Message-ID: <369CAE55.A7FDB334@nospam.bigpond.com>
Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 01:31:49 +1100
From: Steve Small <steve.small@nospam.bigpond.com>
Organization: "Personal Opinion Only"
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (Win95; I)
X-Accept-Language: en
MIME-Version: 1.0
Newsgroups: rec.aviation.simulators
Subject: Re: FS Clouds / Flight Director 98
References: <775umu$8en$1@newnews.global.net.uk> <77cbbk$gmp$1@news.xmission.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
NNTP-Posting-Host: 139.134.126.54
X-Trace: 14 Jan 1999 00:26:23 +1000, 139.134.126.54
Lines: 56
Path: news.jprc.com!dca1-feed2.news.digex.net!digex!news.chaven.com!news.mayspeh.net!uunet!in5.uu.net!news1.optus.net.au!optus!news1.mpx.com.au!nsw.nntp.telstra.net!139.134.5.33!139.134.126.54
Xref: news.jprc.com rec.aviation.simulators:31391

Jason Barlow wrote:
> 
> >Interested to know how well FS clouds enhances Flight Director weather
> >representation - Any comments
> 
> I purchased FS Clouds and was disappointed.  I did not find the
> clouds to be any "more" believable than what ships in FS98
> (which is pretty bad as it is).  

I happen to think the clouds in FSClouds & Textures Pro v3 *are* a
significant improvement. The options and enhancements are extensive -
multiple cloud layering beyond the FS limitation, storms, wx fronts,
lightning effects, cumulo nimbus that don't look like a flying Ayers
Rock etc ... maybe read the manual ?

> In many regards I thought the clouds were worse.  

Whatever, but it's an individual perception ..... 

I notice you fail to mention how exceptionally friendly and effective
the interface for previewing and changing the weather configurations you
create are, and how easy it is to save different wx configurations from
the simple push-button launch menu.  You also make no reference to the
seasonal and replacement ground and runway textures included in the
package - which are excellent -  and the simple push button changing of
ALL these textures (or restoring the old) and how all the original
textures are preserved thru an automated backup process.  FSGenesis'
Panj98 offers similar terrain texture switching but not as seamlessly as
FSClouds executes the changes. The interface launcher is really well
done.

I might offer a couple of negative comments to balance the view : 

1.  the coastline textures are less pleasing than many freeware
products. The coastline is rendered as a slab of sandy coloured
freewayway of constant width and not a patch on exceptional coastal
texturing found in two freeware files that stand out from the rest :
colmel.zip (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) and canary98.zip (Canary
Islands) and  both of which feature outstanding work in the coastline
texturing and water gradient renderings.  Canary98 even adds textures
the surf ! 

2.  I also think the FSClouds replacement water textures are no
improvement at all, they are just different ....

On balance, I think it's a very good value product that has a lot of
positive aesthetic qualities and functions. I haven't used FD98 so I
can't comment on that aspect of Phil's question but others seem to hold
very positive views. FSClouds is not perfect in all things, but IMHO I
think it *is* a big improvement in most texturing and all cloud
rendering effects and that alone justifies it's cost. 

rgds,
-- 
Steve Small 
Canberra, Australia
