Lighting Tweaking (dev branch)

[tpw 2315]

This has always been the case. Wonder how come people are reporting it lately. I've been doing it since the Alpha launched. It just took quite a bit to do it, like 12 rounds from 6.5mm weapons to do the trick.

Well I probably just gave up after 11 rounds in previous builds!

Hats off to the devs for continuing to add the little touches of realism. Looking forward to seeing what other improvements will appear in coming builds (shadows anyone?)

[kernriver 4]

Yesterday I went to my brother and fired up Arma to show him the lighting. Put myself into editor in Agia Marina and started shooting the lights. With each light gone illumination dropped until I shot all the lights and found myself in dark. My brother's jaw dropped and eyes popped out. After initial shock he said that's the best and most beautifull thing he ever saw in Arma. :)

EDIT:

Single lamps, i.e. not the posts with three lamps on it. Depending on your lighting settings (low, standard, high, ultra), when you move towards it, light appears at determined distance and disappears again as you move away. I wish light would be always on, or maybe even better for performance purposes, appear and disappear gradually.

Edited May 17, 2013 by Kernriver

[GranolaBar 10]

Nice update of lighting in two weeks.

At the moment with the update of 09/05/2013 -> 0.57.105007, only the normal Hunter has potentially the full lighting who run without problems.

-> Link

The Hunter HMG and GMG have left light problem. All vehicules (do not include the normal Hunter) have problems with lighting with an angle of 45°. The left light or right go died when you where in an angle of 45° or more / vehicule.

-> Link One

-> Link Two

The light of lamp could cross the inner (middle) window frame.

-> Link

When user use high lighting, he has many problems with lighting on some building and in this exemple the camp fire who turn of and on constantly when you where in a vehicule with a range of 20 m.

-> Link

At the moment; If you want to kill many problems with lights distance view, use very high settings or ultra : but increase significantly use of GPU.

-> Link

DEV's, one question about my post :

No news or improvements in test or scheduled about problem with angle lighting of vehicule and clipping with some lighting appeared sometime and disappeared. ?

Cordially.

[Wolfstriked 11]

I get this weird bug where the stars look normal and as I play they grow and grow till the sky is filled with these huge stars.Is this a known issue?

[bad benson 1733]

I get this weird bug where the stars look normal and as I play they grow and grow till the sky is filled with these huge stars.Is this a known issue?

sounds like LSD to me.:p

[Wolfstriked 11]

sounds like LSD to me.:p

So its just a bad trip LOL?Yes its seriously bad and renders NV ineffective.

[kernriver 4]

Single lamps, i.e. not the posts with three lamps on it. Depending on your lighting settings (low, standard, high, ultra), when you move towards it, light appears at determined distance and disappears again as you move away. I wish light would be always on, or maybe even better for performance purposes, appear and disappear gradually.

Does anyone else see this, or is it just my weak PC?

[zapat 56]

I get this weird bug where the stars look normal and as I play they grow and grow till the sky is filled with these huge stars.Is this a known issue?

You mean this?

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxjqGzmtx1GBQmsyOXJnTmxSMVE/edit?usp=sharing

I am having this in the new non-dev build. And these stars are too huge for me. I hope it is not what it should look like. :)

[artsi 11]

You mean this?

I am having this in the new non-dev build. And these stars are too huge for me. I hope it is not what it should look like. :)

Is this map Stratis or an Arma 2 map? I think after the lightning tweaks older maps have lost compatibility.

[zapat 56]

Stratis. No mods, no hacking, no anything. Pure, default a3.

If this a question I bet this is not a widespread problem then...

[artsi 11]

Stratis. No mods, no hacking, no anything. Pure, default a3.

If this a question I bet this is not a widespread problem then...

Then sounds like a bug, the stars are looking normal for me in Stratis, but overbright (like in your picture) with other maps.

[Colossus1090 1]

I like :cool: GJ BI

[bad benson 1733]

everyone using my midrange texture replacement please make sure you use the latest version from a month ago or something. older versions overwrite some stratis settings which can result in some weird effects. this has been fixed a while ago. the latest version is available on armaholic and the release thread on these forums.

[zapat 56]

Ooops, that was it, thx Bad Benson....

[xyberviri 1]

This change has allowed us to set higher values of lights so that they are seen at dawn and dusk, and the light sources themselves even during the day. The brightness of the lights got closer to their real originals.

Can we diffuse the light so it doesn't look like a giant star when we put them inside of buildings? I typically hate night because of how fake the lights look when we add a light to a building.

We need a way to add ambient light with out adding the light ball to the scene.

[fabio_chavez 103]

id still appreciate a dev comment on possible further documentation on the parameters for the island lighting and the skybox!

[DaRkL3AD3R 1]

I wonder if perhaps it'd be possible to make dynamic lights cast shadows when within say 25m-50m? Then it would only be a few lights casting shadows and adding to GPU usage, and you wouldn't need it for say 100+m anyway. It would certainly help with building interiors being fully lit up fakely by light from outside.

I could also envision a Quadbike with it's headlights on pulling up to a building or a group of infantry and all the shadows being cast :) It would look awesome.

[HKFlash 9]

Lightning is not working well in daytime fog conditions. Light emissive materials look very ugly.

[Simas 12]

I think it's hard-coded somewhere in the engine so that vehicles do not really cast any lights during the day - even if it's cloudy and foggy. Also, while the headlights do have a nice light effect - I wonder if the same could be applied to reverse lights? A slight reddish light illuminating nearby things around?

[HKFlash 9]

I think it's hard-coded somewhere in the engine so that vehicles do not really cast any lights during the day - even if it's cloudy and foggy.

If it is then all I can say is thats a bad design decision. Cloudy doesnt affect your visibility too much but fog does. Since they have upgraded the fog they should also try and upgrading the lightning under these conditions. Adding some transparency to the light emissive materials would be a good start instead of a block of "insert light color here" kind of thing.

[blu3sman 11]

I think it's hard-coded somewhere in the engine so that vehicles do not really cast any lights during the day - even if it's cloudy and foggy.

Theres a line in Reflectors class

dayLight = 0;

Set to 1 and get lights working at any time: http://i.imgur.com/jxKDnAy.jpg

[fabio_chavez 103]

Theres a line in Reflectors class

dayLight = 0;

Set to 1 and get lights working at any time: http://i.imgur.com/jxKDnAy.jpg

how do i apply that EXACTLY? can you give me detailed instruction how to reproduce that?

[blu3sman 11]

how do i apply that EXACTLY? can you give me detailed instruction how to reproduce that?

1) Make Config.cpp with this

class CfgPatches{
   class A3_Soft_F_Offroad
   {
       units[] = {"c_offroad","c_offroad_PA","C_offroad_RP","I_G_offroad","C_offroad_armed","I_G_offroad_armed"};
       weapons[] = {};
       requiredVersion = 0.1;
       requiredAddons[] = {"A3_Soft_F"};
   };
};
class CfgVehicles
{
   class LandVehicle;
   class Car: LandVehicle
   {};
   class Car_F: Car
   {};
   class Offroad_Base: Car_F
   {
       class Reflectors
       {
           class Left
           {
               dayLight = 1;
           };
       };
       aggregateReflectors[] = {
           { "Left","Left2","Left3"},{"Right","Right2","Right3" }}; // Optional to not combine headlights into 1 lightsource
   };
};

2) Pack into pbo

3) Enjoy

(Only for offroad obviously)

[fabio_chavez 103]

@blu3sman

thank you 1000 times!

now i got this:

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/576738480438163275/9754386705329355B93B528EC34717FE93FEE4D0/

and i got 3 more questions, 1. how do i apply it to other lightsources/where can i find a list of arma3 alpha lightsources (especially the cars) to apply this to, too?

2. can i enable the nightly lightcone at daytime too (i am trying to create a sandstorm mod and i wanted to figure out such things at some point in the future, if you have any usefull information that would be reall helpfull)

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/576738480438313426/89BCB6F2ECB680E723BA1A0DDDFEAFAF32E6CBBA/

3. can i alter the intensity of the lightsource this way too? id like to lower it a bit more...

Edited May 28, 2013 by PurePassion
please watch the max. allowed filesize for hotlinked images (100KB)

[sproyd 2]

Yeah its a lot easier now and more realistic. I had tried before recent dev patches and it didn't work but then again I didn't try like 12 rounds

---------- Post added at 23:19 ---------- Previous post was at 23:14 ----------

On another note I just played a fantastic round of Wasteland at dusk.

It was getting quite dark and everyone was starting to complain on Global about not being able to see, I had switched to NVGs. I was on the hill overlooking the air base and heard the sound of a quad approaching. I went prone behind a rock and when I popped out I was instantly blinded by the quad's headlights combined with the light hitting all of the great dust particle effects the quad kicked up - basically a blinding white wall of dust under NVGs. Upon turning off my NVGs, the whole area was illuminated really awesomely by the quads headlights. The driver got off to go to the gun store, stepped into the light and I let rip with fully auto 6.5mm. He went down. I then realised I was illuminated for everyone within half a mile and switched to semi where I took 2 shots - one for each of the quad's headlights. The area went back to dark in a 1, 2 sequence. NVGs back on. AWESOME.

VERY happy with lighting in its current state. Vehicle headlines epicosity.

For those that were interested in my story I just remember I took a screenshot after I killed the guy on the quad but before the lights went out