I’ve been reading here about xEnviro, xAmbience etc...it seems like there are several products out there that one way or another can add winter textures to the sim.  I’m wondering what others are using to add winter textures or if things are still at a point where there’s not really a solid option?

Now that we’re fully into winter in Canada I find myself only wanting to fly x-plane at night where I can’t really tell I’m flying over summer textures.

Thanks!

22 minutes ago, regis9 said:

I’ve been reading here about xEnviro, xAmbience etc...it seems like there are several products out there that one way or another can add winter textures to the sim.  I’m wondering what others are using to add winter textures or if things are still at a point where there’s not really a solid option?

Now that we’re fully into winter in Canada I find myself only wanting to fly x-plane at night where I can’t really tell I’m flying over summer textures.

I think there may be some free seasonal texture replacement options in the .org database, it's been a while since I've looked over there.

The other payware option is TerraMaxx, which might work if you fly for an extended period in places like Canada, Alaska, etc. where X-Plane looks wrong in the winter. One drawback is that it takes a long time to load and swap in the textures. So it's fine for an extended period spent in one area, but not so good for flying from Point A with no snow into Point B where its snowing, unless you can handle the immersion-breaking load period. Also, like most other texture replacement solutions, it won't work if you're using ortho-based scenery. xEnviro supposedly has a snow option in an upcoming version that will work with orthos. 

Some day in the far future, we might get a procedural-based seasonal effects from Laminar. Things like snow blowing over runways, linked to live weather data so you'd only see it if it's actually snowing. Deciduous trees changing leaf color dynamically and then dropping leaves in Autumn, and so on. Austin has said previously that he'd like to do that, but I haven't heard anything about it lately. And it might not be compatible with ortho scenery. Austin isn't big on the ortho approach for scenery, at least in the default simulation.

I'm currently using Seasonal n Winter from the org. Works alright but far from perfect, actually pretty good if not for the brown snow that appears on occasion. Still better than Summer in Calgary in January with Snow blowing across the runway.. 🙂

The seasonal packages are here:

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/46982-seasons-winter-xp11/

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/46975-season-spring-xp11/

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/46983-seasons-fall-xp11/

 

Automatic switching can be done with "Four Seasons", although the setup is quite work intensive.

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/44351-four-seasons/

Edited January 20, 20197 yr by Bjoern

Thanks everyone, I’ll take a look at those.

Terramaxx works well. Looks pretty good. Yes, if you fly long distances you will probably have a long pause while textures are loaded. There is a setting to limit or eliminate it. I fly GA and short routes so it work well for my kind of flying. 

On 1/21/2019 at 2:53 AM, Paraffin said:

Some day in the far future, we might get a procedural-based seasonal effects from Laminar. Things like snow blowing over runways, linked to live weather data so you'd only see it if it's actually snowing.

Apparently, the upcoming xEnviro 1.10 is supposed to have procedural-based snow build-up linked to live weather.

However, if this software comes out in late-spring -- we're probably not going to be seeing much snow 😄  

That looks interesting. Will be watching to see how it works after it is released.

Not having seasons (along with at least a semi-decent ATC) in XP has been a deal breaker for me. I haven't touched the sim in months, despite having hundreds of dollars invested in add-ons for it.

Regards,

Scott