GEX EUROPE v2.0 COMING SOON

The patch was posted to Steve and he is wrapping up work on the interface and the new update login system. We are working on simplifying the update system and its in the process of being tested/verified.

As I mentioned last week, expect the update to go live sometime this week (I cant say what day) and there will be announcements and instructions posted at the top of the forum when its hot.

I am cutting this thread loose now.

I hope you enjoy the changes.. its certainly been quite a ride making them.

ronhamilton wrote:

I wanna buy this, should I wait until V2 is released or will I have to manually update it anyways?

Manual update

The full product wont shift to 2.0 till sometime after patch release. This is done to assure things like DVD burn include any fixes that may pop up, although we dont expect any.. with software its best to allow 'soak time'

I wanna buy this, should I wait until V2 is released or will I have to manually update it anyways?

I have the last of the textures in process and will be uploading the package to Steve, probably on Thursday/Friday of this week, however he will need time to complete the interface/installer compile and then set it up on the update system.

This means we will have the package completed before the end of the year but it most likely wont be posted till sometime next week.

Sorry about the delay, as I posted earlier I had expected this would have been released at the beginning of December but unforeseen circumstances slowed the process and put us a month+ behind.

None the less, an announcement will be made at the top of this forum when the GEX Europe 2.0 patch is live. Expect it sometime next week.

thanks for update! :)

"Coming Soon" is not the term you should focus on, this statement qualified that thread title

NickN wrote:

We will be releasing a upgrade patch for Europe, free to all Europe users, before the end of the year. Please dont ask when as it will be as soon as we complete the update.

If anything had changed in plans I would have posted it. Right now I am waiting for Anthony to complete the night and hard winter tiles for the new sets which I expect to see very soon, while he has been working on that I have been working on EU tweaks and Africa/Middle East. Once hes finished and I complete the enhancements to the new tiles the package must go to Steve for a installer/build and then posted.

I dont see that going past the end of the month but I also do not own a crystal ball I can rub and say exactly what date it will be posted.

We had hoped to have it posted by now but Anthony had some personal delays on his end last month, none the less "by the end of the year" still stands at this time

If anything changes around that I will post it here

Since it's been almost 3 months since the "coming soon" announcement, I have to ask: do you think this will be released before Christmas?

Thanks.

OpaJu wrote:

Nick, coming soon it's already latish.

Nick, coming soon it's already latish.

Dimus the pad you see is not the same one your scenery assigned originally. We replaced the 128b grass skirting texture set because it was clashing, especially the fall variation, with a lot of different areas. What we came up with is the best we could do without going to a higher resolution for all airport pads. Something we considered doing as well, however people have enough performance issues to deal with so the idea of forcing a >1024 resolution at airports was dropped. It defeats the purpose of keeping GEX in line with default FSX design

and do remember, these are 'work in progress shots'. We are still making changes to tone, color, exposure, etc

Thank you for the Greek shots and for including my Tatoi scenery too. I wonder what I can do to make it stand out a bit less. May be use a more blurry airport pad.

The shots all over Europe look great. I can't wait to return to Europe as I do most of my flying in the US at the moment enjoying the GEX NA product.

rabid wrote:

Great pics, but just out of curiosity why do you disable UTX roads?
Is it possible to use regular FSX default roads with UTX?

I am showcasing our work in texture and autogen layout for a GEX patch, not UTX even though we do try and provide seamless upgrades to UTX for GEX users, the roads have not changed.

I actually prefer to fly with all roads disabled since they unnaturally cut though and across textures and remove autogen. Unless I know a area from the air seeing roads cut across textures like that tends to lower the quality of the illusion, at least for me.

There are times when I turn them on for VFR and especially night flying. If I do turn them on I use the UTX roads, not default.

Great pics, but just out of curiosity why do you disable UTX roads?
Is it possible to use regular FSX default roads with UTX?

This is looking very good indeed! Can't wait. Good work.

A few in Greece, Summer

A few from Central and Southern Italy

note that UTX EU + Xclass EU LC's are in use

Trondheim Norway in Fall

Here are a few in Fall Dimus, taken while I am in-progress on the season

a few have your airport scenery in them

All these shots look great Nick!

I only had a small reservation with GEX Eu so far and that was that it was a bit "too green" in the fields. Now I see a very nice colour variation with clay and brown that looks very realistic.

Looking forward to the upgrade. A shot from Greece would also be nice.

A few early/mid Fall shots

The first set I posted, .. I was using the wrong texture set, a set before we added in the typical fall browns, harvest greens and yellows in crops and grass.. these images display the correct textures

I use FS Genesis mesh, everything they offer for FSX.. they just released mesh for Northern Russia and pretty much all of the Middle East too

Thats insane, what Mesh are you using?

NOTE: Images were pulled due to incorrect texture version my bad!

See new fall shots below

A few early/mid Fall shots

NOTE: Images were pulled due to incorrect texture version my bad!

See new fall shots below

Ok, thanks for explanation :-) Soon I'm going to change my old Hitachi CM751ET CRT monitor to some IPS thing and then I'll see :-)

Cheers!

Gregor

The default night textures look natural?

Thats the first time I have ever read that.. those textures are far oversarturated and burnt in color

GEX EU night textures are not red.. they are amber as most Europe lighting is, with greens/reds/blues and other colors in support. Red is used/seen much more in Asia although it is seen in some parts of Europe too.

The night textures are being tuned somewhat, but not anything drastic in change.

Monitors come in all types and quality, then there is calibration.. from 'by eye' which is never accurate to professional with a calibration puck and expensive software such as i1D2 and ColorEyes.

What you see at night and what I see at night (or daytime for that matter) are completely different

There is no way to please everyone when it comes to things like that. FSX is pooly made for correct ambient night light. It usually requires, especially with a correctly calibrated monitor, adjustments in driver control to set the correct contrast/brightness for night flying and must be set back for daytime.

Thanks for the great work on v2 of GEX.

And what about the night textures? The one of very few things that I liked about default FSX textures was the night set which looked (and looks) very natural :-) Especially when you approach a big city...

I would love to see an option in GEX Europe 2 to have a choice of changing night textures. I mean the colour of lights from reddish to greenish.

Thanks again and waiting patiently for the new version. :-)

Gregory

Psybear wrote:

Starting to see those clay colored earthy reds that make Spain so distinct, especially in Andalucia between Malaga and Madrid. Mas, mas por favor.

That is what makes our job so difficult.. there is no such thing as "Spain" textures and we must try and import/blend different visual elements so each location the tiles are used presents at least somewhat of an indication of location. That is not easy to do when the tiles that are used in Spain are also used in other countries as well.

I am importing more earthy reds into the tiles on purpose as well as adding in natural sunlight tones that will change the hue and shadowing based on time of year and time of day.. the better the monitor is calibrated the more vividly the color gradients can be seen.

Starting to see those clay colored earthy reds that make Spain so distinct, especially in Andalucia between Malaga and Madrid. Mas, mas por favor.