February 8, 20233 yr Hello, I'm running P3Dv5.3 with three 4K UHD displays, NVidia settings at 12 bits per pixel at full dynamic range (0-255) and HDR set to ON in Windows 10 display settings. I'm using ASP3D / ASCA / ENVDIR / SF3D for weather and (4096 x 4096) clouds with Enhanced Atmospherics set to ON and Volumetric Clouds OFF. I prefer the legacy clouds as they look more realistic, but I'm having problems with color banding and too dark nights, and I don't know what to adjust. 12 bpp prevents (most of) the horrible color banding I was getting during the day, but nights are too dark. Lower resolutions (1440p and 1080p) also have weird colors and more banding, especially at night. Volumetric Clouds and legacy clouds still are grey/white color banded at night with an eerie "ghostlike" look, but OK during daytime. What do I adjust to (a) get better contrast with legacy clouds with EA on so they just don't look like a mass of white cotton without definition during the day, and (b) brighten up the dark night sky so I can see the background stars and moon and city lights? Right now it looks like I'm flying with welder's goggles at night and everything is too dark. Edited February 8, 20233 yr by TallTanBarbie
February 8, 20233 yr I think u need either TOGA or RDshade soft for ur task. Maybe u start with resetting ur shaders to default state to get rid of any bad adjustment u have probably done. Edited February 8, 20233 yr by Beardyman Artur
February 8, 20233 yr Author 34 minutes ago, Beardyman said: I think u need either TOGA or RDshade soft for ur task. Maybe u start with resetting ur shaders to default state to get rid of any bad adjustment u have probably done. I have TOGA. Only ENVPLUS settings that I've used are horizon haze to 0.2 to be able to see the horizon at altitude -- on a clear day in the desert SW USA you can see for a hundred miles or more. Edited February 8, 20233 yr by TallTanBarbie
February 8, 20233 yr It would be helpful if you could post some screenshots of your problem. "Too dark nights" is a little subjective because some users perceive very bright city lights as normal, while some claim that it's pitch dark outside at night.
February 8, 20233 yr 5 hours ago, TallTanBarbie said: Hello, I'm running P3Dv5.3 with three 4K UHD displays, NVidia settings at 12 bits per pixel at full dynamic range (0-255) and HDR set to ON in Windows 10 display settings. I'm using ASP3D / ASCA / ENVDIR / SF3D for weather and (4096 x 4096) clouds with Enhanced Atmospherics set to ON and Volumetric Clouds OFF. I prefer the legacy clouds as they look more realistic, but I'm having problems with color banding and too dark nights, and I don't know what to adjust. Some additional info please. Are your 3 displays the same product? Are they properly calibrated? What type of cables are you using to attach them to your GPU? Regarding your questions above... I'll note that I use EA on and (I recently changed back to) VC off. I use ENVDIR with ENVSHADE and ENVPLUS. And I use ASP3D w/ ASCA (Global Automatic theme). I use a single 2K monitor that it calibrated. Sooo, our setups share a number of similarities. (a) get better contrast with legacy clouds with EA on so they just don't look like a mass of white cotton without definition during the day Indeed, this has been a challenge here too! To add some contrast to legacy clouds, I've 1) lowered brightness in the P3D Lighting section. I'm now working at a value that is about 35% lower than before I started using ENVPLUS!! 2) in ENVPLUS I've lowered the "Aircraft Shadow Depth" to 0.7, and the "Aircraft PBR Shadows Depth" to 0.6. The biggest difference though came from lowering the "Cloud Brightness Day" to 0.1. To compare to your ENVPLUS, I have my "Horizon Haze" set to 0.5. (b brighten up the dark night sky so I can see the background stars and moon and city lights? Here's where there is probably a major difference in our setups... my Dell VA monitor has an OSD setting called "Dark Stabilizer" that is incredibly useful! It lightens up the dark instrument panels we deal with. And it allows me to adjust the inky dark night skies that is more comfortable (and accurate to my eye). That single monitor adjustment allows me to cast off the welders goggles!! Finally, I use different Display Profiles in my P3D settings. My two night time profiles are still a work in progress and very different from the two profiles I use for daytime flying.
February 10, 20233 yr Author On 2/8/2023 at 5:40 PM, lownslo said: Some additional info please. Are your 3 displays the same product? Are they properly calibrated? What type of cables are you using to attach them to your GPU? Regarding your questions above... I'll note that I use EA on and (I recently changed back to) VC off. I use ENVDIR with ENVSHADE and ENVPLUS. And I use ASP3D w/ ASCA (Global Automatic theme). I use a single 2K monitor that it calibrated. Sooo, our setups share a number of similarities. (a) get better contrast with legacy clouds with EA on so they just don't look like a mass of white cotton without definition during the day Indeed, this has been a challenge here too! To add some contrast to legacy clouds, I've 1) lowered brightness in the P3D Lighting section. I'm now working at a value that is about 35% lower than before I started using ENVPLUS!! 2) in ENVPLUS I've lowered the "Aircraft Shadow Depth" to 0.7, and the "Aircraft PBR Shadows Depth" to 0.6. The biggest difference though came from lowering the "Cloud Brightness Day" to 0.1. To compare to your ENVPLUS, I have my "Horizon Haze" set to 0.5. (b brighten up the dark night sky so I can see the background stars and moon and city lights? Here's where there is probably a major difference in our setups... my Dell VA monitor has an OSD setting called "Dark Stabilizer" that is incredibly useful! It lightens up the dark instrument panels we deal with. And it allows me to adjust the inky dark night skies that is more comfortable (and accurate to my eye). That single monitor adjustment allows me to cast off the welders goggles!! Finally, I use different Display Profiles in my P3D settings. My two night time profiles are still a work in progress and very different from the two profiles I use for daytime flying. All 4K diplays are the same make and model, and they are all set to the same brightness and color settings (on the displays themselves and also under NVidia control panel). I have active display port to HDMI adapters and 8K HDMI cables. Another thing I discovered was an "HDR Override" setting in ChasePlane (which I hardly ever use as I normally run in cockpit view mode without the aircraft model, but it starts with P3D), I turned that off. It seems the cloud color banding is based on brightness and shadowing as far as I can tell. I experimented a bit with ENVPLUS and set the night clouds brightness at 1.4 -1.5. That helped a bit, but won't be good fo a dark moonless night. Tonight just so happened to have a just pass full waning moon, so it was OK. With the night cloud brightness at 1,0(default), the scene was almost totally black as said. The less light, the more cloud banding, more light, less cloud banding. If you have a full lit daylight scene, you almost don't see any banding at all because the clouds are so bright. Turning up the night cloud brightness also made the highway and city lights a bit brighter too. The night cloud banding shows up for either volumetric or legacy clouds -- which in this case I'm getting from ASP3D/ASCA/SF3D. I guess the only "fix" for this at the moment is to turn the brightness up in P3D from what you would normally use for the daytime setting (1.1 to 1.7 or 1.8) and turn up the cloud brightness in ENVPLUS / ENVSHADE. Doesn't get rid of the night clouds color banding, though. Just reduces it somewhat. https://mega.nz/file/kUgE2BYA#-1zgDcnT7lrI9-YuCl7scDBYaME1qJW3CVS0GoP6DKc https://mega.nz/file/oYABGQiC#xZadE4XJh4S67Mtk1tfRq9e72yZpncHO5rHaBqBiJ1c https://mega.nz/file/JYJhDBrb#YZErdXCe436EzgxgijGsawvXbCjCM08ToBQ_Vqvibpc https://mega.nz/file/YUpGjRzI#iCI7ZfOnNG2gZS6zcz4rOk2jaoV6gZWqnOnCyr_5aPY Edited February 10, 20233 yr by TallTanBarbie
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