Visual Upgrade – Feedback

[ZackTactical34 86]

 

OLD LINK CLOSED

[Dwarden 1124]

now on Dev branch : 

Tweaked: The diag_setLightNew and diag_lightNewLoad script commands were enabled for the Diagnostics executable 

[pvt. partz 248]

7 hours ago, Dwarden said:

now on Dev branch : 

Tweaked: The diag_setLightNew and diag_lightNewLoad script commands were enabled for the Diagnostics executable 

What does that mean??

[Dwarden 1124]

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/diag_lightNewLoad

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/diag_setLightNew

[ZackTactical34 86]

Just a tip if you guys haven't tried it yet, lower your sharpening to 15.

[joostsidy 682]

9 hours ago, ZackTactical34 said:

Just a tip if you guys haven't tried it yet, lower your sharpening to 15.

I appreciate you trying to help out but it seems to me you are new to the visual upgrade problems. If you want to help out, please read the last 20 or 30 posts or so in this thread or you'll just be repeating stuff or uttering nonsense.

[ZackTactical34 86]

2 hours ago, joostsidy said:

I appreciate you trying to help out but it seems to me you are new to the visual upgrade problems. If you want to help out, please read the last 20 or 30 posts or so in this thread or you'll just be repeating stuff or uttering nonsense.

Note taken. 

[ZackTactical34 86]

Thanks Joostsidy! If I hadn't gone back and fully informed myself, I never would have known what Lythium offered. I mean the map is incredible! Here are a couple screenshots using RHS mods, Lythium, & Jbad:

 

 

 

 

[joostsidy 682]

4 hours ago, ZackTactical34 said:

Thanks Joostsidy! If I hadn't gone back and fully informed myself, I never would have known what Lythium offered. I mean the map is incredible! Here are a couple screenshots using RHS mods, Lythium, & Jbad:

 

Sigh, that's not what I meant Zack.. :-)

 

Maybe I should have said 20-30 pages instead of posts. I'll give you you a quick recap as best as I can:

- Once upon a time Arma 3 had beautiful lighting.
- BI decided it would change the lighting. This coincided with Tanoa development, probably that had something to do with it

- The new lighting arrived, and although it looked pretty in some circumstances, it looked wrong in other circumstances

- Some suggested using the game's visual options to fix it

- Some suggested using ColorCorrections script commands or mods to fix it

- These suggestions don't work because:

- There is some weird contrast curve on the current lighting that makes blacks too black and whites too white. This cannot be solved without advanced lighting config options.

- This effect negatively impacts night missions because dark areas get unrealistically dark and flat colored

- During the day, light colored objects seem to glow unnaturally. A clear example is the originally tan colored MX rifle, which now seems white-ish and visually popping. The CSAT grey urban uniform is now a snow suit.

- Tanoan objects are better textured for the new lighting, which can give strange results if you use over-bright Altis assets on Tanoa.

- To really solve these issues, a number of assets should actually be *retextured*. I suspect BI has modified some already to lessen the damage, like the white sheet metal garage building. I don't expect all textures to be fixed, which is a shame.

- Some other examples: some black weapon parts look grey, some black backpacks look unnaturally deep black, like a light sucking thing. The early MX squad leader optic now has a pink reticle instead of a red one.

- Some popular custom terrains got their lighting ruined. Up to very recently there was no info from BI with help to reconfigure the lighting

- The lighting problem is so bad that at least one high profile custom terrain team abandoned their 1000's hours of work on their Island.

- Our families and friends don't understand when we try to explain our suffering to them. They ask what Arma is, or why can't we play a similar game like COD. This leaves us feeling sad and lonely.

 

In the mean time, BI has tweaked the lighting a bit, changed some textures and released some info. Some custom Islands seem to get the lighting right? Maybe your example? I don't know. A couple of screenshots don't mean anything for this complex problem. A lot of the responders in this thread just want to be given the tools to be able to change the lighting on the official and custom terrains to create a better lighting configuration than we have now.

 

 

[pvt. partz 248]

Pre 160 the visual affect was pretty much spot on for Altis and Stratis.

Post 160 the objective was to make Tanoa look like it was supposed to, being in a different part of the world. (IMO, they came up short.)

Why then couldn't a "Lighting" mod be made to run with the respective terrains? I've messed around with SweetFX a fair bit and this gave me the idea to create a simple UI or switcher so that you choose which application to use. DX10 allows games to be changed on the fly. I do use a switcher now but I think Bi might have better lighting resources to make something like this with more detailed options.

[cosmic10r 2320]

I have been playing at the lighting configs lately trying to fix the skybox and lighting in another map and read this thread today..

 

I love the new lighting engine and kind of wondered what you guys were mentioning and looked at the screenshots...

I just download Lythium to see, and I just loaded it into editor just now and havent even launched it. What it looks like to me is the blue value has been cranked to wash out the other colors to simulate the lack of color effect... Im not saying thats how it was done...

I have no idea...

just my immediate impression on loading the map in editor and changing the time to night...

 

in any case it would be good to get some documentation because the lighting makes a huge change in how a map looks ... obviously more so now...

[ZackTactical34 86]

7 hours ago, joostsidy said:

Sigh, that's not what I meant Zack.. :-)

 

Maybe I should have said 20-30 pages instead of posts. I'll give you you a quick recap as best as I can:

- Once upon a time Arma 3 had beautiful lighting.
- BI decided it would change the lighting. This coincided with Tanoa development, probably that had something to do with it

- The new lighting arrived, and although it looked pretty in some circumstances, it looked wrong in other circumstances

- Some suggested using the game's visual options to fix it

- Some suggested using ColorCorrections script commands or mods to fix it

- These suggestions don't work because:

- There is some weird contrast curve on the current lighting that makes blacks too black and whites too white. This cannot be solved without advanced lighting config options.

- This effect negatively impacts night missions because dark areas get unrealistically dark and flat colored

- During the day, light colored objects seem to glow unnaturally. A clear example is the originally tan colored MX rifle, which now seems white-ish and visually popping. The CSAT grey urban uniform is now a snow suit.

- Tanoan objects are better textured for the new lighting, which can give strange results if you use over-bright Altis assets on Tanoa.

- To really solve these issues, a number of assets should actually be *retextured*. I suspect BI has modified some already to lessen the damage, like the white sheet metal garage building. I don't expect all textures to be fixed, which is a shame.

- Some other examples: some black weapon parts look grey, some black backpacks look unnaturally deep black, like a light sucking thing. The early MX squad leader optic now has a pink reticle instead of a red one.

- Some popular custom terrains got their lighting ruined. Up to very recently there was no info from BI with help to reconfigure the lighting

- The lighting problem is so bad that at least one high profile custom terrain team abandoned their 1000's hours of work on their Island.

- Our families and friends don't understand when we try to explain our suffering to them. They ask what Arma is, or why can't we play a similar game like COD. This leaves us feeling sad and lonely.

 

In the mean time, BI has tweaked the lighting a bit, changed some textures and released some info. Some custom Islands seem to get the lighting right? Maybe your example? I don't know. A couple of screenshots don't mean anything for this complex problem. A lot of the responders in this thread just want to be given the tools to be able to change the lighting on the official and custom terrains to create a better lighting configuration than we have now.

 

 

Thanks for the detailed response. If it means anything, I actually did go many pages back looking over a good chunk of the posts. Also, although it was only this past summer when i actually got Arma 3, I followed it quite extensively before 1.60, which means I know what the game looked like before the update. Back to my original post, while I was going over the comments, I saw someone mention how Lythium looked excellent. So, I tried it out and it does in fact look superior. RHS models, IMHO, look much better. Even a vanilla(Nato) soldier made me think at one point of pre 1.60 visuals. The only possible drawback, which I'm going to test further, is that the shadows were a tad dark for me personally sometimes. Maybe I have to adjust the settings. But, interior lighting on soldiers was better. IMO, even ghillie suits looked better on this map.

[joostsidy 682]

5 hours ago, ZackTactical34 said:

Thanks for the detailed response. If it means anything, I actually did go many pages back looking over a good chunk of the posts. Also, although it was only this past summer when i actually got Arma 3, I followed it quite extensively before 1.60, which means I know what the game looked like before the update. Back to my original post, while I was going over the comments, I saw someone mention how Lythium looked excellent. So, I tried it out and it does in fact look superior. RHS models, IMHO, look much better. Even a vanilla(Nato) soldier made me think at one point of pre 1.60 visuals. The only possible drawback, which I'm going to test further, is that the shadows were a tad dark for me personally sometimes. Maybe I have to adjust the settings. But, interior lighting on soldiers was better. IMO, even ghillie suits looked better on this map.

Thanks for the explanation.

 

With all this talk of the Lythium map, of course I had to look myself :-)  (I normally only play vanilla maps)

You can definitely see that they went for a more pre 1.60, more desaturated look which I like. On the other hand, with a washed out look, the sky and water (if its there) also become washed out. This is a thing that you can't fix with the basic visual settings. You mentioned the dark shadows. I noticed this as well. This is the result of the blacks being too black and looks a bit 'off-worldly'. Again, this can't be easily fixed, because if you lighten the map to try to get rid of the deep shadows, the lighter colors will get too bright.

 

So IMO even though progress is visible, some problematic interactions remain between naturally saturated/desaturated parts, dark and light areas and textures that belong to different lighting configurations.

 

Just to be clear, I enjoy the game a lot, including the visuals. It's just that some aspects I keep noticing or try to avoid that were totally not an issue with the old lighting. So I hope that improvement is still possible.

 

[lex__1 422]

Ticket. Where there should be a restriction of viewing through textures.

https://feedback.bistudio.com/T82258

https://feedback.bistudio.com/T83842

Ticket. Where there should not be a viewing restriction.

https://feedback.bistudio.com/T83081

https://feedback.bistudio.com/T122850

Create the ability to customize the color of the text of chat messages. In most situations, it's hard to read.

https://feedback.bistudio.com/T82651

It is impossible to see the specialty of a crew member. In case of repair of the machine, I do not see the specialty of an engineer, or other tasks for specialties.

https://feedback.bistudio.com/T123546

[ZackTactical34 86]

3 hours ago, joostsidy said:

Thanks for the explanation.

 

With all this talk of the Lythium map, of course I had to look myself :-)  (I normally only play vanilla maps)

You can definitely see that they went for a more pre 1.60, more desaturated look which I like. On the other hand, with a washed out look, the sky and water (if its there) also become washed out. This is a thing that you can't fix with the basic visual settings. You mentioned the dark shadows. I noticed this as well. This is the result of the blacks being too black and looks a bit 'off-worldly'. Again, this can't be easily fixed, because if you lighten the map to try to get rid of the deep shadows, the lighter colors will get too bright.

 

So IMO even though progress is visible, some problematic interactions remain between naturally saturated/desaturated parts, dark and light areas and textures that belong to different lighting configurations.

 

Just to be clear, I enjoy the game a lot, including the visuals. It's just that some aspects I keep noticing or try to avoid that were totally not an issue with the old lighting. So I hope that improvement is still possible.

 

I agree. Arma 3 is already an exceptional game, but it would be even better if this were sorted out.

[Vasily.B 529]

Guys, i can see the light... Nvidia Freestyle:
390 WHQL
"Gaming Technology
Adds support for NVIDIA Freestyle which lets you apply post-processing filters to your games while you play."

[pvt. partz 248]

Quote

Adds support for NVIDIA Freestyle which lets you apply post-processing filters to your games while you play."

...Arma is not supported at this time

...def' will keep an eye.

 

Have you seen this? It has some ability. The problem with all of these effects is that you change "everything", like a mask.

 

[Vasily.B 529]

10 hours ago, pvt. partz said:

...Arma is not supported at this time

...def' will keep an eye.

 

Have you seen this? It has some ability. The problem with all of these effects is that you change "everything", like a mask.

 

Yep, currently i'm using this all the time. Setting "night" is the best

Its activating automaticly, no need to re-set anything on every launch.

[Antilochos 106]

On ‎13‎-‎1‎-‎2018 at 1:56 PM, Vasily.B said:

Guys, i can see the light... Nvidia Freestyle:
390 WHQL
"Gaming Technology
Adds support for NVIDIA Freestyle which lets you apply post-processing filters to your games while you play."

Hey Vasily.B,

How can I use the Nvidia Freestyle?

Have the Nvidia Experience installed, but just to much of a noob when it comes to software to figure the Freestyle part out...

Would like to play night missions in Arma III again. Still got some precious memories how that used to be...

[Vasily.B 529]

On 4.02.2018 at 11:45 PM, Antilochos said:

Hey Vasily.B,

How can I use the Nvidia Freestyle?

Have the Nvidia Experience installed, but just to much of a noob when it comes to software to figure the Freestyle part out...

Would like to play night missions in Arma III again. Still got some precious memories how that used to be...

I would love to know that, but currently i'm using ReColor from Steam Workshop.

[Dedmen 2588]

On 4.2.2018 at 11:45 PM, Antilochos said:

Hey Vasily.B,

How can I use the Nvidia Freestyle?

Have the Nvidia Experience installed, but just to much of a noob when it comes to software to figure the Freestyle part out...

Would like to play night missions in Arma III again. Still got some precious memories how that used to be...

 

I think it only works with supported games. A mod project I'm working on add's Freestyle support by accident, hope to be releasing that soon.
But it doesn't work very well, one of the shaders insta-crashes Arma.

[pvt. partz 248]

Quote

How can I use the Nvidia Freestyle?

 

Quote

...Arma is not supported at this time

 

[Dedmen 2588]

1 hour ago, pvt. partz said:

 

How can I use the Nvidia Freestyle?

...Arma is not supported at this time

That is not the answer though. Arma is not supported, but it still works and you can use it. It's not easy to do. You basically have to go the Developer way instead of the Consumer way and it will work just fine.

If BI doesn't add support till then you'll see it in a Mod I'll release as soon as I can dev again..... Couple months tops.

[fabio_chavez 103]

On 12.10.2017 at 2:05 PM, Dwarden said:

i know it's been ages since i said WIP and same about the documentation

 

i just want to say it's not abandoned yet (i know enduring the wait is unbearable but i can't speed this up)

 

guys please just make A4 lighting so that it can face up to recent frostbite stuff so that nobody even thinks about fiddling with it and everything will be ok :P

[ZackTactical34 86]

On 5/18/2018 at 9:54 AM, fabio_chavez said:

guys please just make A4 lighting so that it can face up to recent frostbite stuff so that nobody even thinks about fiddling with it and everything will be ok :P

I will say this from pure speculation. Vigor is going to be using Unreal Engine 4. It's conceivable that Bohemia Interactive might be using it as testing ground. Think about it, most BI games use the Real Virtuality Engine (Arma, Take On Helicopters, DayZ). However, this engine choice for Vigor might have been the result of console implementation (can the Xbox or PS4 really handle the Real Virtuality Engine). Who knows? I guess we'll have to wait and see.