Can someone check New Orleans for me to see if the Fall season textures appear as shown in the picture?? Since New Orleans in in the USA Southern region I would expect mostly green areas as it is in reality.Thanks - Dick near airport 5G8http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/161352.jpg

I am flying to Baton Rouge in 2 days so I'll try to take some shots for you-it is pretty close.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

Hi Dick,if that image was taken in November then you're looking at the winter textures, not the fall textures. FSX switches to winter on Nov. 1 for the New Orleans area. Move the clock back to September or October and the area will be greener. Thus, if this doesn't look right then it's mostly the "fault" of the seasons.bgl file not of the land class textures.Also, while New Orleans lies in a different region (P, not C!) than the rest of North America it doesn't necessarily mean that the textures are different. In fact, Region P has NO textures different from Region B (see my land class table). The main reason why ACES increased the number of regions was not to provide different textures but to allow for different autogen object definitions for the land class textures, such as palm trees or different house styles.Cheers, Holger

Holger,Just oppinion here, but though the concept that Aces developed is great, the textures are just simply to bright, I have a lot of arial photo data and most is from fall, winter and spring, I have also done a fair share of observational flying in the NE and FSX just looks horible for fall and spring, even some of the grass textures for summer as used to depict what apear to be power line paths are pitiful.Sorry, probably should not vent here, but I hope Aces will do something, it just seems kind of shocking.perhaps I am wrong, its just my oppinion but I dont like it. (the textures choices).

Hi there,no disagreement here. I particularly dislike the many uniform textures (e.g., ice, desert, grassland) that look unrealistic and make the small grid overlay of the detail1.bmp file stand out.There's definitely a need for enhancements along several "fronts": * texture "shuffling", like Garett's projects* texture replacements, like BEV or GE* changes to spatial extent of regions* changes to temporal extent of seasons* more accurate land and water class files* changes to slope-dependent class switching* changes to problems with default blending masks* changes to autogen definitions (some of the default versions don't really fit the underlying textures) Lots to do... ;-)My main point above was that if we discuss needed changes we have to make sure we're talking about the actual textures that are displayed. In Dick's New Orleans example the screenshot shows Region B winter textures not Region P fall textures (which don't exist). The Terrain SDK tools and new land class tables provide the means to make sure we're talking about the same thing.Cheers, Holger

Yea, I commented about this the other day. And yes, those are the winter textures, not fall. The gulf coast winter textures are too brown. You seevery little green. And that ain't right for the gulf coast, even in the winter. Another weird thing, say I take off from Houston withit's overly brown textures, and fly west towards SanAntonio. About halfway there, you start seeing some green in the textures. They are not too bad, but in reality, as you move west from Houston, it should gradually get browner, not the other way around. Houston never gets totally brown. Heck, our grass is still green, and ditto for quite a few trees. The fall textures are probably closer to what the Houston winter should look like, and even those might be too brown in places. Much of the gulf coast is sub tropical. I know we are.. Houston in general only drops to freezing or below, an average of 4 times ayear. We haven't seen a freeze yet this year. So weare still green. In your pix, you look down at NO, andit might as well be Nebraska as brown as it looks.But this is not anything that can't be fixed fairly easy. Such a tweak might effect areas that are actuallythat brown though.. It does look like that up northin the winter, as most of the grass is gone brown afterthe usual freezes. I once lived up north in a past life..Well, I lived in Wichita, and K.C. Far enough north to see some winter anyway. :/MK

Dick-I can verify as of Nov 20 it was still very green down in that part. However-just shortly north of there-Mississippi, Alabama-looked very much like fsx. Fsx also starts the seasons 3 weeks earlier which I think is a bug. Anyway-you can check out a shot here:http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...g_id=1735&page=http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

FSX isn't starting seasons "three weeks early". "Seasons" are just a concept. Obviously, the actual appearance of the ground is going to vary every day in every location. It isn't the same year to year. The seasonal texture variant maps are fixed for 30 day periods. ISTM arbitrary when you change those maps. It might be easiest to change seasons.bgl for less use of wi textures, than to redo all the textures.I have been interested in how MS developed these season maps. Holger has provided some ideas, but I still don't know a fool-proof way to know how to correct the maps, other than for snow cover, hw, for which I have source data. If I had a way to figure out the source data, I could easily provide a fix, as long as it is understood that the best you can hope for is that the seasons are "correct" only 12 days out of the year.Looking at the seasons areound New Orleans in tmfViewer, it appears that the same source data are used from 1 Nov- 1 Mar, and this is the same maps as used in FS9 (so in that sense it is "moved up" 3 weeks). Gray= winter, Green= summer, Yellow= spring. I don't see the logic behnd this map.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/161782.jpgscott s..

Actually-it is about 3 weeks earlier than fs9-I should have been clearer about that. You are of course correct about them changing by location and even year. I don't recall exactly but fs9 made the fall transition around the Sept. 22nd or so-now it is around Sept. 1st.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

Hi Scott,I don't know what ACES used but one possible method to place boundaries of the spatial and temporal distribution of monthly seasons files is to use a simplified version of the Koeppen climate classificaton, e.g., http://koeppen-geiger.vu-wien.ac.at/index_print.htm and http://snow.ag.uidaho.edu/Clim_Map/koppen_usa_map.htmNotice how the eastern US is separated into three longitudional bands, which could be used as boundaries for the FS seasons maps. It shouldn't be too hard to translate the descriptions of the Koeppen classification - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6ppen_c..._classification - into approximate start dates for seasons. Obviously, this won't help with the unrealistic hues of specific seasonal textures but a more accurate seasons file would be a good start.Cheers, Holger

Thanks -- I'm going to have to get serious about this. The desert airport backgrounds are driving me crazy.scott s..