Terrain at night and grey scale
- Thread starter mongoose
- Start date
MajorMagee
SOH-CM-2022
My first thought is that our eyes are not designed to see colors in low light, so it's not really an issue that needs to be fixed. It may not be technically possible in any case.
With AnKor's shaders the game objects are displayed with a combination of their own surface color and the light the environment is providing, both ambient and direct (sun, moon, flares, explosions, etc.).
The object's colors are always there underneath, but the intensity is reduced in low light, and the color is shifted if the environmental light component has any shade to it other than neutral grey.
As the overall level of the RGB values is decreased the relative difference between the three components that creates color is reduced, so the darker it gets the less color information to display remains.
You could make the terrain files super saturated and bright, but they would still lose their color as the environment gets really dark.
With AnKor's shaders the game objects are displayed with a combination of their own surface color and the light the environment is providing, both ambient and direct (sun, moon, flares, explosions, etc.).
The object's colors are always there underneath, but the intensity is reduced in low light, and the color is shifted if the environmental light component has any shade to it other than neutral grey.
As the overall level of the RGB values is decreased the relative difference between the three components that creates color is reduced, so the darker it gets the less color information to display remains.
You could make the terrain files super saturated and bright, but they would still lose their color as the environment gets really dark.
MajorMagee
SOH-CM-2022
This image shows how local lighting effects can shift what should be a black painted surface to orange-brown. It also demonstrates that the brown and green upper surfaces are still a very dark version of brown and green.
MajorMagee
SOH-CM-2022
In the case of a white flare the full colors are revealed, and the terrain fades to grey as its intensity falls off with distance.
mongoose
SOH-CM-2023
Trying to think back to the physics, obviously 2 thinks effect the perceived colour of an object; given the nature of human colour receptors. One, the wavelengths which an object either absorbs or reflects (or re transmits) and two, the wavelengths emitted by the light source. What wavelengths are emitted by the moon, stars, or other night light, I am not sure of, nor what role our receptors play in the intensity of those emissions when they are reflected off an object. I am also not fully informed of, but i just seem to feel that, in ambient, natural night light, one does not perceive colors even in quite bight moon light; only grey shades. I may be wrong, and in any case the problem maybe insolvable without actually changing the terrain tiles. Would that work in any case? ( I suppose it would of course have a different effect under artificial illumination). In the end, i just want to get away from what I feel is too "green" a night!
gecko
Charter Member
Color vision is the first thing to go as human night vision kicks in. That's not to say we see in greyscale at night, but certainly reduced vibrancy. This is exaggerated when you're breathing less oxygen as you go higher; putting on oxygen will restore it quite rapidly. Colors also tend to be difficult to distinguish from each other. I had some red lines drawn on a chart I was using on a night flight, climbed to altitude and I couldn't distinguish them from lines of other colors until I put on oxygen, and watched them become distinct again in a matter of about 30 seconds. As far as what you can see outside, on a night with no moon, you're really not going to see much of anything, worse with cloud cover. With a bright moon out you can definitely make out some color. If there's snow on the ground with the moon shining on it you can see everything, it feels like daylight in comparison.
As for CFS3, yes, if you wanted it more greyscale then you'd have to make a second set of textures, for pretty much everything, and all the difficulty that entails, especially if you're starting in day light and flying into the night or vice versa. However, I think what we have is really pretty good. Choosing the right values in the suneffect.xml to get the brightness level "just right" is probably anyone's best bet, and also probably rather subjective. Another thought might be to add a slight blue tint to the ambient light at night. The good news is that this is a pretty easy change to make.
The only thing we don't really have is a way to make you lose night vision when you're exposed to a light source. Some idiot once beamed me with a high-power laser on a flight and let me tell you, it was more than a little inconvenient! I can only imagine how straining it must have been for these guys, dealing with searchlights and flares and flak bursts etc. etc., all while trying to spot potential attackers or targets!
As for CFS3, yes, if you wanted it more greyscale then you'd have to make a second set of textures, for pretty much everything, and all the difficulty that entails, especially if you're starting in day light and flying into the night or vice versa. However, I think what we have is really pretty good. Choosing the right values in the suneffect.xml to get the brightness level "just right" is probably anyone's best bet, and also probably rather subjective. Another thought might be to add a slight blue tint to the ambient light at night. The good news is that this is a pretty easy change to make.
The only thing we don't really have is a way to make you lose night vision when you're exposed to a light source. Some idiot once beamed me with a high-power laser on a flight and let me tell you, it was more than a little inconvenient! I can only imagine how straining it must have been for these guys, dealing with searchlights and flares and flak bursts etc. etc., all while trying to spot potential attackers or targets!
mongoose
SOH-CM-2023
Interesting Dan. Going to your effects, what is your suneffect setting, or is it the same as in your original upload
"NEW_CFS3_Environment_v2.0_-ETO" ? [Talking of which, how do your skybox textures effect day or night effects?)
How would one do this? "Another thought might be to add a slight blue tint to the ambient light at night"
BTW re your "NEW_CFS3_Environment_v2.0_-ETO", are you only using the skybox and suneffect now + Ankor?
"NEW_CFS3_Environment_v2.0_-ETO" ? [Talking of which, how do your skybox textures effect day or night effects?)
How would one do this? "Another thought might be to add a slight blue tint to the ambient light at night"
BTW re your "NEW_CFS3_Environment_v2.0_-ETO", are you only using the skybox and suneffect now + Ankor?
It is possible to simulate the lack of color in darkness using shaders, but I don't do that. It is usually called "HDR Lighting" and comes with some additional effects to simulate how eyes adjust for various lighting. I already (but very crudely) do this when the sun is in view.
Initially I wasn't proficient enough with shader programming to implement HDR lighting plus I wanted to avoid any dramatic changes. People might object when aircraft and ground colors they were used to for many years suddenly change to something different.
The closest you can do now is to change the first line in Light.fx from
#define GroundBrightness 1.0
to something like this
#define GroundBrightness float3(0.5, 0.5, 1.0)
Those 3 numbers are multipliers for Red, Green and Blue channel respectively. Setting them like I shown above will turn all ground and scenery textures blueish which may look more night like. Facilities and airplanes will keep their original color though.
There's also a "secret" option for d3d8.ini:
FacilityBrightness=1.0
Changing it will change the brightness of facility textures. However it is just one number and doesn't allow to alter the tint.
Initially I wasn't proficient enough with shader programming to implement HDR lighting plus I wanted to avoid any dramatic changes. People might object when aircraft and ground colors they were used to for many years suddenly change to something different.
The closest you can do now is to change the first line in Light.fx from
#define GroundBrightness 1.0
to something like this
#define GroundBrightness float3(0.5, 0.5, 1.0)
Those 3 numbers are multipliers for Red, Green and Blue channel respectively. Setting them like I shown above will turn all ground and scenery textures blueish which may look more night like. Facilities and airplanes will keep their original color though.
There's also a "secret" option for d3d8.ini:
FacilityBrightness=1.0
Changing it will change the brightness of facility textures. However it is just one number and doesn't allow to alter the tint.
MajorMagee
SOH-CM-2022
I'll add that information to the Developer ReadMe Notes.
I suppose the best way to achieve this for my night eras is to make batch files which swap out the Light.fx and or the d3d8.ini.
mongoose
SOH-CM-2023
Further to above, this is just a sample of an ETOEraSwapper batch file change. Would this seem to be correct? [Last 4 lines) Obviously I now have 2 versions of each folder/file ETO**** and TOW****
:TOW1_1936
REN missions tow1_missions
REN 1936_missions missions
REN uires tow1_uires
REN 1936_uires uires
REN qclocations.xml tow1_qclocations.xml
REN 1936_qclocations.xml qclocations.xml
REN splash24b.bmp tow1_splash24b.bmp
REN 1936_splash24b.bmp splash24b.bmp
REN shaders30 TOW_shaders30
REN ETO_shaders30 shaders30
REN d3d8 TOW_d3d8
REN ETO_d3d8 d3d8
:TOW1_1936
REN missions tow1_missions
REN 1936_missions missions
REN uires tow1_uires
REN 1936_uires uires
REN qclocations.xml tow1_qclocations.xml
REN 1936_qclocations.xml qclocations.xml
REN splash24b.bmp tow1_splash24b.bmp
REN 1936_splash24b.bmp splash24b.bmp
REN shaders30 TOW_shaders30
REN ETO_shaders30 shaders30
REN d3d8 TOW_d3d8
REN ETO_d3d8 d3d8
mongoose
SOH-CM-2023
Have tested Ankors suggestions; at least as far as the shaders30 goes, since my batch file doesn't seem to want to change the d3d8.ini
The answer is that at night it is very dark; see pic 1; and in the daytime all has a blueish tinge. However it also made my (Dan's) green sky TI's nearly invisible; see pic 2. A way around the latter?
The pics here are a little darker than on my 46" TV/monitor. The TI's are between the white lines. Downloading the images will make it a bit more as I see it.
The answer is that at night it is very dark; see pic 1; and in the daytime all has a blueish tinge. However it also made my (Dan's) green sky TI's nearly invisible; see pic 2. A way around the latter?
The pics here are a little darker than on my 46" TV/monitor. The TI's are between the white lines. Downloading the images will make it a bit more as I see it.
MajorMagee
SOH-CM-2022
Are the dds files associated with the Green TIs listed in the texturemagic.ini file under [FullbrightSprite]?
gecko
Charter Member
That's probably the cause of your problem on that count.
You might try editing the suneffect.xml instead of the shader files to get the blue tint only at night. Just look for the RGB values following the lowest "angle" value in each set of values (8 sets total), and that will adjust the color for only the time the sun is at its lowest. For instance: angle="-10.0" ambRed="9.0" ambGreen="9.0" ambBlue="9.0".
To your other question, the specific files you mention will still work fine from my environment packages (don't use the other files in the package though!) They don't have any specific effect on the shaders that is different from any other version of those files. For best results use the included weather files with skybox textures.
You might try editing the suneffect.xml instead of the shader files to get the blue tint only at night. Just look for the RGB values following the lowest "angle" value in each set of values (8 sets total), and that will adjust the color for only the time the sun is at its lowest. For instance: angle="-10.0" ambRed="9.0" ambGreen="9.0" ambBlue="9.0".
To your other question, the specific files you mention will still work fine from my environment packages (don't use the other files in the package though!) They don't have any specific effect on the shaders that is different from any other version of those files. For best results use the included weather files with skybox textures.
mongoose
SOH-CM-2023
OK first I added all the TI, flares, and any similar *.dds files to the TextureMagic file.
Next I went back to Ankor original light.fx and installed modified suneffect.xml as per Dan's suggestion.
Results below.
Nest I went back to Dan's original suneffect.xml and changed the light.fx to the amended one suggest by Ankor.
Resullts below are a bit darker but TI still bright.
Next I went back to Ankor original light.fx and installed modified suneffect.xml as per Dan's suggestion.
Results below.
Nest I went back to Dan's original suneffect.xml and changed the light.fx to the amended one suggest by Ankor.
Resullts below are a bit darker but TI still bright.