Visual Upgrade – Feedback

[Vasily.B 529]

I never tought that pitch black can be real, but i just edited old mission on Everon, and it was really pitch black, no contours, no eye edaptation, just black.

[twistking 204]

there is no point in discussing the current night lighting in terms of it being realistic or not.

 

from a graphic professionals point of view, the "grading" of night scenes both on tanoa and altis is just broken.

 

in a clear, full moon night, without any overcast, every area that has shadow cast on, is graded down to 0,0,0 black without any definition left.

that is madness!!! you would not expose a film or photograph that way. it's ugly and it doesn't help the gameplay.

(and you would not percieve it that way with the naked eye, because of all the indirect light scattered into the shadows, which can't be simulated in arma)

 

obviously at some point, there needs to be a compromise: if you go from full moon, to moonless or from zero to full overcast (or a combination), and you want to render the scene in a way, that is physically darker than the clear sky, full moon, at some point you have to hit the 0,0,0 at wider parts of the frame, since there is just no more "room" to go.

 

a scene with half moon and 50% overcast being graded to 80% of the screen being 0,0,0 black might still be artistically catastrophic, but it might be the only way to handle the darkness with our current 8bit technology, if you want to archieve a noticable difference to a clear sky, full moon.

on full moon, clear sky, however there is no excuse in having it graded to a black mess!!!

even worse, while i have a good panel with clean, linear gamma, on a cheaper tn-panel with a more curved gamma, the effect should be even more pronounced. when i do my own grading and editing for non color-corrected devices, i am super concerned about black levels, because on cheaper panels, you loose contrast in the dark at a much earlier point. (and since arma - being a 3d application in windows - isn't concerned about your monitors color profile, there is no compensation for your bad gamma.)

[Grumpy Old Man 3546]

I love how you can't read the wipeout hud when flying on altis/stratis since the visual upgrade makes everything outside the cockpit white-out, especially with clouds in the background.

Generally playing on altis and stratis has been an eyesore ever since the upgrade came out, tanoa somehow seems only half as bad in terms of white washing colors.

 

Cheers

[fabio_chavez 103]

possibility to use different tonemapping during daytime and nighttime could help... they should add that to the engine

[nikiforos 450]

Guys just take a look at Lythium map created by FFAA. Just have a good look and watch the old lighting appearing in front of your eyes.
They probably have the solution for the lighting issues. Absolutely amazing.

 

[fabio_chavez 103]

re: lythium

to the  mapmakers: please dont steal the config without asking, its not finished anyway.

[Grumpy Old Man 3546]

I wonder why BI are still doing nothing about those white washed colors all over the old maps, malden too suffers from this.

 

Flying jets like the wipeout it's almost impossible to see the hud...

 

 

Old maps are unplayable because of that.

Malden is no better.

 

Spoiler

I know my settings are set to potato right now, old gpu died, so I'm running this on intel igpu, new gpu hopefully arriving next week

 

Cheers

[nikiforos 450]

6 minutes ago, Grumpy Old Man said:

I wonder why BI are still doing nothing about those white washed colors all over the old maps, malden too suffers from this.

 

 

Flying jets like the wipeout it's almost impossible to see the hud...

 

 

 

Old maps are unplayable because of that.

Malden is no better.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

I know my settings are set to potato right now, old gpu died, so I'm running this on intel igpu, new gpu hopefully arriving next week

 

Cheers

 

Fortunately there is a solution and  the solution is called Lythium.

[Greenfist 1863]

@Grumpy Old Man I still don't understand how can your game look so terrible. I can't get it that bad even if I try. It's like totally messed up brightness/contrast and HDR below the lowest of the low.

[Grumpy Old Man 3546]

12 minutes ago, Greenfist said:

@Grumpy Old Man I still don't understand how can your game look so terrible. I can't get it that bad even if I try. It's like totally messed up brightness/contrast and HDR below the lowest of the low.

my 770 broke down, 1080 arriving next week hopefully, heh.

Running everything on my 4770ks internal gpu.

 

Cheers

[Greenfist 1863]

23 minutes ago, Grumpy Old Man said:

my 770 broke down, 1080 arriving next week hopefully, heh.

Running everything on my 4770ks internal gpu.

 

Cheers

If the game only looks like that on lowest settings and an iGPU, then it's not a really valid complaint, is it? Especially when almost every Arma player has a dedicated card.

[sammael 366]

1 hour ago, Grumpy Old Man said:

Flying jets like the wipeout it's almost impossible to see the hud...

10000% agree

[Grumpy Old Man 3546]

26 minutes ago, Greenfist said:

If the game only looks like that on lowest settings and an iGPU, then it's not a really valid complaint, is it? Especially when almost every Arma player has a dedicated card.

No idea what you're talking about. This was made with my 770 everything on ultra except AA.

 

Pre Visual Upgrade:

Only camera with high zoom in was used, no image editing.

 

Then Post Visual "Upgrade", same gpu, same settings:

 

Please don't tell me there's no white washing going on in that second picture.

You can barely tell that shack has a blue/greyish color while the colors in the first picture are crisp without any washing out despite being almost 2x as far away as the buildings in the second picture.

 

Maybe my grumpy old eyes are finally tricking me.

 

Cheers

[twistking 204]

21 minutes ago, Grumpy Old Man said:

 

Maybe my grumpy old eyes are finally tricking me.

 

Cheers

 

hav you double checked HDR settings, AO settings and the contrast/brightness sliders?

 

for me the highlight have always been fine after the visual update.

on your screenshot from tanoa the highlights are indeed washing out, but could it be, that you are zoomed in on the buildings, while the iris adjustment is still on the darker environment of the treeline you are in?

[Greenfist 1863]

22 minutes ago, Grumpy Old Man said:

No idea what you're talking about. This was made with my 770 everything on ultra except AA.

[...]

Please don't tell me there's no white washing going on in that second picture.

You can barely tell that shack has a blue/greyish color while the colors in the first picture are crisp without any washing out despite being almost 2x as far away as the buildings in the second picture.

 

Maybe my grumpy old eyes are finally tricking me.

 

Cheers

No no, I can definitely see the overexposed highlights, I just meant I can't really replicate it except with worst possible settings and time of day.
This is what my game normally looks like:

Even the whitest wall still has visible textures.

[pvt. partz 248]

The three sliders alone should take care of 95% of your issue

[EO 11277]

I understand the frustrations of some, especially terrain makers, the lack of detailed documentation relating to the Visual Upgrade is glaring.....but, given all the tools we have at our disposal as players, there's no reason to be playing the game looking like some of the lifeless, dull pics that have been posted......I still think Arma looks sweet as f**k!

 

[Defunkt 431]

12 hours ago, fabio_chavez said:

re: lythium

to the  mapmakers: please dont steal the config without asking, its not finished anyway.

 

Hey, just want to say, because I don't know how practicable it will be to try and protect use of your config work, that your perseverance in righting problems thrown up by the 'Visual Upgrade' has not gone unnoticed. However and wherever it's used, some of us at least will know we owe you a huge debt,

[Antilochos 106]

14 hours ago, Evil Organ said:

I understand the frustrations of some, especially terrain makers, the lack of detailed documentation relating to the Visual Upgrade is glaring.....but, given all the tools we have at our disposal as players, there's no reason to be playing the game looking like some of the lifeless, dull pics that have been posted......I still think Arma looks sweet as f**k!

 

Try to make it look good at night. That's, in my opinion, the biggest problem; the darkness of objects (like mentioned by x3kj), the lack of reflecting light.

[nikiforos 450]

It's really hard going back to Altis after playing with Lythium map. It's like playing another game. I stay with Lythium until we get back some of the old lighting :(

[pvt. partz 248]

Quote

 

 

Hey Evil

I always thought the exact thing but didn't know it could be changed. It looks so much more dramatic! Can you show us how to do that please?

[EO 11277]

5 minutes ago, pvt. partz said:

Hey Evil

I always thought the exact thing but didn't know it could be changed. It looks so much more dramatic! Can you show us how to do that please?

 

coming soon?

[pvt. partz 248]

Quote

coming soon?

 

Ahhh,...I didn't realize. Thanks

[joostsidy 685]

In daylight, Tanoa and Altis look great to me (besides the black/white color exaggeration). Combined with the coming Malden we have a great set of maps which can last for hundreds of hours of mission making.

 

.. but once in a while I look at Stratis again to see if I have gotten used to the new look for that Island. Still, to me it looks weird and slightly alien with its many blotches of white (stone?), lime green (grass or moss?) and yellow/red. It doesn't look natural to me. I have created about 10 missions for this Island, but I never play them anymore. Bringing this 'lost' island back with the other three would be awesome!

 

- is it only me who feels Stratis looks weird in daylight? Do I have to get more used to it still?

- this is another plea to BI: please improve the lighting for Stratis and / or give us the tools and documentation to do it ourselves. I spent hours trying to improve it with the color correction tools and studied the island data with the arma tools, but currently I don't think anything meaningful is possible without more help.
 

[Variable 322]

Nights look terrible still after... how many months since the visual upgrade? I'm glad to see it bothers a lot of players and I hope the feedback will drive a fix.