Why is P3D v3 so dark?

[Dave_YVR 968]

Dark still isn't anywhere near dark enough at night with default P3d. PTA does a good job of fixing that all up.

[Cruachan 705]

Hi Ray,

Clearly something is not right. Can I suggest you take a few moments to read through this thread?

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/503705-generic-pta-testing-scenario-suggestions-please/

While much of it may not be relevant to your problem, Adam and I tried hard to work out why it is that our experiences, as witnessed on our respective monitors, can be different when everything else is the same or very nearly the same. Unfortunately we were unable to work this to a conclusion as real world events intervened.

However, I became convinced that correct Calibration of our monitors is the key before trying anything else. I provided a number of useful links which should prove helpful in this regard. 

Adam's Presets require the use of HDR in P3D.

When I calibrated my monitor the sim was transformed. Initially it was a shock as it appeared much darker than before, the main reason being that the Brightness value during the Calibration process had been reduced from the factory value of 80% to 22%! After a few days, I realised that in fact the monitor had been far too bright and I was now seeing colours and shades portrayed with much greater accuracy. P3D appeared fantastic and all my other games benefitted as well, although I have to say they looked pretty good before. I was now seeing everything as the Developers intended.

You have stated that you do most of your flying during the day. I tend to fly in the evening. This will affect the Calibration as the ambient lighting and consequently our correctly calibrated monitor colour profiles will be different. 

Once your monitor/tv is set up correctly you can then turn your attention to tweaking the P3D HDR settings for best lighting in the sim. The default settings should be okay as that is what was intended by LM. I think we can safely assume that P3D is being developed on monitors which have been accurately calibrated. Keep a record of these settings or a copy of Prepar3D.cfg.

Now, what about those pesky Presets and the differences of opinion regarding their usage and outcomes? PTA is a wonderful tool but it requires some effort, knowledge and experience to find the right balance of settings (there are many) to suit your needs. Presets are the way to cut through the hassle. I have tried many from several sources with varying results and none provided that ideal balance of lighting both inside and outside the cockpit.

Then there is the matter of picking the best set of Sky Textures to suit your chosen PTA Preset. Everyone has their own preferences without realising that, unless they are very fortunate, the results may disappoint when a PTA Preset is applied.

I mentioned Adam (aka Adamski_NZ) because he has always been very clear about his recommendations as his Presets were optimised while using a specific set of Sky Textures. This is important. For the moment, I would encourage you to set aside any opinions expressed by naysayers and start this adventure by following Adam's guidance. He has an experienced and practiced eye, has invested many, many hours experimenting and has achieved a very realistic and natural look in the sim. He lives in NZ, we live in the U.K. so it is quite likely that our real world environmental experiences will be similar. Applying a Preset is simplicity itself. Adam's will even adjust the HDR values automatically for you!

Regards,

Mike

 

[Ray Proudfoot 8,919]

1 hour ago, Cruachan said:

Hi Ray,

Clearly something is not right. Can I suggest you take a few moments to read through this thread?

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/503705-generic-pta-testing-scenario-suggestions-please/

While much of it may not be relevant to your problem, Adam and I tried hard to work out why it is that our experiences, as witnessed on our respective monitors, can be different when everything else is the same or very nearly the same. Unfortunately we were unable to work this to a conclusion as real world events intervened.

However, I became convinced that correct Calibration of our monitors is the key before trying anything else. I provided a number of useful links which should prove helpful in this regard. 

Adam's Presets require the use of HDR in P3D.

When I calibrated my monitor the sim was transformed. Initially it was a shock as it appeared much darker than before, the main reason being that the Brightness value during the Calibration process had been reduced from the factory value of 80% to 22%! After a few days, I realised that in fact the monitor had been far too bright and I was now seeing colours and shades portrayed with much greater accuracy. P3D appeared fantastic and all my other games benefitted as well, although I have to say they looked pretty good before. I was now seeing everything as the Developers intended.

You have stated that you do most of your flying during the day. I tend to fly in the evening. This will affect the Calibration as the ambient lighting and consequently our correctly calibrated monitor colour profiles will be different. 

Once your monitor/tv is set up correctly you can then turn your attention to tweaking the P3D HDR settings for best lighting in the sim. The default settings should be okay as that is what was intended by LM. I think we can safely assume that P3D is being developed on monitors which have been accurately calibrated. Keep a record of these settings or a copy of Prepar3D.cfg.

Now, what about those pesky Presets and the differences of opinion regarding their usage and outcomes? PTA is a wonderful tool but it requires some effort, knowledge and experience to find the right balance of settings (there are many) to suit your needs. Presets are the way to cut through the hassle. I have tried many from several sources with varying results and none provided that ideal balance of lighting both inside and outside the cockpit.

Then there is the matter of picking the best set of Sky Textures to suit your chosen PTA Preset. Everyone has their own preferences without realising that, unless they are very fortunate, the results may disappoint when a PTA Preset is applied.

I mentioned Adam (aka Adamski_NZ) because he has always been very clear about his recommendations as his Presets were optimised while using a specific set of Sky Textures. This is important. For the moment, I would encourage you to set aside any opinions expressed by naysayers and start this adventure by following Adam's guidance. He has an experienced and practiced eye, has invested many, many hours experimenting and has achieved a very realistic and natural look in the sim. He lives in NZ, we live in the U.K. so it is quite likely that our real world environmental experiences will be similar. Applying a Preset is simplicity itself. Adam's will even adjust the HDR values automatically for you!

Regards,

Mike

 

Mike,

Thank you for your reply. I'm familiar with calibration as I had my OLED TV calibrated recently. However, the picture was already good and calibration probably improved it by another 5-10%. It certainly didn't transform it.

When it comes to my experiences with P3D I was entirely happy with the image when I ran FSX. So there was no need for calibration for that sim to look good. I have used various test patterns and colour charts to check if brightness, contrast and colour are within the limits to produce a good picture and they are. A grey scale shows all blocks from black to white and colours don't jump out nor are they washed out. In short, it's a good enough picture for all my needs outside P3D. However, I have turned off Nvidia picture controls and I'm using the TV's. I have increased the backlight and it is brighter so I will run with that for a while.

I have looked through that 5 page thread but there's too much to take in for a beginner to P3D. I expect it to work out of the box and maybe some tweaking of picture settings and adjustments within P3D will make it look better. I don't expect to have to do that simply to get a virtual cockpit where the instruments are readable. As things stand the instruments are far from ideal in 3D but the many 2D Concorde popup panels as well as the 2D panel are excellent. So that rather proves my TV (Sony 32" LCD 1920*1080) is good enough.

Out of interest what did you use to calibrate your display? TV or monitor? And is it a one-off procedure or do you have to repeat it every so often?

[Guest]

On 4/15/2017 at 8:10 AM, Ray Proudfoot said:

Does HDR require a compatible display? Like 4K TVs having HDR? My Sony 32" HD TV doesn't have HDR.

Yes, check to see what color bit depth your TV supports (you need to provide the Sony model).  Check your graphics drivers ... in nVidia "Change Resolution" section look for "Output color format" and "Output dynamic range" and "output color depth" ... in most cases these will be RGB, Full, 8 bpc.  If you run "YCbCr422" or "YCbCr444" (your TV may require this format) then your Output dynamic range maybe at "Limited" (grayed out) which will make everything seem "darker".  In addition some TV's can be set to support specific formats (RGB vs. YCbCr444).  Also be aware some TV's may not support 60Hz operation at "YCbCr444" or even RGB full.  If your monitor supports YCbCr444 at 60Hz at it's highest resolution, that would be the preferred setting as it provides the best dynamic range and least amount of data compression.

P3D V3.x supports HDR adjustments once you enable it ... you can make it brighter.

I suspect MANY P3D users have similar TV/Monitor limitations based on some of the images posted that seem blown-out (user seems to be over compensating for what probably seems "dark" to them).  TV's and monitors do need to be calibrated regularly, even more so if you are OLED based ... nVidia provides a calibration tool under "Adjust Desktop color settings" in NCP.

Cheers, Rob.

 

[SteveW 1,792]

That's right, the iris takes time to settle so don't flick quickly between two views. Make sure to have a base situation loaded. For example it could appear dark because you are in cloud shadow so you might need a midday scenario with no clouds for a datum setup.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,919]

Hi Rob,

Thanks for that. I've had a look through the Sony TV user manual but can't find that info. Here's the pdf... https://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/support/res/manuals/4453/44530951M.pdf

It's Full HD 32" Sony LCD TV Model KDL-32W653A. It doesn't appear to support HDR. Is that why the views appear quite dark even with HDR enabled in P3D?

I know several people have recommended PTA and I will look at that once my workload decreases. Things looking nice are important but I have more pressing issues with Concorde-X behaving quite differently in P3D to FSX.

I wonder what type of displays LM use to check lighting is okay. So many people seem to recommend PTA you wonder how much time LM spent on the sim looking good. I suppose it's not a commercial entertainment package so perhaps that's why.

[SteveW 1,792]

Loaded up a flight in stock P3D v3 with a good spec Dell 1920x1200 24" display port, no issues with brightness or contrast

[Ray Proudfoot 8,919]

1 hour ago, SteveW said:

Loaded up a flight in stock P3D v3 with a good spec Dell 1920x1200 24" display port, no issues with brightness or contrast

My Sony cost £400 just over 3 years ago and has always shown a good picture with FSX, photos and general TV. The only app that looks rubbish on it is P3D.

HDMI-DVI connection to Nvidia 1080 card. If P3D is so good out of the box why do so many people use PTA? This is the worst simulation I've ever seen and I go back to FS5.1 in DOS days.

[Glynn 405]

8 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

My Sony cost £400 just over 3 years ago and has always shown a good picture with FSX, photos and general TV. The only app that looks rubbish on it is P3D.

HDMI-DVI connection to Nvidia 1080 card. If P3D is so good out of the box why do so many people use PTA? This is the worst simulation I've ever seen and I go back to FS5.1 in DOS days.

Something must not be right at your end Ray, there are plenty of screenshots and videos available to testify that P3D v3x looks great.

You just need to play with the HDR settings and set up Nvidia inspector to 4xsgss  and for really making the SIM look good with great lighting and atmospheric scattering install PTA and tune it to you taste.

All the control is there in the Sims settings and PTA to make it look however you want. Don't be hesitant to try PTA, it really has the power to give you the results you are looking for.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,919]

19 minutes ago, Glynn said:

Something must not be right at your end Ray, there are plenty of screenshots and videos available to testify that P3D v3x looks great.

You just need to play with the HDR settings and set up Nvidia inspector to 4xsgss  and for really making the SIM look good with great lighting and atmospheric scattering install PTA and tune it to you taste.

All the control is there in the Sims settings and PTA to make it look however you want. Don't be hesitant to try PTA, it really has the power to give you the results you are looking for.

Gynn,

So you are saying that only with PTA will I see a major improvement. Funny because I'm reading several posts on the P3D forum where people are complaining about the same thing as me, dark images. It's not just Concorde's 3D panel which may not have been optimised for P3D but even outside views. Lacking in contrast and too dark.

I've played with the HDR settings and although I can see differences they are not giving me a picture I want. I suspect that only when I use PTA will it get better.

I thought the advice was to not use Inspector because of the hit on fps. I'll try PTA first though.

[Cruachan 705]

Hi Ray,

Don't give up, you'll get there and. in time, look back on all this as a bad memory.

Here's an image captured a few weeks back from my sim to whet your appetite. This is the default Virtavia Sikorsky H-60 Blackhawk exploring Washington State courtesy of ORBX scenery enhanced by Adam's 21.11 Shader Preset for PTA 2.10.

Regards,

Mike

[Ray Proudfoot 8,919]

Thanks Mike. That does look much better. Once the exterior view looks better that should translate into a better cockpit view.

I've spent 5 days now installing, problem solving and feeling frustrated. Part of me wishes I'd stayed with FSX but the major factor in me switching was the chance to buy a Nvidia 1080 8Gb at a bargain price. I hope I don't regret this decision because I have to say the way P3D looks has been a major disappointment.

[vgbaron 3,486]

FWIW Ray, on my system initially I found P3D to be too bright in bright areas and too dark in dark areas. Took some playing with bloom, HDR, brightness and saturation to get it where I liked it. After that I use Envtex and PTA to enhance the experience - much more like fine tuning.

Use P3D and your monitor for coarse video adjustments and when you get it where you like, then use PTA or Envtex to fine tune.

When you are using HDR and looking outside at a bright sky and then look inside the cockpit, it will appear very dark as your "eyes" get accustomed to the light. Much as in real life only, IMHO, exaggerated a bit.

Bloom and HDR will probably be the culprits.

 

Vic

[Cruachan 705]

Hi Ray,

...and a few more! A little more up your street, methinks?

I'm using AS2016 + ASCA (Full Dynamics) + ENVTEX  this time.

This combo, along with Adam's PTA Preset and his recommended REX4 TD Sky textures provides the best and most satisfying general balance of colour and lighting for me.

Regards,

Mike

[Afterburner 374]

Ray, why don't you make a few screenshots of your P3D so that we can take a look at it to be able to judge whether the sim looks too dark or not?  As far as PTA, it should be possible to have P3D look good and bright enough without that tool. PTA allows one to add some spice to the image quality (by having e.g. Rayleigh scattering), but if P3D looks rubbish in default state, then something else needs to be focused on.