Prepar3D Tweak Assistant (PTA)

[KNOSSOS 122]

Great news Yuri, is the same ambient lighting effect present in Reshade??

Sorry, I've made mistake: not ambient but diffuse lighting adjustment. Ambient is already present.

Actually now PTA has separate ambient and diffuse lighting tweaks only for terrain. Next release same diffuse tweaks will be available for AC and autogen.

[AnkH 2,282]

AnkH, John Venema"s P.T.A settings in P3D over at the Orbx forum, can't seem to locate them, your shots look excellent but I can't seem to find them, could give me an extra hint?

 

Rod.

 

Here we go: http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/122465-valdez-just-cant-stop-hitting-the-v-key/#comment-1098950

[doublebubble 20]

Thanks heaps AnkH.

 

Rod.

[winstonwolf 0]

Hello , 

 

Im not sure if i  am here right . Im very frustrated . 

 

I uses till yesterday ASN + ASCA and PTA . 

 

My Clouds till yesterday looks like this : 

 

Then i uninstall ASN and install AS2016 . And now my Clouds looks like this . Totally Bad!!! 

 

Can PTA help me to solve the Problem ? 

 

The ASCA Clouds are the same as under ASN . 

 

Thank you 

 

Regards

Michael 

[KNOSSOS 122]

Hi, Michael!

It looks like ASCA sky/cloud textures remain in sim.

Did you use "Restore" command in ASCA before uninstall?

 

 

 

 

PTA can't solve this issue.

You need just to restore sky and cloud textures from default P3D setup.

(For such situations I make full manual backup of Texture folder just after P3D installation.)

If you have manual backup of "Textures" folder - sky textures are 140 files with sky_*.bmp template, cloud textures are cumul*.bmp, cirrus_*.bmp (not sure). Copy them to Textures folder of sim.

If you have no backup: If you use REX - install proper textures from REX.

If not it seems to need reinstall content package from P3D installation: http://www.prepar3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=120861. But it may cause problems with textures installed by other add-ons.

[Adamski_NZ 966]

Hi Yuri/Knossos ...

 

Is there a way that PTA could have a function that corrects the over-zealous time-of-day darkening algorithm that P3D uses? Where 5pm ends up looking like 7pm - and 8am looks like 5am?

 

I appreciate there are many time-of-day related functions (airport/city lights etc.) that will be part of P3D core workings, but a palette/shader-only algorithm might even things out a little - if only in the visuals <?>.

 

I tend to fly outside the mid-day hours as you get much better lighting/shadows on terrain, but find just too many of those hours almost unusable (too drab or dark). If I lighten everything in PTA to compensate, then my mid-day hours are very bleached out.

 

As we all know in RL, the transition from light to dark isn't that linear - particularly in the evenings, when it can go quite dark very suddenly. It seems to me that the P3D maths is treating it as a linear/straight line instead of a logarithmic/sine curve.

 

Adam.

[KNOSSOS 122]

Hi Yuri/Knossos ...

 

Is there a way that PTA could have a function that corrects the over-zealous time-of-day darkening algorithm that P3D uses? Where 5pm ends up looking like 7pm - and 8am looks like 5am?

 

I appreciate there are many time-of-day related functions (airport/city lights etc.) that will be part of P3D core workings, but a palette/shader-only algorithm might even things out a little - if only in the visuals .

 

I tend to fly outside the mid-day hours as you get much better lighting/shadows on terrain, but find just too many of those hours almost unusable (too drab or dark). If I lighten everything in PTA to compensate, then my mid-day hours are very bleached out.

 

As we all know in RL, the transition from light to dark isn't that linear - particularly in the evenings, when it can go quite dark very suddenly. It seems to me that the P3D maths is treating it as a linear/straight line instead of a logarithmic/sine curve.

Hi Adam

Yes, it's too difficult to create general adjustment because sun/moon light used often in shaders code in many cases.

If you found default duration of twilight (taking into account the season and latitude) is over-zealous, just some suggestions:

Lighting strictly depends on sky textures. Try to find sets with suitable sunset/postsunset(1/2)/dawn/predawn(1/2)/... phases.

Or use PTA post-processing to adjust whole scene exposure at twilight.

Something like this:

 

 

 

 

or for smooth transition a bit more complex solution with shaders variables (this required PTA 1.6 and above). Like this

 

 

 

 

Here cb_mLights[sUN_LIGHT].mDiffuse.g - green component of diffuse sunlight and can be used roughly as sun light power. The range is [0, 0.9] (not sure about 0.9, but not above 1.0).

Try to adjust 0.4 and 5 in this formula or you can make your own formula for exposure parameter using cb_mLights[sUN_LIGHT].mDiffuse.g

[Pe11e 812]

Wait, I thought DayNightUse is either 0 or 1? Hwat 3 means exactly? Tonemap is used more towards the night or day?

[KNOSSOS 122]

Wait, I thought DayNightUse is either 0 or 1? Hwat 3 means exactly? Tonemap is used more towards the night or day?

Not only 0 or 1. I tried to give more flexibility:

In addition to effect-specific parameters each post-effect shader has new parameter "DayNightUse". The value of this parameter specifies when post-process will be active. DayNightUse = 0 - post-effect will work all the time; 1 - active only at daylight; 2 - night; 3 - twilight; 4 - day and twilight; 5 - night and twilight.[/size]

(From help info on Post-process tweak and each post-effect)

[Pe11e 812]

Not only 0 or 1. I tried to give more flexibility:

In addition to effect-specific parameters each post-effect shader has new parameter "DayNightUse". The value of this parameter specifies when post-process will be active. DayNightUse = 0 - post-effect will work all the time; 1 - active only at daylight; 2 - night; 3 - twilight; 4 - day and twilight; 5 - night and twilight.[/size]

(From help info on Post-process tweak and each post-effect)

 

Oh sorry, I missed that part in the help, silly me. Thanks  :smile:

[RALF9636 1,986]

Adam,

 

since the days of FSX I've also been annoyed by the darkness already at sunset. The sun still over the horizon but darkness on the ground.

 

This is what I did in FSX years ago (not my idea, I read it somewhere). I have to admit that I did not have this on my mind any more until I read your post. So I haven't tried it yet in P3D, but I guess it should also work - but no warranty. Always back up your textures of course!

 

I "shifted" the sky_....bmp files in the texture directory. For example you copy all the sky_presunset2_?.bmp files and rename them sky_sunset_?.bmp. That way you have the lighting of presunset at sunset,

In that way you might extend "noon" to "morning" and "afternoon" and shift every phase before one up and every phase after one down, eliminating "predawn1" and "midnight" but extending daylight hours by one phase in the morning and in the evening.

Or you just extend "postdawn1" and "presunset2". You can experiment.

 

Some people might be able to write a .bat file to do this comfortably, I'm afraid I am not.

 

You will loose your changes if you install a new set of textures from REX or similar of course, so be attentive.

 

Maybe worth a try for you? I might try it myself, now as you brought this issue back to my mind.

 

Regards

 

Ralf

[Adamski_NZ 966]

Thanks all - that's a few good ways to try.

 

I re-made my sky textures with FEX (which gives better time-of-day control than REX) and that helped.

 

I tried the "cb_mLights[sUN_LIGHT].mDiffuse.g" code thing too - which also helped. One question: does "twilight" mean morning *and* evening?

 

Ralf: your suggestion also makes a lot of sense - though I'm a bit worried I'll get confused in all my renaming (not to be attempted after a glass of wine!). I'd be doing a backup of course ;-)

 

Adam.

[KNOSSOS 122]

One question: does "twilight" mean morning *and* evening?

Yes, morning and evening.

 

Regards,

[Adamski_NZ 966]

Yes, morning and evening.

 

Fantastic - thanks, Yuri. I'll try some "extreme" settings to see when it kicks in. I think my current test values were maybe a little too subtle.

 

Do you happen to know what hours/times of day "morning" and "evening" the postprocessor code correspond to?

 

REX: Dawn | Day | Dusk

 

FEX (1hr incremements/2hr blocks):

Pre-dawn:               04h

Dawn:                   06h

Post-dawn:              08h

Morning:                10h

Noon:                   12h

Afternoon:              14h

Pre-sunset:             16h

Sunset:                 18h

Post-sunset:            20h

 

FEX allows you to set different palette colours for every hour of the day, but also different *textures* for the two red blocks above. My guess is that "morning" is 04h-08h and "evening" is 16h-20h <??>.

 

In which case, the three REX periods could equate to 04h-08h, 08h-16h and 16h-20h.

 

Adam.

[KNOSSOS 122]

Do you happen to know what hours/times of day "morning" and "evening" the postprocessor code correspond to?

It does not depend on time directly.

In post-processing code for DayNightUse parameter I use internal shader variable cb_mDayNightInterpolant. It used often in sim shaders code to determine lighting.

cb_mDayNightInterpolant not tied to time hours as I understand it. Only to sun altitude that may differs for the same time  depending on latitude.