Are NVG sparkle fx (TV grain/noise) inversed?

[CarlGustaffa 4]

In vanilla Arma while wearing NVGs, you can observe that the dark colors get to have "all the noise", while the bright colors remain completely noiseless (when post processing is enabled).

I'm no expert on NVGs or signal processing, but logic suggests that the part which is amplified the most get to have most of its noise contents also amplified.

Now, the noise effect doesn't really illustrate the actual sparkling going on, but you can with a little bit of imagination :)

It does appear to me that the builtin effect (which we cannot change afaik) uses something like:

_gen3grain = [ 0.4, -1, 0.80, 0.73, 0.00, true ];

instead of

_gen3grain = [ 0.4, -1, 0.80, 0.00, 0.73, true ];

In vanilla game the effects of this isn't too obvious (but they're still there), but when i.e. ACE let us have gain control on the NVG (by disabling HDR and letting us have control over it) it means that the more gain you give it, the less noise is seen. Increasing gain would increase the already existing levels of noise, not removing it.

If this logic is false, please correct me. This "bug" is based on what I'd expect, not based on stuff I "know". The logic behind it may i.e. be that much available light doesn't need so much amplifying (if it's even dynamic), hence only the dark colors get the noise.

Before I make a ticket out of this "bug", I would like to know more. I don't want to report a "bug" that isn't one, and fix something that didn't need fixing :)

[Steakslim 1]

If memory serves me. Nightvision goggles are basically like little digital cameras, and with all camera sensors, you're gonna get more noise in lower light parts of an image, this is especially true with sensors that are not that all powerful, as some lower resolution goggles may be. Color information, even in monotone, turns to shit when the sensor cannot process the color black very well.

If you ever see a lot of dv camera footage (or 1/3 or 2/3ccd cameras particularly), both in day and in night or low light in general, you will always see a load more noise in the lower lit footage than you would the brighter lit footage. In fact with the brighter lit footage, you run into the issue of overblown white color information being fed into the sensor if it's not powerful enough to gather all the color information. If we have a camera expert in these forums, I'm sure he can explain the more technical reasons behind how lower end sensers have such piss poor performance in low light.

[maturin 12]

I don't get any noise at all (PP disabled). They are crystal clear.

[Flash Thunder 10]

I get noise when using "High" post process, and in ACE2 i get alot more noise

but i think the noise should be there without having to turn on Post process, since it makes NVG's very flexible compared to the real life counterpart.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Well, I'm not a "camera expert", but I've done some photography. I'm aware of the noisy low light areas (it's a plague), but when you increase the gain of the NVG, the noise isn't amplified (since PP is now analyzing a brighter image), and you will never get the "sparkling".

@maturin: Some of us find this to enhance immersion, we're not all about "being the best fighter the settings allow us to".

@Flash Thunder: Yeah I agree. It seems to come without a rendering cost, and they're just waaay to powerful (unlimited "reach" due to increased contrast instead of lowering the contrast in the neutral parts of the image, can shoot with them on etc). With OA having night scopes and thermal imaging, I hope shooting with NVGs is a thing of the past (without lasers anyway).