Visual Upgrade – Feedback

[roshnak 41]

I'm pretty sure a bunch of these complaints would be alleviated by simply lowering the exposure during daytime.

 

This is the default exposure (click for big):

 

 

And this is with the aperture set to about 140 in the Splendid Camera:

 

[Defunkt 431]

I REALLY hope BIS listens to all of us

The vast majority are thrilled with the Visual Upgrade.

[soulkobk 40]

The vast majority are thrilled with the Visual Upgrade.

 

I'm quite sure there are, and am not questioning that at all. Where there is feedback, there are opinions. I'm stating my opinions on the matter from a personal level on how the game now represents itself to me and only me, and quite a lot of other players have the same discrepancies as I, as at first I though I was the only one finding things irregular since the 'visual update'.

If you read my post as a whole, you may gain insight on what I'm trying to explain as a whole regarding the coloring/saturation/gamma/lighting/dynamic range/etc... etc... etc. I'm not asking for you or anyone to agree with me... as the point of this feedback is for insight towards the BIS developers to take all of our comments on board (I hope), whether good or bad.

I'm glad for those that have no discrepancies in the visual update as-it-has-been-presented, but as I said in my previous post... there are now a LOT of end-users voicing (typing) their concerns... where-as previous to the 'visual upgrade', myself and a majority of the others with the same concerns seem to be happy and pleased with the overall visual 'feel' and never really had an issue with it.

Again... please read my post in full, check the screen shots which represent our concerns visually, check the video's of what I'm trying to explain regarding dynamic range, etc, and reply constructively if you feel the need.

 

Thanks.

 

-soul.

 

*EDIT... roshnak's post above sums it up pretty well just in two screen shots. The first is bight and over exposed, the second is pretty much 'how-it-use-to-be'.

[KeyCat 131]

This is what i see when I look at the mx on 1.60. it is pretty much what I expect to see. I can not see how the choice for mx camo is 1.60 visual updates fault.

 

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/262712343370332690/6452B44D6C5E2C9F2687F646696F70756D288476/

 

This is comparing to camo from csat heli. http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/262712343370364767/730C355371DDF80DFB5569863EB1F40776F56C1D/

 

try'd to get similar as yours beagle with holo sight http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/262712343370446429/AD9C813B0D003D066DDB6D7A810D9472E90D7949/?interpolation=lanczos-none&output-format=jpeg&output-quality=95&fit=inside|2048:1152&composite-to=*,*|2048:1152&background-color=black

 

Look like you found nice settings...will try to duplicate on my HW.

 

/KC

[roshnak 41]

*EDIT... roshnak's post above sums it up pretty well just in two screen shots. The first is bight and over exposed, the second is pretty much 'how-it-use-to-be'.

 

Sure, but it's worth noting that I achieved that with a pretty simple change. It didn't require a major rollback or anything. I feel like the visual update has been a huge improvement overall. There are just some minor issues with exposure values and some rvmats might need tweaking.

[soulkobk 40]

Sure, but it's worth noting that I achieved that with a pretty simple change. It didn't require a major rollback or anything. I feel like the visual update has been a huge improvement overall. There are just some minor issues with exposure values and some rvmats need tweaking.

 

Right... which in a way is a good thing. (LOD's are a whole other story... and now it seems I have stumbled upon a complete mis-match when it comes to aiming and object parts).

 

How does one replicate what you did via the Splendid camera to an actual in-game setting? Do you have the required numbers for gamma, brightness, ppbrightness, etc so we can try and test?

 

Thanks.

 

-soul.

[tpw 2315]

I'm in two minds about the lighting aspect of the visual upgrade. On the few maps where the assets have been adjusted to the new lighting, it can indeed look pretty good, giving an appropriately overexposed oversaturated Mediterranean look. On the majority of (non Mediterranean) maps where the assets haven't been adjusted (and may never be), it can look bloody awful, and no amount of fiddling with aperture, brightness, gamma and pp settings can compensate, sorry. And being told that lots of people are happy with the changes won't compensate either.  

 

I appreciate that BIS continue to push forward with the development of this incredible game, and that development priorities are entirely their prerogative, but to be honest the lighting overhaul seems like another BIS solution in search of a problem, much like the recent stamina overhaul. As far as I can tell from years of hanging around this forum, if there are complaints about the lighting they are about more fundamental issues such as the lack of proper dynamic shadowing (deferred rendering etc) rather than than the exposure and tonemapping. And lighting complaints are eclipsed by the calls for things like better multicore performance, better animation, better AI and pathfinding, etc.

 

After lots of experimenting since the changes first hit dev, my personal 2 cents is that the majority of visual overhaul issues are to do with the overly aggressive tonemapping of TonemapMethod 1. TonemapMethod 2 gives back the flatter colour palette of pre 1.60 but looks out of place with the other lighting changes. Maybe there's a happy medium: dialing back TonemapMethod 1 a little; or documenting all of the HDRNewPars parameters so that modders can get their heads around ways to adapt them; or providing another TonemapMethod that falls somewhere in between 1 and 2. 

 

I'm heartened by the fact that this official thread even exists, and that feedback is being listened to and evaluated, so am hopeful that the visual upgrade will continue to evolve.

[x3kj 1247]

 

if there are complaints about the lighting they are about more fundamental issues such as the lack of proper dynamic shadowing

there have been complaints about the lighting itself beeing bad all along. You just haven't taken notice of it.

 

 

On the majority of (non Mediterranean) maps where the assets haven't been adjusted (and may never be), it can look bloody awful

And whose fault is it when 3rd party maps are not adjusted?

[teabagginpeople 398]

', myself and a majority.

Well see you did it again. This is the third time I habe seen post from someone giving negative feedback(all good) that has takin it upon themselves to speak for a group (not good). You have done it twice in two posts?? Majority? Says who.

The reason this is even more annoying for me id because when bis introduced this. There was always going to have to be a small effort on the user end to adjust settings to their situation. because there is no way possible for bis to test this new visual update on every single monitor on every different hardware set up.

Not unless every player tested it when it was on Dev branch /in rc for over a month. Didn't doesn't happen. the problems noted by users during testing were more to do with night, chem lights moons and some other tweaks.

[x3kj 1247]

The major factor why most light sources are short range and cover the least area as possible is compensation for the fact that lights don't cast shadows. Smaller and shorter lights have less room to show that problem.

Most of the light sources were "nerfed" due to that. If you look at alpha footage, you'll notice bright chemlights, high beam vehicle headlights and so on.

It's one of those "damned if you do, damned if you don't" things. I don't really blame them.

 

I'd say the non-shadow-casting issue is just a sideeffect. The reason why lights are nerfed is because they require quite alot of computing. Dynamic lights are always costly. Since there is no physical limit on lights in the scene in arma, having a long range could really bog down performance.

[Vasily.B 529]

From really whited assets i noticed soldiers faces are really pale, i mean they look as they are sick now. Same with hands. It may be problem some of assets are not updated to new lighting (RHS units for example), but they uses vanilla skins too, and they are pale as well.

[major_desync 137]

And whose fault is it when 3rd party maps are not adjusted?

 

That must be those lazy map modders flailing around in the post-1.60 dark (so, you know, really dark) with no NVGs or documentation explaining why their maps suddenly look like the morning after a particularly psychedelic rave in a paint factory. :P

 

Man, I hate those guys.  ;)

 

Seriously though - I'm not having a go, but it is going to take a while to get modded maps looking splendid again. 

Doubly so if there's rollbacks and tweaks coming in 1.61.

Triply so if there's no official documentation about the new lighting settings and how best to customise them. 

 

Even after fixing the sky and updating to the new texture settings, I now have sat images that're far too bright for the underlying textures, which produces really ugly effects in the middle distance. Looking at Stratis and Altis, it's obvious that their sat images have been significantly changed to match the new textures, so it looks like a lot of map mods will need to do the same - once we get a stable lighting set up.

 

So yeah - take a knee and smoke 'em if you have 'em. :)

[joostsidy 685]

I've noticed that some people who are happy with the visuals show pictures with specific weather / time conditions (morning of evening with clouds) and / or recommend choosing specific weather/time to get the look you want. I am concerned about this, because for instance I like sunny, daytime scenarios. And especially this setting suffers from the new developments; for instance the bright rifle problem and the glowing helicopter landing zone. I think the game should look good on multiple settings, even the more 'extreme' ones such as bright day and middle of night with moon.

[mxi 1]

Seriously though - I'm not having a go, but it is going to take a while to get modded maps looking splendid again.

 

I'm afraid you're right. Everyone has already started to update their maps to 1.60 visuals so if BIS ever decide to address the concerns raised in this thread the mappers will have to update their maps again and it'll keep happening until it is finally stabilized at some point.

[major_desync 137]

I'm afraid you're right. Everyone has already started to update their maps to 1.60 visuals so if BIS ever decide to address the concerns raised in this thread the mappers will have to update their maps again and it'll keep happening until it is finally stabilized at some point.

 

It depends - the updated config that james2464 put out post-1.60 is set up to automatically inherit config changes, but updated textures would need to be changed by hand. For my part. I'm going to hold off any further changes to my maps until there's a stable lighting set up. 

[domokun 515]

Sniperwolf572 & x3kj: both of your arguments sound valid but BIS could at least give us the option of enabling more sophisticated lighting. After all they added the water reflections in 1.60 and for some players that's a -5 fps hit. For those who might argue that increased lighting would offer a tactical advantage over those players who don't have it enabled, I have to agree with you but... Arma already contains several other options which can offer players tactical advantages, e.g. AToC disabled "thins" foliage, lowering object detail reduces clutter, etc. Basically the more options we enable the more beautiful the game but also the more greater the performance hit and the harder it is to spot enemies. Most of us would prefer a high-fidelity environment even if it means lower spotting. Or maybe I don't play enough KoTH ;)

[x3kj 1247]

lights are not a local option, they are global for every player. There is no simple option for slider either, they have multiple settings you need to tweak in order to properly increase range. If you want increased light range for your community you play with, you can create a mod... it's just config values that you need to adjust.

             class SearchlightNear
            {
                color[]={1900,1800,1700};
                ambient[]={5,5,5};
                position     = "tur1_light_pos";
                direction     = "tur1_light_dir";
                hitpoint     = "HitLightS";
                selection    = "LightS";    
                size=1;
                innerAngle=100;
                outerAngle=179;
                coneFadeCoef=10;
                intensity=1;
                useFlare=0;
                dayLight=0;
                flareSize=1;
                class Attenuation
                {
                    start=1;
                    constant=0;
                    linear=0;
                    quadratic=0.25;
                    hardLimitStart=30;
                    hardLimitEnd=60;
                };
            };

[pooroldspike 129]

Can I ask a stupido question?- the pre-1.60 graphics have been generally fine for years haven't they, so why did BIS decide to try to improve them, were people complaining or what?

The only thing I didn't like about the old graphics was the purple horizon haze, so I wish they'd just fixed that and left the rest alone.

[x3kj 1247]

 

were people complaining or what?

Yes... also does it always need people complaining for a company to justify improving it's own product?

[Antilochos 106]

Can I ask a stupido question?- the pre-1.60 graphics have been generally fine for years haven't they, so why did BIS decide to try to improve them, were people complaining or what?

The only thing I didn't like about the old graphics was the purple horizon haze, so I wish they'd just fixed that and left the rest alone.

I don't recall any complains and don't think thats the reason they did this.

They probably did it because they could (and are committed to the game) and/or the upcomming Apex needs it.

Anyway, I hope they notice these reactions and find a solution that works for us all.

[Antilochos 106]

Can I ask a stupido question?- the pre-1.60 graphics have been generally fine for years haven't they, so why did BIS decide to try to improve them, were people complaining or what?

The only thing I didn't like about the old graphics was the purple horizon haze, so I wish they'd just fixed that and left the rest alone.

I don't recall any complains and don't think thats the reason they did this.

They probably did it because they could (and are committed to the game) and/or the upcomming Apex needs it.

Anyway, I hope they notice these reactions and find a solution that works for us all.

[1212PDMCDMPPM 200]

And whose fault is it when 3rd party maps are not adjusted?

 

BIS of course !! 95 % of the assets used in those maps are coming from vanilla Arma 1 and 2 contents, contents that should have been updated by BIS while doing A3.

Arma lives because of its community. Destroying the mods is not the right way to ensure its survival. Who better than them (ie BIS) can easily update all the previous contents ?

Through an incredible work of multiple people, we had A3MP, AiA and now CUP that gives us the ability to play on nearly all the previous maps. Right now, every assets has to be updated (again?). Sorry but the non shadow on A1/A2 trees are just making everything unreal.

[roshnak 41]

You think BIS should keep assets from finished games that are almost 10 years old up to date?

 

You realize that no one does this, right (because it's crazy)?

[HeroesandvillainsOS 1504]

The vast majority are thrilled with the Visual Upgrade.

Then the vast majority haven't played on any desert maps.

[Rich_R 1087]

BIS of course !! 95 % of the assets used in those maps are coming from vanilla Arma 1 and 2 contents, contents that should have been updated by BIS while doing A3.

Arma lives because of its community. Destroying the mods is not the right way to ensure its survival. Who better than them (ie BIS) can easily update all the previous contents ?

Through an incredible work of multiple people, we had A3MP, AiA and now CUP that gives us the ability to play on nearly all the previous maps. Right now, every assets has to be updated (again?). Sorry but the non shadow on A1/A2 trees are just making everything unreal.

 

BI aren't the ones making the older maps available in Arma 3. Modders are using the licensing from BI to port them forward. I agree that the update has made some of the older maps look a little different and at times distracting, but its not down to BI to fix something they don't have any control over.

 

Out of curiosity, I booted up Arma 2 last night to remind myself how I was used to seeing it and it was as nice as I remembered. BI have fulfilled their obligation to me with Arma 2 by it looking the way it did and playing how it did last night. As it is right now, that same obligation doesn't apply to Chernarus in Arma 3.

 

However, if BI officially release Chernarus as a DLC map pack, then yes, they would have an obligation to ensure ongoing quality.

 

But if they did, we would have a bunch of people on here complaining about the nerve of BI charging to port forward their old maps. Just as they would have people complaining if they hadn't taken the newer technologies created for the upcoming apex and retroactively applying it all the other parts of Arma 3. I guarantee if the new colors, water, limping etc only worked in Apex/Tanoa, there would be a dozen threads about how horrible and money-grabbing they are.

 

Does some stuff in the latest update need to be tweaked? Sure!

 

But folks this is Arma!!! Stuff always needs to be tweaked. Its the price we pay for a developer that continues to update their product for free!

 

:) :D :huh: