Visual Upgrade – Feedback

[twistking 204]

Still, I prefer this on this. Mainly due to shadows and the red colour.

 

Ok. I think most of us can agree on that one. For me that is the best scene to show the problems of new lighting. Overall dynamic range way to low, but super high tonemapped contrast in the midtones resulting in cheesy tonemapped look without true dynamic range and no feel for sunlight intensity.

 

 

I thought people might be interested in the progression of the visual upgrade.

 

This is the capture I took on the first drop; 2016-04-09

 

And this is the same scene today; 2016-04-16

 

So some definite improvement in terms of  sunlit warmth.

 

Thank you very much for the update, defunkt!

 

I see they have decreased green and blue hue a bit. I'm totally fine with the green, but i think they should try dialing back in at least a little bit of blue.

[x3kj 1247]

The 2nd image reminds me of BF 2142 settings which is good, but Altis/Stratis is not in a new ice age. :D

I do also feel that warmth of sun is missing sometimes, maybe we just needs some time to adjust to new settings, after all we played for what 1+ year with old settings.

sunlight is not a warm color temperature in summer. It is actually rather cold. The higher the intensity of the sun is (the warmer the day temperature is), the colder the light is

(the colors on this picture are just visualisation, not actual light color... obviously)

some monitors can change from cold light to warm light as a setting with one simple click... so if you are not happy with realistic lighting, change your color setting on your monitor or use color correction in the game. I prefer realistic light then some game logic ala "it's warm on this island, so light must be warm". The old lighting setting and shaders make models/textures look completely different then what it is when you paint them. It's a pain in the ass. I can agree that the shadows dont look quite right, but that is a different issue.

If you liked the old color setting... well look at this thread and tell me the old lighting was good again...

https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/175155-a-vacation-on-altis-or-to-limnos-and-back-again/

best example as quote from the thread:

[supercereal4 29]

I thought people might be interested in the progression of the visual upgrade.

 

This is the capture I took on the first drop; 2016-04-09

 

And this is the same scene today; 2016-04-16

 

So some definite improvement in terms of  sunlit warmth.

 

I honestly prefer the first screenshot. It has this unfiltered look to it that I like. I haven't been able to try out the update yet however.

[road runner 4344]

second screen shot for me, it looks more natural, and photo realistic.

[NeMeSiS 11]

Overall i like it, though i do think that the amount of contrast and colors is a bit too much. It was too bland before, now its crossing over into Word of Warcraft territory.

[jumpinghubert 49]

https://dev.arma3.com/assets/img/post/images/operp_visual_1.jpg

Who would have known - the midrange textures in real life are crap as well :)

Only the longrange textures are identical. Look at the left corner above the road, there is the midrange area. :)

[Vasily.B 529]

Please use the 3 bars in game settings to set image to your liking. You can get old looking as well, just decrease contrast!

[Vasily.B 529]

And ask for other players:
Could you check the night vision? For me its overbrighted.

[FoxFort 341]

I thought people might be interested in the progression of the visual upgrade.

 

This is the capture I took on the first drop; 2016-04-09

 

And this is the same scene today; 2016-04-16

 

So some definite improvement in terms of  sunlit warmth.

2nd image is better, there is improvement but little too much of glow effect.

 

sunlight is not a warm color temperature in summer. It is actually rather cold. The higher the intensity of the sun is (the warmer the day temperature is), the colder the light is

some monitors can change from cold light to warm light as a setting with one simple click... so if you are not happy with realistic lighting, change your color setting on your monitor or use color correction in the game. I prefer realistic light then some game logic ala "it's warm on this island, so light must be warm". The old lighting setting and shaders make models/textures look completely different then what it is when you paint them. It's a pain in the ass. I can agree that the shadows dont look quite right, but that is a different issue.

If you liked the old color setting... well look at this thread and tell me the old lighting was good again...

https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/175155-a-vacation-on-altis-or-to-limnos-and-back-again/

best example as quote from the thread:

After seeing "vacation on Altis" photos. Definitely, new settings need to have yellow/orange color, "sun warmth" and not that blue/grey, "cold effect". But I think that they are now on the right track, as soon as they fix shadows.

The new lighting settings that are being made are perfect for tropical island, more pronounced colors of green grass/trees, red soil, blue sea and so on, more glowing effect and less sun warmth effect.

But for Altis it's different, overall Altis textures are, let's say "yellow/orange/brown" color (from grass and soil), old lighting settings fit better with "yellow" Altis. If entire Altis was like green, for example North Sahrani (from Armed Assault) then new more pronounced blue/grey colors effect would fit better.   

In conclusion, for Altis include sun warmth effect but don't make it glow too much. 

[Fireball 16]

Honestly I love the new lighting, i just wish it would have better shadows, And for all of those who say the new lighting looks "washed out" and such, either 1. Never looked at stratis with the new lighting, 2. Didnt look at the pic from BI comparing it to RL Limnos. So i will just post this here

Photo @Bohemia Interactive

<photo removed for quote>

 

Wow, I've really never seen that, this is awesome! :o :D

 

Then I guess what I'm referring to with the sun warmth is more the colour tone of the sunlight during evening hours which is usually more red-ish due to atmosphere. For my comparison animated gif, I also used an evening time. I thought the original goes better with the evening tint, daylight tint with clear weather looks perfect *looks outside*.

[mickeymen 324]

I like the new lighting system with the exceptions that are being listed here, like night lighting etc. However, I would like to add that the darkest clouds in the old system look more realistic to me if you want to simulate an incoming storm. One of the images of the OPREP shows what I mean: the new clouds in the visual update do not give the impression of being ready to downpour water and the overall scene seems too bright for a heavy cloud situation. The image with the previous lighting gives the impression of more menacing clouds. But I guess all boils down to personal preferences. In any case: impressive overhaul!

 

 

I totally agree. 

Whole the update is impressive, but cloudy skies at bad weather in the update looks less realistic. For me, if you compare these 2 images, then old image looks better than new!

In the update, the clouds looks are white and barely noticeable, even before storm. Also, when rain weather the clouds are too high.

BIS please redo the stormy sky, like the original game. During the storm the clouds must be very low and needs to be darker.

 

Also, just my humble opinion about the new color in the game.

I observed, in the visual upgrade has increased the saturation of the colors.

Sand shades in the game (buildings, sand, beaches), have been replaced by shades of white shades.

Now Grey shades (buildings), looks as white. If you look at the picture provided by @Magnetar we see a white building that was gray in the old game . This is clear example.

Now the sand of beach and the buildings looks as white objects. Even the storm sky is too white.

The player sees too much white. Add to that a brighter color of trees and grass and the azure color of the sea.

We have the impression of an island Paradise In serious war game!

 

As looks to me, the Paradise Is a place is not suitable for war actions. 

In the this place, We do not want to fight! Rather, it is a place for a romantic rendezvous.

Main conclusion - more restrained colors, less white, more suitable for serious war-game simulation.

 

BIS, thanks for this update. I hope the some my words will be taken into your attention.

[Vasily.B 529]

 

I totally agree. 

Whole the update is impressive, but cloudy skies at bad weather in the update looks less realistic. For me, if you compare these 2 images, then old image looks better than new!

In the update, the clouds looks are white and barely noticeable, even before storm. Also, when rain weather the clouds are too high.

BIS please redo the stormy sky, like the original game. During the storm the clouds must be very low and needs to be darker.

 

Also, just my humble opinion about the new color in the game.

I observed, in the visual upgrade has increased the saturation of the colors.

Sand shades in the game (buildings, sand, beaches), have been replaced by shades of white shades.

Now Grey shades (buildings), looks as white. If you look at the picture provided by @Magnetar we see a white building that was gray in the old game . This is clear example.

Now the sand of beach and the buildings looks as white objects. Even the storm sky is too white.

The player sees too much white. Add to that a brighter color of trees and grass and the azure color of the sea.

We have the impression of an island Paradise In serious war game!

 

As looks to me, the Paradise Is a place is not suitable for war actions. 

In the this place, We do not want to fight! Rather, it is a place for a romantic rendezvous.

Main conclusion - more restrained colors, less white, more suitable for serious war-game simulation.

 

BIS, thanks for this update. I hope the some my words will be taken into your attention.

 

What? Off course it look better!

Use Brightness bar to set it to your like instead of giving "advices" to mess such realistic view (update)!

[x3kj 1247]

Now Grey shades (buildings), looks as white. If you look at the picture provided by @Magnetar we see a white building that was gray in the old game .

and the old color was wrong!

 

 

these are the base texture it uses

 

[DiegoAlejaandro 2]

The Visual Update is Great in every perspective , im not a high end user But it looks Beautifull , And my FPS´s Are Stable 50-40 , When Does it Come out for Normal ArmA III (?)

[LykosMactire 298]

The LOD issue that came with the lighting also affected ArmA II buildings aswell, example here 

then i barely turn my head

its like something out of quantum break

[2nd ranger 282]

If you liked the old color setting... well look at this thread and tell me the old lighting was good again...

https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/175155-a-vacation-on-altis-or-to-limnos-and-back-again/

best example as quote from the thread:

 

Yes, but the new lighting doesn't look like that photo either. You have to really crank up the saturation and contrast to get it looking remotely like that. There are some times of day that look good by default, but there are many that don't. Even if you do tweak it yourself, your chosen settings won't look good for every situation. We can't be expected to tweak our saturation and contrast every time we play.

[R3vo 2654]

And ask for other players:

Could you check the night vision? For me its overbrighted.

 

Same for me, NVGs are currently unusable, at least for me.

[mickeymen 324]

What? Off course it look better!

Use Brightness bar to set it to your like instead of giving "advices" to mess such realistic view (update)!

 

OK the player can use the personal settings. But what to do with the sky?

Unfortunately the sky when the weather is bad doesn't look better. In this case visual update loses/

 

 

I think can be no doubt.

[R3vo 2654]

 

OK the player can use the personal settings. But what to do with the sky?

Unfortunately the sky when the weather is bad doesn't look better. In this case visual update loses/

 

 

I think can be no doubt.

 

Googlava already commented on this and he said he's created a config which makes dark clouds dark again, probably even more than before.

[x3kj 1247]

 

Unfortunately the sky when the weather is bad doesn't look better.

if you set overcast to 100% that does not mean the weather is bad. It just means you don't see the sun directly...

[nodunit 397]

Overall i like it, though i do think that the amount of contrast and colors is a bit too much. It was too bland before, now its crossing over into Word of Warcraft territory.

Thats what the saturation bar is for, you can decide if there is too much color or not enough.

About the grey sky above, is that simply overcast or a storm?  If it's overcast then its actually pretty accurate...at least in the region I live when the overcast comes the sky hinges on either a bright grey or darkish grey (usually if storms are nearby) Right now its cloudy but bright enough that it almost hurts (that strange sorta numbing 'look away' sensation you get) to stare directly up at the clouds.

[Meiestrix 25]

Overall i like it, though i do think that the amount of contrast and colors is a bit too much. It was too bland before, now its crossing over into Word of Warcraft territory.

In my opinion there are still way to less colors.

Everything in vanilla arma looks way to gray in my opinion.

Even the sky is not blue when there are no clouds.

The same with grass

 

With reshade my arma version looks like this:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ct6dknqjllw2pq8/AAD5G_TStebybmfBfwkpYbPOa?dl=0

 

 

 

 

Yeah looks way to much like HDR.

[pvt. partz 248]

I thought I understood in an earlier post that "templates" (can't seem to find it right now) would/could be used to enable personal variations. Is that correct, and if so would a "old" or "original" version be available? I might like the new version ok but I am still in awe of how Arma looks right now,...and thus might prefer to leave mine as is.

There are screenshots and videos aplenty that show some things improving while other things seem to look worse. The water seems to get much better, same for the sky/clouds. The buildings however seem very odd now, no warmth and much less depth in shadow. The latter is a bit hard to describe but they seem "washed out". Earlier posts referred to the look as cold. I would also add that there seems to be to much blue. I'm all for making Arma look bettter and think that this endeavor will help but I want to suggest, if possible, we could have a UI to make adjustments.

I have used the following, Sweetfx Configurator  ,with great success. I don't want to seem like I'm wanting to go backwards but rather maybe put an idea out there. With this configurator you can create templates so that the scene can be changed "in game" to best display the seasons or even change the way Arma looks at night. The following screen were taken with just a simple template selection, refresh, a you're good to go.

http://s1152.photobucket.com/user/chik1978/slideshow/Arma/Arma%20Seasons

 

 

[sqb-sma 66]

In my opinion there are still way to less colors.

Everything in vanilla arma looks way to gray in my opinion.

Even the sky is not blue when there are no clouds.

The same with grass

 

With reshade my arma version looks like this:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ct6dknqjllw2pq8/AAD5G_TStebybmfBfwkpYbPOa?dl=0

 

Yeah looks way to much like HDR.

 

 

I agree to an extent, the default feels undersaturated. However those screens of yours look oversaturated.

 

I think there's a few things causing this, one is that there's not much colour diversity so saturating each colour channel leads to oversaturation of some textures/objects and makes others perfect. E.g. the grass in your shot looks a little radioactive green, but some of the trees look perfect. In the default game the grass looks quite dry and brown but the trees (except those obviously brown trees - forgotten the name... cyprus?) are not green enough.

 

Likewise the sky and sea aren't blue enough, but if you vibrance or saturate the blue channels you end up with overly blue other things and night time can get a bit wacky.

[x3kj 1247]

you can't "fix" a game's visuals to what you want to see with light settings or color correction if the base textures are not already very close to what you want to have.

Bad lighting setting can make it alot worse however (as demonstrated with the old lighting, where normalmapped details and specularity where barely visible).