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Visual Upgrade – Feedback

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Lighting is changeable per map, you know that right? Also, groundmaterials (rvmats) have changed with new update and that has nothing to do with the lighting itself. You can also define custom ground materials, so no reason to complain.

 

Ok, but what lighting settings do we need to change to get back to visual parity with what we had before on our terrains?  If there's new settings in the RVMATs, then why isn't the current version of TerrainBuilder putting out RVMAT files with the correct values or settings?  Where is the documentation that BI said would be forthcoming prior to the 1.60 release?  My sole complaint, and it's a consistent one that I've had with BI for a couple years now, is that they make major changes to code or to the engine (renderer in this case) and largely fail to properly update scripters and terrain designers on the technical specifics of what was changed and how to navigate the new changes.  More thorough communication could resolve 90% of uproars like this. 

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so it has been established there are light issues with chems, spot lights, think moon and more. This is pretty obvious.

There have been examples used to show how bad overall new visuals are by showing old missions built around the old visuals ? Not looking as good on new visuals with its broken lights??

My point If I make a mission now built around the new visuals new fog etc and perhaps fixed lights...and try port it back to 1.58. chances are it's going to look pants. Same goes for making a new map.

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@tpw

 

 

It's as though the attenuation for light sources at night has been severely limited, so that lights now only illuminate out to about 20% of their previous distance

 

Exactly!

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Ok, but what lighting settings do we need to change to get back to visual parity with what we had before on our terrains?  If there's new settings in the RVMATs, then why isn't the current version of TerrainBuilder putting out RVMAT files with the correct values or settings?  Where is the documentation that BI said would be forthcoming prior to the 1.60 release?  My sole complaint, and it's a consistent one that I've had with BI for a couple years now, is that they make major changes to code or to the engine (renderer in this case) and largely fail to properly update scripters and terrain designers on the technical specifics of what was changed and how to navigate the new changes.  More thorough communication could resolve 90% of uproars like this. 

According to MetalCraze: https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/185055-wip-terrain-x-cam-taunus/?p=3033069

 

 

If you don't like the new lighting you can start by adding
 
class HDRNewPars
{
tonemapMethod = 2;
};
 
to class Taunus: CAWorld
(if that's the correct name)
 
it's the old tonemapping used pre 1.60 that should bring back "old" colours and then you can tweak from there
 
However the issues with "incorrect" colours are used by making brownish textures more saturated. Otherwise lighting is quite realistic.

 

 

I tried it out and it works an absolute treat

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I retract my previous critics of the visual upgrade. CUP terrains fixed it.

As always after an update on the stable branch I start Arma without any mods from the steam launcher. Huge disappointment, daytime has blown out highlights in the clouds, glowing buildings and very unnatural colours. Night time was even worse, absolutely unplayable. Black was pitch black, zero dynamic range. all lights looked like crap like in phantom3013s pictures in the post above.

After tweeking the new post process settings and other graphics options for the past days I couldn't get it to look any better.

 

Then someone posted a picture of CUP terrains chernarus wich looked much better.

I booted up my CUP collection through PW6 loaded up good old Chernarus, and wollah! Everything was looking much better with CUPs lightning configs. Both day and night.

 

CUP-terrains. Cherna by overcast day. Nice dynamic range in the clouds and no bright shining white colors on buildings:

qXDT51A.jpg

 

Moolit Cherna:
SnYgmDn.jpg

 

 

Even Altis and Stratis looks good with CUP terrains running:

nd1nzpd.jpg

 

 

I booted up vanilla arma again for some comparison shots and now everything looks good there as well. :)

I have no idea how but running CUP fixed it. Some config values must have been overwritten which was not installed correctly after the patch.

 

Vanilla arma night, moonlight:

hgAMy1L.jpg

 

Settings:
HBAO+ high
Brightness 1.0

Gamma 0.7

 

postprocess settings:
Brightness 80

Contrast 90
Saturation 80.

 

There is still some issues with dim lights and poor shadows, but now it's at least very playable.

 

I have seen many people post pictures of the same messed up visuals I had, so there must be some issue with the installation of this patch.

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I think one of the worst things you can do is take a iconic game with a strong established look and then.... change it drastically,

 

Arma 3 had a strong established look to it that was very versatile to custom artistic modding. The only things I think that was needed visually to be improved was adding reflection to the water, cool! And maybe even adding more dynamic lighting, besides that the game is boss!

 

A3 originally was so versatile I could literally make the game look like anything. Which was what I loved about it. Which a lot of players liked. I haven't met one player from the past that complained about the original color correction of Arma lol. If anything, I heard a lot of players complain about optimization.

 

I don't even like the fact that the player now has to adjust the postprocess settings to make it look... kinda good, it's a messy feature that wouldn't be needed if the visual look wasn't tampered with. I tried to adjust it during the night time and even though I could make it look brighter with strong blacks I noticed a lot of distorted layers of colors in the sky that don't look natural anymore they look pixelated almost as if you switched from 32bit color to 16bit color, if you know what I mean? 

 

This is actually quite common when you tamper with the color correction too far in anything. It can be a picture or a video game or a film. Each mission I've done uses custom color corrections and one of the major pitfalls I always try to avoid to never force the visual look too far. I try to make it look as natural as possible while keeping the colors and lighting strong and smooth.

 

Overall Arma 3 originally had a very balanced, calm, natural look to it which was surprisingly very versatile to artistic modding. It just doesn't have that anymore now, if you tamper with the visual look a little bit you're going to make it look worse.

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^ this, this is the first time for me in 1,2k hours of arma3 i'm not longer motivated to play, cause is looks sooo unbelievable unnatural and bad and gives me kind of eyecancer, way to oversaturated and bright.

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Drastic changes in tone mapping where proposed back then in ArmA II 1.61... back then the rejection of the community was articulated. Problems where similar. But back then prior to the DayZ shock the communication dev>community was better it seems.

 

https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/128374-improved-tone-mapping-for-161-proposal/

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A3 originally was so versatile I could literally make the game look like anything. Which was what I loved about it. Which a lot of players liked. I haven't met one player from the past that complained about the original color correction of Arma lol. If anything, I heard a lot of players complain about optimization.

On the contrary, i've seen more positive feedback than negative, with the end result being that most modders are keen on updating their maps to quickly adapt to the change, one of my favorites being

 

Esseker - 

 

Which looks extremely stunning. That map look great before. But now? I can't even express how good it looks after they acted with haste to match the new visual upgrade.

 

Though, i'm not sure ho long it took them, but eventually ever modder will end up having to adapt, as BI worked extremely hard on this, and i highly doubt they're going to roll back to the way it was before. In short, the visual upgrade is great, things can be tweaked, and eventually, everything will settle down again, and look better than ever before.

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I don't necessarily think we need a roll-back.  All folks have been asking for is documentation on the proper way to edit the map config to make it look normal instead of looking like one big over-exposed lens flare.  The toneMapMethod parameter mentioned earlier helped, but it's still not as it should be, and I worry that parameter may be deprecated at some point to where the old setting is no longer an option, meaning that other config values will need adjusted.  But which values and what direction do they need to go in?  This is where proper documentation from BI would be very helpful to the community.  

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The visuals look good for daytime.

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Drastic changes in tone mapping where proposed back then in ArmA II 1.61... back then the rejection of the community was articulated. Problems where similar. But back then prior to the DayZ shock the communication dev>community was better it seems.

 

https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/128374-improved-tone-mapping-for-161-proposal/

I remember how hard I tried to make Filmic setting (which has the best control over the toning curves)

to please everyone and it was nearly impossible due to huge discrepancy in monitor quality

(per color component, 6bit, 6bit+FRC hell vs 8bit/8bit+FRC while best were rare 10bit, 10bit+FRC) plus way too many cheap TN vs IPS vs VA panels

situation is now better but still hard to created a perfect universal set

we're aware of the nights being too dark (both moonlit and moonless) and we will aim to address that

(no ETA, no promise on previous line, this is way more complex task than simple tweak)

please continue with great feedback and suggestions what shall be improved (and why) and documenting what's wrong ...

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we're aware of the nights being too dark (both moonlit and moonless) and we will aim to address that

 

^ this. Dwarden I personally think this is the number one issue I am having. I think getting night to be not as dark on both moonlit and moonless atmospheres will solve 99.9 percent of the issues. At least for me and my group. 

 

Thanks again for continue to make adjustments and strive to push a game that has been out for several years. Regardless of ones opinions on if they like an certain update or not, its awesome that updates and attention are still being experimented with.

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I think one of the worst things you can do is take a iconic game with a strong established look and then.... change it drastically,

I think that is bullshit. knee jerk reactions much? Sure Lets keep the old arma iconic water look?? Yeah no thanks.

You could use that same logic about the arma " iconic sounds". They got changed. At the start alot of pissing and moaning about them and people wanting it back to the old arma sounds. just because they were too impatient to give time for it to mature.

Hell dust hasn't even settled on 1.60 and people pulling pins out of nades ready to blow up the spot.

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[...] knee jerk reactions much? [...]

To be honest, that sums this community up perfectly.

The reaction is always (for 90% of the community anyway) "OMG! The default settings are horrible! Why has BI forsaken us!".

rather than "Wow, that doesn't look right, maybe I should adjust the new settings they added to suit my preference!"

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To be honest, that sums this community up perfectly.

The reaction is always (for 90% of the community anyway) "OMG! The default settings are horrible! Why has BI forsaken us!".

rather than "Wow, that doesn't look right, maybe I shouldadjust the new settings they added to suit my preference!"

Perhaps you'd like to share those magical settings that turn the night into anything more than a black mess?

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[...]iconic game with a strong established look [...]

Overall Arma 3 originally had a very balanced, calm, natural look to it which was surprisingly very versatile to artistic modding.

I am a visual artist, and the old setting on altis and stratis was straight up horrible. Colors looked different then what you had in the texture, everything was as if somebody dumped a giant load of dust at it. There where barely any specular highlights, no subtleties. So i'm not sure where your "very versatile to artistic modding" comes from? If you mean by "strong established look" a light setting that blends everything into a dusty dulled down look, then i'm happy to see it gone, because it was unrealistic (as proven by RL photos in the community) and ugly.
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Perhaps you'd like to share those magical settings that turn the night into anything more than a black mess?

I wasn't talking specifically about the night, more in general terms about the communities reaction to the changes as a whole. The dev's have acknowledged that the nights are too dark as it stands and that further tweaking is required on their part.

However, on my TV (I run through HDMI from my GFX card) my settings are 90, 100, 90 (from top to bottom in the AA+PP Colour Correction settings). That gives a really nice balance in daytime and low-light.

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I am a visual artist, and the old setting on altis and stratis was straight up horrible. Colors looked different then what you had in the texture, everything was as if somebody dumped a giant load of dust at it. There where barely any specular highlights, no subtleties. So i'm not sure where your "very versatile to artistic modding" comes from? If you mean by "strong established look" a light setting that blends everything into a dusty dulled down look, then i'm happy to see it gone, because it was unrealistic (as proven by RL photos in the community) and ugly.

 

Agreed. It was pretty obvious when you compared your textures in the Arsenal as opposed to Altis/Stratis. It was almost impossible to predict how things would turn out.

And everything looked like there was some purple or greyish haze over it.

 

The visual upgrade is IMO an upgrade in every aspect. A few minor tweaks, yes, but that's it.

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I wasn't talking specifically about the night, more in general terms about the communities reaction to the changes as a whole. The dev's have acknowledged that the nights are too dark as it stands and that further tweaking is required on their part.

However, on my TV (I run through HDMI from my GFX card) my settings are 90, 100, 90 (from top to bottom in the AA+PP Colour Correction settings). That gives a really nice balance in daytime and low-light.

 

I can't agree more.

 

I like the new visual upgrade, it's not meant to be "eye candy" but as realistic as possible. Give BIS the time to gather feedback and tweak their stuff. Thanks for the update guys, keep up the good work.

 

Guys that can complain here are map makers, they have to update their config but since there is no documentation saying what has been added/removed/changed/tweaked less experienced ones are kind of lost in the dark.

 

This is being discusses here -> https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/191152-does-anybody-have-a-guide-on-how-to-update-the-map-to-16/ Someone provided a working *original* config. Now the hardest part is to get correct adjustments to fit ones need.

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I don't necessarily think we need a roll-back.  All folks have been asking for is documentation on the proper way to edit the map config to make it look normal instead of looking like one big over-exposed lens flare.  The toneMapMethod parameter mentioned earlier helped, but it's still not as it should be, and I worry that parameter may be deprecated at some point to where the old setting is no longer an option, meaning that other config values will need adjusted.  But which values and what direction do they need to go in?  This is where proper documentation from BI would be very helpful to the community.  

 

What he said!  

 

I've no issues with the update except that documentation on how tweak the new settings and update custom maps has been thin on the virtual ground so far.

 

Now - I realize that tutorials don't grow on trees, and I know that the community always works it out eventually. However in the interim, the terrain pain is real for map modders (understandable given the number of hours that people put into maps). So any documentation BIS can provide to help will be gratefully received. Pretty please with sugar on top. :) 

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re: locked topic post on this thread... https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/191174-160-visuals-are-a-step-back/page-2#entry3032773

I was looking forward to the visual updates, it was hyped up since the first talks, and I was expecting something great... but I am disappointed. Why? I'll explain.

From the get-go... everything is way over exposed, it's bright... way too bright, and the contrast range it pushed high, but the dynamic range is tightened, oh and the saturation levels have hit the roof. The range from shadow to light is now a lot less than previous, so the brights are bright and the darks are dark... and there is very little mid-range. I. Don't. Like!

Spending ages trying to lessen the brightness, messing with contrast, saturation and the like to get it as similar as before was a struggle, even after I 'tweaked' the settings to the best I could, I am still unhappy.

The main screen is WAY too bright, cmon.. really?... http://i.imgur.com/XCLaoLQ.jpg

Ghillie suits (DLC) are extremely over exposed and now "glow" on terrain... http://i.imgur.com/gnThvaf.jpgandhttp://i.imgur.com/hf0j4mw.jpg

Terrain "grasses" have weird straight lines when adjusting the camera angle in 3rd person or spectate and look like cross-hatch patterns... http://i.imgur.com/hf0j4mw.jpg

Certain "vests" are over exposed and now appear to "glow" against other wear-ables (and terrain)... http://i.imgur.com/g3wJG9c.jpg

Water reflections reflect incorrectly (upside down, or should just not be there)... see the wooden piers... https://imgur.com/a/7wX0D

1st screen shot is 'sorta' ok... the light pole has reflection when it shouldn't, as I am at the incorrect angle. 2nd screen shot amplifies this greatly when I stepped 1 step forward.. again, those reflections are incorrect and should not be there (above the water on top of the pier... reference the two screen shots, you will see the differences).

Disappearing objects at distance. I was moving around whilst I saw something out-of-contrast in the distance (stuck out big-time against the background terrain), I then got my range finder out and zoomed in to see what it was... it was a floating crate, as soon as I zoomed in further the military tower appeared... zoomed out, it then disappeared again. :( See screen shots... https://imgur.com/a/L5yeh

All-in-all, I (along with many) are unhappy about the changes (visual changes mostly). Over exposed, bright and bad contrasting = an eye sore. Being a long time sufferer of migraines, I can tell you brightness like what Arma 3 is now, along with the high contrast is very straining on the eyes and can (and will) trigger one.

I spent some time comparing from the old (previous long time visuals) to the new updates. Check this link... http://imgur.com/a/uuPJ4 and see for yourselves. I adjusted my settings, then compared it to my old video recorded 'still' and well, no matter what I did, it still was unpleasant. Over exposed, washed out skies (bring back the nice blue skies, not this gloomy grey palette). TBH, these last screen shots "don't seem that bad", but in-game is a totally different story. I tried to match as-best-as-i-could, to the old arma visuals... but am still in dislike towards it all.

One would have thought that in the beta stage (dev build?) that "things" would have been thoroughly tested, not just thrown together and hope for the best. Hell, I should have jumped on board in that stage if I knew how "incomplete" it would be now with the visual issues regarding bad over exposure, bad contrast, bad reflections, bad LOD's, etc.

What am I to comment? I know when something is over exposed when my eyes cringe whilst looking at it (and feeling the need that I have to put on a pair of sunglasses to actually view it)... it's not right.

None-the-less, things need to be corrected, as at the moment, it's very broken.

I would also request an option in the menu to revert back to the old visuals (proper color/contrast/brightness).

-soul.

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Settings:

HBAO+ high

Brightness 1.0

Gamma 0.7

 

postprocess settings:

Brightness 80

Contrast 90

Saturation 80.

Holy shit man, thank you for posting these! It’s been my long-time dream to bring that old Arma 2 look to A3's Cherno (I even made a thread about it recently) and today it finally came true. :D Well, it seems the new update isn't that bad after all, good job BI. :) The thing that confused me at first is that I wasn’t even thought that changing an overcast value can have such drastic effects. When I first launched Arma after the update, I opened Chernarus with default settings at 25% overcast and it looked like this. No matter which settings I chose it just would not get better. Turns out it looks amazing at 65% overcast with your settings.

 

http://imgur.com/a/2EzhV

The second screenshot is probably one of the main reasons many people (including myself) are complaining about the new update.

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I booted up vanilla arma again for some comparison shots and now everything looks good there as well. :)

I have no idea how but running CUP fixed it. Some config values must have been overwritten which was not installed correctly after the patch.

 

This message kind of went by without further clarification. I have yet to boot up 1.60 (haven't had time). Will try out the visual update tonight, and intend to do so with updated CUP terrains ready. Anyone else noticing some crossover between CUP and Vanilla? Or perhaps bullet purveyor missed something?

I'll try with and without, but any feedback on this would be appreciated!

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