Hi,

A2A has released a new update for their C172 that brings many new improvements including full PBR support:

https://a2asimulations.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=65531

Great, Thanks for HU. But now, after the update I have only four liveries. I'm not sure if I can use my former A2A C172 repaints, probably not.

Looks great. Big Improvement in VR.

Thanks Tim - there are a few additional screenshots of the free PBR update in this post on our forums.

2 hours ago, Nemo said:

Great, Thanks for HU. But now, after the update I have only four liveries. I'm not sure if I can use my former A2A C172 repaints, probably not.

Harry - I think I answered you on our forum, but for the benefit of anyone else who's wondering the same thing, all the great existing repaints for the 172 are still supported because we've kept the old non-PBR models and textures in place.

However, the update replaces the aircraft.cfg so any installed repaints won't show once you've installed it. Upon updating, your existing aircraft.cfg file is backed-up in the same folder as "aircraft.cfg.bak" so you can copy and paste any repaint entries from this file into the new copy of the aircraft.cfg. Just bear in mind that you may have to adjust numbers for the "[fltsim.x]" entries as we added one extra livery.

Best regards,
Nick

Dear all,

It seems I'm not the only one who think that some object like the seat rails, switches, throttle lever look really gold-ish. Anyone here ?

34 minutes ago, vbazillio said:

Dear all,

It seems I'm not the only one who think that some object like the seat rails, switches, throttle lever look really gold-ish. Anyone here ?

Let me check.

Confirmed!

I don't like the way the light switches look, FD is way off, and performance has gone down significantly.

Back to my last version:

@vbazillio
Same here. It looks worse in the evening than during daylight. I don't use 3rd party shaders.

 

Hmm, do you guys use HDR? It seems that with full blown PBR and DL virtual cockpits, they only look good if HDR is used inside the sim. Several recent addons have this "issue" (QW787, Aerosoft Airbus A330, CRJ Professional). So, if you get so dark cockpits, give HDR a try?

@AnkH
I have HDR and DL turned on.

Yep, HDR is ON for years here.

The red tint on metallic parts at dawn/dusk seems to be a P3D issue, I think I saw it mentioned with reference to other PBR-enabled aircraft add-ons, too.

There are things I like about the update, but there are also those I don't... 😉 I could live with the 'brass' bits, but the way the switches look really turns me off. Another problem is that with PBR, the gauge backlight only works at night (and not in the evening, for example).

Still, the big upside is that you can use non-PBR models while taking advantage of the improved lighting. Yes, the new glareshield lights are quite heavy on performance (especially with SSAA), but I only really use them on the ground. In addition, the updated instrument backlighting is nice, and with non-PBR models, it works at any time of the day. Another plus is that the Davtron clock finally has backlighting now...

like another great ginger I like gold trimmings in my aircraft.

I almost wish the panel/flood flights were brighter, like the previous versions.  At max, they aren't quite bright enough for me in some situations.

Thanks for the comments everyone.

The PBR implementation in P3Dv4 does indeed have its limitations, although I suppose there's always the chance it will be tweaked with future updates from Lockheed Martin. However, it's not possible to control the colour appearance of reflected light that's rendered on PBR surfaces via changes to the materials, just how metallic the surface is.

We'll keep an eye on feedback, but for now, if you wish to revert any or all of the original C172 liveries back to their old, non-PBR, models and textures this is easy to do as the original files are still present in the installation. Just open the aircraft.cfg file and find the "model=pbr" entries in the "[fltsim.0]", "[fltsim.1]" and "[fltsim.2]" sections, and change them to just "model=". Note that you can't do this for the new N346CP livery "[fltsim.3]" as it doesn't include the legacy textures.

Best regards,
Nick