Lighting Tweaking (dev branch)

[fabio_chavez 103]

question on rayligh:

i was trying to figure out how the rayligh variable affects the world, so i applied purple (1,0,1) and green (0,1,0) to every other sunangle from -5° to 45°.

1. the color shifting takes place as one would anticipate BUT THEN as the sunangle is approaching 45° the clouds turn black!!! why is that?!

2. do i see it correctly that rayligh doesnt affect anything else but the outcome of the cloud color?

see in this timelapse:

[metalcraze 290]

Looks like huge stars are back in this dev build and lights are too intense at night causing huge performance drop

[nodunit 397]

odd, lights are very dim for me (save for -9 and ifrit) and the stars look normal-ish http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee200/NodUnit/NightClear_zpsf466f938.jpg?t=1366989951

[sproyd 2]

Did you get today's build?

[NeMeSiS 11]

Seems to fix this bug, at least for the lights in the harbor part which seem to be configured properly, the other half of the town is still dark.

Though the FPS dropped to nearly unplayable levels, compared to running smooth as butter during daytime.

[sproyd 2]

Well I'm back from testing lighting with today's build 04588.

• Street Lights and Flood Lights now with the new illumination
  
• Looks Great
  
• Big FPS hit as reported
  
• Hunter, Offroad, Quad all still with old dim lights
  
• No shadows cast directly under the flood lights - should be a hard black shadow.
  
• Conversely, you cast a shadow as entering the brightly lit area only.
  
• Stars look a little too distinct and bright and need to be dialled back a little I think.
  
• Overall its improving :)
  

[DaRkL3AD3R 1]

There won't be anyway to avoid the performance loss from the dynamic lights functioning. They didn't use deferred lighting AFAIK and this means lighting takes a huge toll out of performance. Wait till all the lights are functioning again. You think your performance is choppy now? lol oh boy.

And I've been reporting on these issues (dynamic lights not working, tremendous performance loss when they do) for awhile now. Really wish some of the individuals who were dismissing my reports could swing by and apologize :/

[nodunit 397]

Did you get today's build?

Appears not, had to restart steam but I do now..will post along with others what findings there be.

Holy hell I went from 43 frames to 15 in the same spot between day and night. Changing the number of sources doesn't seem to do anything here either...

I don't get it, the lights weren't taking this many frame rates at first and its not as though they are casting shadows (even eating your shadows here too GRRRR) so why so much? I don't remember the lights in Crysis for example being nearly this demanding.. (different engine and whatnot I know but how could these give less frame rates when they don't even cast shadows like those do?)

Huh..set all graphics to lowest possible (down to disabled if possible) and there was a 30 frame drop between day and night...oddly however the frames appear to fluctuate, I can get 40, 32 and 51 in random spots, very confusing.

Hmm..curious, dinking around in town, there is a 10-20 frame increase pending dynamic light source option but NOT at the airport.

Edited April 26, 2013 by NodUnit

[jumpinghubert 49]

heavy performancedrop at night with newest dev....from 45 fps min and 60 average with previous dev. build to 15 min and 22 av.

[sproyd 2]

Really wish some of the individuals who were dismissing my reports could swing by and apologize :/

You do realise this is the internet right?

[nodunit 397]

I wonder if there is an overall dynamic light or...something. In this picture I'm standing in a place wherein there is no nearby dynamic light, yet when I change the setting between low and ultra there is a yellowish tinge on the ground that dissapears.

http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee200/NodUnit/whereislight_zps68eb05cd.jpg?t=1367009959

You can actually see it on the shadow from the tree, with the lower settings the shadow becomes darker, the higher the brighter. Swap it in and out in random locations, around vegetation, shadows, anything and you might see some changing.

Edited April 26, 2013 by NodUnit

[Lucasmnunesk 2]

Well, it has a huge fps hit only before 3am, so probally it isn't working as expected and even isn't related to lights

[metalcraze 290]

Lights are indeed too bright nonetheless

Here you can see unevenly lit objects because of how intense some lightsources are and some improper shading?

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

(that ground keeps being lit 50m behind me while everything else is dark, think ArmA2 lighting)

Also the water in Agia Marina's harbor has a very poisonous green colour.

This is at default editor settings and 2:15 am

Obviously this will be improved but just in case...

[DaRkL3AD3R 1]

I don't get it, the lights weren't taking this many frame rates at first and its not as though they are casting shadows (even eating your shadows here too GRRRR) so why so much?

Because they just had to mess with something that was already perfect. Used to get 60 fps staring at the airport eastward from the edge of the map, at night with ultra dynamic lights. Now I get 25 with dynamic lights on low. I realize this is a WIP but I just don't see why resources are being diverted to something that already functioned perfectly.

You do realise this is the internet right?

Doesn't stop me from holding higher standards of people.

[tpw 2315]

Just tried the latest dev build and confirm the severe fps hit around agia at night with the streetlights. The round streetlights are incredibly bright, while the sodium lamps give off no light.

I agree with darkleader, the night lighting was very promising in the initial alpha release and has gone downhill since. Now we have blue sky at night with a pitch dark landscape, except where it's overlit by fps killing dynamic lighting that casts no shadows.

I'm sure lighting is a very high priority to the devs, so really hope that the current alpha implementation is resolved into something that doesn't kill playability and immersion.

[metalcraze 290]

I agree. Original night lighting was very good. Only dusk/dawn were the problem with some stuff not being lit enough

[Koukotsu 2]

I agree. Original night lighting was very good.

To a certain degree in my opinion, but the way a night with a full moon hanging overhead could still somehow manage to be as pitch black as the lowest depths of an unlit coal mine kind of bugged me. :)

...and yeah, like everyone else I'm getting a brutal performance impact from the dynamic lights in the Agia Marina/Airport area.

[DaRkL3AD3R 1]

To a certain degree in my opinion, but the way a night with a full moon hanging overhead could still somehow manage to be as pitch black as the lowest depths of an unlit coal mine kind of bugged me. :)

It all depended on the particular night. Hop on the Alpha normal builds and try the following date and settings:

2013 April 3rd, 00:00 hour, 0% overcast

You'll see that the old lighting system did produce beautiful moonlit and starry nights. Overcast plays a tremendous role, as it does in real life, in how bright the night time is. Also moon phases make a huge difference as well. You most likely were only testing the editor at night on the default date, which is July something, 2035. On that particular default night there is NO moon out.

And it's real nice that night time is completely FUBAR on the development builds, and it's going to stay stuck that way all weekend. Time to roll back to regular builds and turn off auto-updating on Steam again :rolleyes:

Here I went ahead and took screenshots for you. This is April 3 2013 at 00:00 hour with 0 overcast, running on the regular Alpha builds (no changes to lighting system yet)

http://imageshack.us/a/img811/2075/2013042600001k.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img153/3538/2013042600002g.jpg

Look at how perfect the night used to look :( no fantasy world blue in the sky, perfect glow coming from compass and wrist watch, the airport lighting is perfect. The ONLY adjustments that were needed were the sunset/dawn modifications and if possible improved dynamic lighting performance. That is all. I am going to deeply miss the old lighting systems as I have a feeling we will never see it configured in this way again.

Edited April 27, 2013 by DaRkL3AD3R

[Koukotsu 2]

It all depended on the particular night. Hop on the Alpha normal builds and try the following date and settings:

Ah, you're right, how I never noticed that I do not know :o

I must have been thinking of a previous dev build or something, back when the "lighting overhaul" was just kicking off maybe.

In my personal opinion I think the diffuse moonlight could benefit from a little more intensity, but it does look nice still.

http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/1011/arma32013042620501767.png (431 kB)

[kridian 33]

..I'm getting a brutal performance impact from the dynamic lights in the Agia Marina/Airport area.

Confirmed. It's quite shocking.

[fabio_chavez 103]

Moar info on these variables pelase!

				class Lighting10
			{
				height = 0;
				overcast = 0.6;
				sunAngle = 45;
				sunOrMoon = 1;
				diffuse[] = {{1.1,0.98,0.97},15.95};
				diffuseCloud[] = {{0.99,0.882,0.873},14.355};
				ambient[] = {{0.4,0.55,0.9},9.7295};
				ambientCloud[] = {{0.36,0.495,0.81},8.75655};
				ambientMid[] = {{0.6,0.635,0.8},10.7024};
				ambientMidCloud[] = {{0.54,0.5715,0.72},9.63221};
				groundReflection[] = {{0.71,0.678,0.635},8.56196};
				groundReflectionCloud[] = {{0.639,0.6102,0.5715},7.70576};
				bidirect[] = {0.02982,0.028476,0.02667};
				bidirectCloud[] = {0.026838,0.025628,0.024003};
				sky[] = {{0.4,0.55,0.9},13.5575};
				skyAroundSun[] = {{0.4,0.385,0.45},15.1525};
				fogColor[] = {{0.5,0.55,0.68},0.015};
				apertureMin = 35;
				apertureStandard = 65;
				apertureMax = 85;
				standardAvgLum = 800;
				desiredLuminanceCoef = 0.2;
				desiredLuminanceCoefCloud = 0.4;
				luminanceRectCoef = 0.4;
				luminanceRectCoefCloud = 0.2;
				rayleigh[] = {0.00749,0.01388,0.02878};
				mie[] = {0.006,0.0046,0.004};
				cloudsColor[] = {{0.8,0.81,1},13.5575};
				swBrightness = 1;

[mr.g-c 6]

For me nighttime performance is only horrible when looking through NVG. Without it, its "OK".

[DaRkL3AD3R 1]

For me nighttime performance is only horrible when looking through NVG. Without it, its "OK".

Define "OK"?

I go from 120 fps day time to 30 fps at night time. That's without night vision goggles. That's not OK.

[batto 17]

I also experience same problem at night. Issue: http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=7802

[rebelvg 281]

I made a video that shows that problem.