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Sosna

Improving Engine Lighting

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Why do some old Game 2 screenshots look better than Arma with graphics set at maximum?

4ytehc1.jpg

4t861iw.jpg

Arma has better models, and better textures - not to mention advanced shader and mapping effects. Yet the old screenshots look better.

The key difference is lighting. Even though the screens were taken in as similar conditions as possible, the Game 2 screens have much more lighting contrast.

Compare the lightest and the darkest points of, for example, each soldiers skin, or the AK-74's magazine. The Game 2 images have a far wider range of light and dark. In turn this gives a vastly better sense of depth and shape, which increases visual realism. Arma's visuals look matte, flat and bland in comparison. In this aspect of graphics there seems to have been little improvement from OFP. (I've noticed though that OFP Elite seemed to have lighting more like Game 2 dev screenshots)

It's even worse when in the shade, or inside a building. Objects in that case look completely flat due to the lack of shading. It appears that there is no ambient lighting. any sense of depth is destroyed in those situations. Even a very simplistic top-down ambient light would improve how it looks.

I'm happy with the current models and textures, but they are not allowed to reach their full visual potential by the poor lighting and shading. Arma 2 would look incredible with light/shade contrast like the Game 2 developement screenshots.

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The main difference I see is that those screenshots has bloom, while Arma does not, (except if you start at the ground). Personally I really would prefer it if there was always a bit of bloom, because without it the game looks too dark.

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Its all in the light setting. You can change this in Arma, by using the gamma correction and brightness/contrast adjustment, here are some examples of the effect of this change that I threw together some time ago.

http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/9063/56253583xv3.jpg

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/6774/55543624hr3.jpg

http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/9354/42331614zn0.jpg

http://img475.imageshack.us/img475/3476/armor3pe4.jpg

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/3760/armor2db2.jpg

http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/6894/armor1nh8.jpg

The only problem with this is for interior views, HDR will try to compensate harder and harder the darker the game is, which is probably why Arma is as 'dull' in color as it is.

The engine has the lighting, the problem is the HDR trying to compensate itself whenever there is full darkness, therefore trying to brighten it back up.

ArmaII HOPEFULLY has this changed, by the looks of things they do.

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Those old game 2 images look like an overshadded OPF:E, i think Arma's lighting on the models looks better (since its more natural).

I actually like how Arma's models look with very low shadder setting (more natural and realistic textures) but the ground and ocean just get too ugly that way.

Artificial lights need the most improvement imo, they were a step back compared to OPF.

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exotic-uk-0067.jpg

I'd like BIS to support light in the daytime in ArmA2. notworthy.gif

I think never:D

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I was gunna say... The old Game 2 shots look like OFP:E's lighting.

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as I said, the only reason Arma's gamma is the way it is is because if you mess with it then when you come into a building or get into a vehicle the game compensation will be far too much. Which is why I just adjusted my monitor, no headaches there.

ArmaII however either does not have HDR or they adjusted it a good deal, I doubt they would add overlay or extra shadowing to all of those images considering Arma's were not modified.

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Is it possible that street lights and vehicles lights will have bump mapping and realtime shadows in ArmaII? Will moving lights at least look smoother?

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I recently came across this photo, it reminded me of this topic.

Basically I analyzed the photo and photoshopped what I observed onto on the example screenshot. This is the result...

2dqov34.jpg

Aside from a few other minor modifications (removed awful cyan sky, slightly more contrast terrain) I worked on lighting on the gunship.

Firstly I exaggerated the lighting that was already there. Darkened dark parts, lightened light parts. This could probably be achieved in Arma's engine by tweaking some lighting range values.

Second I added a top down ambient light (sky illumination) which seems to be missing from Arma, and is largely resonsible for the flat, unrealistic visuals - particularly in poorly lit conditions.

Of course I realize a few things about the image scream photoshop, particularly the smooth gradiation of the ambient light (I would have needed to know the exact shapes in order to make it look correct). However when done by the engine it would look correct.

A good "smell test" for determining lighting realism is to look at a thumbnail version of a screenshot. If it can be confused for a photograph, the graphics people are on the right track.

2ew2j3t.jpg

As you can see, the chopper on the left looks very flat and shapeless. The lack of a realistic shading range removes any sense of depth.

These things should really be fixed in Arma 2. Models and textures are only half the components in graphics. Without realistic lighting the best models can look awful.

Like I said before, Arma does have awesome models, however the poor lighting system does not allow them to reach their visual potential.

And please, for the love of god BI, change the cyan sky thumbs-up.gif

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Making the game closer to a picture is not the same as making it look closer to reality. My game looks more natural than that picture i think smile_o.gif .

edit: Where i live the sky is often very intense/dark cyan, not post processed magenta.

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I went into Arma and took a picture of a helicopter, similar to the real picture. I tried messing with the in-game color settings, but it also changed the settings for the desktop, so I had to do it in Pain.net.

lightjq8.jpg

As you can see, I focused more on darkening the shadows than brightening the sand.

Then, I went ahead and lightened the sand separately, the result:

light2pp8.jpg

In my opinion that's much closer to the real picture. All I did was mess with the Hue, Saturation, and Lightness.

I think all BIS should do is adjust a permanent bloom for the daytime, (it would look strange having the moonlight be really glowingly bright), and then overlay it with much less significant HDR than what we have now. Then, they should brighten the reflections and darken the shadows.

I tried searching for pictures for comparison, but it's difficult because the lighting isn't consistent. The darkness of shadows and overall contrast really depends on the amount of clouds and the suns position. One feature that I noticed in Arma is that if there are more clouds the shadows really do fade away, which is good so far.

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Too bright ground m8, that ground is supposed to be dirt, not desert/beach sand (check around Cayo or near the southern coast). Yellow dirt wouldnt make any sense.

I think overal the daytime lighting is pretty good and what could use improvement are those damn sunset/sunrise transitions. Its the one thing i miss from OPF.

Brightning nights a bit more... and definetly implementing proper artificial light sources (lamps, fires, streetlights, etc).

I noticed that at night a fire will light up the grass but not the ground.

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I was going for the desert look though. I wanted my screenshot to match the picture Sosna posted.

I totally agree with the sunrise/sunset though. I haven't really played OFP, but in Arma it's unusable. Both, if I recall correctly, turned bright blue after the 1.08 patch.

The sunrise/sunset could look different depending on where you live, but for me, during sunrise, the sky looks grey and I can't see any clouds. Early on there is a little hint of blue, but as the sun rises then everything turns normal and the clouds become visible.

Sunrise is very orange, and as the sun get's lower I can actually look at it without hurting my eyes. The orange light shines on the clouds, and occasionally there is a bit of pink or red in there.

The fire thing has been bugging me forever. Not only does the grass light up way more than the ground, but the light travels very far and turns the texture an ugly shade.

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You meant sunset not surise the second time didn't you? tounge2.gif

My sunrise is very bland and boring, and my sunset is usualy a nice orange, and as the sun gets lower is looks smaller and less bright.

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i also think that the model is far from iqual to the real one.

There are some details that miss.

Though i know BIS said they will have better models, details to ARMA2.

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I'm guessing my first post was ignored by 80% of viewers of this thread, why do people keep doing that... The biggest problem (in lighting) Arma has right now is that its shadows are not quite shadows, the intensity between very low-normal shadows vs high-very high varies oddly enough but very high shadows only look good for flora.

Due to the fact that helicopters shadows look generally akward with it and inside structures you can see a line of light above the shadows on ceilings.

Now as stated from that first post, the problem is color variety, which I blatantly displaced can be solved by messing around with the gamma and brightness settings in your game. Now the downside to that is HDR becomes a larger pain, transitions will be more fierce in between due the tradeoff, which is likely why BIS chose what they did.

Arma II however has displayed images of the 'darker' variety with more colors to them, if I had to guess I'd say they either did away with or fixed the HDR issue. I have done some research into this by examining what we have been shown thoroughly.

If you care to read the 'research logs' then rear below, if not then just skip from here in.

The very first image of Arma II shown was an image on a LCD widescreen monitor, first person US soldier with rolled up sleeves and holding an M14 with the optical sight while standing infront of what looks like a town with some industry.

Now the only shadow reliable in this image is the one cast from the walkway overhead, things to bear in mind however is that images of a camera shot to monitor vs the image on the monitor vary in contrast, the sky near appears normal and brightens as it goes.

This may be due to the sun however the shadow never changes in contrast, it remains dark and has the same tone of a high detail shadow in Arma but the sharpness of a very low-normal shadow. This can be compared to the "high" detail shadow that can be seen in the doorway of one of the nearby structures, its shadow is rigid but has the same tone as the sharper shadow.

Throughought many of the images released can be seen both high and low detail shadows, another example being the one of the BMP-3 near train tracks on a road, the low detail shadow can be seen of a structure going across the road, and the high can be seen cast from the roof outline against a nearby house in point blank view.

Now, one of Arma I's problems are as shown, things look a bit too bland, this does not seem to be the case in ArmaII, an example can be to compare the image one page ago shown with the AH-1Z vs Mi-24 ingame screenshot. The Hind has a more grainish and darker look to it, now it could easily be said this is due to colors but that has nothing to do with what I'm speaking of, you can see the terrain appears a bit darker as compared to ArmaI's.

Now, image 3 of the shadow comparisons can probably be said to be the most proof out of them all, the ingame screenshot of the BRDM-90 near the BMP-3, the one with the high chimney, burning bus,hind and cranes. The ground vehicles give off 'low' detail shadows, we can see this because they are sharp, now in this same scene is of course the stack AND some tree's, upon examination it can clearly be seen that all of the shadows in this image have the same intensity.

Summing from this bit of research I'm concluding from this that HDR may have been fixed and/or the engine's lighting is a bit more varied or darker in contrast for the more realistic look and feel.

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we need shadows from every light! that would make night missions more realistic. If possible AI should also be able to detect soldier shadows.

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If the engine was upgraded to have the ability to cast shadows from light sources other then sun and moon then it would go a long way in helping both exterior city combat AND full blown interior combat.

If they do that then it may also be a good idea to give the engine the ability to have walls actually block outside light sources so again the moon and sun do not effect interior shadows UNLESS there is a window.

But I wouldn't stake too much on this, I'm more concerned about vehicle functionality over general lighting appearences and what have you.

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About modifying gamma and brightness values in-game - I have tried it before, even in ofp. Contrast can be increased, but the range of contrast cannot be modified, so the visual difference is not much better. Doing this also increases colour saturation which doesn't look particularly good.

At the moment arma only looks realistic with clear skys and full sunlight. Once the light fades due to cloud everything becomes unshaded and shadowless. This is because there is no real ambient lighting, the problem is also obvious when objects are in the shade.

In reality, on the cloudiest day you will still find that a car, for example, still projects a very dark blob shadow onto the road underneath it, and the car itself is shaded accordingly. In arma this is missing entirely, there is no shadow nor shading.

Similarly, a car parked in the shade on a sunny day still has a very dark shadow underneath it due to ambient lighting. It seems BI has neglected the fact that the sky is also lightsource.

Looking at this Arma 2 screen it seems the shading range has been improved. It's evident from the darkness of shadows across the hind.

However, on this screen the lack of ambient light is obvious. The fellow in the back lacks any definition. It's obvious Arma 2 does not have ambient lighting. Looking at the short video clips in the urban environment shows the player's hands looking completely unshaded and flat when stepping into the shadows.

A simple top down ambient light (slightly bluish when sunny, white when overcast) would improve arma's visual realism a lot. Also, some kind of simplistic blob shadow would improve the game's looks immensly in overcast conditions.

About HDR - right now it behaves like a camera, not a human eye. It seems to remove any darkness in the game, whether it's inside a building or during twilight hours. With the weather at its worst it never gets dark enough to be a believable thunderstorm, I'm pretty sure HDR is responsible for this. Sunrise and sunset in Arma is ruined by it since there's really no gradual transition from night to day (in addition to the strange, unrealistic colours above posters mentioned).

So far I've seen little improvement in lighting from Arma 1, but I still have hope.

One more thing about shadows, I'm interested in the resource usage of hard vs. soft shadows. I'm pretty sure soft shadows take more resources. If so, I think it would be good if BI implemented an option to choose between shadow types.

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Shadows should be more grey or blue-ish when the light is very bright. Like here, for example. A more blur shadow might also help the "illusion" of the game.

Quote[/b] ]If white light is produced by separate coloured light sources, the shadows are coloured.

Illuminate a room with a red light, and the shadows are exclusively gray, or dark. Illuminate the shadows with a white light, and the shadows are green. Where both lights are blocked, or in other words where the shadows intersect, the shadows are gray. Away from the intersection, where the red light is blocked the shadows are green, and where the white light is blocked the shadows are red. In other words, light colors shadows or brightens them, according to the complementary color of the light blocked to cast the shadow. In the case of white and red lights, the complement of white is red; with white and green lights, the complement of white is green.

In the absence of multiple light sources, colored lights illuminate spaces where other lights are not blocked. In the above example, the red shadow cast by blocking white light is not a shadow with the white light off, but it is illuminated in red.

In the absence of white light, colored lights blocked by an opaque surface cast shadows in the colors complementary to the lights blocked. For green light, red shadows, and vice-versa; blue, orange; yellow, purple; intermediate light, intermediate shadows.

Wikipedia.

Speaking of which, just bumped in to some interresting pictures about smoke/clouds and shadows. Though this I consider more luxury eye candy. Source

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