Environment Force Discussion Thread

[spilok 1,133]

I TAKE IT BACK!  Just flew tonight and used all my time zone features...but still have a BLUE SKY when it should be nighttime.  EF still has a problem.  Cannot get real time textures until they update it properly.

NO NIGHT OR DUSK TEXTURES in EF as of now for me!

 

Stan

[Rasterfahnder 75]

57 minutes ago, fs1 said:

We released an open beta which we will restoring soon. This should fix brightness.

Sir, I had the open beta build 20190509 installed and it did not fix the brightness in v4.5.12. It sure did in v4.5 but unless there is a more beta beta there seems to be still a lot of work to be done. Also wave animations did not work in the beta and the clouds at night are bright white. Frames are down and stutters appear in v4.5.12. Love you REX and recommend EF but I guess that will take some time to iron out.

[spilok 1,133]

I won't use EF until it's ironed out since one of my favorites parts of the sim is flying at night.  I will use ActiveSky for P3d4 and Skyforce.  That should be enough until EF gets their act together on a fix.

Stan

[Gumerson 75]

On 5/14/2019 at 2:49 AM, Rasterfahnder said:

Sir, I had the open beta build 20190509 installed and it did not fix the brightness in v4.5.12. It sure did in v4.5 but unless there is a more beta beta there seems to be still a lot of work to be done. Also wave animations did not work in the beta and the clouds at night are bright white. Frames are down and stutters appear in v4.5.12. Love you REX and recommend EF but I guess that will take some time to iron out.

Hi

For waves animation just try to set water settings to ultra in your p3d gui. Just worked for me. Under ultra I only got static water for inland and ocean. 

Cheers

Gumerson

[SKEWR 364]

I'm losing about 8 FPS as well (even with the P3D Hotfix)

The clouds are very white as well

Hopefully REX will fix the frames. I can deal with the clouds...

[Orbitandy 17]

Same here, departed YBCG at dusk which looked beautiful with EF but never got fully night textures as I arrived at YSSY. White clouds and a definite bluish tint in the sky, I  could easily discern the terrain and coast at all times when it should have been almost pitch black.

Flying in auto mode with tuned down exposure in the mini ui.

[LarryImler 17]

My sim was also way too bright, even after the EF hotfix and the resent P3Dv4 hot fix, but its good to go now, try this.

in the UI panel, under the REX enhanced HDR, "ExposureKey", I put mine at .25 I think by default its at .27.

Using Active sky for weather, ASCA, Skyforce and EF.

After that setting my sim looks great now, great job REX team!, I love it.

[Orbitandy 17]

9 minutes ago, LarryImler said:

My sim was also way too bright, even after the EF hotfix and the resent P3Dv4 hot fix, but its good to go now, try this.

in the UI panel, under the REX enhanced HDR, "ExposureKey", I put mine at .25 I think by default its at .27.

Using Active sky for weather, ASCA, Skyforce and EF.

After that setting my sim looks great now, great job REX team!, I love it.

Yeah, Rex recommended this as well but even tuned down to min setting, I’m not getting the night as it should be: dark. I’m about to test with HDR off in the mini ui.

[Jeff_Fortuna 59]

Interestingly, I have used AS and EF since EF was released and never had anything be overly bright. The adjustment provided for the exposure was sufficient. It is a bit better now that we have a bit more control over exposure - I can make it quite dim if I want. Further, the P3dv4 hotfix fixed the problem with low frame rates for Orbx complex sceneries. In short, everything works exactly as expected. I think the big deal here is in using third party shaders. I made sure that I stopped using PTA and returned my shaders to default before installing EF because I was sure there would be a problem with mixing automated shader adjustment in EF with static shaders from PTA. In fact, I don't think mixing the two makes much sense at all - with only a couple of small exceptions - specific VC and shadow adjustment come to mind. 

I would be willing to bet that almost ALL problems described above are a result of using other shaders or having used them in the past and not returning to the default shaders before using EF. I would also bet that those that are using third party shaders are not willing to stop using them - even if it creates problems with EF. People are very particular about the way their sim looks. I can't count how many times I have seen images posted with thick overcast and vibrant colors and high contrast terrain and aircraft. For some, this is perfect and exactly how things work in reality!!! I have become convinced that some folks see the world in a way they want to see it, not the way it is. No amount of convincing will change their minds. I would then argue that EF is probably not the right tool for them.

That said, EF was promised to be "compatible" with other shaders and, to be honest, I don't think it is - at least at present. I don't know what it means to add shaders on top of shaders, but some folks seem to be insistent on doing this. I just hope that Rex isn't wasting time chasing their tail to "fix" a problem that isn't a problem for any use case that makes sense with EF. An ancillary worry would be the bad "press" that results from these rapid "fixes" giving the impression that the software was "rushed" to completion. I just don't see a problem with the release... Outside of the grey VC problem with TS, I think this software delivers exactly what is promised provided it is used in a way that makes sense.  

I would go so far as to say this the FIRST time I have seen an environment presented as it should appear given lighting conditions in a game. As such, EF has transformed the look of the sim and for the first time I would say that it, in many ways, surpasses the visual appearance of X-Plane. Night lighting is still better in XP, but it is becoming a pretty close race.

 

[Rasterfahnder 75]

19 minutes ago, Jeff_Fortuna said:

I would be willing to bet that almost ALL problems described above are a result of using other shaders or having used them in the past and not returning to the default shaders before using EF. I would also bet that those that are using third party shaders are not willing to stop using them - even if it creates problems with EF.

No amount of convincing will change their minds. I would then argue that EF is probably not the right tool for them.

Aehhm, yeah, helpful. By the way how much are you willing to bet? 😉

[Jeff_Fortuna 59]

 

48 minutes ago, Rasterfahnder said:

Aehhm, yeah, helpful. By the way how much are you willing to bet? 😉

Note... almost - not all. Do you use TS or PTA or Envshade? If not, I'm very surprised that you ended up with a brightness problem. If I had to guess, the problem is with interactions with shaders - because modifying shaders is a lot of what EF provides. Given that I doubt the 4.5 hotfix affected the shaders in a significant way (although I could be wrong here), I would be even more surprised that the problem reappeared solely as a result of the hotfix. It will indeed be interesting to see if your problem can be fixed by something in EF other than just providing more brightness control (which is not fixing the "problem" at all - it is just masking the symptoms). 

I do think that using shaders upon shaders is a silly idea. Put simply, many shader operations are not linear - running a shader through a shader does not produce sensible results. I also do think that people are very stubborn when it comes to the visual appearance of their sim. Put these two things together and I think that has caused problems for Rex with EF. 

[Rasterfahnder 75]

@Jeff_Fortuna

I like your post. Most of it I can agree upon to. That's why it is so hard to wait for a solution. Which version of EF are you using? Also is your night dark, especially the ground? Even default p3d is darker. Do you have wave animations? And that without ultra setting (ultra provides 3d waves so clearly that works). EF provides stunning results when it works.

I would like to have an option to choose if skytextures are synced by EF and SF, or not to use this feature and stay with ASCA + Envtex skytextures.

But at the moment I am sick of installing and reinstalling to get it to work. I really tried and did several attempts with the original p3d shaders. But if you have no issues than maybe I can get it to work eventually.

[bbuckley 133]

2 hours ago, Rasterfahnder said:

But at the moment I am sick of installing and reinstalling to get it to work. I really tried and did several attempts with the original p3d shaders. But if you have no issues than maybe I can get it to work eventually.

Agree. I always install the default P3D shaders before trying EF and no matter what I do it's too washed out and trees are a flat light green etc. The worst problem to me is the VC. So if I need to use something like PTA to get the VC back to where I like it then I don't want to fight with trying to get EF to play nice with it.  I'll try again eventually, but right now I'm tired to installing and uninstalling and then reloading other sceneries to recover.

[Michael Moe 495]

So, i have it now and on 4.4.

I must admit i am quite happy with ASP4, ASCA, ENVSHADE, ENVTEX Dynamic 24h sky in ASCA and Rex Skyforce for cloud structures.

Installing EF into the mix seems like a winner or loser situation so is there a back to before installation button? 

Thanks Michael Moe 

[fs1 295]

There is a hotfix coming, as well as the ongoing beta version.

Ths HDR has been fixed, so user wont have any complaints.

EF is all about tweaking, it is natural if you load EF with an existing preset that you will have to tweak EF so as to see the optimals

Federico

Edited May 15, 2019 by fs1