Vfr Germany 2 - North

[Agade 0]

Hey guys

I am a big fan of Aerosofts German scenery, and recently installed the second VFR Germany pack. As before, I was greeted by some nice photoscenery, well integrated airports, nicely placed VFR objects and enough autogen scenery to make my computer cry scared little tears of joy. This is exactly what I was expecting and made me very happy.

I was also greeted by a rather curious sight - some rather dramatic water effects surround the coast.

Admittedly, this is a rather artificial view. So lets take a closer look ..

This new water seems to have a much brighter tint than the rest, and reflect the sky so much it almost looks like sky itself!

From some angles, the contrast with the rest of the water is not so bad, maybe it is a coastal shelf we are seeing.

From other angles, it is a little glaring, I feel.

I am running with water set to Mid 2x, all texture details on high. The other scenery I have installed in this area is UTX Europe, German Airports 1 and 3, VFR Germany 1. What I want to know is: Is the water in the shots above looking the way it should? Are there any tweaks I can peform to make it darker / less obvious? Are there any obvious setting tweaks I should look into?

Just a minor comment, and one that only comes up because your German Airfields 1 has addicted me to flying in the north friesians .

[warbird861 0]

Hey guys

I am a big fan of Aerosofts German scenery, and recently installed the second VFR Germany pack. As before, I was greeted by some nice photoscenery, well integrated airports, nicely placed VFR objects and enough autogen scenery to make my computer cry scared little tears of joy. This is exactly what I was expecting and made me very happy.

I was also greeted by a rather curious sight - some rather dramatic water effects surround the coast.

Admittedly, this is a rather artificial view. So lets take a closer look ..

This new water seems to have a much brighter tint than the rest, and reflect the sky so much it almost looks like sky itself!

From some angles, the contrast with the rest of the water is not so bad, maybe it is a coastal shelf we are seeing.

From other angles, it is a little glaring, I feel.

I am running with water set to Mid 2x, all texture details on high. The other scenery I have installed in this area is UTX Europe, German Airports 1 and 3, VFR Germany 1. What I want to know is: Is the water in the shots above looking the way it should? Are there any tweaks I can peform to make it darker / less obvious? Are there any obvious setting tweaks I should look into?

Just a minor comment, and one that only comes up because your German Airfields 1 has addicted me to flying in the north friesians .

Go through all water settings from low 1x to high 2x and everytime see what it looks like, if it makes difference pick the one you like most or if it doesn't wait for someone more knowing people to come and tell what is wrong, if anything.

You may also try reinstalling if it changes anything. And incase that's conflict between other scenery packages, move VFR Germany 2 to above all other scenery packages that affect that area. Hope something helps.

[Agade 0]

I have done my scenery library juggling and .. things are pretty much the same. The water settings don't seem to make a huge difference either (well, dropping down to 1x makes things look worse ). I'm having a fiddle with fswaterconfigurator to see if I can tweak the shaders in a way that makes some difference.

I'm prepared to give reinstalling a go ... but it would be nice to hear from someone 'that is what it should look like' or 'that is wrong, reinstall' before I go through all that .

[Sasa 921]

Hi!

To be honest, FSX shows the water from aerial images too Caribbean blue - no matter on which part of the clobe it is. You see the same in Hamburg hourbour, the rivers and lakes. Unless you won't deactivate the water effects completely to see the aerial image, it will stay like that. Unfortunately.

Bests,

Sascha

[Bernabie 0]

Sascha,

I recently flew over Hamburg Harbour without VFR Germany North installed yet, and with UTX Europe installed only in that region, and I must say that the water there seems quite very normal to me for that region, certainly not what the pics are showing here.

Now I have second thoughts in buying this next volume I must say.

But from what I know flying over UTX Europe scenery and seeing the water at that place, then I'm thinking that something is wrong with VFR Germany North in that particular place, or at least a conflict with another add-on scenery because like I wrote: there is nothing wrong with the water with me over there without VFR Germany North installed.

Hope this somehow can also be of some help in solving the issue hopefully

[ManuelL 71]

I think with high water settings the edge between shallow and deep water it is not sooo bad. Although it could be improved of course. But I guess this would involve a lot of editing tiles manually in photoshop. Not sure if such work would really pay of in the sales.

[Bernabie 0]

I think with high water settings the edge between shallow and deep water it is not sooo bad. Although it could be improved of course. But I guess this would involve a lot of editing tiles manually in photoshop. Not sure if such work would really pay of in the sales.

Personally I think it will do as I assume it to be the future of FS simming.

Just look at the amazing watermasks of the Horizon scenery over England and Wales, and I'm sure you will know what I'm talking about.

And the present prices for just one volume of that scenery is even lower than the one for those of VFR Germany. So I think that it would be worth considering perhaps.

Of course, the add-on designers of scenery will need to invest in superb PC's as well, as creating such a superb effect in scenery does ask quite a lot of a PC as well and/or additional hardware storage capabilities.

Tho that when you look at the Aussie colleagues of Aerosoft Europe and their Mega scenery SoCal, then they too have done a great job with regard to how they created their color effect for the coastal area in SoCal!!

[Agade 0]

Sascha

Can that be so? Yes, default FSX water is quite blue, but many developers have managed to darken it. Either through external apps to change the water tone itself (such as flight environment x) or simply by having photoscenery appropriately toned so as not to cause the kind of dramatic colour contrast seen in the screenshots of VFR Germany North. Please see the following screenshots by horizon simulations.

Even when using programs that change the water colour and edit the water shader to produce almost black water, the regions covered by your coastal photography in this manner are a very bright blue, with a very harsh, unnatural cutoff at the edges rather than any sensible fade into default water tone. I can mitigate the effect somewhat, but not remove it.

I also do not understand why your changes effect both the water itself and the subsurface textures - in several of these examples (including the photo from another poster) the textures fade away well before the change in water colour does.

This suggests to me that the issue is not an inherant limitation of FSX, but a function of the way you guys do scenery design - your monaco X has similar issues - the harbour contains an area which is a much brighter blue compared to the standard water. (though Heligoland does not, and is thus far more asthetically pleasing) Is there not anything you could do to produce a more natural effect? I would even rather do without the underwater texturing at all in the coastal waters than see what is there now if there was any possibility of doing so - returning the water in this region to the way it looked with German Airfields 1.

Given that the product has come through beta as is, I doubt there are any plans to make wholesale alterations, but Ideally I would have liked to see darker subsurface textures on the coast, and a more natural 'edge' to the region covered, not the rather geometric line along the water border with the nederlands and around the islands.

I am experimenting with altering the reflection shader itself using a freeware tool 'fswaterconfigurator' to see if a suitable comprmise exists between what the rest of the water looks like and the VFr Germany North coastal water. For a product of this quality, however, I am rather distressed that I have to. this does not seem up to the standard of either the previous release, or the inland portion of this current release.

[Sasa 921]

Hi,

Thanks for the info.

Let me forward this to the developer of the aerial images. He knows more about the technical backgrounds and maybe he can tell you more about it.

Bests,

Sascha

[Agade 0]

Thank you for the response, Sascha. I look forward to hearing from them.

It'll be good to get this done and go back to gazing at the store, willing more german airfields packs to appear .

[Bernabie 0]

Yeah, that is so very true Agade because the quality is certainly there, but just the finishing touch needs a bit more patience to finish it.

I'm thinking then of Steffi Graf who in her early years of tennis had the very superb quality of winning finals, even from the great of that period, but somehow had not yet the patience to go for it, tho that she had it fully in her as witnessed in later years.

I thin that's what's needed most with the VFR Germany scenery.

Maybe some chit-chat with the Aussie colleagues of Aerosoft Australia could also be of some great help to that end, and not to forget a free update to solve the issue for those who would have an earlier version of VFR Germany North at least hopefully when possible.

[Agade 0]

Just a quick bump to say;

Any news on this one, Sasa? .

*edit* testing

[Agade 0]

Just a bump to ask if you've heard anything yet, Sasa.

[Shaun Fletcher 570]

Hello Folks,

I'll make Sascha aware of the post as soon as I see him online.

[Agade 0]

Thanks Shaun .

I know this is probably a complicated/odd little back-burner type task/request. So I don't want to be one of those 'hello? hello? any answer yet?. type people.

I know Sascha is a busy guy, so just knowing it's still on the agenda when he has time is enough.

[Sasa 921]

Hi Guys,

I forwarded this to the guys responsible for the watermasks. But I can't do much more than Shaun - pushing them.

Bests,

Sascha

[Agade 0]

Hi Guys,

I forwarded this to the guys responsible for the watermasks. But I can't do much more than Shaun - pushing them.

Bests,

Sascha

That's fine Sascha, thank you for the response, I guess we'll see what they come up with.