Snow cover control

[wingclip 2]

Hi again Folks,I have been trying 2 things in FSX Deluxe without much luck. One is trying to get the terrain to be covered in snow when I open in Free Flight mode. I tried January, Febrauary, March and April, (I think). The area I'm opening in is airstrip WA56, (Israel's Farm), in the NW of Washington state just a little south of Seattle I think. I tried the default "Winter Wonderland" and that opened with no snow on the ground, (but it was snowing). I also tried a user-controled weather option but that didn't work either.Can anyone tell me the trick to getting FSX to open with snow on the ground in Washington State?The other question is that when I choose the Option to do an instant replay of a flight I was flying, the Replay never includes the AI planes that were flying around near me, (or anywhere else for that matter). Is that suppose to happen? Is there any way to get the AI aircraft to show up in an instant replay?Thanks All.

[Superpilotv2 2]

About the replay: This is normal. The quick replay doesn´t consist any other planes than yours. For doing so I recommend FSRecorder http://www.fs-recorder.net/

[scott967 62]

Can anyone tell me the trick to getting FSX to open with snow on the ground in Washington State?

Snow on the ground is generally controlled by the terrain/landclass system and the system file lclookup.bgl. Snow is shown by loading textures denoted as "hard winter". The selection of areas in which hard winter texture variants are used is controlled by the file seasons.bgl. Seasons.bgl is implemented as a set of 12 maps with world-wide coverage. The maps dictate where seasonal snow (hard winter) textures are shown. The maps are locked to calender months Jan-Dec, so you can often see an instantaneous jump at the beginning of a month.The FSX sdk shows how the seasons.bgl file can be modified, using the sdk tool reasample.exe. Even though lclookup.bgl restricts you to using one season map at a time, in principle you could create multiple season bgl files, and use some sort of switcher to install the one you want prior to starting FSX. You still have the problem of the terrain not responding to snow in the weather, and it is also possible that 3d scenery objects are coded to show certain textures based on day-of-year.Edit:I should also add that some terrain programs like UTX provide advanced config tools that allow you to change some of your terrain textures prior to starting FSX, for example turning water bodies into "ice" (FSX normally doesn't deal with frozen water bodies). scott s..

[wingclip 2]

About the replay: This is normal. The quick replay doesn´t consist any other planes than yours. For doing so I recommend FSRecorder http://www.fs-recorder.net/

Thank You very much! I see that they offer a 2.1 beta option and though I have not yet read anymore than the opening page, I'm guessing that this would be the download that I would use. I am anxious to try that out and will definately apply a donation if it works well. Thanks again!

[wingclip 2]

Snow on the ground is generally controlled by the terrain/landclass system and the system file lclookup.bgl. Snow is shown by loading textures denoted as "hard winter". The selection of areas in which hard winter texture variants are used is controlled by the file seasons.bgl. Seasons.bgl is implemented as a set of 12 maps with world-wide coverage. The maps dictate where seasonal snow (hard winter) textures are shown. The maps are locked to calender months Jan-Dec, so you can often see an instantaneous jump at the beginning of a month.The FSX sdk shows how the seasons.bgl file can be modified, using the sdk tool reasample.exe. Even though lclookup.bgl restricts you to using one season map at a time, in principle you could create multiple season bgl files, and use some sort of switcher to install the one you want prior to starting FSX. You still have the problem of the terrain not responding to snow in the weather, and it is also possible that 3d scenery objects are coded to show certain textures based on day-of-year.Edit:I should also add that some terrain programs like UTX provide advanced config tools that allow you to change some of your terrain textures prior to starting FSX, for example turning water bodies into "ice" (FSX normally doesn't deal with frozen water bodies). scott s..

Thank You Scott, I didn't mention that I'm presently using UTX USA, UTX Alaska, FTX's PNW, (with airstrip add-ons like Israel's Farm), and GEX. Believe it or not, I totally forgot about UTX and I'm betting that I am trying to set some of these snow conditions while my UTX settings are configured for a summer-like environment. Still, I plan to find these "Hard Winter" textures which I didn't know about. I'll have to re-read some of your answer to gain an idea of where or what I want to do but anytime I see those 3 little letters, SDK, I get nervous. Thanks again!

[Alan_A 1,650]

Orbx PNW doesn't handle snow the same way as the rest of the FSX system. Snow cover is controlled separately within the coverage area, and it appears for a shorter period of time than in FSX - and in some cases not at all. This is to reflect that Pacific Northwest winters are rainy, and heavy snowcover (like last winter's) is more exceptional than it is elsewhere.If you want to know about specific time periods when snow is on the ground at Israel's Farm, the best place to ask is in the Orbx forums, located HEREHope this helps.

[wingclip 2]

Orbx PNW doesn't handle snow the same way as the rest of the FSX system. Snow cover is controlled separately within the coverage area, and it appears for a shorter period of time than in FSX - and in some cases not at all. This is to reflect that Pacific Northwest winters are rainy, and heavy snowcover (like last winter's) is more exceptional than it is elsewhere.If you want to know about specific time periods when snow is on the ground at Israel's Farm, the best place to ask is in the Orbx forums, located HEREHope this helps.

Thank you Alan! I had a suspicion about that being one of my culprits but did no experimentation. I will go to the forum and bounce it around and see what comes of it.