OA Lighting Engine Criticism

[maturin 12]

The graphical updates that shipped with OA are certainly nice. Lots of HDR, and perhaps most noticeably, no more obvious cones of light coming down from streetlamps.

But all the changes are not good. Walk up to one of the aforementioned streetlights at night in Chernogorsk. The light given off is soft and realistic and high quality. The bulb, however, isn't on. It has no shine of its own and the light emanates from nowhere. That's just a missing sprite, however.

Now walk directly under the lamp and look up. Your screen will turn bright yellow in this obnoxious glare effect. Even if you are wearing NVGs, the world turns urine-colored.

This effect also happens at times when a vehicle on fire. It can be nice, except when it is still mostly light out around 6:00 at night, and the light given off by the fire is flat red. It is probably the most glaring, least realistic lighting effect I have ever seen in a modern game.

Everybody knows that flat colors look bad. You don't use pure, uninterrupted green on your digital trees, do you? So why should light be any different. There is already a textured light effect for rockets and headlights that give off light in believable shades. Nothing made me feel more immersed in Arma2 than being blinded by a car's headlights and having to look away. Please fix this.

Edited December 21, 2010 by maturin

[johncage 30]

yes very bad engine, outdated engine. lighting reflective of age.

[Panthro 10]

nope the engine is modern but the lighting is geared toward being functional rather than Hollywood like say COD.

I would like to see it updated sure but how does this rate against other issues in the big picture?

[neokika 62]

yes very bad engine, outdated engine. lighting reflective of age.

Is this a joke :confused:

[Zipper5 74]

yes very bad engine, outdated engine. lighting reflective of age.

Quit with the trolling before you get another infraction. You seem to be on yet another spree.

[Mr. Charles 22]

It would be better if flashlights are not the laserray devices of doom, able to shine through all objects....

Edited December 14, 2010 by Mr. Charles

[maturin 12]

nope the engine is modern but the lighting is geared toward being functional rather than Hollywood like say COD.

Nu-uh, geared towards eye candy. Arma 2 lighting worked just fine for functionality. OA is designed to look good, raising my goddamn system requirements.

I would like to see it updated sure but how does this rate against other issues in the big picture?

It's a fix, not an update. I don't like being blinded by a foot-high fire at twilight, with a screen effect that looks like a poorly-represented Viking berserk rage or a Call of Cthulu insanity effect. And RPGs at night just look laughable.

How come realism and and immersion, the two things that make this game great, are never important whenever someone has the wrong complaint?

It's realllly bad, guys. You should see what ArmA looks like on my machine. The resolution is low, I have no postprocessing, textures decide not to show up half the time. So believe me when I say this takes the cake.

And really, all you'd have to do is change rockets and tank rounds back to normal tracers and change the color of emitted light to something in a believable range. Like two shades darker than white, seriously. That's a lot easier than making machine guns have recoil while walking, isn't it?

It would be better if flashlights are not the laserray objects of doom, able to shine through all objects....

And I've love it if grenades worked the same way. I hate fragging myself through the ceiling.

[mosh 0]

The graphical updates that shipped with OA are certainly nice. Lots of HDR, and perhaps most noticeably, no more obvious cones of light coming down from streetlamps.

But all the changes are not good. Walk up to one of the aforementioned streetlights at night. The light given off is soft and realistic and high quality. The bulb, however, isn't on. It has no shine of its own and the light emanates from nowhere. That's just a missing sprite, however.

Now walk directly under the lamp and look up. Your screen will turn bright yellow in this obnoxious glare effect. Even if you are wearing NVGs, the world turns urine-colored.

This effect also happens when a vehicle on fire. It can be nice, except when it is still mostly light out around 6:00 at night, and the light given off by the fire is flat red. It is probably the most glaring, least realistic lighting effect I have ever seen in a modern game.

These aren't big problems though, as they don't appear too often. What I dislike the most is what BIS have done to RPGs and other rockets in flight. They look like you are firing flares out of your launcher, lighting up entire hillsides in this hideous glow. It's like a Las Vegas casino flying through the night sky.

Everybody knows that flat colors look bad. You don't use pure, uninterrupted green on your digital trees, do you? So why should light be any different. There is already a textured light effect for rockets and headlights that give off light in believable shades. Nothing made me feel more immersed in Arma2 than being blinded by a car's headlights and having to look away. Please fix this.

PS. Tank rounds look dumb too. Just use a normal tracer, really.

Nu-uh, geared towards eye candy. Arma 2 lighting worked just fine for functionality. OA is designed to look good, raising my goddamn system requirements.

It's a fix, not an update. I don't like being blinded by a foot-high fire at twilight, with a screen effect that looks like a poorly-represented Viking berserk rage or a Call of Cthulu insanity effect. And RPGs at night just look laughable.

How come realism and and immersion, the two things that make this game great, are never important whenever someone has the wrong complaint?

It's realllly bad, guys. You should see what ArmA looks like on my machine. The resolution is low, I have no postprocessing, textures decide not to show up half the time. So believe me when I say this takes the cake.

And really, all you'd have to do is change rockets and tank rounds back to normal tracers and change the color of emitted light to something in a believable range. Like two shades darker than white, seriously. That's a lot easier than making machine guns have recoil while walking, isn't it?

And I've love it if grenades worked the same way. I hate fragging myself through the ceiling.

First of all, what are you running this on? Didn't you say it was a below spec machine somewhere? If so your rant is pointless.

No mods, no scripts, just the editor and a couple units for demonstrations...

normal settings - lighting (notice the bulb lights up)

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normal settings - rpg at night (las vegas strip, huh?)

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normal settings - headlights (blinding...)

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very high settings - longer video

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I'm not trying to be an asshole by replying, but seriously... something is wrong on your end. Does it not look fine to you in my videos? Or does that look the same as yours does?

[maturin 12]

That is very strange with the RPG-7. There is some additional effect that you don't have.

When I fire one of those, it looks like your game for the the first seconds, then I get an obnoxious red puff ball when the main rocket motor kicks in.

Second, try looking at a Chernarus streetlight and see what happens. And walk directly under it.

I never said headlights were messed up, I was just giving an example of how Arma 2's lighting was good and how these changes are a departure from that. And see that glare effect? Imagine if that was flat red or yellow for burning fires and Chernogorsk streetlights.

My settings are considered high overall. Most sliders are at normal, while Postprocessing is turned off. And if turning off Postprocessing makes all your colors go wonky, it's definitely still BI's problem. Most of OA lighting looks fine, like I said.

Your RPG video makes me wonder if someone on the ACE team has gone slightly crazy inbetween 1.3 and 1.5. I doubt it, but I'll go check.

Edit: HA! 1:20 of your last video. The glare effect on the lightpost went all yellow for a split second, at a certain angle. Mine is always like that. It happened again around 1:34.

I suspect this has something to do with the border where multiple lighting processes intersect. It would make sense that there is a problem in Chernarus objects where new features have been grandfathered in.

Edited December 14, 2010 by maturin

[mosh 0]

You are correct about the Chenarus lights, they do look a little underwhelming... but still not as awful as you make it sound. ;)

KDwSxNUE2X8

[maturin 12]

You are correct about the Chenarus lights, they do look a little underwhelming... but still not as awful as you make it sound. ;)

You mean that isn't "bright yellow and obnoxious?"

I suppose it is a relatively small matter in a game that exhibits every category and level of severity of glitch known to man, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a lighting effect that horrendous in any other game known for its graphics, any time this century.

I mean, come on, your NVGs turned colors. They're supposed to be green. That's incredibly sloppy.

This is all easy to fix. Adjust the tint, tweak the NVGs, adjust the time-of-day settings for glare, add a sprite to Chernarus lamps, use a tracer and a white light source for rockets.

[johncage 30]

urine colored beacons for lamplight is not underwhelming, it looks grotesque, like someone smeared urine over your eyes

[Big Dawg KS 6]

How is this an OA issue if it's only a problem on Chernarus? Seems like the Chernarus street lights just need to be updated is all...

[maturin 12]

How is this an OA issue if it's only a problem on Chernarus? Seems like the Chernarus street lights just need to be updated is all...

I wasn't aware that only Chernarus lights were so affected.

And then there's the glare effect from burning vehicles (perhaps only certain types, as the effect isn't consistent) and the color and appearance of RPG and tank rounds in flight.

[Big Dawg KS 6]

I wasn't aware that only Chernarus lights were so affected.

And then there's the glare effect from burning vehicles (perhaps only certain types, as the effect isn't consistent) and the color and appearance of RPG and tank rounds in flight.

But I don't see any of this. Are you using any mods?

[Panthro 10]

seriously upgrade your computer Maturin!

what kind of GFX card are you using a vodoo3? give us some info.

[maturin 12]

There's no way that using an ATI Radeon 3650 is going to make lights change colors. And I can run plenty of games with better lighting effects than ArmA's.

[Panthro 10]

there are many things that "shouldnt" but do in real life.

if you want more out of ArmA2 I highly recommend asking "Santa" for somthing higher spec you'll get alot of fun with.

[Heatseeker 0]

The lighting and weather effects are some of Arma's engine bad aspects, the runway/control tower lights look.. very bad, but not just that, the day/night cycles look awfull and night often looks either like lunar surface or some alien planet with those huge stars.

Just set the date in the editor to may 7, 4:30 and preview, is the ground.. blue? If you play around with diferent dates and times you will find some really nasty looking times of day.

[maturin 12]

there are many things that "shouldnt" but do in real life.

if you want more out of ArmA2 I highly recommend asking "Santa" for somthing higher spec you'll get alot of fun with.

Yeah, my graphics card is SO bad that it is INCAPABLE of rendering the color white. Light of this wavelength is so taxing to its puny components that it decides to make it yellow instead. And it only happens magically on my computer.

Or maybe you're just too damn lazy to go see the problem yourself and would rather mount the fanboy barricades for a heroic defense of the game. I'd prefer that they improve it, and I'm very happy to help them however I can.

Edited December 21, 2010 by maturin

[metalcraze 290]

It would be better if flashlights are not the laserray devices of doom, able to shine through all objects....

Write that to Microsoft so they will change that in DirectX because that's how rendering works there.

[Panthro 10]

Nu-uh, geared towards eye candy. Arma 2 lighting worked just fine for functionality. OA is designed to look good, raising my goddamn system requirements.

ArmA2 is aimed at being functional if it doesnt have enough COD Hollywood SFX to satisfy you well ......... it's because ArmA2 is about realism (hot tip I know). If u have performance issues with lighting over 10km A2 rather than 300m COD then my upgrade statement is still on the money.

The urine yellow effect being bad you are 100% right and no it's not up2 standard and think it's great you've brought this to their attention I never disagreed with this.

I dont have your issue with rockets at night and cant see it on any friends computers.

I dont see your issue with the super bright fires at night either, unless you are forgetting that A2 attempts to simulate bright lights effect on your night vision (your eyes not the NVG's) dont look at bright lights & expect to be able to see in the dark.

I agree some things need attention but put your Troll/fanboy stamp away and try maturin'

Edited December 21, 2010 by Panthro
typo :P

[maturin 12]

ArmA2 is aimed at being functional if it doesnt have enough COD Hollywood SFX to satisfy you well ......... it's because ArmA2 is about realism (hot tip I know). If u have performance issues with lighting over 10km A2 rather than 300m COD then my upgrade statement is still on the money.

Not to quibble any further, but the ugly cones of light in Arma2 were perfectly functional.

The urine yellow effect being bad you are 100% right and no it's not up2 standard and think it's great you've brought this to their attention I never disagreed with this.

I dont have your issue with rockets at night and cant see it on any friends computers.

I dont see your issue with the super bright fires at night either, unless you are forgetting that A2 attempts to simulate bright lights effect on your night vision (your eyes not the NVG's) dont look at bright lights & expect to be able to see in the dark.

I agree some things need attention but put your Troll/fanboy stamp away and try maturin'

Well that's more like it, I thought you were responding directly to my two preceding posts. As it happens, I have had a run of people telling me that engine glitches are the fault of my hardware, as if I don't deserve to play this game and then constructively criticize it. Beg Pardon.

The rocket issue turns out to be the fault of ACE 2. It was almost exactly the same problem as the streetlight, so it faked me out. Plus I found it hard to believe that such an excellent design team would make a visual choice that bad, as their contributions to FX are usually very carefully considered and minimalistic.

I can't reliably recreate the issue with the glare on burning vehicles, but rest assured it wasn't a mod. The problematic part apparently only affects certain vehicles (it was an Arma 2 APC) at certain times of day. Once again, a matter of tweaking a working system.

[max power 21]

I like the tungsten lighting effect, even though it doesn't work well with NVGs. Tungsten lighting is quite orange, and the effect over all is pretty good.

[Panthro 10]

can you set up fraps the demo is free it only records 30sec but should be enough and record the effect your referring to?

I agree that the cone of light was functional but in real life light is more diffuse unless its a laser so this (realism) upgrade makes sense to me.