1.60 visuals are a step back.

[swoop 15]

Everything looks grainy and overexposed, there's odd looking shadows in the corners of every room in buildings, the lack of mid range textures is really obvious now, the lighting effects (which previously were the best I've ever seen in any game, ever) are now non existent. The only thing that's been improved are the underwater visuals.

 

The fan boys are going to shout me down here but this is my opinion.  I've been a loyal customer since OFP.....which, incidentally, is what it looks like I'm playing now.  Someone in another thread said the lighting effects are now totally customizable to our needs.....when I asked how, the reply was "Change the saturation in video settings".  :-/

 

 

[alsanjuro 20]

You are not the only one buildings do look too grainy and i thought it was the sharpness settings but it wasnt.  Lot of things look too bright especially buildings and that is including inside and outside of them.  It might be just we need to get used to it since for the last 3 years we got used to the old visuals.  Water and vegetation look very good.

[Alex150201 894]

In my opinion the new visuals are great, and I am glad bohemia final got around to do something like that. When I loaded the game right after the update everything looked very bright to me and my eyes were being "annoyed" but I got used to it and really like it.

[Beagle 684]

1.60 is definately a visual disimprovement. The overall look is bad now, just indoors and underwater scenes got an improvement. The textures look bleached and grainy and do not fit the environment anymore, particular laughable with the arid ghillie suits that appear nearly white. Overall, the camoflage effect of uniforms does not work well anymore and shadows now are cast to hard and too black even at 12:00 am where should be enough indirect light RL to basically light up any shadow. Objects in the landscape now stick out even more then before.

 

If get's obvious when you tale a piece of fabcric in MTP or MultiCam in front of the monitor for comparision...the colurs and pattern dont fit anymore.

 

Brighter and more vibrant does not mean realistic lighting, and the hard contrast shadows make it all cartoon like.

[teabagginpeople 398]

In my opinion the new visuals are great, and I am glad bohemia final got around to do something like that. When I loaded the game right after the update everything looked very bright to me and my eyes were being "annoyed" but I got used to it and really like it.

The brightness is default settings. Now there is the ability in graphics options to adjust it to your liking /monitor. Revo has a YouTube vid on the settings if you need guidance.

To op. You can say fan boi attack. But perhaps if you are entitled to your opinion others are entitled to disagree and like the new water visuals and changes . personally when calibration is right can look realistic but even that is taste and agree with some points on it failing .

Regards bugs. Yes there are some bugs no doubt. chem lights, flares and other shit which is disappointing.

But overall 1.60 had alot of work going on in it. New limping animations, plane targeting system, just to mention a few. And all that with apex in full swing. So some allowance can be givin no?

[Alex150201 894]

The brightness is default settings. Now there is the ability in graphics options to adjust it to your liking /monitor. Revo has a YouTube vid on the settings if you need guidance.

To op. You can say fan boi attack. But perhaps if you are entitled to your opinion others are entitled to disagree and like the new water visuals and changes . personally when calibration is right can look realistic but even that is taste and agree with some points on it failing .

Regards bugs. Yes there are some bugs no doubt. chem lights, flares and other shit which is disappointing.

But overall 1.60 had alot of work going on in it. New limping animations, plane targeting system, just to mention a few. And all that with apex in full swing. So some allowance can be givin no?

No need to watch the guidance video I think 1277 hours in arma 3 are enough for me to know the settings ;)

I definitely like what they did but everyone of course has his own opinion. 

[chrisb 196]

I must admit that I come at it from a point of view of not playing A3. But from 'day 1' of Alpha release, to now, has seen a very obvious lowering of visuals. Now this could be to make the new update seem fantastic, simply by upping those visuals again on the new release (just a thought). Or.. It could be that the devs are finding performance upgrades, at the cost of said visuals.

 

I'm not really sure what is going on and don't really care too much. But yes, the game looks very different to the original Alpha release. I probably wouldn't have noticed much if I played the game at the rate of hours I play A2. But I don't, I only come into A3 every now and then, mainly to test stuff, so I notice changes, perhaps, where others wouldn't.

;)

 

Of course, all that said, it could be my eyes getting worse. But most other games look the same, so I'm trying to ignore the eye issue.. :blink:

[sqb-sma 66]

I must admit that I come at it from a point of view of not playing A3. But from 'day 1' of Alpha release, to now, has seen a very obvious lowering of visuals. Now this could be to make the new update seem fantastic, simply by upping those visuals again on the new release (just a thought). Or.. It could be that the devs are finding performance upgrades, at the cost of said visuals.

 

I'm not really sure what is going on and don't really care too much. But yes, the game looks very different to the original Alpha release. I probably wouldn't have noticed much if I played the game at the rate of hours I play A2. But I don't, I only come into A3 every now and then, mainly to test stuff, so I notice changes, perhaps, where others wouldn't.

;)

 

Of course, all that said, it could be my eyes getting worse. But most other games look the same, so I'm trying to ignore the eye issue.. :blink:

 

 

The visuals are purely an HDR update. Here's the changes: 

(I don't get grainy houses, weirdly) 

 

The HBAO (ambient Occlusion) is set to max black, the new HDR renderer means max black isn't used indoors anymore at daytime. So you get weird shadows when using HBAO (solution: Turn off HBAO, switch to HDAO medium or Off for the time being) - Dev solution would be to adaptively change the HBAO black level based on lighting conditions or globally increase the black level to grey it out.

 

Midrange texture range was reduced to 1/3rd of before (no idea why)

 

LOD's are now streamlined, means sometimes you'll get increased pop-ins (but better performance)

HDR is now photo-realistic in terms of light level compression @ daytime. Yaaaaaay.

Colouration is *fixed*, yaaay (no more neon ocean and purple sky)

Sunlight has been tweaked, no more radiant pink fog at sunrise/sunset. (Yaaaay)

 

Under water (amazing)

Terrain lighting parameters now have much larger impact - so badly configured terrains will look shit until they get patched.

 

Object lighting parameters (and mismatch between e.g. buildings and terrain lighting parameters) have a larger impact, so differences can look awful if materials are meant to match.

 

 

In summary: Lots of aesthetic changes (the new lighting), new bugs associated with them (AO issues mainly for me), mod maps need to be patched like CUP has done in order to make use of the lighting properly. Some performance improvements. Overall a great patch :)

 

[OrLoK 20]

Hello there

 

i found a quick reorganisation of my gfx settings (gamma/brightness etc) made my game seem better  than ever visually.

 

Have a play around to see if that's the issue.

 

There's always subjectivity but there's nowt we can do about that.

 

Rdgs

 

LoK

[dr death jm 117]

I agree with the gfx my game seems very good ... Some small shadow bugs but i like the update.

[pooroldspike 128]

The 1.60 graphics are bloody awful on my PC!

The only good thing is that they've got rid of that silly purple haze on the horizon, but the rest of them are a backward step because nearby objects and scenery are too contrasty with vivid colours, and distant objects and scenery are not contrasty enough and the colours look dull and washed out.

At medium ranges things look fairly okay.

In summary there's too steep a contrast/colour gradient between near and far.

I've been tweaking my ingame graphics settings and vid card settings and monitor settings like crazy but can't get things looking good like they used to be pre 1.60.

I don't suppose I can go back to an earlier game version without having to do a full uninstall/reinstall is there?

[Greenfist 1863]

I don't suppose I can go back to an earlier game version without having to do a full uninstall/reinstall is there?

You can go back to 1.58 by selecting legacy BETA branch in the game's Steam properties. You may need to insert the code for it, "Arma3Legacy158" IIRC.

Steam will download only the differences between the two, so no full reinstall.

[Guest]

Hey guys, it just take a few days to take the habit :)

[kridian 33]

The HDR was much needed and also the water shader with reflectivity.

 

If we can get the full moon to illuminate the environment a bit more, we're golden.

[Gilatar 272]

You're not alone. I've been trying not to complain too much about my dislike for the new visuals, thinking it was just my personal taste, but now even the development of the WIP terrain Taunus has been indefinitely cancelled temporarily halted because of the visual update. 

 

I understand that many like the new visuals, but as said in the OP everything just looks overexposed and washed out to me. Not to mention how flares and other lights have basically no effect during nighttime. Turning down the brightness and tweaking the settings provided within the video settings does nothing but make the entire scene darker. While I know a complete revert to the old visuals is unlikely, I do wish we had more complex settings that we could tweak for the exposure and shadows. While this is even more unlikely than a complete revert or better settings, I would like to have an option of just disabling the visual update completely. Giving people the option of using the new visuals or the old ones would in my opinion fix the issue completely, but I don't know enough about the engine or its limitations to tell if this is even possible.

 

I'll go and sob in the corner by myself, I guess  ;)

Edited May 31, 2016 by gilatar

[somesangheili 111]

Swoop, I think you should add a poll to this thread to see the difference between the likes and dislikes of this matter

[silola 1086]

You're not alone. I've been trying not to complain too much about my dislike for the new visuals, thinking it was just my personal taste, but now even the work in progress terrain Taunus has been indefinitely cancelled because of the visual update. 

 

I understand that many like the new visuals, but as said in the OP everything just looks overexposed and washed out to me. Not to mention how flares and other lights have basically no effect during nighttime. Turning down the brightness and tweaking the settings provided within the video settings does nothing but make the entire scene darker. While I know a complete revert to the old visuals is unlikely, I do wish we had more complex settings that we could tweak for the exposure and shadows. While this is even more unlikely than a complete revert or better settings, I would like to have an option of just disabling the visual update completely. Giving people the option of using the new visuals or the old ones would in my opinion fix the issue completely, but I don't know enough about the engine or its limitations to tell if this is even possible.

 

I'll go and sob in the corner by myself, I guess  ;)

 

We have stopped the work, not canceled, because it makes no fun to work on a horrible-looking map.

We all hope for a solution !!

 

Silola

[Gilatar 272]

We have stopped the work, not canceled, because it makes no fun to work on a horrible-looking map.

We all hope for a solution !!

 

Silola

 

Apologies, it was a poor choice of words. Hopefully something will be done to bridge the gap between the old and new visuals.

[kridian 33]

hmm, it looks like it's reeking havoc on certain vegetation types in that Taunus project.  It will be interesting to see how Bohemia tweaks it.

 

And we thought we had problems with the new font, which I happen to like btw. ;)

[pooroldspike 128]

You can go back to 1.58 by selecting legacy BETA branch in the game's Steam properties. You may need to insert the code for it, "Arma3Legacy158" IIRC.

Steam will download only the differences between the two, so no full reinstall.

 

Thanks, first I'll give 1.60 a week or two to see if my eyeballs get accustomed to it, or see if BIS bring out a fix if enough people complain.

[soulkobk 40]

I agree with the OP.

 

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.jpgand http://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 piers. http://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... http://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.

[swoop 15]

To anyone who thinks the new lighting is good:  (repost from dev forum)

 

Chemlights, flares and a flashlight are useless now

 

IR grenade and laser pointer are not even working correctly

 

Map is still broken

1.58 vs DEV

This road is still LowRes

1.58 vs DEV

The mid range terrain texture looks much worse

1.58 vs DEV

 

Not to mention the clouds are way too bright even when there is a thunderstorm.

[St. Jimmy 272]

People who are complaining about moon light:

 

Go in editor and set Stratis. Set date July 10th 2035, 20:00 o'clock and set clear weather. Put yourself on the radio tower where there are three of them.

Play and you should see the moon on the SE. I suggest you to watch the opposite direction. Then put

setAccTime 200

in the debug console that you should find in the escape menu and execute it.

Now observe the lighting conditions through the night.

 

It gets dark first, then it starts to lighten up more. Notice that if the moon is for example SW and there's a hill on the SW, it looks very dark. But then look the opposite direction and you'll see that everything is bright.

 

If it isn't bright you likely want to reduce contrast. There's a freaking huge difference with one or two value here and there. For example I've set mine to 99, but 104 is already too dark. I tuned the values in the daytime because in my opinion higher contrast made some dark things look bad in the daytime. So it's not a cheat value for me, it's the best value through the whole 24h.

 

 

//

 

I have to agree with the clouds. Full overcast clouds are too bright.

[DJankovic 401]

Full moon
00:00 time
 

2-3 in morning
 

4-5 around dawn 


On first image you can see that moon is lighting up the areas on witch moonlight is hitting them ofc. and as moon moves away in night whole map gets darker and  dawn is coming soon after that.
And as for the full moon you can go widouth NVG no problem  on the first image but again you will need NVG`s to see in dark areas

EDIT: And IMHO 1.60 is step in right direction ofc stuff needs more tweaking and changes will be happening but people are just impatient with everything these days.

[Guest]

I'm not completely sure, but I am suspecting that somehow the visual update has really caused some havoc at least on my end for custom maps, in particular the ported A2 maps both AiATp and Cup Terrains, they are a mess, the sky is like a weird dark blue and the shadows overall are super dark, almost like 12 o'clock noon is behaving like 12 o'clock midnight with a full moon. It also seems like the nice barely noticeable fog  that used to nicely and gradually mask distant objects/terrain that are hidden is gone, radio tower lines just all sudden stop at a certain point in the air and vanish. Although it seems the vanilla Arma 3 maps are working ok, I am noticing that the initial main screen menu that shows camera angles of a map are sometimes messed up too, weird purple's and distant sky line that has what looks like a tear in the fabric of space in time or something.

 

If all of this has purely affected custom made maps, that alone is not cool, as I would imagine a lot of map authors are not going to be inclined to go back and fix stuff when they have more/less walked away from their finished projects.

 

I guess all I know is that I finally updated my game last night, and basically the result so far is not cool at all.