Africa and the Middle East.. Project Update

 

 

 

GEX Africa and The Middle East 

 

--- PROJECT UPDATE ---

 

 

 

We are working on the last set of textures for the AFME project. Past that, Anthony must prepare the night light tiles, fall version of the textures as well as any hard winter versions with special edits and then I will process them. We expect this package will be ready for, or, be released by the end of this month but please be patient as in any development project 'stuff happens'.

 

There have been a few changes since the original announcement posted here:

We originally announced AFME would have no impact/change on Europe. During the last several weeks it was discovered some changes need to be made to the dryer GEX EU tiles to correct an issue found in very dry climate locations of the AFME package.

 

When installed, GEX Africa and the Middle East will have a small impact on GEX southern Europe. The changes are not 'design' or 'replacement tiles'. The changes deal with tone and brightness of the southern Europe GEX Europe v2.0 tiles, mostly in the spring and summer months. The changes will have a positive impact on southern Europe.

 

If you are currently using or intend to obtain GEX Europe please make sure you have GEX Europe v2.0 (or above) installed before installing GEX Africa and the Middle East.

 

If you obtain the GEX Europe product at a later date, simply run the GEX EU interface options and then rerun the AFME interface and install the AFME options again. Once installed in the correct order no switching is required and both packages will work in sync.

 

The situation with North America has not changed. GEX AFME will have a far greater significant visual impact on North America than Europe. As with GEX EU, GEX AFME must be installed after the interface options for GEX North America v1.09 (or above) have been run. If you intend to install AFME it does not matter which GEX region (NA or EU) is installed first, only that the version of the products be NA 1.09+ or EU 2.0+ and AFME installed last.

 

As originally announced we are providing UTX USA/CAN/AK/ users with a texture 'sync' option in the GEX AFME interface. We have now added UTX EU to that sync list. If you use any or all of the UTX products listed simply run the sync options that pertain to your UTX version(s) from the AFME interface. Please be sure all your UTX products are fully updated to their latest versions and the GEX region interface (NA - EU) UTX options are installed before installing any UTX/GEX AFME sync options. The AFME options can be rerun at any time should you update UTX in the future.

 

Unlike GEX packages in the past Africa and the Middle East will include a small scenery change to the default FSX Cairo/Giza location. The FSX default Giza base image tile is far to washed for color/tone/detail which visually clashed with the corrected GEX AFME textures. The change we made is a simple one and unlike any other GEX region package after install of AFME and on first run of FSX you will see a brief scenery progress bar. As with any/all GEX regions there are no scenery library entries with AFME only a 'first run' FSX scenery correction. The AFME interface will back up the default Giza base image and allow you to restore it later if desired. As with all GEX interfaces you can opt to skip the backup process but if you do default FSX tiles can not be restored.

 

If you keep backups of the default files, as with all later versions of GEX the new AFME region interface will detect the backup folder and skip files previously backed up by other GEX interfaces. AFME will simply add the default FSX AFME region files to the GEXn-Backup folder saving disk space by eliminating duplicate file backups.

 

 

Once AFME is installed into FSX after NA and/or EU all versions of GEX will be in sync and no region switching is required.

 

 

We are preparing a showcase of images to be posted in this thread that will demo the GEX Africa/Middle East area in compare to FSX default, a before and after demo of many different locations in the regions.

 

 

Thank You!

As always-fantastic!!!

Rick

 

 

 

 

 

A short hop from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv    ST Asia (Middle East) LC with FSGeneis Israel mesh

 

 

there are no light mods involved (ENB).. we do not skew images with lighting tricks. What you see is what you get 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few from the tropical regions...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leaving semi-arid tropical grasslands and entering a lush area of the Congo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coming into Baghdad,  Xclass LC appears to work best for this location based on Google Earth. As mentioned, although SceneryTech does do a overall better job in AFME, there are spot locations where Xclass AF/Asia works best which is why we encourage folks to obtain all the LC's and enable/disable as needed for the area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I posted these in another thread, however since these images are derived from the changes made with shared region changes and new textures produced for Africa/Middle East I thought it best I posted these here to ease the minds of those who may be concerned about changes to NA with the installation of the AFME product.

 

 

What you are seeing are images of GEX 1.095 North America with GEX Africa and the Middle East installed. These represent the changes that will occur with AFME installed after NA.

 

 

 

Remember, if you use a product other than GEX AFME, you must have GEX NA v1.09+ and GEX EU v2.0+ installed first in order for AFME to work with other GEX regions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Greek Island of Samos...   

 

 

UTX Europe + SceneryTech Europe LC  both of which cover the Greek Islands

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How the islands appear depend on if you have UTX Europe installed as well as use a 3PD landclass. The images I posted use UTX EU + SceneryTech EU. SceneryTech tends to run the them all just about the same with lush interiors and the dryer coastlines. Xclass Europe tends to run them far dryer than SceneryTech. You need to decide what works best none the less the Mid East textures have been replaced so no matter what LC you use they will not clash with the EU counterparts anymore.

 

Rhodes...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These shots were taken in the mountains between Poland and Slovakia. UTX EU + SceneryTech LC in use.

 

I was checking outside the AFME coverage area to confirm changes were working correctly. We boosted fall colors a bit on the fall tree tiles which will effect all GEX areas when AFME is installed. NE USA and SE Canada will see more robust fall colors too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are a few fall shots from Portland, OR.   UTX USA + SceneryTech NA LC

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Its been a long weekend. Anthony and I are working on the final tiles for fall and hard winter. Steve has the new interface and is working on preparing it for release. I have not had a lot of time to take shots in the last few days since a lot of our work is taking me from Europe to North America and back to confirm tile upgrades.

 

 

I will get back to posting AFME area shots soon. Right now the focus is on making sure the new tile changes are working in other GEX areas.

 

No promises but its possible this project may go to Steve for compile next weekend.. I will keep you posted about release later this week. 

 

 

 

 

 

wilco

 

 

 

 

Rural South Africa, outside of Johannasburg - Summer - SceneryTech Africa LC

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Approaching and passing over Addis Ababa,  SceneryTech Africa LC