I thought Shade didn't work and crashed prepar3d? If it does work, I can just use that, the names of the textures hasn't changed..

 

 

The textures and their names are the same, so yes if you can get SHADE to find your P3D dir. then it should work. I know some do have it working. I just change the settings in SHADE and copy all 139 sky textures into P3D from FSX.... so FSX still has its uses

After the switch from sprite to group I get a (No suitable patches were found) Vpach  message 

 

Any clues?

 

Thanks

 

Stef

I am not a P3D user, but I still find it funny that so many people express some sort of disappointment or resentment for LM's customer service and/or the tick-tock cumbersome patching system when it has been clear from the get go that P3D is not a consumer/entertainment platform. So the convenience and user friendly nature of an entertainment platform along with the customer service, is expected not to be evident from a multi-billion dollar international defense conglomerate. 

Gosh, you sound like my daughter..))

What is the exact issue and do you have screenshots of the issue?  I've never seen or encountered a color/contrast issue in any version of P3D ... and I'm a little confused as to what this is?  Color contrast can be control via you monitor and/or nVidia control panel.

 

As pointed out, your sky textures will influence lighting even more so with HDR on.  If you like orange clouds, then have a dusk sky texture with lots of red/orange in it.

 

Anyway, there is nothing in v2.4 patch that addresses color/contrast.

 

Cheers, Rob.

Rob, look around man.  This conveys it just fine:  

 

http://www.prepar3d.com/forum-5/?mingleforumaction=viewtopic&t=8190

 

And other shots--see Arwen's post just above.  Sky colors are very poorly reflected off of clouds, and the degree of illumination/shadowing has been drastically blunted w/ v2.3.  I hope to heck they restore it to at least something intermediate.  Zach pointed out it was overdone in former versions, but in undoing that they've removed it virtually 100% and now it looks dull, drab, unrealistic, uninspiring.  Rob, if you have some sway w/ the now customer-aloof team at LM, please update them that this matters.  Unfortunately the fix offered doesn't help a whole lot.  

Yesterday I took a short trip to the store and the real cloud lighting I saw was dramatic--a lot like how shadow lighting behaved in ever release of P3D V2 until 2.3.  I wish I had the camera w/ me to post what I saw.  It did prompt me to come home and take two shots of the same cloud--one on the lit side, and one on the shadowed side.   You can see even though the foothill behind the cloud is well lit, the cloud remains dull and hardly varies from the shadowed side.  There are much better shots to illustrate this but hopefully the get the idea as it's so blatant I can't imagine why it hasn't been resolved yet.  The 3rd shot was done a long time ago in pre 2.3 that illustrates lighting variance that more more approximates what I saw in the real world yesterday.   I'm completely baffled why LM removed this, even thought Zach said it was overdone.  I can accept it might have been overdone,  but to remove it outright, almost completely?  Please, fix the thing...

 

Cloud from shadowed side:

 

Cloud from sunny side--note how similar, note how the foothill behind it is lit up:

 

And here is the old shot that illustrates variable lighting on the cloud:

 

Now all clouds vary very little no matter what the time of day.  I know the two shots above on the sunny and non sunny sides of the same cloud might not illustrate the issue adequately as the sun was low in the horizon, and the total illumination is different I agree, but the issue remains even at high noon.  Moreover, you don't see sky colors REFLECTED BY CLOUDS any more either, though the sky color is visible in the background.

This is what I see with the modded shader, and sky textures. I now seem to get an acceptable variation in cloud lighting and colouration, along with more shading in the terrain... as I have shown previously.

 

I agree the defaut is bland, but it seems easy to customise.

 

 

It does look like you have some color reflecting, but the variable intra-cloud lighting contrast is narrow.  Which shader mod?  I did the one change Zach suggested.  Maybe I was supposed to delete the shader file?  The before and after change from sprite to global didn't yield much so maybe I missed a step.

 

 

Which shader mod? I did the one change Zach suggested. Maybe I was supposed to delete the shader file?

 

Yes, the one Zach described. I did delete the shaders after making this change.

 

As I have it now, I am quite pleased with the lighting, and feel it looks quite natural, if lacking some of the drama I can get in FSX.. though the wide contrasts you get in the clouds in that sim can be OTT and messy.

Yes, the one Zach described. I did delete the shaders after making this change.

 

As I have it now, I am quite pleased with the lighting, and feel it looks quite natural, if lacking some of the drama I can get in FSX.. though the wide contrasts you get in the clouds in that sim can be OTT and messy.

 

Great stuff Novation - I was hesitating on trying shade but with EMT works perfect - quick shot - nothing added except for global and vector - nothing else waiting for 2.4 update before loading it up - used your slp settings also - nice job - any others post them here please - also something I did notice as you change the viewpoint it gets darker or lighter depending on the angle you are viewing at pretty neat - I did not notice that in fsx might be HDR

 

 

Yes, the one Zach described. I did delete the shaders after making this change.

 

As I have it now, I am quite pleased with the lighting, and feel it looks quite natural, if lacking some of the drama I can get in FSX.. though the wide contrasts you get in the clouds in that sim can be OTT and messy.

It's still very lacking to me--shader file delete didn't seem to change anything.  What really struck me today was looking at real clouds--the intra-cloud lighting contrast was much greater than anything I've seen in 2.3 by a long shot.  Many situations look natural I would agree, but it's really missing real-world lighting effects and I saw those today in my local skies.  I'm sure it's highly changeable so I hope they put some attention on it and soon.  I'm going to skip 2.4 in the hopes 2.5 will restore better lighting.  I hate to go back to 2.2 as there are some improvements worth keeping in 2.3, but as you can see this is a big deal to me.

Great stuff Novation..

 

 

That looks fantastic Richard!... The definition in the terrain is greatly improved, as your shot demonstrates.

 

but as you can see this is a big deal to me.

 

Indeed, and I do agree largely... the trouble is LM will not customise the sim for one or two, or seemingly even hundreds, as seen with the rotating cloud issue. If its by design, then getting things changed may be a losing battle.

 

I'm happy I can modify things to my taste, but that might not be the case in future updates.

 

 

Indeed, and I do agree largely... the trouble is LM will not customise the sim for one or two, or seemingly even hundreds, as seen with the rotating cloud issue. If its by design, then getting things changed may be a losing battle.

 

They'll change it I predict as it's really not right now.  My guess is they will set it somewhere intermediate between 2.2 (and all previous versions) and 2.3.  I may go back to 2.2 and monitor to see if they fix it in 2.5, or if maybe 2.4 gets it, and I guess that's mañana to find out.