How to make old lighting configs work? Answered!

[pvtTunt 44]

Some people are a fan of the old lighting instead of the new one. Especially a lot of the terrain makers. But how do you restore this "old lighting"?

Here's how:

Copy and paste an old lighting (class Weather) config. It will be broken at first, but do not be discouraged! Bohemia Interactive did not completely change the system and the exact same looks can be restored!

 

 

Fixing Broken Fog

Weather > LightingNew>  Lighting0 all the way to 71> fogColor.

Now, here is the important part. All the fogColor parameters in the new lighting have a defined intensity (the way I like to call it).

 

The new ones are like this: fogColor{ (R, G, B), Intensity };

The old ones, however, does not have an intensity. They are like this: fogColor{ R, G, B };

By default, the lighting will look broken if you just copy and paste!

 

You can make these old configs work by adding skycolorinfluencesfogcolor=1; to anywhere you like!

 

 

Fixing Broken Colors

Now, with the fog cleared let's move on to the HDRNewPars class.

Bohemia Interactive made a ton of changes to the HDR and tonemapping, presenting new options which allow you to tune the lighting in great detail.

If you just copy and paste an old Weather class, it won't look the same as before!

If you just copy and paste an old Weather class and use the tonemapping parameters for Stratis, it won't look the same as before!

Then how do you make it work?

 

Copy and paste the following into the HDRNewPars class:

            tonemapMethod=2;
            tonemapShoulderStrength=;
            tonemapLinearStrength=;
            tonemapLinearAngle=;
            tonemapToeStrength=;
            tonemapToeNumerator=;
            tonemapToeDenominator=;
            tonemapLinearWhite=;
            tonemapExposureBias=;
            tonemapLinearWhiteReinhard="2.5f";

Other than these, make sure to also copy and paste the old bloomScale, minAperture e.g

 

 

Restoring Old Cloud Parameters

The new clouds don't look bad to be honest, but in my opinion the old ones are better.

The cloud sharpness, size and a lot more are defined inside the SimulWeather class.

 

Now, here is how to restore the old look of the clouds, head to the SimulWeather class, copy and paste the following:

            fadeMaxDistanceKm=1000;
            fadeMaxAltitudeKm=15;
            fadeNumAltitudes=8;
            fadeNumElevations=8;
            fadeNumDistances=8;
            fadeEarthTest=1;
            autoBrightness=0;
            autoBrightnessStrength=0.1;
            cloudGridWidth=64;
            cloudGridLength=64;
            cloudGridHeight=16;
            helperGridElevationSteps=24;
            helperGridAzimuthSteps=15;
            helperEffectiveEarthRadius=160000;
            helperCurvedEarth=1;
            helperAdjustCurvature=0;
            helperNumLayers=120;
            helperMaxDistance=160000;
            helperNearCloudFade=0.1;
            helperChurn=10;
            cloudWidth=40000;
            cloudLength=40000;
            wrapClouds=1;
            noiseResolution=8;
            noisePeriod=4;
            opticalDensity=1.5;
            alphaSharpness=0.5;
            selfShadowScale=0.050000001;
            mieAsymmetry=0.87;
            minimumLightElevationDegrees=1;
            directLightCoef=0.25;
            indirectLightCoef=0.025;
            fogStart=0;
            fogEnd=150000;                
            fogHeight=2000;

You can change the fogEnd parameter from 150000 to anything you like, too low and the clouds will be invisible, too high and... Well... May God help you.

As a bonus, you can also head to class SimulWeather > class DefaultKeyFrame and change the cloudHeightKm parameter to 8.

All of these are explained very well in this library: https://arma3library.gitlab.io/#