Lighting Tweaking (dev branch)

[kridian 33]

I made a video that shows that problem.

Did I just see 10 frames-per-second?:eek:

[rebelvg 281]

Did I just see 10 frames-per-second?:eek:

Yeah, you saw that. Try it out yourself, you won't be disappointed!

[DaRkL3AD3R 1]

I think it needs to be asked, what is being gained from totally redoing the lighting system. I realize it's a WIP, but this change has screwed up so much for the worse that it's going to likely take weeks if not months just to get back to square one, let alone make any improvements. To say this is frustrating would be an understatement.

[sproyd 2]

I think it needs to be asked, what is being gained from totally redoing the lighting system. I realize it's a WIP, but this change has screwed up so much for the worse that it's going to likely take weeks if not months just to get back to square one, let alone make any improvements. To say this is frustrating would be an understatement.

If you are prone to frustration (which I am gathering you are) then switch to the STABLE build and then you can quit complaining. The DEV build is really for the devs to do testing of new features and they don't owe you anything.

I like the new lighting and I'm sure they will address the performance when they are able. Its not a hard-coded performance issue in any event - as many people have observed it only occurs at certain times of night. Relax!

[NeuroFunker 11]

no matter what dynamic lights setting, low or ultra, unplayable fps. But yeah looks damn good, but the radius perhaps is way to big, from this 3 lamp laterns.

[old_painless 182]

Looks absolutely stunning, the new lights at night. I am not worried, they will sort out the fps drop.

But the video made me wonder if you can shoot out streetlights? That would be a very exciting twist on, say, hostage rescue missions at night. You and the team with NVGs, guards without in a lit environment, loosing a lot of SA when the lights go

-OP

[NeuroFunker 11]

you can shoot the lights at arma 2, not all but most. So they will fix this sooner or later in arma 3 as well.

[DaRkL3AD3R 1]

I am baffled that people think these massively overblown night lighting in the latest dev build is good looking. It's outrageously over-lit right now to the point of being worse than with no lights.

[sqb-sma 66]

• Stars look a little too distinct and bright and need to be dialled back a little I think.
  
• Overall its improving :)
  

Agreed especially on these points, I think the bloom needs a bit of work to get things looking correct as well (Try blooming out the camera by giving it a huge aperture (small f-stop), the colours go all whacky when the sheer brightness of the scene should've made it white and bloomed out long before), I'm considering grabbing my camera and taking some pics to demonstrate the issue.

The starts should be smaller, especially with larger apertures (unless you're using NVGs which disk bloom almost every light source) with more fuzz around them, just like in Arma 2.

[Tonci87 163]

The new lights indeed look fantastic.

I can confirm that I have a huge FPS drop at midnight, and a minor FPS drop if I set the time to 3:15.

The overall brightness when there is no moon around bothers me. It´s just not dark enough. You can perfectly see without NVGs.

[royaltyinexile 175]

Regarding the performance drop, we're aware of the issue and it's being looked at now.

We'll provide more details as and when the updates are rolled out. Thanks for the feedback, videos, etc.

Best,

RiE

[maddogx 13]

Thanks RiE. It would be really interesting to find out what is causing this particular problem, because its symptoms are really weird.

I did a test yesterday at the Kamino firing range - standing at the north side of the base and looking south toward the lighthouse, I was getting ~70FPS during daytime. Switching to night time with the debug console instantly dropped my framerate to ~25FPS.

Then I started shooting out the big light posts around the base and my framerate slowly started creeping back up again. After destroying every light in sight, my framerate was back to ~60FPS.

But: Turning on NVGs at any point instantly dropped the framerate down to ~10FPS! What the hell? :confused:

It's like the framerate at night is inversely proportional to the number of lit/visible pixels.

[NeuroFunker 11]

ah damn, actually forgot to mention, playing in NVGs now is unplayable as well!

---------- Post added at 11:36 ---------- Previous post was at 11:35 ----------

Regarding the performance drop, we're aware of the issue and it's being looked at now.

We'll provide more details as and when the updates are rolled out. Thanks for the feedback, videos, etc.

Best,

RiE

good to hear that.

[rebelvg 281]

Yes, framerate is a lot better after this new dev patch. Thanks! Can confirm that with the video if someone desire.

Edited April 29, 2013 by rebelvg

[nikiforos 450]

Please do rebelvg it will be interesting to watch :)

[daze23 1]

performance is better at night. although the lighting kind of 'flickers' with movement. lights on vehicles and guns really aren't bright enough IMO

[metalcraze 290]

I just hope that lights will be toned down because in today's update Agia Marina lights for example are still way way too bright. As if they were floodlights.

[blu3sman 11]

Getting overall good performance at night with this update. NVGs have no noticable impact.

Also like that you replaced those distinct camera-like eye flares with diffuse glow, which looks more natural.

The huge sun still bugs me out, I feel pretty uncomfortable and paranoid looking at it.

[rebelvg 281]

There is a new test video with the new patch.

[NeuroFunker 11]

early morning with new fog, looks just incredible.

[old_painless 182]

There is a new test video with the new patch.

Thanks for doing the test, saw 23 fps at 1:12 and 21 fps at 1:55, otherwise decent (30+) fps during the darkest hours.

Gotta agree that the intensity of the street lamps (around 1:03) are not befitting a country that should monitor its finances :)

Edited April 29, 2013 by Old_Painless

[DaRkL3AD3R 1]

Thanks for doing the test, saw 23 fps at 1:12 and 21 fps at 1:55, otherwise decent (30+) fps during the darkest hours.

Gotta agree that the intensity of the street lamps (around 1:03) are not befitting a country that should monitor its finances :)

Exactly. How can people like these super-bloom burning bright as the sun street lights? It's way too out of hand. It needs to be dialed back to the brightness it was before the lighting tweaks started taking place.

And how does anyone NOT know what the performance problem is? It's quite clear. When they first broke night lighting, and all the lights were off, my performance was exactly equivalent to day time. Then they made Friday's dev patch with super bright night lighting and now everyones performance tanks hard. And we wonder what the problem is!? :rolleyes:

[metalcraze 290]

I've also noticed that such overly intense street lamps (which are quite small to produce such amount of light) also make another issue all too noticeable - the lack of shadows.

One thing I've liked about "original" lighting is that while lamps did need an increase in intensity didn't make light penetrate through objects and cause visual issues like one wall being well lit while other walls in front of it were dark.

The compromise between intensity of old and new lights has to be found.

On a side note - the sun is a step in the right direction. It needs a better texture perhaps but looking directly at it during the day is not as harmless as it was before. And yet it doesn't cause blackouts like in ArmA2 either. Clear improvement thus far.

[rebelvg 281]

I don't want to be annoying but I thought it would be interesting too see how that same place looks in the stable release right now.

[bad benson 1733]

awesome 80s synth sounds :dancered:

thx for the comparison. the dev build looks much better at night.