P3Dv3 - legacy aircraft and PTA

[Adam_NZ]

I'm a long-time P3D user (and an even longer FS9, FSX user <!>). Screenshots are my passion!

P3D has been a very welcome upgrade for me, but not entirely without its "gotchas" - notably "popcorn" clouds and "oily/black" water. However - Yuri's PTA papers overs these cracks and P3D can excel in doing what it does best in visuals: lighting and shadows!

Surprisingly, many of my ancient freeware aircraft (eg. the Stirling) can be persuaded to work in P3D with little or no tweaking. The following are just random images - but all using P3Dv3 and PTA:

P3D water maxed out:


Clouds by FEX and PTA:




Decent water *is* possible in P3D!:






"Legacy" Stirling:
[url=http:http://www.fsfiles.org/flightsimshotsv2 ... p3d_01.jpg][/url]

"Mach Loop" - NZ version:




P3D atmospherics are varied and can be quite stunning.




Finally: simple, but sublime!


Adam.

[Cruachan]

Hi Adam,

There is only one word that describes those images: Stunning!!
These have to be amongst the best, if not the best, I've seen to date.

It is a joy to see you back amongst us again! I hope you are keeping well and girding those loins for anything the P3D Developers and Community might toss in your direction :) Interesting times ahead, for sure. I'm sure we're all keeping our fingers crossed while hoping a version of PTA will, in time, become available for V4.

I'm still using your 21.11 PTA Preset. I couldn't fly P3D without it these days. It brings such a wonderfully realistic and natural look to the sim.

All the best,
Mike

[Cruachan]

Just spotted Nellie!!

Nice one, Adam :)

Regards,
Mike

[Cruachan]

Just spotted Nellie!!

Apologies to Nellie, I mean't of course to say 'Nessie'! You'd think I should have known that...LOL!

Regards,
Mike

[Geir Haukland]

Sorry to ask, but what is PTA? And what has that to do with P3D? Explain please.

Thank you.

[Cruachan]

Hi Geir,

PTA = Prepar3D Tweak Assistant

You can learn more about it here:
https://www.simtweaks.com/

Adam's images, I assume, will be from Prepar3D v3.4 using his own latest Preset shader values applied by the last version of PTA before the source code was sold by the original Author, Yuri (aka KNOSSOS) to Matt Davies. Matt has assumed the responsibility for the ongoing further development of PTA. The latest version, 2.5, was released earlier today. It is compatible with Prepar3D V4 and also has some compatibility with PTA v2.00-v2.11 Presets. I suggest you keep an eye on progress by visiting the Forums at AVSIM.

If you are still using Prepar3D 3.4 then I recommend you visit Adam's informative and helpful website for advice about using his Presets which I found produce the most natural and realistic images I have ever seen in Prepar3D:

http://www.nzfsim.org/index.php?dsp=PTA

Regarding PTA v2.5 / Prepar3D V4, we will have to wait and see how things develop. Or, you might feel inclined to try some tweaking yourself without relying, as I have done, on Presets produced by others. Doing your own shader tweaking can be quite a long process as each time you apply new tweak/s the sim has to be restarted and the shader cache rebuilt before you can view the results. All this takes time, a lot of it! Adam's Presets are the result of hours of very diligent work and, unlike me, he really does know what he is doing :)

Hope all this is of some help to you.

Regards,
Mike