things with this program. Questions:1- why create more than 1 set each for clear skies, partly cloudy skies, overcast skies, etc.... What is the difference in having say 4 sets of clear skies textures?2-After creating the sets, I can see what the metar says for arrival and departure airports. How do you get the program to choose automatically what set to install based on the metars?? The only thing I see is to install a set you want manually. 3-why can't the program read the metar data and auto-submit the best textures for you?4-do you have to install each time a sky texture as well as a ground texture set? It seems a bit cumbersome to look at the metar and choose between 5 different partly cloudy sky textures and then choose between 5 diferent partly cloudy ground textures. Thats why I like a program like AS6....it reads the metar's and then chooses the best textures to load based off all the metar data..that is what I want GE Pro to do!!

Hi B777ER, to answer your questions :1- Because in real live there is also a wide variety of sky and ground colors during the day, seasons and location, also, the program has built in algorythms for color, hue, brightness and contrast settings and builds your different ground and sky texture sets automatically for you, you may do so manually if you desire.2- When you select the "install" button, after having selected either your departure airport (local flights) and/or arrival airport, the program will ask if you want to install a matching pair of sky and ground textures, and of course this is done AUTOMATICALLY for both ground AND sky textures.http://environments.flight1.net/example5.jpg3- It does after selecting install if you select to do so.4- You have the option to say "yes" to the dialog box, "do you want Ground Environment Professional to install a matching ground/sky texture set".p.s. : I have 45 ground texture sets and 430 sky texture sets, so for example when i fly in an overcast condition the sim will look slightly different each time I fly from the selected ICAO which has that cloud / sky condition. Moreover, Peter has developed different sky texture set "groups", like - clear, sunny, tropical and horizons, which incorporates new technology for displaying soft-horizons and / or sunny, overcast and tropical sky conditions.

I'll try and keep this real simple:1 - If you make more than one set it won't look the same as the other sets. Each set is unqiue and has different looks albeit slight in some cases. There is no reason though to have more than one set of each type if you feel one is enough. Personally, I like a random feel so we put that option in by allowing the user to make more than one set. He can make every set manually (say if he likes to tweak things or is artistic) or he can do things the easy way and let the program do this for him. We imagine most people will do let the program do it for them?2 - You have a choice in this section to decide to let the program select the ground and sky textures to match the cloud cover weather conditions (cloud cover). You can if you decide ignore this and manually install the textures from a different screen in the GUI. We imagine though most people will let the program auto-submit the textures for them. I certainly do. That said, if say I'm trying to make an impressive screen shot to win a prize or the admirations of others I may decide to make a choice myself. To make this manual choice easy, (assuming an auto selection is not wanted) we let the user see a preview of each texture set so they can see how sublte or how dramactic the texture is.3 - It does read the METAR and it does auto-submit the textures4 - It does work like AS6 it does read the metar and then choose the best textures for sky and ground for you and automatically installs them

ok, I got it now, I was not seeing that screen above. Thanks for the help gentlemen. One suggestion for you all though. Can you make the metar feature were you don't have to select the country as well as the ICAO. Can we just be able to select the ICAO no matter what country it is for it to show up? Kind of cumbersom to have to do both. Thanks.

yes, we are looking in to thisThanks for the suggestion

Peter,It looks like you spend lot of time to answer the same questions again and again. After reading your answers, I have to say I am still confused. Why don't you spend a little bit time to write a stey-by-step tutorial to clear everything out. I have to admit that your user's manual is not top notched while your product is. Also, can you release the manual in pdf format? I have trouble to print your manual in the current format. Love your product and support.~ Charles

Hi Peter.To be honest, I like it the way it is.I don't always have an immediate source of ICAO listings, and find the current feature handy.Paul S.:-)

Thank you for the explaination... Just read this from the AS6 user's manual :"*Developers interested in using IGS (Intelligent Graphics Selection) system to have ASv6 automatically choose and submit specific textures should contact us at [email protected]. The IGS system can use any texture, group of textures, and even supports automatic splicing of cloud components (maps and alphas), auto resolution conversion, auto mip-map generation and more."Maybe you can think about it and make GE Pro work together with AS6... Just like AS6+ASG.Would be great !

Hi there,The problem is we do things in a very specific way.Each texture group is around 100MB after it's been created. Plus we have ways to match it to the sky. AS6 does not have ability to do that for one thing and it can't handle the colour creation.If we submitted our textures to AS6 it would completely spoil the way our porograms work. They are just not compatible.But don't worry, we will be developing a weather engine of our own to fully integrate.But at this time there really is no need for us to submit our textures to AS6 because we already intelligenly select textures using our own METAR engine.There are a few issues which we will be fixing soon. Work to that end is already in progress.So the point everyone seems to be missing, probably because they are assuming things, is that our program already works with AS6 ASV WmP the default weather engine and any weather engine.There is nothing AS6 can do for us we are not already doing and both progams do different jobs.BUT BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE CONFUSED ABOUT ICS WITH AS6, CAUSED BY THEIR GRAPHICS ENGINE, WE ARE ENCOURGED TO DEVELOP OUR OWN SO WE CAN AVOID ANY FURTHER CONFUSION BEING RELATED TO OUR PRODUCTS

ALL UNDERSTOOD

>It looks like you spend lot of time to answer the same>questions again and again. After reading your answers, I have>to say I am still confused. Why don't you spend a little bit>time to write a stey-by-step tutorial to clear everything out.Charles, in my own experience I've found that too many people will not read any type of manuals at all, much less a "readme.txt" file, but will happily read the exact same answers in an email or forum posting! ...Go figure! :-roll

Ok, at first I was confused but now see the light. Here guys is the no-brainer K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid) method to making GE Pro, AS6 and FS9 work in harmony.1- If like me, you have AS6 with wx influenced graphics selected via the options page in AS6 (look under the graphic section and see if "full sky theme" and "cirrus theme" are checkmarked as well as say "wx-influenced") then this will work. I use online wx updated every 10mins as well.1a- make sure AS6 is start in the paused state (config via the options page) 1b- input your flightplan into AS6 via the new route button filling in all the boxes1c- hit the refresh button1d- AS6 now loads all graphics into FS9 including clouds and sky theme's2- Now fire up GE Pro, select your metars and airports in between2a- let GE Pro auto-submit the sky and ground textures into FS92b- at this point I prefer to close GE Pro by clicking on the X when it asks if you want to start FS9 but you can at this point have the program do it..I prefer to start FS9 on its own. 3- start FS9 and fly!...the wx will update on the next process cycle with AS6.Points to remember-the last app that loads graphics into FS9 will be what you see. so as you can see above, GE Pro is the last to add graphics. I do it this way as you don't have to mess with any config settings within AS6 as the sky will be overwritten with GE Pro and if you ever choose not to use GE Pro, AS6 will still be in the same state-once AS6 refreshes the wx after you started FS9, the only graphic that AS6 is able to change is the cirrus clouds..thats it! So whatever GE Pro loaded will not be overwritten.-sometimes after loading FS9 and the metars state it is a low overcast day, the sim will appear darker..that is what it is supposed to do. You may not see any clouds at first but don't panic,,,AS6 just has not gotten to the 10min refresh point yet.Hope this helps.

>>>But don't worry, we will be developing a weather engine of our>own to fully integrate.>>Will this be included as an upgrade to GEPro or will we have to shell out for another weather engine?AT

I think the eventual aim is to integrate FE Pro, when that appears, with GE Pro and a weather engine to create an all-in-one platform. Given the complexity of this kind of addon if you try to use it with other addons that do similar things (you have to get the order of loading right, maybe open 2 or 3 other packages) it would seem an excellent choice for confused simmers. `One front end controls all` and all that stuff.I am sure this will be a low-cost addon for existing users, just as GE Pro is for GE purchasers, but yes, for sure there will be money changing hands. That's what commercial developers do!That's not to say that you can't continue with the existing stuff - I'm more than happy with AS6 as a weather engine - so it's just another option. Me, I think I'll live with the separates, but I'd love to see FE Pro and a weather program, now that I've seen what GE Pro can do - the differences are subtle, but totally justifying the cost of the upgrade for me.Allcott

You got it Eric!Hope this helps,Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/Active Sky V6 Development Team Active Sky V6 Proud SupporterHiFi Beta TeamRadar Contact Supporter: http://www.jdtllc.com/AirSource Member: http://www.air-source.us/FSEconomy Member:http://dot.kelder.net:8080/fseconomy/