P3D v5.1 HF1 HDR mode tweak

[Biology 1,347]

Hi,

P3D's HDR mode looks really weird with some aircraft, especially FSLabs A320. Since P3D v5.1 HDR mode became mandatory for trueSKY (which is not surprising, as volumetric cloud / sky calculations tend to involve physical brightness values which often exceed SDR), and it looks like many people didn't like this decision. Even though it is possible to simply disable HDR mode using prepar3d.cfg, it causes artifacts as sky & volumetric cloud highlights get clamped to maximum brightness.

I've created a little tweak, which changes the tonemapping function used in HDR mode from ACES to Reinhard. This essentially brings SDR mode look back, while preventing artifacts caused by SDR rendering. It only works with P3D v5.1 HF1.

How to install:

Download HDR.hlsl from https://www.dropbox.com/s/2jh0y9swa9h6emv/HDR.hlsl?dl=0 and replace it with HDR.hlsl in "Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v5\ShadersHLSL\PostProcess" (don't forget to create a backup first), where "Lockheed Martin" is your main P3D installation directory.

Delete shader cache by removing the "%localappdata%\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v5\Shaders" folder.

Edited January 21, 2021 by BiologicalNanobot

[CaptainIronside 52]

This seems interesting, I'll give it a try!

[B777ER 2,486]

Hmmm, very interested in this, will have to give it a try tomorrow. For those using EnvShade, will this be overwritten each time we update shaders?

Edited January 21, 2021 by B777ER

[Biology 1,347]

42 minutes ago, B777ER said:

Hmmm, very interested in this, will have to give it a try tomorrow. For those using EnvShade, will this be overwritten each time we update shaders?

Hi, sadly I can't comment on this as I don't have Envshade and I don't know what shaders it overrides.

[CaptainIronside 52]

Completed a flight and it works really well on my system, HDR is way more tolerable. Thanks for this. 

[40track 80]

Confirming working with HF1 / HDR with SDR frame rates and looking much better  Thankyou.

[aua668 5]

Hi,

Definitely an improvement. Thanks!

Reinhard

 

[40track 80]

Hi just did a clean install of W10 / P3D V5.1 / Aircraft finding this mod did artifact 1 aircraft in my install where the Aircraft select is.

Other aircraft are fine.

Hunch is its the model/lighting itself and not the mod.

im still very happy with it and a way smoother experience.

Just backup the old file as BiologicalNanobot says and clear cache.

Looking at the next hotfix then start from a mod free stock P3D 5 to see what happens.

Edited January 22, 2021 by 40track

[Ebertr 50]

Thanks for providing the tweak. For me HDR looks now much better.

Ruediger

[sho69607 29]

Looks great during the day, but at night this brings back the "FSX Era" night brightness problem for me.

[fluffyflops 1,858]

On 21/01/2021 at 10:48 PM, B777ER said:

Hmmm, very interested in this, will have to give it a try tomorrow. For those using EnvShade, will this be overwritten each time we update shaders?

Beat me to it Eric 

[f.skywalker 28]

Thanks for this perfect work.

After i change this file i start the Envshade Tool to inject Envshade again.

It works perfect for me

 

Thanks

Frank

 

[Bob Scott 7,721]

On 1/21/2021 at 3:48 PM, B777ER said:

Hmmm, very interested in this, will have to give it a try tomorrow. For those using EnvShade, will this be overwritten each time we update shaders?

From examining the two hlsl files, I've concluded that this mod is not compatible with Envshade.

Envshade also modifies the same HDR tonemap code in HDR.hlsl, so if you install this file you will lose the Envshade code, and if you write a config with Envshade it will overwrite this mod.

 

 

[B777ER 2,486]

1 hour ago, w6kd said:

From examining the two hlsl files, I've concluded that this mod is not compatible with Envshade.

Envshade also modifies the same HDR tonemap code in HDR.hlsl, so if you install this file you will lose the Envshade code, and if you write a config with Envshade it will overwrite this mod.

 

 

Yep, I tried it out and did not work out. Back to EnvShade.