KNOSSOS

Great job! Thanks!

Hi Martin I hope you didn't apply presets from PTA 1.62 on P3D 3.4 hf2? If so you have the original shaders. If you tried to apply 1.62 presets, please reinstall P3D client and dont touch PTA 1.62. When original shaders are in sim, unzip distribution PTA 2 archive in separate directory. At first start PTA 2.0 should automatically detect target P3D version, find proper P3D installation directory, shaders cache directory, and create backup of used in tweaks shaders to \SHADERS_BACKUP subdirectory in main PTA directory. Config files, used by tool, will backup to \CONFIG_BACKUP. The format of ini files used to store presets was changed in PTA 2.0. All presets from the previous version of tool are NOT compatible with version 2.0. Please reconfigure the required presets in the new utility in accordance with release notes and your PTA 1.X version presets. regards,

Hi Raymond. Try to reinstall only P3D client, not whole P3D regards,

Thank you, Ed for the kind words! I wish you a blessed holiday season! Regards,

Hi Adam! Np with terrain: this will completely desaturate terrain at night Not so easy for autogen, but try this custom tweak (just a suggestion): Regards,

Hi! Sent you PM.

PTA 2.0 for Prepar3D 3.1-3.4 released Release notes: 1. Prepar3D V3.4 Hotfix 2 (3.4.18 build 19475) compatibility. 2. New tweak "Clouds light scattering". 3. Tweak "Clouds shade adjustment" renamed to "Clouds saturation". 4. New tweak "Cirrus lighting". 5. New tweak "Clouds shadows depth": separate adjustment for the cloud shadows. 6. New tweak "Aircraft lighting". Old tweak "Aircraft brightness tuning" now is a part of new tweak. 7. New tweak "Objects lighting". Old tweak "Adjust autogen ambient sunlight" now is a part of new tweak. 8. Lighting tweaks for terrain was grouped into a new tweak "Terrain lighting". If you did not use all these tweak, just leave unused parameters with a default values. 9. New tweak "Autogen emissive lighting". 10. New tweak "Terrain saturation". 11. Old tweaks for luminosity of urban areas at night grouped into a new tweak "Urban areas lighting at night". If you did not use all these tweak, just leave unused parameters with a default values. 12. Rayleigh scattering effect now has the new option "Exclude clouds". When checked, effect will not apply to clouds. 13. New tweak "Sky fog tuning". 14. New tweak "Sky saturation". 15. New tweak "Specular lighting". 16. New tweak "Waves size". The tweak allows the tuning of waves sizes depending on altitude. 17. Reflection, refraction and granularity water tweaks was grouped into a single tweak "Water surface tuning". If you did not use all these tweak, just leave unused parameter with a default value. A new parameter "Specular blend". 18. Like in post-processing effects, all parameters of the shader tweaks can use now not only simple values but various expressions with shaders variables. (Please see documentation for detail info.) 19. You can restore default (initial) parameters values for a single tweak. 20. In addition to the PTA built-in tweaks you can also use create your own tweaks. Use this feature if you have some manual corrections that need to be applied to the shader files. These edits will be applied immediately after built-in tweaks in order specified in the list. IMPORTANT! There is no error detection provided! To locate the errors in your code please activate an option "Content Error Logging" in General section of P3D settings. (Error message appears at sim exit). 21. The logic of preset saving was changed. The option "Autosave preset on exit" removed from the tool. Now you will be asked only if preset was modified. 22. New option that allows to receive a notification when the new version of tool released. (Update is checked once in 3 days). 23. User interface redesigned. Sliders removed but you can use mouse wheel (or Ctrl+mouse wheel) to change values. Some improvements and new skins. 24. Help contents was clarified. There are some examples of using expressions in chapter 10. 25. Tweak descriptions were updated. Huge thanks to Adam (aka Adamski_NZ) for this! The illustrations of tweaks were also reworked and now contain values of parameters. 26. Fixed bug in "Curves" post-process shader. How to upgrade PTA 1.X to PTA 2.0: 1. The format of ini files used to store presets was changed in PTA 2.0. All presets from the previous version of tool are NOT compatible with version 2.0. Please reconfigure the required presets in the new utility in accordance with release notes and your PTA 1.X version presets. 2. It's highly recommended to install PTA 2.0 in a new directory separate from previous version of the tool. 3. Before installation please make sure that you have the original (no tweaked) shaders in Prepar3D. If you are already using PTA 1.X you can restore original shaders by menu command "Actions - Restore original P3D shaders". 4. When original shaders restored, unzip distribution archive in separate directory. At first start PTA 2.0 should automatically detect target P3D version, find proper P3D installation directory, shaders cache directory, and create backup of used in tweaks shaders to \SHADERS_BACKUP subdirectory in main PTA directory. Config files, used by tool, will backup to \CONFIG_BACKUP. How to upgrade PTA 2.0 beta to PTA 2.0: All presets are compatible. To install delete old PTA.exe from your PTA 2.0 directory, unzip PTA.exe from new distribution archive. Then apply your preset.

I prefer Physical Therapist Assistant :wink: PTA 2.0 with 3.4.18 compatiblitly on site: http://1coder.ru/PTA/releases.html

1. Clouds saturation tweak unusable - clouds just disappear. 2. New feature of 3.4.18 with more variance in cloud depiction will be unavailable. Yep. 2.0 soon

Oops... PTA 2.0 beta doesn't show errors with P3D 3.14.18, but actually it's not compatible with 3.14.18. It needs some patches. Soon.

+1

You're welcome mate

Hi Gordon. If the night is too bright you can try any of these suggestions: - Change the sky textures. - If you use HDR mode in sim try to adjust TONEMAP_NIGHT_EXPOSURE_KEY value in prepar3d.cfg. - In PTA 2.0 use "Terrain lighting" tweak and reduce the level of moon light (Ambient and Diffuse moonlight ratio). We can't achieve the night lighting environment similar to X-Plane 10/11 via PTA. It needs modifications in core sim code. (Some users use high HDR bloom at night environment but it affects also a VC and IMHO it's far from X-Plane 10/11 lighting quailty.) Regards,

PTA doesn't modify water constants. These constants used in shaders as an input values for the futher calculations. PTA modifies calculations performed by shaders. If input values change, the final result will change of course. No waves settings overwritten. Your question at http://www.avsim.com/topic/489018-prepar3d-tweak-assistant-pta/page-39#entry3526760 Than you for input and sending me a detail info. I've made some tests with your presets using scenario (in PTA 2): 1. Open day preset - apply. 2. Open night preset - apply - make screenshot #1 and full copy #1 of sim/ShadersHLSL directory. 3. Restore original shaders - apply night preset - make screenshot #2 and full copy #2 of sim/ShadersHLSL directory. I have absolutely identical screenshot #1 and #2 and also absolutely identical sim/ShadersHLSL directory content in both cases. With accuracy to one byte. Also I made the same tests with your copies of PTA1 and PTA2. The results are the same. No differences when shaders restored or not. But actually your presets called "night" in PTA1 and PTA2 are different. And difference is in lighting tweaks also. That why you may get the different results at night environment. UPD. Unfortunately, I can't give any advices how to use ENVTEX with PTA because I don't have ENVTEX.

Hi Ed! Are you using AS2016 with active cloud motion effect? I'm pretty sure that Fog influence in sky fog tuning doesn't affect this haze. Please try Cloud fog tuning instead. Just a suggestion. regards,

could you pls send me your night presets from 1 and 2 versions for testing? trifonov.geo@gmail.com

what tweak in 2.0 doesn't work?

PTA 1.X and 2.0 use the original P3D shaders as a start point before applying preset. Upd: therefore, the restoration of shaders before preset applying doesn't required definitely. All modifications in shaders have been made before applying preset will be lost. The exception is using custom tweaks in PTA2.0. They apply after preset.

Sounds promising. Are you satisfied with this purchase? No more fiddling with sky textures and it is really have a 10-day cycle with really different sky textures? How the quality of fog color and lighting of that textures? Thanks

11. New tweak "Sky saturation".

Hi Ed! Hotfix 2 for P3D 3.4 coming soon: http://www.prepar3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6312&t=120967&start=30#p148522 I'm going to check compatibility before PTA 2.0 stable release. Regards,

Hi Gerard! Forgive me for butting in: My bad, just forgot to put in release notes: Tweak "Clouds shade adjustment" renamed to "Clouds saturation". Fixed. Yes, for shadows depth adjustment, you need "shadows receive" for autogen option in sim activated. But for brightness it is not necessary - just make light a bit lower. The descrpiption of tweak will be fixed in the next release. Yes, the tweak algorothm remains the same. Yes, shader modifications are the same. Thank you for a feedback! I think no. I tested Adam's preset and it has many tweaks activated. Are you using PTA 2.0 to open preset?

Initially PTA makes backup of shaders that contain in sim\ShadersHLSL directory. Later, when you upgrade sim, some shaders in PTA backup become obsolete because of new versions of shaders in sim\ShadersHLSL. When you start PTA after upgrading sim, the tool detects that some shaders in sim\ShadersHLSL was changed. If the new versions of shaders in sim\ShadersHLSL are original shaders of new version of sim, PTA just update obsolete copy in backup and continue work as usual. PTA itself doesn't contain and doesn't provide any version of P3D shaders. It just make backup copies of the existing. if you delete contents if sim\ShadersHLSL and have no original shaders, you can reinstall P3D client to get it back.

I suppose you mean you clear the shaders cache, not delete shaders themselves. (Shaders cache located at c:\Users\[user name]\AppData\Local\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v3\Shaders\). In this case PTA should detect upgrade automatically. Please see upgrade notes here http://1coder.ru/PTA/help.html#upgrade. Regards,

Wow. I travelled quite a lot by this bird in good old times. As a passenger of course. A big fun and a real challenge for the vestibular apparatus. Many thanks, Gennadiy, stunning shots!