General Discussion (dev branch)

[DaRkL3AD3R 1]

Hahaha, what an argument, I'll hop in game and see if the lights are missing on my PC.

DaRkL3AD3R I'm seeing dynamic lights on my PC, latest dev build. Dynamic lights are on ULTRA and on LOW, I see them in both situations.

You may want to verify your build. And I'd reccomend ignoring TheCapulet, he doesn't seem to understand the basis of your argument/is trolling. Either way it's not beneficial.

Thank you SQB-SMA, it's nice to talk to someone who can remain on topic and has a solid understanding of the situation at hand.

I have done several tests toggling the Dynamic Lights settings (hahahaha oh wait, you sure you want to continue telling me they're not dynamic lights, thecapulet, when the freaking game itself calls them dynamic lights.... *facepalm*) on Ultra and on Low and either way I see exactly what you see in my dev build night screenshots. No lights coming from structures, and player controlled dynamic lights such as flashlights and vehicle headlights are substantially darker than they should be. This is also visible on the compass and wristwatch glow.

Can you post some screenshots of the airport from approx 200m away at night? Along with a screenshot of your time of day settings? That's the window you get which allows you to manually configure the weather and hour. Also make sure you set it to full overcast 100% to get consistent results to what I posted in my previous screencaps.

Thanks bud, cheers.

Update: just saw your edit, yeah I knew something had to be up. I'm playing mod-less right now totally vanilla dev build and my game files are verified. Can you link me to what mods you're running so I can test them on my end and see what's going on?

I knew I'm not going crazy :P

Edited April 19, 2013 by DaRkL3AD3R

[seamusgod 1]

thecapulet thinks dynamic light has something to do with casting shadows. another victim of valve's forceful marketing techniques, making everyone think that the dynamic shadow casting in their source engine is the only true representation of "dynamic lighting"

[Tonci87 163]

Guys could you please take your discussion to another thread? Let´s keep this one for communicating with the Devs. They won´t bother reading it any longer if it is full of such discussions.

[smiley_ie 7]

Latest DEV says - Dedicated Server (Windows) executable to a small group of server admins. It does not require Steam Client running.

Why would you be taking out steam ? Is this anything to do with optimization.

[maddogx 13]

I think they just want to let people know that the dedi server is coming soonâ„¢.

It will make server admins' lives a whole lot easier.

[purepassion 22]

Isn't that also connected with the HC?

[SaOk 112]

Light sources seem to be very bright now, at least with AiA-mod and Chernarus. Fireplaces cause dense orange glow with ~100 radius and its very bright everywhere. No NVGoggles needed. Performance is also much worse at night and stars glow like supernovas. Else great to see patches coming so often. ;)

[jumpinghubert 49]

@DEVS

Was there anything in the 0.54 release that would have drastically cut down on resource use by the AI when in cities? I had a 50% drop with 80AI in such a situation before, but not now...

sounds like a breakthrough :-). I remember your excellent thread about this old issue.

[Lucasmnunesk 2]

I'm ok with the stars, i've seen some other people with a bug that make stars way too bright, the vehicles lights are ok, didn't tested flashlight but it should be alright, but some lamps aren't iluminating at all, and the bright night i don't know, i like it but it could be darker, without outcast its too easy to see enemies, and i miss the pitch black night that don't happens even with full overcast. BTW i'm not having fps issues. That's my feedback from a really fast test

[purepassion 22]

With the new update, the star and moon problem is still persistent and additionally, the Hunter's and Ifrit's gunner MFDs are getting completely white and unusable during night

[DnA 5143]

Latest DEV says - Dedicated Server (Windows) executable to a small group of server admins. It does not require Steam Client running.

Why would you be taking out steam ? Is this anything to do with optimization.

This is not so much to do with Steamworks functionality, but rather with allowing serious server admins to run servers without running the Steam Client (more practical). It would also allow you to run a server and connect to it on the same PC if I'm not mistaken, which is convenient for MP scenario designers. It's the stepping stone to an entirely separate DS package in the future. Such servers do not need nor will they have all rendering technologies, high-resolution assets, etc. - it is a console only.

[Simas 12]

Light sources seem to be very bright now, at least with AiA-mod and Chernarus. Fireplaces cause dense orange glow with ~100 radius and its very bright everywhere.

Hmm.. Fireplaces look good for me in the latest dev build:

http://i.imgur.com/u0e69IN.jpg

[Lucasmnunesk 2]

I think, vehicles headlights could be stronger, and what about the flashlights? Are they strong enough now?

[SaOk 112]

Hmm.. Fireplaces look good for me in the latest dev build:

http://i.imgur.com/u0e69IN.jpg

Looks definitely normal, also the stars. Maybe there was some NVGoggles related bug for me, with the AiA-mod. Havent yet tried without it.

---------- Post added at 21:53 ---------- Previous post was at 21:39 ----------

Stratis looks good for me too, except its not very dark:

Chernarus is more dramatic:

[DaRkL3AD3R 1]

Looks definitely normal, also the stars. Maybe there was some NVGoggles related bug for me, with the AiA-mod. Havent yet tried without it.

---------- Post added at 21:53 ---------- Previous post was at 21:39 ----------

Stratis looks good for me too, except its not very dark:

http://img594.imageshack.us/img594/2696/arma3light1.jpg

Chernarus is more dramatic:

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/7771/arma3light2.jpg

Based on your screenshots as well as comments from DNA, I am really worried about the changes they made, more so than ever.

DNA mentioned that materials will need to be updated to adjust to the new code. This broke lighting and materials in Chernarus, which until the 4/17 dev build worked perfectly fine. Stratis, and all the night time lights/materials were also perfectly fine. "If it ain't broke don't fix it."

[kremator 1065]

Please stop talking about Chernarus. This has NOTHING to do with Arma3. It just so happens to 'work' but this is not the main thrust of the development or should it be.

I'm not bothered if any previous islands work, as i believe the original authors should work on porting them, rather than talented others cobbling together a fix.

[SaOk 112]

Well I agree its a mod, but still very big part of ArmA3. People want to convert and play content from ArmA2 with new tech. I thought it would have been worth of mentioning incase there would be some easy solution.

[DaRkL3AD3R 1]

Please stop talking about Chernarus. This has NOTHING to do with Arma3. It just so happens to 'work' but this is not the main thrust of the development or should it be.

I'm not bothered if any previous islands work, as i believe the original authors should work on porting them, rather than talented others cobbling together a fix.

Nobody cares about Chernarus, the point of mentioning Chernarus is that everything was golden and then they started tweaking the HDR/lighting code and now everything is FUBAR, including Stratis. I could care less if Chernarus is busted, it's Stratis being busted that hurts the most and the same reasons Stratis is broken is the same reasons Chernarus is broken.

[purepassion 22]

While these might be resulting from WIP changes, nighttime is seriously broken in the last builds.

The good:

• The new night lighting and sky texture/color palette looks good for a bright evening just after dawn.
  
• The interior lights for the hunter look good
  
• The range of light for explosions is good
  

The bad:

• Textures for the lightglare keep their color when looking through NVG's
  
• Interior lights for the Ifrit are too bright
  
• What happened to the flaslights? I assume they were retreated for maintenance?
  
• The sprites from muzzle flashes seem a bit too excessive
  
• The RTT sources render the picture too bright
  
• The detection of the Ifrit's lightglare textures is not accurate. When looking at it from the side, you will often find yourself seeing only one of them even though parts of the lights themselves are visible. This is not happening with the Hunter.

The ugly:

• The usual nights are too bright and stars are burning and blinding unrealistically.
  
• The gunner MFD's are unusable.
  
• The headlights for the Ifrit are way too bright.
  Take a look at this scene. It's taken at 00:00 hours with 100% overcast. Now this is with just a single Ifrit with lights on. Note that the problem is extremely intensified because the light is not stopped by environmental geometry and goes right through it, resulting in extremely bright scenes even several hundred meters away with a hill in between.
  This is what the forest on the other side of the valley looks like through NVG's...
  In comparison, this is the same scene with a Hunter vehicle with its lights on.
  Due to the fact that light passes through geometry, it is even moreso important to not make the lights too powerful. The ideal solution would be to slightly enhance the brightness and range of the Hunter's headlights and then incorporate those values to the other vehicles as the range from it seem very reasonable atm.
  As it is right now, the Ifrit should be changed asap!

Edited April 20, 2013 by PurePassion
Gugla, Gugla ;)

[Varanon 892]

Since the sun changed in the latest build: Is the sun supposed to stay that way ? Because I can look into it without noticing any effect. Shouldn't the picture turn darker ? Same with coming from inside and going outside, you should be blinded by the bright light outside ?

[HKFlash 9]

PurePassion it should be the Good, the Bad and the UGLY! :cool:

[byku 13]

Jul 6 2035, 20:55, full overcast in Ifrit. It's close to how it should be in my opinion but still, night in such conditions should be pitch black.

[DaRkL3AD3R 1]

While these might be resulting from WIP changes, nighttime is seriously broken in the last builds.

The good:

• The new night lighting and sky texture/color palette looks good for a bright evening just after dawn.
  
• The interior lights for the hunter look good
  
• The range of light for explosions is good
  

The bad:

• Textures for the lightglare keep their color when looking through NVG's
  
• Interior lights for the Ifrit are too bright
  
• What happened to the flaslights? I assume they were retreated for maintenance?
  
• The sprites from muzzle flashes seem a bit too excessive
  
• The RTT sources render the picture too bright
  
• The detection of the Ifrit's lightglare textures are not accurate. When looking at it from the side, you will often find yourself seeing only one of them even though parts of the lights themselves are visible. This is not happening with the Hunter.

The evil:

• The usual nights are too bright and stars are burning and blinding unrealistically.
  
• The gunner MFD's are unusable.
  
• The headlights for the Ifrit are way too bright.
  Take a look at this scene. It's taken at 00:00 hours with 100% overcast. Now this is with just a single Ifrit with lights on. Note that the problem is extremely intensified because the light is not stopped by environmental geometry and goes right through it, resulting in extremely bright scenes even several hundred meters away with a hill in between.
  This is what the forest on the other side of the valley looks like through NVG's...
  In comparison, this is the same scene with a Hunter vehicle with its lights on.
  Due to the fact that light passes through geometry, it is even moreso important to not make the lights too powerful. The ideal solution would be to slightly enhance the brightness and range of the Hunter's headlights and then incorporate those values to the other vehicles as the range from it seem very reasonable atm.
  As it is right now, the Ifrit should be changed asap!

Outstanding post PurePassion, thanks for the time and work put in!

Question for you. In some of those images you linked to, you are seeing proper building lighting out in the distance, like the airport or firing range, not sure what buildings those are. What GPU are you using? As I am still unable to see ANY structural lighting on my AMD 5870 2GB card. I wonder if maybe it's a driver issue?

[sqb-sma 66]

Outstanding post PurePassion, thanks for the time and work put in!

Question for you. In some of those images you linked to, you are seeing proper building lighting out in the distance, like the airport or firing range, not sure what buildings those are. What GPU are you using? As I am still unable to see ANY structural lighting on my AMD 5870 2GB card. I wonder if maybe it's a driver issue?

This seems to happen when running mods (for me I see it only when I'm running mods including midtex), when mods are not running the night is brighter than it should be, bluer than it should be, the dynamic lights don't render and the stars are non existant.

Ok, any editing of the game's landcape/environment texture files causes dynamic lights to be regular brightness, screws up the stars (ultra bright) and changes the sky's colour. Midtex is one such mod, I'm sure there are others (running Chernarus for example). I'll disable these and then test further, but if that's how nights are meant to look then night time is far too blue and bright.

Yet another edit: Here's what my game looks like without mods: http://i.imgur.com/Y5ELM4Q.png That's the airport beneath me, the light from the static lights is there, but it's REALLY dim. It will be invisible in screenshots, but if I adjust the aperture in the camera editor I can just see the light of it.

Campfires, glowsticks and headlights are all working, here's what it looks like with a very low aperture: http://i.imgur.com/KN8WN5C.jpg

Just a note: The colours there are all wrong, BIS needs to work on how the camera aperture works (and add shutter speed) and the colours of this game need a ton of work.

Edited April 20, 2013 by SQB-SMA

[skatardude10 1]

I want to express how awesome my arma 3 experience is becoming in the dev build. Night time is beautiful. Performance is getting so much better. It might have something small to do with me moving all my arma files to the outer edge of my HDD... but regardless. Im on an old laptop and I was getting almost unplayable framerates on all low around launch. These days it runs very smooth on much farther view and obj distances and most settings on high to standard. Beautiful work bis! Dont know yet why people complain it runs like crap... maybe ill know soon as I decided to upgrade my old laptop.