New PW Sceneries Project - PHOTO REEFS!

[Paul Wheeler]

PHOTOREAL REEFS!   

Yes I am currently in the R and D phase of creating a set of photoreal reefs for the PW Sceneries packages.

This will only place phototextures for reefs - not any land (coz I hate photoscenery as a rule - but I think it works for water) and will compliment the existing waterclass. It is quite a bit of work and will involve a bit of playing around to get it looking right. These shots were done really quickly with very rough blend masks. You may notice that the reef textures don't quite reach the land. They will when I've finished and I may try and get a higher res on them too.

But no longer will only REX owners have access to nice water textures. This will be TOTALLY FREE!!!

This is in the very early stages - in fact tonight is my first attempt at doing this kind of thing!

...I think it came out rather well... 

Some shots around Guadeloupe:

[volcom1720]

Thats awesome Paul!!!   

The thing I'd like to ask is with REX users the tropical water has it's own texture with REX.. will this overwrite it? 

[Paul Wheeler]

no. This is photo scenery so its different to the way rex works. Rex textures will still appear in the areas this doesn't cover.

[Justin Rider]

Looks good but weird for some reason, not sure why. Might just be me thinking that it FSX textures elsewhere and then photo real for the reef and it looks funny :S

I'll have to think about this one and try and figure it out

[Orion]

I think the odd thing is the difference between colour, style, scale and resolution of the different water textures.

[Ashton Lawson]

Like Orion said, colour style scale and resolution all play a part.

One of the annoying things Paul and I find about photoreal sceneries in general is that often the artists don't bother to remove shadows or colour-correct the textures.

Shadow-removal is understandable since some photoreal sceneries which cover a large area would be too tedious to have shadows removed, but colour-correction's a different story.

I'm sure once Paul plays around with the textures a bit he'll have them looking a lot nicer .

[Paul Wheeler]

yes these are raw textures at the moment. I've only spent about two hours on it so far.

also guadeloupe has a very striking and distinctive reef.

don't worry it'll be blended perfectly when Im done.

[Orion]

So you wound up using SBuilderX?

[Paul Wheeler]

yes. Its quite straight forward for this kind of thing. Not as easy as fsxkml for the rest though.

[raystriker]

You guys are simply amazing and talented!

[Ashton Lawson]

Well, Paul is, he's the only one working on the sceneries .

I make the installers for them, and everyone else beta tests them for the ever-annoying memory leaks and the occasional invisible wall .

[Blackdog]

WOW!!! Paul...I....I...I think I love you 

[Orion]

... and the occasional invisible wall .

So this doesn't happen:

[Paul Wheeler]

Now, now Orion. Don't turn this into one of "those" threads!

[Orion]

I had to post that since Ash mentioned an invisible wall .

Anyways, back on topic everyone - nothing to see here...