Post by FSMuseum on Apr 18, 2020 13:02:35 GMT -5
Hello all,
In some of my downtime over the last few years I've learned a lot about developing for FS, and in that time I have learned how to make my own sky textures!
I made these because I was very dissatisfied with almost all other offerings I could find out there in terms of realism. So many sky textures have really ugly colors, or way over-dramatic sunsets/sunrises, or just have really bad lighting.
Sky textures in FS control more than just the sky, they also control the color and brightness of highlights, shadows, and visibility haze (both at the horizon and up close).
My textures attempt to be as realistic as possible. I have pored over thousands of photos, taken dozens of my own, and compared my flight sim observations to the real world as much as possible. I am confident that these textures are among the most realistic sets available.
I also use SweetFX to make my sim look a little more bright, lively, and colorful, so your experience will vary if you use ENBSeries, SweetFX, ReShade, or any other post-processing offering. If you would like my custom SweetFX preset, you may shoot me a message. I highly recommend the SweetFX settings and presets available with the freeware "FS Supersky" add-on, available at AVSIM. There are some 13 presets to choose that will enhance the overall look of your sim quite greatly.
With that in mind, here's a short list of features with my textures:
- Realistic sky colors. No more over-dramatic blues, oranges, purples and other nonsense. These colors have been carefully tuned to be very close to what the human eye sees, as well as being generic enough to be usable for the entire globe.
- Finely tuned shadows and highlights. No more patchwork stratus clouds. Shadows are vibrant and slightly-blue tinged, but not overly dark or with too much contrast
- Soft horizon effect. Used in conjunction with a registered copy of FSUIPC (which you should definitely get!), set the visibility controls to either 3000, 4500, or 6000 (my preferred setting), all the way across. Clouds disappear realistically into the horizon, and the effect of being up-high is nicely portrayed with Rayleigh-scattering atmospheric effects. THIS FEATURE DOES NOT WORK WITHOUT A REGISTERED COPY OF FSUIPC
- Realistic low-visibility effects. Low visibility flight is nice and dark, with that unique tinge of blue lighting you get when in deep fog early in the morning or late in the evening.
Later on I might add another feature of slightly differing colors for the 10 day sky texture cycle that FS natively has, but for now the textures are all the same day-to-day.
MAKE SURE TO BACKUP YOUR CURRENT SKY TEXTURES BEFORE INSTALLING THESE
DOWNLOAD: www.dropbox.com/s/w9945pzyucdhf9c/skytextures.zip?dl=0
Here are some screenshots. Enjoy!
In some of my downtime over the last few years I've learned a lot about developing for FS, and in that time I have learned how to make my own sky textures!
I made these because I was very dissatisfied with almost all other offerings I could find out there in terms of realism. So many sky textures have really ugly colors, or way over-dramatic sunsets/sunrises, or just have really bad lighting.
Sky textures in FS control more than just the sky, they also control the color and brightness of highlights, shadows, and visibility haze (both at the horizon and up close).
My textures attempt to be as realistic as possible. I have pored over thousands of photos, taken dozens of my own, and compared my flight sim observations to the real world as much as possible. I am confident that these textures are among the most realistic sets available.
I also use SweetFX to make my sim look a little more bright, lively, and colorful, so your experience will vary if you use ENBSeries, SweetFX, ReShade, or any other post-processing offering. If you would like my custom SweetFX preset, you may shoot me a message. I highly recommend the SweetFX settings and presets available with the freeware "FS Supersky" add-on, available at AVSIM. There are some 13 presets to choose that will enhance the overall look of your sim quite greatly.
With that in mind, here's a short list of features with my textures:
- Realistic sky colors. No more over-dramatic blues, oranges, purples and other nonsense. These colors have been carefully tuned to be very close to what the human eye sees, as well as being generic enough to be usable for the entire globe.
- Finely tuned shadows and highlights. No more patchwork stratus clouds. Shadows are vibrant and slightly-blue tinged, but not overly dark or with too much contrast
- Soft horizon effect. Used in conjunction with a registered copy of FSUIPC (which you should definitely get!), set the visibility controls to either 3000, 4500, or 6000 (my preferred setting), all the way across. Clouds disappear realistically into the horizon, and the effect of being up-high is nicely portrayed with Rayleigh-scattering atmospheric effects. THIS FEATURE DOES NOT WORK WITHOUT A REGISTERED COPY OF FSUIPC
- Realistic low-visibility effects. Low visibility flight is nice and dark, with that unique tinge of blue lighting you get when in deep fog early in the morning or late in the evening.
Later on I might add another feature of slightly differing colors for the 10 day sky texture cycle that FS natively has, but for now the textures are all the same day-to-day.
MAKE SURE TO BACKUP YOUR CURRENT SKY TEXTURES BEFORE INSTALLING THESE
DOWNLOAD: www.dropbox.com/s/w9945pzyucdhf9c/skytextures.zip?dl=0
Here are some screenshots. Enjoy!
