Arma 3 lighting

[EDcase 87]

I think ARMA2 HDR works in principle. Its just the scene brightness evaluation thats not good (metering).

At the moment if there is any hint of a bright area such as sky (or bright cow) it makes the scene darker so that the sky is not too bright.

It should work so that if the sky shows for more than half the image area then it will change to expose for the sky.

Edited June 11, 2012 by EDcase

[erupter 1]

I don't understand you people.

When I look out my window before sunset and i have direct LOS with the sun... Everything is high contrast, tones are yellow/orange (depending on the height above the horizon), the more I point my eyes towards the sun, the less I see of everything else.

The pic of HL2 by NodUnit actually reminds me of the reflections and the bloom from the balcony in my parents sitting-room (lots of old furniture with glasses and mirrors) before sunset.

I can't see why you say it's bugged.

To me it's far worse when shadows aren't shadows, and the sun (or other strong direct light) doesn't blind you.

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

Arma 3 doesn't show signs of suffering from that, we've seen several points of going from light to shadow and more towards being in the sun without sign of HDR trying to adjust, or it's become more subtle.

Adjustment of your virtual eyes during sunsets, while engaging something due west has always been a problem, thus unnatural 'blackness', or blindness in these circumstances.

http://www.bistudio.com/english/company/developers-blog/307-report-in-interview-with-pavel-guglava-lead-artist

Ok, so it's all looking great, but what about gameplay? Aesthetics aside, how does your work impact upon gamers?

Gugla: We are focused to open up the whole day cycle to the players. Lighting is a huge part of the visual experience. From this perspective, I think players will surely enjoy missions with night lights, without the whole screen going dark when attacking enemies in the west! And the point-lights and light-emission materials are a huge help with navigation during the night.

Sexeh. :cool:

[tremanarch 6]

back in 2004 HDR was so coool.. but now subtle effects are much more cool ;)

But HDR in photography is something else. our eyes have a extremely bigger HDR than a photgraphic apparatus. With HDR Photography they try to somehow imitate this (It looks artificial though). What games do is the complete opposite. They handle our eyes as cheap cameras / photographic apparatus because it looks camera-ish and cool. (If its subtle I quite like it though).

thats some real HDR pictures: http://www.lowbird.com/data/images/2009/05/bahnhof-hdr.jpg

http://www.hdrsoft.com/images/icone/grandcanal_tm400.jpg

http://tobias-otte.de/labor/hdr/haus2-1024x768.jpg

(it looks like old games without hdr)

But what the gaming industry wants is low DR (LDR)

the thing is.. our eyes dont look always straight forward. but our screen does imply it that way... it is not possible to workaround that.

And finally ArmA III did it right and subtle this time..

[erupter 1]

But HDR in photography is something else. our eyes have a extremely bigger HDR than a photgraphic apparatus. With HDR Photography they try to somehow imitate this

thats some real HDR pictures: http://www.lowbird.com/data/images/2009/05/bahnhof-hdr.jpg

You can't be serious bro!

HDR to photographers is what tuning is to race drivers!

C'mon, just read a bit around about HDR.

No human eye has the ability to gather that much range you show in that photo.

If you go to that same spot you'd notice that you DON'T see that place like that photo.

On the opposite.

I think you're mixing many things up.

There are more than one ranges in this discussion:

tonal range ie colours, and no electronic apparatus has the ability to show the quantity the human eye can discern

light intensity range ie contrast, and no electronic apparatus (again) can match the eye (or nature for that matter)

The human eye has an exposure capability superior to that of the photo film, but that image you posted has been achieved with at least THREE different exposures, possibilty more.

The combined range of THREE exposure is superior to that of the human eye.

So you again are faking and in fact the colours look unnatural, and you wouldn't see them that way should you be in the same place at the same time.

More to the point you'd probably see the ceiling much darker in that very same condition.

I can't believe you don't know the very same eyes you use to type on this forum...

[nodunit 397]

I don't understand you people.

When I look out my window before sunset and i have direct LOS with the sun... Everything is high contrast, tones are yellow/orange (depending on the height above the horizon), the more I point my eyes towards the sun, the less I see of everything else.

The pic of HL2 by NodUnit actually reminds me of the reflections and the bloom from the balcony in my parents sitting-room (lots of old furniture with glasses and mirrors) before sunset.

I can't see why you say it's bugged.

To me it's far worse when shadows aren't shadows, and the sun (or other strong direct light) doesn't blind you.

It could also depend on surrounding. I live in the country, a very outback area with mostly forestation and green grass than anything else. When I look outside I see rich blue skies with fluffy white clouds, the sun is there yeah but it only exists as a relatively small dot outside of sunset whereupon the sky becomes a rich orangey pink. I've never seen a sky like that picture and if I did I'd probably panic in thought that a nuclear warhead went off in distance.

Shadows vary, on a bright sunny day the would be dark and easy to see since there is no obstruction from the suns intense light, but as things get cloudy it's only natural that shadows become more and more dim, to the point that on overcast they practicaly don't exist. Now if you want shadows to be darker in Arma 2 you can adjust it with a video card profile or set your gamma higher.

Edited June 11, 2012 by NodUnit

[Steakslim 1]

I should mention humidity/haziness/smog/visibility plays into it a great deal.

[gammadust 12]

I think ARMA2 HDR works in principle. Its just the scene brightness evaluation thats not good (metering).

At the moment if there is any hint of a bright area such as sky (or bright cow) it makes the scene darker so that the sky is not too bright.

It should work so that if the sky shows for more than half the image area then it will change to expose for the sky.

I agree with this acessment. Currently it feels awkward because the existing adaptation does not follow our common human response to equivalent HDR scenes.

Leading the player to move it's look in search for a place where it conforms to the expectation, whereas in RL we wouldn't be required to, at least to the extent arma enforces you to.

The "metering" should be less permissive in allowing bright areas to get as proportionaly big as they get in relation to the whole framing.

I would say that no more than 10% of blown out highlights, or it should be considered "overexposed". A bit higher if that area is not contiguous.

On the other side of the debate regarding human eye dynamic range:

The retina has a static contrast ratio of around 100:1 (about 6.5 f-stops). As soon as the eye moves (saccades) it re-adjusts its exposure both chemically and geometrically by adjusting the iris which regulates the size of the pupil. Initial dark adaptation takes place in approximately four seconds of profound, uninterrupted darkness; full adaptation through adjustments in retinal chemistry (the Purkinje effect) are mostly complete in thirty minutes. Hence, a dynamic contrast ratio of about 1,000,000:1 (about 20 f-stops) is possible. [3] The process is nonlinear and multifaceted, so an interruption by light merely starts the adaptation process over again. Full adaptation is dependent on good blood flow; thus dark adaptation may be hampered by poor circulation, and vasoconstrictors like alcohol or tobacco.

The Eye - A Survey of Human Vision (page 218)

We could also add, that we can squint, tilt our head forward and use the eyebrow to reduce light income, even our visual perception helps.

Eye system is not static, arma indeed tries to reproduce this, but even if it perfects this it can never know where the player is actually looking at the scene, since we're not always looking at the screen's center.

It will always fail in this department unless using specific hardware for the effect.

The problem is while trying to simulate this eye adaptation, and given the 8 bit limitation (256 luminance levels) of the current monitors output, it will always clip information where it shouldn't.

Were our actual eyes try and compensate for the blown out areas, there is no information left for our eyes to work with.

That is why sometimes the effect works out very good, and more often then not fails at it.

Some HDR techniques to the rescue, in other words: of compressing the multitude of amounts of light to a manageble range (8 bit). Latest beta suggests a good outlook by introducing tone mapping.

As far as has been shown in the video and ss previews, there seams to be a very good handling of the issue. I am liking it.

[erupter 1]

I should mention humidity/haziness/smog/visibility plays into it a great deal.

Yes but then we'd be tapping into radiosity. And I seriously doubt Arma3 engine supports it.

Current engines supporting radiosity:

Battlefield 3 - Geomerics Enlighten

Need for Speed: The Run - Geomerics Enlighten

Unreal Engine 3 - Geomerics Enlighten

Cryengine - self developed

Geomerics' Enlighten engine is a GI engine available for licensing.

BI could easily buy a licence and use it in their own engine as DICE did with their Frostbite engine.

[Steakslim 1]

I was referring more to what people were basing real life perspectives from. Different regions can produce different results, so some sunsets/sunrises are perceived differently by people when they bother to notice. Throwing that out there in case this thread turns into 20 different people with differing opinions on what they see.

[erupter 1]

Yes you are right :)

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

I think this is related, although it is for ArmA2 instead.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?135667-Improved-tone-mapping-for-1-61-proposal

This has been implemented in the latest beta patch.

[frostwyrm333 1]

Have you tried the newest beta patch? It fixes HDR somewhat, worse cases remain but its harder for them to appear, also whats with the forums are they on fire?

[PuFu 4600]

Yes but then we'd be tapping into radiosity. And I seriously doubt Arma3 engine supports it.

Current engines supporting radiosity:

Battlefield 3 - Geomerics Enlighten

Need for Speed: The Run - Geomerics Enlighten

Unreal Engine 3 - Geomerics Enlighten

Cryengine - self developed

Geomerics' Enlighten engine is a GI engine available for licensing.

BI could easily buy a licence and use it in their own engine as DICE did with their Frostbite engine.

If you get into a discussion, at least be informed about it

1. there are more so called real time GI 3rd party engines out there (which isn't really what is advertised, just check the FAQ). Autodesk Beast for instance

2. you obviously have no idea what "licesing a 3rd party lighting engine" means, if you think doing it is just easy (even if you have the money for it).

Now, for the second part, what a GI engine should do, and what Enlighten doesn't: A GI engine should be able to take into account all the the lights, material and surface properties in the scene, all of which affect the amount of lighting, as well the overall "mood". Still, Enlighten doesn't do (from their FAQ):

Enlighten cannot handle geometry that is created entirely procedurally at runtime with no prior knowledge of visibility.

Enlighten performs a precompute on the static geometry in the scene. Once this is completed the scene can be re-lit, re-textured and re-coloured dynamically. Typical precompute times are 1-2 minutes per system. The precompute can be distributed across multiple nodes.

What it means is that any sort of new light source in the scene needs to be run through the pre-compute phase, so no, you cannot add new light on the fly.

and last but not least:

Dynamic objects pick up radiosity so naturally fit into their world. They do not contribute to radiosity, though than can be simulated if necessary.

which again, means that the GI solution is a baked one (even if by baking i don't necessary mean map baked), and not dynamic.

The only engine out there that MIGHT be real-time GI, is the upcoming UE4:

[imarobot 10]

The E3 presentation was amazing, really great work on the lighting. The lighting and HDR specifically were the most frustrating parts of ARMA 2, so I'm really glad they reworked it. This is going to be a really exciting game, the ultimate military sandbox.

[Panda_pl 0]

Adjustment of your virtual eyes during sunsets, while engaging something due west has always been a problem, thus unnatural 'blackness', or blindness in these circumstances.

Now I am going on a whim but I think the problem of dark shadows at dawn might be the sky brightness is linked to the sun and so is the global illumination (or in other words: the uniform, or dome lighting).

In reality the sky will light up and start reflecting light before sun is over horizon.

So the change in global lighting should lag behind sun in the evening and precede sunrise in the morning. I am not sure but I think the sky already lights up a quarter before sunrise or something like that, as it should, but even if it does I don;t know if there is an accompanying change in global lighting.

[erupter 1]

If you get into a discussion, at least be informed about it

1. there are more so called real time GI 3rd party engines out there (which isn't really what is advertised, just check the FAQ). Autodesk Beast for instance

Ok, so? I just cited one as an example: there are good people working on a huge problem and providing solution.

I suggested BI concentrated on what it does best (simulation), buying ready-made solutions from people in the know of other problems.

2. you obviously have no idea what "licesing a 3rd party lighting engine" means, if you think doing it is just easy (even if you have the money for it).

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/easy 8. Readily exploited, imposed on, or tricked

I'm a programmer and I know the difference between baking a solution from scratch, and implementing someone's solution.

Nothing comes free, but some things come cheaper than others. At least in programming terms.

Then it's always a balance between what you want to achieve, and the amount of different resources you want to commit (money and man-hours in this case).

Now, for the second part, what a GI engine should do, and what Enlighten doesn't: A GI engine should be able to take into account all the the lights, material and surface properties in the scene, all of which affect the amount of lighting, as well the overall "mood". Still, Enlighten doesn't do (from their FAQ):

That's a wish of yours: I don't know of any real REAL-TIME FULL GI engines.

All of them, that I know of, use pre-rendered assets.

[tremanarch 6]

You can't be serious bro!

HDR to photographers is what tuning is to race drivers!

C'mon, just read a bit around about HDR.

No human eye has the ability to gather that much range you show in that photo.

If you go to that same spot you'd notice that you DON'T see that place like that photo.

On the opposite.

I think you're mixing many things up.

There are more than one ranges in this discussion:

tonal range ie colours, and no electronic apparatus has the ability to show the quantity the human eye can discern

light intensity range ie contrast, and no electronic apparatus (again) can match the eye (or nature for that matter)

The human eye has an exposure capability superior to that of the photo film, but that image you posted has been achieved with at least THREE different exposures, possibilty more.

The combined range of THREE exposure is superior to that of the human eye.

So you again are faking and in fact the colours look unnatural, and you wouldn't see them that way should you be in the same place at the same time.

More to the point you'd probably see the ceiling much darker in that very same condition.

I can't believe you don't know the very same eyes you use to type on this forum...

You're right bro'

I might have explained it wrong. I mean when you put your eye on sth. it quickly makes the best picture possible.. you cant see sth like a whole place at once with your eyes (try it out you can only focus on a tiny spot the brain makes the rest - we see with our brain not with our eyes though), because only a tiny tiny spot of your view is sharp and good.. its really hard to discuss it in a foreign language.. And of course you cant see such HDR pictures as a whole, but in tiny pieces if you had thousand eyes .. ^^ (and not thaat good yes, they look kind of artifical too, there are better and worse HDR Pictures)

as a rule of thumb the only thing you can see good and sharp is when you stretch your arm and look at your thumb, its this size of a picture you get from your eyes,, but they are moving quickly and scanning the scene...

and yes the pictures are too good of course, but it is what I tried to say to explain, It didnt work out.. the games imitades cameras not eyes, herein lies the mistake in my eyes but its not really better possible...

I mean we have even lens flare in all these games, but since when are we looking through camera eyes? At least myself I have biological eyes and no teleobjectives on my head ;))

Edited June 12, 2012 by tremanarch

[Stauff 10]

Even though its not directly related to lightning im wondering if we will have more post-processing options in A3?

Most of you know that blur and bloom are options that cannot be tweaked (as far as i know) individually. Hence, most pvp players turn this option to disabled or very low and lose the benefit of SSAO and color corrections. Is it a difficult task to give a option to treat these individually?

[Steakslim 1]

Unsure, but this is something more suited to ask in the Wishlist thread, though it has been requested many times in the past. I think everyone here would like to have full range of what options they want on and off without having to resort to third party methods.

[S33KER2 1]

I really hope that low end pc like mine ,the windows 7 4gbram, 1gbvideo, 32bit can also enjoy the lighting features of arma3. As of right now i play arma2 free version with lowest settings online. Its just not stable enough for my pc.

[T0bias 1]

Just got to take a look at some of the footage and I've got to say:

What the hell were you thinking?

http://i.imgur.com/prGpV.jpg

Look at this. This is a picture taken at night in arma 3 in an area with NO artificial lighting other then a bunch of chemlights scattered around the place. You can see everything perfectly. This is the kind of visibility I would expect to have looking through nightvision goggles, but this is just a dude's eyes. That's the kind of lighting I would expect from a game like Fallout 3, not Arma.

[Dingo8 1]

Just got to take a look at some of the footage and I've got to say:

What the hell were you thinking?

http://i.imgur.com/prGpV.jpg

Look at this. This is a picture taken at night in arma 3 in an area with NO artificial lighting other then a bunch of chemlights scattered around the place. You can see everything perfectly. This is the kind of visibility I would expect to have looking through nightvision goggles, but this is just a dude's eyes. That's the kind of lighting I would expect from a game like Fallout 3, not Arma.

Have you ever been outside at night when there's a full moon? :rolleyes:

[T0bias 1]

Yes. It's not THAT bright.

[Dingo8 1]

Yes. It's not THAT bright.

That picture you posted was also recorded by a camera, with auto exposure, pointed at a screen.

Keep in mind it's all WIP; They haven't even had the chance to implement night vision properly yet.