Issue - Night too Dark / NVG go too dark against light - related to reloading?

[irR4tiOn4L 10]

Hi all, first post, registered to report this issue!

Although other reports of the Nighttime Arma 2 environment being 'too dark' and NVG goggles going 'too dark' have been made, a quick search of the Community bug tracker and forums seems to indicate this is the first report to link this problem to loading. Before alerting BIS/creating a bug tracker report, i would like others to give their views and corroborate this report

In short point form, here is my issue:

Started mission that takes place at night with NVG (night vision goggles). The mission is 'Cipher v1.40' and was started with 'night' and 'spec ops' parameters on veteran difficulty. It was tested in version 1.04 and the latest beta patch, without difference

Partway through the mission the game is saved and shut down

After completely shutting down Arma 2 (quitting to desktop) the game is restarted and the savegame reloaded - the nightime illumination environment is observed to be correct, with ambient lighting and shadows illuminating objects, characters and terrain.

When NVG are switched on, the view is bright, even against light sources, and shows shadows and ambient illumination.

However, after now reloading the same savegame from inside the mission (esc to bring up the menu, then revert to the save) the nighttime environment now loses proper ambient illumination, appearing 'pitch black'. There do not appear to be visible shadows or ambient illumination of objects and terrain.

When NVG are now switched on, the view is dim and dark, and becomes nearly unbearably so against light sources. Further, shadows and ambient illumination do not seem to appear

Below are comparison images of this issue. The first image in each pair is upon a fresh load (start the game from desktop, then load the savegame), while the second is after a reload from inside the mission (esc to bring up menu, then revert to the savegame). The images below taken without NVG are naturally dark and need to be viewed 'fullscreen' in order to see the difference. However, i have provided inverted colour versions of these in order for the reader to better percieve the difference:

EDIT: I have not included the non-NVG images due to the '5 image per post' restriction. These are included in the next post.

Conclusion

It appears that reloading from inside a mission does not properly reset either the ambient illumination environment or HDR/aperture simulation.

As a result, nighttime environments, once reloaded from inside a mission, appear excessively dark and the use of NVG in such an environment results in an excessively dim and dark view that becomes unviewable against light sources.

I believe reports of these two issues are related to this same issue of nighttime environment illumination not being reloaded correctly, and i believe this issue is a bug.

I believe the problem results in a fairly serious impingement of gameplay when it occurs, and the workaround at the moment is to only load from a fresh Arma 2 restart when playing nighttime missions

Would others please test this on their systems and report/corroborate if this occurs?

Thankyou!

Tom

Edited November 2, 2009 by irR4tiOn4L

[irR4tiOn4L 10]

Below are comparison images of this issue. The first image in each pair is upon a fresh load (start the game from desktop, then load the savegame), while the second is after a reload from inside the mission (esc to bring up menu, then revert to the savegame). The images below taken without NVG are naturally dark and need to be viewed 'fullscreen' in order to see the difference. However, i have provided inverted colour versions of these in order for the reader to better percieve the difference:

EDIT: I have not included the non-NVG images due to the '5 image per post' restriction. These are included in the next post.

[dram 14]

Added to the bug tracker. Thank you :)

[irR4tiOn4L 10]

Added to the bug tracker. Thank you :)

Thanks popsicle stick!

;)