PTA for Prepar3d v4 Released

[MartinRex007 390]

Thanks Matt for keeping PTA alive at a very reasonable price...

[Manny 1,293]

On 6/9/2017 at 2:10 PM, Gregg_Seipp said:

I always have worried about that with PTA...does it or its installer ever overwrite the first backup?

I started from scratch and built my own ini file...testing each parameter one by one..It eas tedious but I am learning this tool and its parameters.

 

I started with the  scattering.. to the max 7 and I could see its effects, (1-2 is too low) , then I slowly brought it down to 4 (my crrent setting) then I added parapeter for the fog effect. I have not tried all the parameters... so far whatever I have done, does not mess up my DUSK. So far so good.

I also added REX soft clouds and sky textures. It seems to work in v4

 

[GSalden 4,656]

Very nice Manny 

Regards

Gerard

[Cruachan 705]

Hi Matt,

I notice that the default file Shadow.fxh has not been included amongst the shader files backed up automatically by PTA v2.5. Earlier versions of PTA backed up this file along with 7 others. Has this been deliberate or an oversight?

Regards,

Mike

[Adamski_NZ 948]

On 6/9/2017 at 1:19 AM, mulgrave said:

Will Adam be producing  presets. His presets for pta for p3d were excellent.

I'm only half way through reading this LONG thread. I'm a little strapped for cash at the moment, so upgrading to P3Dv4 (and all its essential add-ons) may take a little while. Hopefully by then, all the hotfixes etc. will be well in place.

I've been a HUGE fan of PTA since day one - and had many friendly conversations with Yuri. I *totally* support Matt in his endeavours - and hope to be on the 2.5 bandwagon soon!

My 21_11 preset works with P3Dv4 + PTA 2.5 via some form of import tool (which may be part of 2.5 - don't know - can't test, LOL!). While the presets work, it's possible that the (very critical) HDR values may be all wrong, so a little experimentation may be necessary.

Adam.

[Adamski_NZ 948]

On 6/9/2017 at 4:15 AM, Fmpm said:

With luck, Adam, thopat and others will charge for the presets too.
This program is using some work from other developers and they deliver for free.
No one works for free, right?
At least I hope the PTA has some good presets included.

Well ... I'm probably one of the poorest participants in this thread, but I doubt very much that I'll be charging for my contributions to PTA (it's not my code anyway!). I've been around the sim community for a *long* time and have enjoyed countless freeware add-ons - aircraft or utilities. My turn to pay back to the community!

In all my conversations with Yuri, he came over as a good guy and the hand-over to Matt has been very transparent (thanks, Matt). I'd say it's fairly typical of a program that starts off as "donation-ware" then becomes a fully-fledged commercial add-on, with all its support headaches/responsibilities.

I'd say take what you can for free ... enjoy it ... then throw the developers a bone. They're the ones that take the software to the next level.

Adam.

 

[Wood4591 52]

Thanks Adam.

Look forward to seeing you back. 

Thank you again for all the work on PTA

[MattDavies 320]

10 hours ago, Cruachan said:

Hi Matt,

I notice that the default file Shadow.fxh has not been included amongst the shader files backed up automatically by PTA v2.5. Earlier versions of PTA backed up this file along with 7 others. Has this been deliberate or an oversight?

Regards,

Mike

Let me check that, I'll get back to you. 

[MarkW 1,491]

1 hour ago, Adamski_NZ said:

I'm only half way through reading this LONG thread. I'm a little strapped for cash at the moment, so upgrading to P3Dv4 (and all its essential add-ons) may take a little while. Hopefully by then, all the hotfixes etc. will be well in place.

I've been a HUGE fan of PTA since day one - and had many friendly conversations with Yuri. I *totally* support Matt in his endeavours - and hope to be on the 2.5 bandwagon soon!

My 21_11 preset works with P3Dv4 + PTA 2.5 via some form of import tool (which may be part of 2.5 - don't know - can't test, LOL!). While the presets work, it's possible that the (very critical) HDR values may be all wrong, so a little experimentation may be necessary.

Adam.

I am using 2.11 now withp3d v4. Looks good but I did need to increase the brightness to 70.  I also think in some situations it seems too blue but I have not tweaked this yet.  Hope you are back soon, luckily most upgrades are free. 

[MattDavies 320]

12 hours ago, Cruachan said:

Hi Matt,

I notice that the default file Shadow.fxh has not been included amongst the shader files backed up automatically by PTA v2.5. Earlier versions of PTA backed up this file along with 7 others. Has this been deliberate or an oversight?

Regards,

Mike

The Shadow.fxh shader is no longer used.

In PTA 2.11 for Prepar3D v3 it’s used for the “cloud shadows depth” tweak, however it was removed from 2.50.

I'm about to make v2.51 available which brings it back, but instead it uses Cloud.fx.

Basically, PTA v2.5X doesn't use Shadow.fxh at all.

[Cruachan 705]

4 hours ago, MattDavies said:

The Shadow.fxh shader is no longer used.

In PTA 2.11 for Prepar3D v3 it’s used for the “cloud shadows depth” tweak, however it was removed from 2.50.

I'm about to make v2.51 available which brings it back, but instead it uses Cloud.fx.

Basically, PTA v2.5X doesn't use Shadow.fxh at all.

Hi Matt,

Ah, that is interesting. I can confirm that Adam's 21.11 wonderful Preset works very well in P3D4, but you do need his recommended Sky texture set from REX4 Texture Direct to achieve optimal lighting conditions. I simply backed up the existing Sky textures in the Textures folder and copied across those same files from my P3D3 installation.

So far, I'm seeing very similar results as in P3D. My only reservation is with the cloud shadows which are too dark and too well defined. This is noted especially over the ocean. I'm assuming this has something to do with what you have said about the Shadow.fxh file. Looking forward to PTA 2.51 :)

Regarding HDR, before installing the REX Sky textures, as mentioned above, I found the 21.11 Preset values produced an image which liked brightness and vitality. With those Sky textures the sim looks great without any alteration of HDR values. When the 21.11 Preset is applied by PTA 2.5 the required HDR values are applied automatically as they were in P3D3 by the previous version of Yuri's PTA.

Regards,

Mike

 

[Maks_Pathfinder 3]

I've got one issue with new PTA - if applying old presets to the program, i'm loosing an image of the plane at startup screen and accordingly missed body and VC at the sim after loading in an airport.

I've checked all items one by one from scratch and found that this issue caused by Sky Saturation parameter - if you uncheck this box everything is working perfectly. Is looks a bit strange to me as i know that other users do not have such issues with that parameter. Will keep digging...

[Twenty6 692]

On 6/9/2017 at 0:11 PM, MarkW said:

I have a quick question about switching presets.  Is it simply a matter of selecting a new one and applying it or do you need to delete shaders, restore originals, etc etc. before you can make a change?

Good question. Has this been answered by the developer in this thread or anywhere else?

[Cruachan 705]

5 hours ago, Twenty6 said:

Good question. Has this been answered by the developer in this thread or anywhere else?

Yes and yes I'm sure it has....somewhere!

Probably not strictly necessary, but I always start by restoring the default Shaders before loading and applying/reapplying a particular Preset. That way I can be sure all is well as all actions are logged/displayed at the bottom of the UI window. PTA deletes the previous Shader cache for you automatically without any user interventions. This is why you need to be very patient if you are inclined to experiment as initial P3D loading times after applying a Shader tweak are a little longer than normal due to the sim rebuilding the initial Shader cache.

Mike

[Gixxar 6]

I'm getting these errors all the time? I've tried to find original P3D files but had no luck. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

RROR: shader file D:\Prepar3D v4\ShadersHLSL\Cloud.fx is not original Prepar3D shader and can't be used
ERROR: shader file D:\Prepar3D v4\ShadersHLSL\General.fx is not original Prepar3D shader and can't be used
ERROR: shader file D:\Prepar3D v4\ShadersHLSL\GPUTerrain.fx is not original Prepar3D shader and can't be used
ERROR: shader file D:\Prepar3D v4\ShadersHLSL\FuncLibrary.fxh is not original Prepar3D shader and can't be used
ERROR: shader file D:\Prepar3D v4\ShadersHLSL\PostProcess\HDR.hlsl is not original Prepar3D shader and can't be used
ERROR: shader file D:\Prepar3D v4\ShadersHLSL\PostProcess\FXAAResolve.hlsl is not original Prepar3D shader and can't be used

TIA