ArmA brightness / light system

[.kju 3245]

Hello, guys

I think it is a common problem of the engine.

ArmA tries to simulate brightness / lighting based on your position

and where you look at (= cursor).

The problem is that either most models / textures / rvmats /

particles / configs are configured totally wrong or it is a problem of the engine itself.

Here are some demo videos to visualize the problem.

Note that change of brightness / lighting based on the cursor position.

On way the problem happens if you look at the ground just

in front of you and move your cursor to the horizon:

Demo video 01 (flash video - opens new tab)

Demo video 02 (flash video - opens new tab)

Demo video 09 (flash video - opens new tab)

It can also happen with smoke / particles:

Demo video 03 (flash video - opens new tab)

Demo video 04 (flash video - opens new tab)

Demo video 05 (flash video - opens new tab)

Demo video 06 (flash video - opens new tab)

Or with buildings:

Demo video 07 (flash video - opens new tab)

Demo video 08 (flash video - opens new tab)

It happens even if you wear a NV in the darkest night:

Demo video 10 (flash video - opens new tab)

Demo video 11 (flash video - opens new tab)

I've tried:

~ video options: brightness / gamma settings ... no luck

~ setAperture 30/40 - helps once it gets dark enough (value high enough)

~ time and day settings - helps once the sun is below the horizon (like 4-5 am roughly)

~ ambient,brightness,diffuse,specular,emmisive config settings - no luck

Any ideas dudes?

Thats another big show stopper here...

Any ideas, suggestion, recommendations are very much appreciated!

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BIG THANKS to foxhound for converting the vids to flash and armaholic for hosting !

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[Yoma 0]

Yep lighting is buggy.

I don't care too much for the daytimebugs, i can get used to those. The NV bugs are much worse, because they blind you half of the time. Try flying an aircraft with nvgoggles. Switch between cockpit and optics. The cockpit lights BLIND your NV goggles.

[.kju 3245]

Thanks for the confirmation Yoma!

This must be a / certain settings on textures, the model, rvmat or so.

A decent modeler should know it. Help please!

Maybe the post would be better of in the ArmA: Editing subforum.

[Mr_Tea 0]

I have the same problems with the nvg`s, and i`m sick of it.

I tried a few different hdr precession settings, but that didn`t helped a bit for the nvg problem.

[The_Captain 0]

I think I'm rather slow... what's the exact problem with the way the lighting is configured? It seems natural enough to me...

[fasad 1]

In my experience the HDR effect it is based upon the brightest object on screen, not the cursor. I doubt changing individual rvmats will make much difference, but darkening the skydome would probably have some effect.

[.kju 3245]

Quote[/b] ]It seems natural enough to me...

It is natural that there is a change of brightness, if you look at

smoke at distance???

It is natural that you are blinded, if you look at the ground just

below your feet???

It is natural that there is a very noticable and instant change of

brightness, if you look inside a building without really changing

neither your head nor your body angle and position (not change

of light source direction)???

Personally I don't care, if it's natural or not.

Like it is in ArmA - is just VERY UBER ANNOYING.

PS: It's called love hatred.

AGAIN - this is NOT a rant.

I am interested, if it is possible to remove the effect by config,

model or texture editing!

[Dwarden 1125]

for me the effect is way less disruptive with 16b HDR than 8b HDR ...

(if i ignore the missing sun glare with 16b)

it's somehow more subtle and i don't get overbright inside buildings or vehicles etc.

[Heatseeker 0]

This is old, i believe i started a thread about this in troubleshooting a while ago (before 1.08) and response gave me the impression that it was an isolated case. There is an entry for it at the bts too but very little feedback, votes, etc.

Cockpit lights, vehicle lights, streetlights, fires, burning vehicles, even the moon sometimes darkens my screen, its very strange if you try to reproduce.

This is a showstopper for me (in most night missions), cant play if you cant see, i was hopeing for it to be fixed in 1.09 but im not holding my breath anymore..

[fitzee 7]

The lighting changes arent so bad on my system. Maybe its exagerated by your settings or hardware? The trucks in your clips look like they are made from cardboard boxes. My game dosent look anything like that.

[Lepardi 0]

I have the same exact problem. It can even go ALL WHITE while looking at ground, when you are prone, and behind a building shadow, the hotel in rahmadi island or the other one, I don't remember.

[Sosna 0]

Yes, this is annoying.

Whenever I look at the dirt my first thought is that the sun came out from behind a cloud, but then I remember it's just the nutty HDR adjusting brightness.

It seems Arma does not allow things to be dark. I think that's why sunrise/sunset lighting looks bad compared even to OFP.

Also in cloudy/stormy weather everything is too light.

I hope this is fixed... Also some ambient shading from the sky is badly needed.

[Maddmatt 1]

HDR in ArmA is weird. From what I hear it acts a bit differently on different systems. To me it looks fairly natural, except that bright fire during day darkens the screen a little when I look at it closely

BIS made an unusual choice going for 8bit HDR, maybe because it allows anti-aliasing on older cards.

16bit or even 32bit should look more natural. Too bad you lose the sun glare when you do that.

I've played around with RVMATs on particles. They don't work properly there, it's either super bright (ArmA fires) or nothing (smoke). You can't adjust it. So it doesn't seem like anything can be done with fire.

[bravo 6 0]

There is no doubt that this issue is a problem and it needs to be fixed.

Its far from natural and it is exaggerated.

I also tryed to change lots of settings, but they were in vain.

I'm glad that some are trying to fix this damn light system. ArmA is worth the try and change if someone can fix it.

Good luck guys! Hope it can be fixed.

[Lepardi 0]

This should be fixed by BIS. Is this in arma wiki bug list? It should be, ffs.

If BIS want to make a fixed HDR like this, they should at least do it properly then!

[bravo 6 0]

This should be fixed by BIS. Is this in arma wiki bug list? It should be, ffs.

If BIS want to make a fixed HDR like this, they should at least do it properly then!

There are lot of things that should be fixed by BIS but they are not being fixed by them.

Instead they are being fixed by the community with great success.

We have lot of important examples that have been fixed by the community such as the animation delay movement, the recoil.. etc.

So i would not count on BIS to have these problems fixed by them until Arma2 arrives.

We must find the way..

[Mr_Tea 0]

I want the dxdll nightvision from ofp in ArmA.

That may be not realistic, but with that i could at least see something at night.

Changing the hdr precision does not help with the nvg problem, and disables AA completely.

[Dwarden 1125]

tea what videocard You got , for me AA works fine with 16b HDR ...

[Madus_Maximus 0]

Different cards react differently to it, same with different driver sets and different versions of DX. I think they went with 8bit as the default because it's the most widely supported (considering the min specs are the 6800 generation of cards which was really the first gen of vid cards with proper HDR support). There was something somewhere explaining the reason it seemed to over react, and that's basically because it only has x number of "transitions" and the less you have the more obvious it is. That's why putting the precision up makes it smoother. It's not really a "bug" perse as a limitation in the setting which is also effected by the hardware and the like. Newer more powerful cards will try to fill in the gaps on the lower precision setting so it gives the impression that it's smoother.

[Mr_Tea 0]

tea what videocard You got , for me AA works fine with 16b HDR ...

MSI GeForce 7600GS 512MB AGP.

I`m not the only one that got that problems, and i`m sure that many cards are affected by this.

edit.

The only thing that really bugs me like hell is the NVG-problem, that seems to be directly related to the crappy HDR implementation.

2. edit

Just to make that clear.

I could live with all the HDR-problems, if only those ... NVG`s where usable.

[Lepardi 0]

It's hardcoded, so it can't be fixed by community...

It's up to BIS.

(in other words it's up to no-one, it will not get fixed)

[NeMeSiS 11]

I've tried:

~ video options: brightness / gamma settings ... no luck

~ setAperture 30/40 - helps once it gets dark enough (value high enough)

~ time and day settings - helps once the sun is below the horizon (like 4-5 am roughly)

~ ambient,brightness,diffuse,specular,emmisive config settings - no luck

Any ideas dudes?

Thats another big show stopper here...

Any ideas, suggestion, recommendations are very much appreciated!

I played with exactly the same thought for a while and wanted to fix this by constantly setting the aperture to a good setting(So basically just overriding the hardcoded setting).

It currently seems to be depending on: The Time and date(=position/brightness of the sun), the direction of the sun(are you facing it etc), any bright/dark objects on screen and the weather(=also the brightness of the sun).

I just wanted to return the time, date and weather and base the aperture on that(Disregarding all the factors that can mess it up) and while theoretically possible(You can return all those values) i never figured out a way which worked always, trough the entire year.

In the end i just decided to use 16bit HDR instead.

[bravo 6 0]

It's hardcoded, so it can't be fixed by community...

It's up to BIS.

(in other words it's up to no-one, it will not get fixed)

if thats true, all we have to do is pray it becomes better in version 1.09.

Else ArmA will be "shitty for ever" because of this problem.

[Yoma 0]

I don't think Arma is shitty. In fact i think she looks real good at times. She must be a she, because i'm straight and i'm still in love with her. It's just that there are bugs in lighting, which is perfectly normal (i just played a bit with Crysis and it also has comparable bugs). The thing is: BIS should make stuff so that it doesn't really damage the gameplay, or make it optional for those that really want their gameplay damaged. I can understand that some people want their NVgoggles to blind them, but most people HATE THAT same goes for sunglare etc...

Anyway, the NVGoggles bug i reported some time ago and it's aknowledged.

[.kju 3245]

Quote[/b] ] Cockpit lights, vehicle lights, streetlights, fires, burning

vehicles, even the moon sometimes darkens my screen, its very

strange if you try to reproduce.

Thats the point. The reaction to the NV must be defined

somewhere. Either in the model itself, the configs, rvmat or

textures. That the idea. It should be possible to influence the

effect.

Maybe not for everything and not completely - still first some

modders or even better BI employees could be so kind to tell us

how to influence it.

@ofpforum

Good points.

It gets lessened a bit. The problem still exists here though.

Yet I think it can still be useful to dig deeper into the problem

and find even better solutions.

Quote[/b] ]The trucks in your clips look like they are made from

cardboard boxes. My game dosent look anything like that.

Mine doesn't either for the normal settings. This is a test profile

which has very low settings (via configs).