'Sand' textures really starting to annoy me now.......

[GHarrall 494]

Ok,So we all know about the terrible 'sand' and 'desert' textures that plague FSX in the fall and early winter seasons, but I am finding that getting rid of all of it is next to impossible.I'm running FSX SP2 with UTX USA and Canada and the FSG US Landclass. I don't have a landclass product for Canada as I find the UTX urban landclass to be sufficient. (I have seen the cloud 9 Xclass for Canada and it is not very accurate at all so I passedI then came across Adam Mills textures for USA and Europe. I installed them and I am pleased with the results, however the sand textures still exist in the airport backgrounds which now look horrid and the UTX road encasement textures (of course) still match the old 'sand texture', which looks really stupid. I think I am going to give up and just fly in the summer months, but 'real' weather at -20 in the winter is going to look pretty silly with summer textures on the ground. I just cannot stand those sand textures around the airports and roads any longer though!!How did these textures ever get passed as being acceptable for the conditions that they are portraying? Even FS9 looks better in fall and winter than FSX.Does anybody have a difinitive answer to get rid of the airport 'sand' backgrounds? I will head over to the UTX forum for help with the road encasements.Thanks,Glenn

[Guest DiNozzo]

Hi,I agree! Those "sand" textures are hideous. At first, I thought my video card was at fault.

[757FO 143]

I agree, it really kills the overall experience. Hopefully the upcoming GEX product will resolve some of the issues...RegardsJohn

[GHarrall 494]

I have hopes for GEX, but after using Adam Mills' textures I don't think GEX will change the airport background polygon texture. Hopefully I am wrong......Glenn

[Guest]

To sum it up: this sucks. Not even the valiant defenders of FSX could mitigate this one. I hate the desert airports, I just plain hate them, and I shouldn't have to wait for a 3rd party payware add-on to fix them, either. I was actually starting to get more into FSX with Sp2 and the f/a-18, then winter came and I was reminded how awful this game looks sometimes.

[Orlaam 315]

Threads like this remind me how glad I am that I never installed this POS. Talk about messed up. If someone doesn't fix all these problems (e.g., GEX) and FSX continues to run poorly, I may skip it altogether. :-erks

[Geofa 108]

I don't think you will find anyone who is happy about the "deserts".However-Holger a year ago explained the why:http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...e=search#359954http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpgForum Moderatorhttp://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[GHarrall 494]

Geof,I fully understand why.....What I don't understand is how these textures were passed as being acceptable in any circumstances.It now appears that a landclass product or a texture replacement product will not fully cure this issue and we will be left with odd looking 'sand' airports to fly into. I would like to know if this can be fixed or not.I had every intention of buying UTX, GEX, FEX etc. but for those that are happy to leave FSX as a stock installation the fall and winter textures and airport polygons suck big time (and they may do even WITH the texture replacement products!)FSX is rapidly becoming too much like hard work.........Glenn

[Geofa 108]

Well if you read that post you will see that the data is more detailed for many areas-and less detailed for others.For instance-in Se Michigan where I live the area is dotted with hundreds of lakes. Fs9 misses about 50% of them-and the ones it has are not accurate in landshores or shapes. The default fsx has them all-and they are quite accurate. (The lake I live on is in default fsx and is very accurate-in fs9 not even there-just farmland where a lake should be).So the decision right or wrong must have been made that rather than having a mediocre coverage for the whole world, that there would be a much more detailed data for some of it-at the expense of leaving out others where perhaps the data is not as good.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpgForum Moderatorhttp://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[ryanbatc 12,909]

I cannot agree more!!I don't know...maybe they passed because it was a smaller file size???

[frankla 44]

what are is encasement texture?

[Geofa 108]

"It is a grassy or vegetation texture between and immediately next to the road surfaces."I personally don't care for them and leave them off in utx.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpgForum Moderatorhttp://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[Guest]

Excuses, excuses. It looks like garbage. Plain and simple.

[Geofa 108]

I am not making excuses. I don't like the deserts either.However, I am stating what my understanding is why the decision was made to do it this way.It certainly doesn't look like garbage in Michigan-but perhaps you are not aware of the differences between the stock fs9 and fsx for areas where the coverage is good.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpgForum Moderatorhttp://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[nudata 10]

Somewhere in the far past (relative) someone from Microsoft explained that the landclass texture they either purchased, or made, had this flaw. However, it would be terribly expensive and/or time consuming to correct it.Indeed it is a major error in terms of quality control. Since I see no help on the horizon I installed Adam Mills textures and modified them a bit (texture BMP) to meet my taste. A few splotches of desert remain but it is becoming reasonable now. The airports use "grass skirting" textures. Same as all of the other stuff and in the World folder. There is an Excel file that Holger produced that shows the file name in the World folder for the texture BMPs. A part with the airfield is shown below. The first colored number is Northern Europe and the second is North America. Other number follow for the remainder of the world. Look in world/texture for BMP files beginning with the blue numbers. You need the entire Excel file for other areas and textures.I use Martin Wright's DXTBMP to convert the special FSX format to a plain BMP. Then with GIMP (free)) I "paint" change the coloring of the textures. The winter textures have "wi" in their file name which, for most, means you change 7 BMPs since there 7 variations in design to eliminate repetitive displays when at altitude.Regards,Dick BoleyA PC, an LCD, speakers, CH yokehttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/180051.jpg