General Discussion (dev branch)

[Maio 293]

the night is very bright (and blue) with the new dev build (too bright IMO). also lights (street lights, etc) don't seem to actually light up stuff at night

True, the lighthouse for example is barely visible for me... I have to turn on NV to spot the rotating light beams.

Edited April 17, 2013 by Maio

[Derbysieger 11]

Nighttime is way too bright in the newest devbuild and dynamic lights are absolutely rubbish right now!

Time: 00:00 Date: 26.12.2035

The headlights are ON in this pic. I might as well leave them off^^:

[DaRkL3AD3R 1]

Oh god BI revert these night lighting changes. They are not good at all. The way they were before was like 99% perfect :(

[byku 13]

The problem with lights is that in bad weather in the evening when usually it is rather bright(with good weather) they give almost no light.

[Koukotsu 2]

I'm not sure what I think of the new night lighting, the intensified diffuse "moonlight" seems more consistent with the light of an actual full moon now. It's just too "blue" though, lol.

It "overpowers" the street lights and tracer rounds have lost their brilliant red glow, in fact, they look the same as they do during midday now. Muzzle Blasts have also lost quite a bit of intensity as well.

[HKFlash 9]

Hmm. I think there is generally quite a bit of work going on in the lighting department of ArmA 3. Hence lights in "low-light" situations are not actually lighting anything

Lights are also not visible and dont illuminate anything when there's fog.

[DaRkL3AD3R 1]

As Koukotsu said I really like the brightness of a full moon with no clouds in the sky, I really hate how it completely eliminates all other forms of lighting.

I did notice one thing though, my usual spawn spot on the airport runway was showing approx 50-60 more frames per second when looking at the airport structures. My guess is there's a rendering problem where the lights aren't even really being drawn at all. My fps with older builds would be around 60, but now with the new dev build with the messed up lighting I'm getting around 110 frames per second.

Oh also lol think this is ironic. Today's build supposedly fixes an error for missing runway models. I never once had this error, until today lmao. Now I get it everytime I spawn on the runway. Nice.

[nikiforos 450]

I'm getting the lowest FPS at night.

[Wolfstriked 11]

When you enter a chopper or a vehicle you can zoom out very slightly and it gives a bit better situational awareness and is so slight it does not cause any fish eye look.For the quad bike though when you zoom out it zooms a huge amount and it fish eyes.If zoom on quads can be reduced to the lower zoom in choppers/vehicles it would look worlds better.This should be set as default since a larger FOV gives a better sense of speed and situational awareness.If not set as default then at least make the dbl tap of zoom out key stick as right now it just resets to normal zoom.

[toiletguy 1]

Seems the bug in this newest dev builds is the lights. There's no lights from pole, fireplace or headlights in the full moon with a clear sky day. The blue theme gives a good looking which i loves it! It blends the horizon with the skyline pretty perfect just like in those Skyrim mods.

EDIT : Under water lightning is perfect now! Before it was completely pitch black.

Edited April 17, 2013 by Toiletguy

[TSAndrey 1]

Nighttime is way too bright in the newest devbuild and dynamic lights are absolutely rubbish right now!

Time: 00:00 Date: 26.12.2035

http://www.abload.de/thumb/arma32013-04-1719-39-g9zzg.png http://www.abload.de/thumb/arma32013-04-1719-38-nxlrw.png http://www.abload.de/thumb/arma32013-04-1719-38-iqado.png

The headlights are ON in this pic. I might as well leave them off^^:

http://www.abload.de/thumb/arma32013-04-1719-37-pgx3g.png

Pitch black night is stupid. I'm glad BI reduced it

[antoineflemming 14]

Pitch black night is stupid. I'm glad BI reduced it

Actually, pitch black night is not stupid. It's in fact realistic. That said, it should only pitch black if there are no stars or moon out.

[DaRkL3AD3R 1]

Pitch black night is stupid. I'm glad BI reduced it

You can think it's stupid all you like but pitch black night is reality. When you're out in the boons with no towns nearby and there's some decent overcast, guess what. The world around you is as black as hex code #000000. The level of brightness we're seeing on today's dev build with full overcast is just totally borked.

Not to mention the fact that all the lights are busted. Headlights are weaker than a 3v flashlight, the football stadium spotlights barely light up the ground let alone buildings and characters, and the burning bright lighthouse? That thing's beams were BARELY visible pre-today's patch. Now they're non-existent.

Sincerely hope BI sees all this and reverts, or at least fixes today's stuff, for tomorrow.

[mighteemouse 1]

I think the patch made everything better especially the lights. Yall need glasses.

[Derbysieger 11]

Pitch black night is stupid. I'm glad BI reduced it

It actually is. Yes, stars will give a little light but during a moonless winter night in an area that doesn't suffer from light pollution it's going to be almost pitch black even with a clear sky. Add cloudcover and you won't see anything, even if it's directly in front of you.

Besides, my post was mainly about the broken dynamic lighting..

[gvse 10]

I actually like the new night lighting, as the blue tint is very cinematic and very atmospheric. Perhaps it should be darker in overcast conditions, and the light emitted by street lamps should be stronger. I understand it may not be everyone's favorite but I hope that even if the devs change the ambiance, they'll at least provide this setting in modules/effects.

The game seems to be running smoother as of this dev build, especially in locations where I used to get erratic frames (shooting range, Agia Marina, the airbase).

[Tonci87 163]

The Bridge Problem isn´t really fixed. Try placing a group of 4 hunter vehicels on the road leading east out of Agia Marina (near the Radio Tower) and give them a waypoint with close column formation to the gas station south of the town. 90% chance that they won´t make it in one piece.

EDIT: Well forget what I wrote, it´s 100% certain that they won´t make it. I did a few test runs. Either they stop in front of the bridge and refuse to continue, or some vehicle drives into a house, or another vehicle, leading to catastrophic damage.

Edited April 17, 2013 by Tonci87

[FOX Dome 1]

Nights are a little bit to bright in my opinion atm (liked the "Pitch black night" more but only if the Car/Flashlights get a little bit more power^^)

I very like the new animations.

Keep up the good stuff

edit to the coment under me:

i dont see a reson why it destroys gameplay its even better for gameplay

Edited April 18, 2013 by rAMMY

[Zorg_DK 10]

Pitch black nights is realistic, but makes for crap gameplay. I'd say keep the nights bright. I also think all light sources should cast much more light.

[byku 13]

Tested lights right now and indeed it seems that BIS messed up something. The lights are definitely too weak, and night with max overcast too bright. Pretty unrealistic.

[purepassion 22]

Pitch black nights is realistic, but makes for crap gameplay. I'd say keep the nights bright. I also think all light sources should cast much more light.

But don't the dark nights actually add to the gameplay? If it's completely dark, you are forced to either use NVG's, which can be blinded by bright lights, or if those are not available, your weapon mounted flashlight which give you the ability to see but also being seen by the enemy.

Those settings are perfectly fine for a late summer evening with no clouds but it should be only bound to that specific case. Really dark nights should be the norm.

[artemas 1]

Actually, there is often a whole range of darkness at night, and depends on things like cloud cover, phases of the moon, starlight, etc. I'd love for it to be dependent on these meteorological factors than a standard "is too dark to see no matter what".

[DaRkL3AD3R 1]

Actually, there is often a whole range of darkness at night, and depends on things like cloud cover, phases of the moon, starlight, etc. I'd love for it to be dependent on these meteorological factors than a standard "is too dark to see no matter what".

I absolutely agree with this. However the implementation PRIOR to today's dev build update was perfect. It had exactly what you described. Some nights when the moon is full and cloud coverage is low, you had a nice blueish glow over the land with shadows being cast from the moonlight. Other nights there was no moon in the sky, and even when the clouds were non-existent it was still nice and dark, as it realistically should be. And then on other nights still, no moon at all and total overcast, the land was pitch black.

In addition, all the lamps/streeposts and flashlight headlights etc all used to glow nice and bright and out to a good distance. Now they are basically invisible even on the darkest nights (which are still way too bright) and most of the lights are not even running it looks like. My performance numbers back that claim up as prior to today's patch night time around a town/base would cause me to lose a significant amount of performance from rendering the dynamic lights. With this build my performance is completely the same as it is at daytime. This is because there ARE no lights being rendered at all. It's as if they're broken altogether.

[Koukotsu 2]

Actually, there is often a whole range of darkness at night, and depends on things like cloud cover, phases of the moon, starlight, etc. I'd love for it to be dependent on these meteorological factors than a standard "is too dark to see no matter what".

The moon phases have a pretty big impact now, it would be nice if they'd do away with the bright blue aura on the horizon when the moon isn't present though.

Full moon:

http://imageshack.us/a/img38/2547/july12.jpg (407 kB)

No moon:

http://imageshack.us/a/img834/677/july24.jpg (253 kB)

I like where they're going with this, now they just need to restore all the other light sources to their former glory, lol.

[RSF TheCapulet 59]

My performance numbers back that claim up as prior to today's patch night time around a town/base would cause me to lose a significant amount of performance from rendering the dynamic lights. With this build my performance is completely the same as it is at daytime. This is because there ARE no lights being rendered at all. It's as if they're broken altogether.

Your performance numbers don't back up anything, because there have only ever been 2 dynamic shadow casting lights in Arma 3. The sun and the moon.