New Complete Texture Enhancement for FS2004!

A new item has been uploaded to flighsim by Howard (1biggles1).

https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.php?do=search&fsec=0&fname=tnw2019_free.zip

The Natural World 2019, incorporating the TNW Dense Autogen Project. TNW19 upgrades all FS2004 world ground and seasonal texturing with dedicated texture set for the Semi-Arid and Desert Areas giving flightsim over 3000 more bespoke textures to render, all hand edited, with corrected autogen which gives FS2004 users more variety and an overall amazing visual experience, a real boost to realism. Added to that all the autogen trees and buildings have been replaced or upgraded, the sky, sea, clouds and environments have all been enhanced.

I think it's wonderful that people like Howard are still dedicating their time to improve and sustain FS2004!

There is a discussion at the bottom of the page. It would be good if people provided feedback.

Paul

Thank you for the heads-up, Paul. I had not used TNW or any of its predecessors in the past.

Just installed it into a vanilla FS9 install, and I like it so far. I will publish feedback in the other thread after I've looked around a bit more.

Question for the community. I have an FS9 Golden Wings 3 install with a lot of options and extras. I see some people have used TNW and GW3 together. To what extent do they step on each other, and which should be installed first? Assume that I generally prefer the TNW textures to GW3s, but I don't want to mess up GW3's landclass distribution etc.

I hope the answer is that it is okay to install TNW on top of GW3, because it would be real pain to try to recreate my GW3 setup on top of a fresh TNW install, and it seems to me GW3 would overwrite some of the nice TNW textures?

Thanks,

August

Thanks Bernard. I did do that backup. I have installed this, but I have a couple questions.

(1) when I install it, browsing to my FS9 install folder as the installer requests, it creates a new "Flight Simulator 9" folder within my existing one. So if my game was installed in E:\Games\Flight Simulator 9\, I now have an E:\Games\Flight Simulator 9\Flight Simulator 9\ folder. That folder has a new copy of fs9.exe, and folders for Aircraft (containing only the Baron), Effects, Scenery, Modules, etc. with the TNW stuff in it. Is it supposed to be this way? I'm thinking not, because the desktop shortcuts to the area swappers don't work. In that case, the installer is broken.

(2) the documentation says that there is a way to restore your previous textures for when you want to fly between green/arid/semi-arid regions, but there's nothing for that in the Modules\FS2004 Texture Swap folder. Is it the TNWrto.exe file that it puts in the (newly created) root Flight Simulator 9 folder?

Thanks

August

Thank you Bernard. I understand. I think I like the textures, but still need to try more regions/seasons.

Was I correct about TNWrto being the tool to swap the old textures back in?

August

Thank you Bernard. I understand. I think I like the textures, but still need to try more regions/seasons.

 

Was I correct about TNWrto being the tool to swap the old textures back in?

 

August

It has seasons but it also has a ‘arid’ or ‘green’ texture set. You can also install that I think to a temp folder as above which is what I do. Easier to control that way.

Hi all thanks for the feedback just to clarify a couple of points, the first thing the TNW installer dose is make a complete backup of all the folders it uses and places them on our C: so you can restore the part or all the instillation. with regard to the second FS2004 directory that is not purposed to happen I will have to rebuild the installer and upload. I must admit I did not test it I just uploaded it after converting for a two part download and install to back into a single, sorry about that, just been that busy creating TNW for P3D v5 and FSXSE plus building a new AMD computer a i9 equivalent to go in my cockpit.

Howard

Mail : biggles-tnw@outlook.com

Web : http://biggles11.wix.com/the-natural-world

Hi Howard,

Thanks for the reply and for the fine add-on. It probably is better if the installer does not create a "Flight Simulator 9" root directory since so many users nowadays have multiple installs with different names or are calling their install folder something else for whatever reason. That said, the remaining FS2004 user base seems to be a pretty sophisticated crowd, who know their way around the folder structure and know to ask here for help, so this kind of issue is not a big problem.

I have been flying your mod head-to-head against my existing scenery for a few days. I can't test it against the FS2004 stock scenery because who still uses that these days? but relative to the hodgepodge of degraded orbx and other stuff I had going on, I find your colors less garish and the different landclasses better integrated, and there is also less shimmering on my 1440p display. It could be my imagination, but it also seems to me there is less of an obvious grid/checkerboard texture repetition effect in large areas of the same landclass. The idea of overcoming FS2004 texture limitations by borrowing textures from other biomes and swapping them in/out was clever. Last night I just finished installing TNW into the rest of my FS2004 installs, and in a few days I'll consign my backups of them to some archive that I will never be able to find when I need it. So it has become my default scenery and it really does make FS2004 less jarringly visually inferior even if I load it right after playing FS2020.

I would still appreciate confirmation of my guess that the TNWRTO.exe that it installs in the root directory is for restoring the preexisting FS2004 textures. The documentation says you can do this but is never quite explicit that this is how.

Thanks again,

August

Sorry for been away for a little while but been tide up with with TNW2021 for P3Dv5 and glad to get back in my comfort zone just to clarify the TNWRTO on C: is the first thing the TNW installer creates, it makes a complete backup of all the directories that TNW uses it can be safely deleted when you are 100% happy with the results. From the start of Howard Mix back in 2007 the idea was to try and eliminate the synthetic look and the scenario ( I've just flown past that cloud) hence the re-branding to The Natural World it was at that point I was happy with the results, although there is still a lot in there which was created on early freeware editors it the over all effect that is my main focus to much detail in some cases I find has a adverse effect, Thanks for the feed back its always welcome.

Stay Safe, not just in the air, its on the ground the real danger is. Howard

Thank you Howard.

Can I trouble you to tell me where, exactly, this backup of the folders is created?

I generally like your mod, but I recently decided to uninstall TNW from my FS9 Golden Wings installation, because it re-modernized too many elements of GW. I could not find the backup or any way to restore the original folders. Running TNWRTO did nothing. I eventually just deleted the entire FS9 install and replaced it with the backup I had made before installing TNW.

A backup that the user can neither locate nor access is just a waste of disk space.

I would now like to delete the backup files that were created, so would like to know where they are.

Thanks,

August

The backup placed directly onto your C:\ for ease of access and is a snap shot of toy sim

Howard

The backup TNWRTO is placed directly onto your C:\ for ease of access and is a snap shot of toy sim

Howard

I recently decided to uninstall TNW from my FS9 Golden Wings installation, because it re-modernized too many elements of GW.

Hi K5083, can you be more specific about which elements if affects in Golden Wings 3? The only thing that I think could possibly be in conflict would be the autogen files, though if this is true, it would be good to do some more investigation. Can you provide any screen-shots before and after? This would make it easier to compare.

Regards

Paul

Unfortunately, I can't edit my initial post - the correct link to the page at flightsim for downloading Howard's The Natural World 2019 is:

https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.php?do=search&fname=tnw2019.zip :pilot:

Hi K5083, can you be more specific about which elements if affects in Golden Wings 3? The only thing that I think could possibly be in conflict would be the autogen files, though if this is true, it would be good to do some more investigation. Can you provide any screen-shots before and after? This would make it easier to compare.

 

Regards

Paul

Hi Paul,

Well, I didn't grab screen shots and now I've deleted TNW so it's too late. But I know that it restored the hard airport taxiways where GW3 had replaced them with turf, and I believe that it replaced the hangars with more modern buildings. That was pretty much all I needed to see, since I like the primitive GW3 airports. I had the sense, from flying around a little, that TNW restored the spread of urban areas that had been scaled back to rural areas in GW3, but I can't be certain about that.

August

The backup TNWRTO is placed directly onto your C:\ for ease of access and is a snap shot of toy sim

Howard

I can't find it. There's no TNWRTO file or folder in C:\. There's also none on E:\, the drive I installed FS9 and TNW on. I searched my entire drives for anything starting with TNW* and didn't find the backup.

If it really tried to write to my root C:\ folder, maybe my PC blocked it. Not great etiquette to try to save things there!

August

Well, I wonder whether it would make sense to install (or reinstall) Golden Wings 3 after installing Howard's The Natural World? GW3 makes some major changes, including replacing some default textures, so it's no wonder that a package like TNW would affect some of its files.

I thought of this also. It wasn't really an option for me since I already had a finely tuned GW3 installation that would be difficult to reproduce from scratch, but my sense is that TNW should go first. I don't think that would be ideal either, though. What would be ideal is to learn how both mods work and combine my favorite elements of each. Maybe one has better textures, the other has better buildings, one has better trees, the other has better airports, one has better water, the other has better ... but this is more effort than I'm likely to put in. TNW works fine in my vanilla and Cal Classic FS9 installs. GW3 looks good enough on its own.

Thanks all for the help and advice.

August

TNW is not, in my opinion, a good package to install. I found the textures to be repetitive and un-like we would see here in the US. Furthermore, I find it very aggravating that some airports I fly into have "TNW" in-bedded in the building textures.

Please understand that I am in no way "bashing" this gentlemen's effort to make FS2004 better. This is merely my opinion. Nothing more.

Michael

This Link does NOT work ???!!!

Sincerely

G. Kirschstein

I have always wondered if FS9 could be updated to a new scenery level. "A" for effort to Howard to even try

with this program. After I installed it I noticed there was some noticeable improvements to mountain terrain.

We all want MSFS 2020 textures from a 18 year old program but it is not feasible. I use FS9 and FSX and have accepted the level

of realism both these programs deliver and enjoy the experience they provide.

The link to download the package has changed. You can now find it here:

https://www.flightsim.com/files/file/205496-fs2004-the-natural-world-2019/

Recently got this from another site;  glad to see it's finally available as a regular download.