Time of day and colors are wrong

[victim913 10]

I've been playing around with how the island looks at different times of day and noticed that the clock is usually wrong.

Now maybe someone can disprove me or maybe there is something I don't know. And I know it's gotten better as the alpha progresses, but there are too many times where it's dark when it should be light and light when it should be dark. And the insane orange.

The island is supposed to be near Greece somewhere. That is roughly the same as where I am in the U.S.

7 am in January isn't dark but in the game it is. I don't care what month it is (in that relative position on the earth), but 7 am will never require night vision goggles.

An hour after that the sky turns pink.

And one thing that drives me insane is the over use of the orangeness from the sun. In January it's orange all day long. The orange only happens near sunrise and sunset and it's for a very short time. In fact most of the time the orange comes from the sun reflecting on clouds and the time of year. Some months it never gets orange.

But then again the sky is never that blue nor the ocean that blue.

Maybe i'm just crazy but I think bi is losing a lot of it's realism in order to make the game prettier. I miss the OA days where I can fight at twilight without everything being orange. Or fight my way through the night until morning without the orange. I already put up with the blue fog I don't need stars and night vision during day times and Orange most of the winter and fall most of the day and orange EVERY SINGLE sunrise and sunset.

I'll leave out the part about changing the cloud quality to disabled when overcast will change day to night.

Maybe others have been as irritated by these things as me.

Probably not.

But thanks for reading.

[Wolfstriked 11]

I agree about it being too orange looking and the water too blue.

[Sneakson 1]

US and Greece are roughly the same? And here I was thinking Greece was in Europe :(

[Killbert 0]

One thing I noticed in regards of the darkness, is that overcast seems to have exaggerated effect at dusk and dawn. It's a nice feature, but maybe too much IMHO.

As for the sea being too blue, I think the Mediterranean Sea is known for being really blue.

[nimrod123 11]

US and Greece are roughly the same? And here I was thinking Greece was in Europe :(

latituide might be more correct (and with the way degrees work, time might actually be right)

its funny you say that since its winter here (in june) and its 730 in the morning and its pitch black. and we are about the same degrees south as greece is north.

also sunrise in athens in jan is 741am local time, so i expect your timezone is diffrent compared to greece

[Sneakson 1]

I'm in +1 time zone compared to Greece... anyways I only think a Greek should be able to criticize the visual appearance on things in Greece. They would know best.

[Shatter3D_S0uL 1]

If the time in the game is according to Greece,then it is fine. In January at 7 p.m, it is already dark. Actually it gets dark around at 5:30 and 6 p.m. You know,in winter,night is getting bigger and because of the daylight saving system that we turn our clocks 1 hour back,it gets dark very early.

Now,for the orangesess of the sun,you are right. Something is not right about it.

Finally,is that pinky sky you speak of before the sun sets? Because there's no way the sky turns pink after the sun has set. A bug maybe?

Edited June 18, 2013 by Shatter3D_S0uL

[3instein 10]

I've been thinking about the overly blue sky/water and orange effect lately as well,somehow it sorts of distracts from the feeling that you are fighting for your life in a war.

In the previous titles I kinda "felt" I was fighting in a war environment ,but now it sort of feels like I am on holiday with all the lovely bright colours.It just seems a little odd somehow but because of the location I am not sure how this could be fixed,mabye dulled down a little? If you get what I am trying to say.

It's hard to put my finger on it but I hope something happens to tone the colours down a little,or the saturation maybe,not my forte though.

Keep up the good work on an awesome game,

Mick. :)

[GottyPlays 10]

im italian and i can assure you that here in january at 7 am is still dark, however i agree about the saturation, maybe decrease it a bit on your tv like i did

[simon1279 51]

im italian and i can assure you that here in january at 7 am is still dark, however i agree about the saturation, maybe decrease it a bit on your tv like i did

another italian here, yes the Mediterranean Sea is really blue, expecially in southern Italy wich is almost the same as it is in Greece, and also in january at 5 pm is already dark, for an example in january the daylight is about from 8/8:30 am to 4/4:30 pm

[Anachoretes 10]

I live in 500 miles from Limnos, and notice that time is close enough.

[sqb-sma 66]

http://imgur.com/a/RRdXi

Look at this album,

Ok, pics one and two, notice the water, instead of emerald blue it's dirty purple in game, that's really weird, no place has water that colour.

Pics 3 and 4, the sky is completely incorrect, it's also too purple, you can see that in the water as well.

Pics 5 and 6 were taken at a different time of day, unfortunately. But the sunset shots later on really show how there's too much purple in the sky and water, it's crazy.

In the last few pictures, you can see that the terrain is too dusty/grey (not yellow enough)

You can also see in all these pictures there's very, very, little contrast in the game pictures. I think the sunlight is just not bright enough for the system to adjust the HDR and make the shadows look dark. This is partially because when you select conditions with more clouds the sunlight is reduced by a %. So even if there's one or two clouds in the sky not blocking the sunlightthe sunlight becomes 50% as bright as it should be. This is really unfortunate.

The shadows are also very very faint.

There's a bunch of colour problems here, which I'd love to solve, but because the problems change massively at various times of day and some materials are affected more than others.

It's quite a frustrating issue. I like to solve this kind of thing by taking a screenshot, making it very blurry and tiny (200px-200px) and then identifying issues with colour.

[GottyPlays 10]

http://imgur.com/a/RRdXi

Look at this album,

Ok, pics one and two, notice the water, instead of emerald blue it's dirty purple in game, that's really weird, no place has water that colour.

Pics 3 and 4, the sky is completely incorrect, it's also too purple, you can see that in the water as well.

Pics 5 and 6 were taken at a different time of day, unfortunately. But the sunset shots later on really show how there's too much purple in the sky and water, it's crazy.

In the last few pictures, you can see that the terrain is too dusty/grey (not yellow enough)

You can also see in all these pictures there's very, very, little contrast in the game pictures. I think the sunlight is just not bright enough for the system to adjust the HDR and make the shadows look dark. This is partially because when you select conditions with more clouds the sunlight is reduced by a %. So even if there's one or two clouds in the sky not blocking the sunlightthe sunlight becomes 50% as bright as it should be. This is really unfortunate.

The shadows are also very very faint.

There's a bunch of colour problems here, which I'd love to solve, but because the problems change massively at various times of day and some materials are affected more than others.

It's quite a frustrating issue. I like to solve this kind of thing by taking a screenshot, making it very blurry and tiny (200px-200px) and then identifying issues with colour.

really just don't act like the photos you mentioned are real...you can't take pictures and say thet's the "correct" colour in real life, only someone living in greece can say if it's close to real or not.

for me its just perfect as it is, its much, MUCH more realistic opposed to nowadays "ultra pumped" games ala bf3 with supernova sun and pich black shadows

[EuroSlave 1]

US and Greece are roughly the same? And here I was thinking Greece was in Europe :(

What are you on about... Greece is IN the USA.

You know... Athens Texas

lern2geography jeez

[five_seven5-7 56]

i made a simulation and the time of day was wrong (06/28/2033):

Table

At 4:10, when suppose to be Astronomical Twilight was already daylight, surprising the sunrise azimut was correct.

Twilight

There are others subjects more important than this but its pretty odd at 04:10 AM its already daylight

[sqb-sma 66]

really just don't act like the photos you mentioned are real...you can't take pictures and say thet's the "correct" colour in real life, only someone living in greece can say if it's close to real or not.

for me its just perfect as it is, its much, MUCH more realistic opposed to nowadays "ultra pumped" games ala bf3 with supernova sun and pich black shadows

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you, and I haven't played Arma because I just got back from traveling through Turkey, Greece and Italy (luckily left Turkey before any unrest). I noticed the colours were completely off in Arma, the purpleness was probably the most incorrect thing, the contrast I don't really mind (we're aiming for something that simulates human eyes more than a camera, which will always have more contrast when displayed on a screen). Now whenever I boot up Arma I just can't help but notice the colours don't look right at all, it's quite distracting.

I didn't take the pictures for that album, it's just what came up when I google the topic, but it does show the colour differences I noticed quite clearly.

The game does have some camera elements in it though, which is what makes this very weird, when the scene gets too bright you get colour mistakes rather than an increase in intensity, which is what a camera CCD does, as well as bloom (though point bloom is gone, I do wish point bloom was in for the splendid camera viewer, or toggleable).

[Jex 1]

I agree about it being too orange looking and the water too blue.

Fuck that I use arma as my holiday simulator now!!! don't take it away!!!

Ok defo the sun but I love the blue ocean

[sqb-sma 66]

Fuck that I use arma as my holiday simulator now!!! don't take it away!!!

Ok defo the sun but I love the blue ocean

The ocean can be blue without being purple. In fact I'd prefer for the water to be more blue, not less, there's too much red mixed in.

See the lighter blue portions of this pic: http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2012/04/Arma3_screenshot_stratis_1204_03.jpg, I want a deeper version of that for the rest of the sea.

[-=seany=- 5]

I think the colors look fine. In fact they look the best since any Bis release.

[froggyluv 2130]

http://imgur.com/a/RRdXi

Look at this album,

Ok, pics one and two, notice the water, instead of emerald blue it's dirty purple in game, that's really weird, no place has water that colour.

Pics 3 and 4, the sky is completely incorrect, it's also too purple, you can see that in the water as well.

Pics 5 and 6 were taken at a different time of day, unfortunately. But the sunset shots later on really show how there's too much purple in the sky and water, it's crazy.

In the last few pictures, you can see that the terrain is too dusty/grey (not yellow enough)

You can also see in all these pictures there's very, very, little contrast in the game pictures. I think the sunlight is just not bright enough for the system to adjust the HDR and make the shadows look dark. This is partially because when you select conditions with more clouds the sunlight is reduced by a %. So even if there's one or two clouds in the sky not blocking the sunlightthe sunlight becomes 50% as bright as it should be. This is really unfortunate.

The shadows are also very very faint.

There's a bunch of colour problems here, which I'd love to solve, but because the problems change massively at various times of day and some materials are affected more than others.

It's quite a frustrating issue. I like to solve this kind of thing by taking a screenshot, making it very blurry and tiny (200px-200px) and then identifying issues with colour.

Been staring at picture 3 and 4 and honestly that purplish blue doesn't look very different from the RL shot. The coastal shot comparison (5 & 6) could easily just be the current weather pattern as blue seas can 'grey up' in a heartbeat. Never been to Europe but did live in the Carribean for a few years and can attest that the water color changes dramatically all the time in oftentimes wild contrasts.

[mordeaniischaos 3]

I've been thinking about the overly blue sky/water and orange effect lately as well,somehow it sorts of distracts from the feeling that you are fighting for your life in a war.

In the previous titles I kinda "felt" I was fighting in a war environment ,but now it sort of feels like I am on holiday with all the lovely bright colours.It just seems a little odd somehow but because of the location I am not sure how this could be fixed,mabye dulled down a little? If you get what I am trying to say.

It's hard to put my finger on it but I hope something happens to tone the colours down a little,or the saturation maybe,not my forte though.

Keep up the good work on an awesome game,

Mick. :)

Real life has colors, big surprise. Afghanistan isn't as dull and dreary as it looks. In fact at times it's quite vibrant and beautiful. I think this juxtaposition of the situation and the environment is a good things.

That said, the lighting is far too colorful. The sun is pretty pale in reality, even in Greece.

As for all of the talk of the water being too blue... well just look at some images over here

[instagoat 133]

So the developers, who went to greece multiple times, probably took thousands over thousands of photographs, and studied the weather, the colours and the general feel of the environment for multiple weeks in total, are wrong.

Also note, none of your monitors are probably white-balanced, and everybody has set them to a different color temperature. Just because it looks wrong on your monitor does not mean it looks wrong on mine.

Just as a thought.