Improving the Light Engine| What and How

[gammadust 12]

I'd love to see what could be achieved with ENB in Arma 2, I mean, the guy who worked on ENB for GTA (Boris Vorontsov) started with basics as well if I recall correctly. First versions didn't look all that special, but after months of development, GTA started to look like another game with that mod. Some scenes are simply amazing.

I think that is also due to a lot of improved HighRes retexturing.

I think we went a bit offtopic here though, if there's someone willing to work on it, it would be a wise idea to create adequate topic.

Found this one on ENBSeries already, but your suggestion seams appropriate. (don't get me wrong when I said previously that I am passing on this for now)

Mostly the settings are too obscure in their results. From my search for better looks, both the Bloom and Shadow section in the config have unintuitive results OR the attempts I did to wane the effects to minimal impact never nullify them or reach a point which seams suitable.

Also, apparently the Arma engine must be using the same "DX calls" (i deduce, I'm a layman in this regard) for those settings to do anything and many of those ENBSeries effects don't turn on (ie. the SSAO does nothing On/Off). I tried both by automatic loading of the enbseries.ini and by restarting the game itself.

(Might another version, not this GTA SA one, be able to trigger the right effects?)

In fact I would use this most probably only for SSAO effect.

[purepassion 22]

thx Fenrisulven :ok:

and jea a new thread for ENB would be good

In fact there is already an old one :)

I think it won't be a problem to use this Thread, and post feedback and new tweaked files there

[welcome to hell 23]

Light simulation should be at STALKER clear sky lever to the very least.

[metalcraze 290]

There's a difference between SoC, CS and CoP lightning?

[feralcircus 2]

Just have a simple slider in the graphics setting for LIGHT SOURCES from 0% to 100%

100% being EVERY light source on the map is active & visible.

Same with shadows, 100% = ALL shadows are visible.

That way people with high end rigs are just as happy as the people with low end rigs.

We want more, they want less! So why not everything visual has a slider from 0% = Nothing visible to 100% = everything visible at once :-)

So when at high altitude at night you see thousands of lights just like real life.

Also make the lights destroyable. :-)

[Maio 293]

Just have a simple slider in the graphics setting for LIGHT SOURCES from 0% to 100%

100% being EVERY light source on the map is active & visible.

Same with shadows, 100% = ALL shadows are visible.

That way people with high end rigs are just as happy as the people with low end rigs.

We want more, they want less! So why not everything visual has a slider from 0% = Nothing visible to 100% = everything visible at once :-)

So when at high altitude at night you see thousands of lights just like real life.

Also make the lights destroyable. :-)

Light sources don't work like gamma, contrast or the view distance slider. How would the game know what light sources to turn off without making the game look ugly. Imagine 2 towns. One has all the street lights turned on while the other only has 2 because the player reduced the light source %.

P.S. You can shoot out the lighbulbs from the street lamps in ArmA 2

[feralcircus 2]

Light sources don't work like gamma, contrast or the view distance slider. How would the game know what light sources to turn off without making the game look ugly. Imagine 2 towns. One has all the street lights turned on while the other only has 2 because the player reduced the light source %.

P.S. You can shoot out the lighbulbs from the street lamps in ArmA 2

Simply based on a radius from YOUR position (same as view distance) slider increases & decreases the radius of visible lights.

[Pyronick 21]

Simply based on a radius from YOUR position (same as view distance) slider increases & decreases the radius of visible lights.

If the engine uses deferred lighting you probably won't need any of these countermeasures. Generally if your GPU can handle the game, it'll handle multiple point light sources in a deferred lighting perfectly - ArmA 2 probably already uses multiple render targets.

Considering the fact the renderer in ArmA 3 will use the Direct3D 11 API I assume it will use deferred lighting.

Back in 2008 I know somebody ran tests on an old Pentium D, HD2900XT equipped machine doing about 4000 point light sources in a polygon heavy demo's. Just because the standard DirectX 9 libraries don't have easy ways of implementing anti-aliasing techniques with deferred shading/lighting only a few games actually use deferred shading/lighting. On console games it's common these days because of the closer-to-hardware programming and usual lack of anti-aliasing.

The best way to decrease visible lights is simply put - decrease view distance. ;)

[feralcircus 2]

If the engine uses deferred lighting you probably won't need any of these countermeasures. Generally if your GPU can handle the game, it'll handle multiple point light sources in a deferred lighting perfectly - ArmA 2 probably already uses multiple render targets.

Considering the fact the renderer in ArmA 3 will use the Direct3D 11 API I assume it will use deferred lighting.

Back in 2008 I know somebody ran tests on an old Pentium D, HD2900XT equipped machine doing about 4000 point light sources in a polygon heavy demo's. Just because the standard DirectX 9 libraries don't have easy ways of implementing anti-aliasing techniques with deferred shading/lighting only a few games actually use deferred shading/lighting. On console games it's common these days because of the closer-to-hardware programming and usual lack of anti-aliasing.

The best way to decrease visible lights is simply put - decrease view distance. ;)

More the better for me matey :-)

It needs to be so you can fly over the island at high altitude and see every light source like you would in real life ideally.

[metalcraze 290]

Well BIS did something like this in VBS2 already with 1.50 update and that's on an old RV2.

I can safely bet RV4 can do it too.

[Cripsis 10]

Has there actually been any official confirmation from BIS that they are going to improve the light engine?

[Nicholas 5]

Has there actually been any official confirmation from BIS that they are going to improve the light engine?

I recall Dwarden saying that it was in the works. But I can't remember.

[purepassion 22]

Has there actually been any official confirmation from BIS that they are going to improve the light engine?

Yes there have been several :)

The CIT Ticket is set to "in Progress" and there was a twitter tweet by RiE :)

[Cripsis 10]

Thanks PurePassion, your the Supreme Master of confirmed features! :)

[Maio 293]

Thanks PurePassion, your the Supreme Master of confirmed features! :)

I have dishonered my clan, my life is now worthless...

:butbut:...:(...:cry2:......

[Cripsis 10]

I have dishonered my clan

Nope, your still Supreme Emperor, the only rank higher than Supreme Master.

[purepassion 22]

hahaha maio I knew something like that was coming :D

To quote the mighty Einstein: "You don't have to know everything, you just have to know where it's written" :D

;)

[Craig_VG 20]

Thanks PurePassion, your the Supreme Master of confirmed features! :)

As soon as I read this, first thought: "Ohhhh snap, maionaze ain't goin to like this...."