Is it too dark?

[kever]

for me the game was also too dark , seems like this is the only game where i have this problem , now every time i play planeshift i have to auto - adjust my monitor lightning and then it's almost ok to play without it being too dark

[Nikodemus]

This is completly unhelpfull. Its like saying every piece of map is too dark all the time. But then some people say its only shadows... stuff... Be precise. otherwise it sounds like complaining aka "do something!"

[LigH]

Recommendations:

- for Nvidia: RivaTuner
- for Radeon: ATI Tray Tool

They are able to raise the gamma level to e.g. factor 1.7 - 2.0 while the game is running, and resets it afterwards.

[Xanthan]

In order to be more specific, I stood in a random spot for 24 game hours and took screenshots at the start of each hour.
This is in ojaroad1.

Here's the lightest one, at noon:



and the darkest, midnight:



This is a montage of all 24.  The common factor is that you can't really see anything on a calibrated monitor in more than a few of these screenshots.



Here's why:  A luminance chart for midnight:



and for  noon:



The graphs show the percentage of each image that is black (on the left) through to white (on the right).
No matter what your monitor is doing, the gamma settings, etc. these charts will show that the images are really really dark!

Personally, I think that outdoors at noon things should be a lot brighter.  At midnight, they should perhaps be a little darker then they are in the noon shot.  In practical terms, it means I can only see enough to play the game about 1/4 of the time.  Yes, I could mess up my monitor or window manager settings every time I play the game, but *it shouldn't be necessary*.  I do like planeshift a lot, but not enough to do that.  Particularly as I do graphics work and need to keep everything calibrated.

So, Devs-- here is an appeal:  Please make the default lighting a lot brighter!!!

[neko kyouran]

in contrast,  I find the noon hour to be perfect on my monitor, and the midnight one is great too, although i can't see anything, but throw in a, dare I say it, torch, it would light it right up.

only problem is that torches/ spells that create movable light sources around the char as they move, aren't in game yet.

but if they were, i see no issues with the current settings the game uses, as if you travel to a remote part of the world, away from all the big city lights, and even the amount of lights in the country farm lands, midnight would look just as it does in game now, probably even darker.

I'd rather think it be better for the long run, that the devs work on adding movable light sources for night times and caves and what not, rather than changing all the maps for a quick fix in the interim, just to have them change it back when movable light sources are developed.

[Xanthan]

Neko, I agree with your general sentiments.  However, I wonder what your monitor/video settings are.  Is your monitor calibrated?  Do you have a gamma set to compensate for darkness?  Given what the graphs show about the luminance of the images (i.e. they are very very dark) I don't see how anyone could be comfortable playing in that lighting without turning up the brightness, changing the contrast, gamma or whatever.

I too would like in-game light sources, adjustable brightness and contrast in the game, etc.  However, I think fixing the light maps is a much easier thing to do, and I hope I've demonstrated that it really needs to be done.

[Prolix]

From those two pictures on my LCD monitor I would have no difficulty getting around at noon or midnight. My former CRT monitor needed to be set to 2.5 gamma to get around. Not only that but I had to twitch the monitor settings manually to bump up the brightness and contrast with the monitors on-screen display buttons. On my LCD it worked out of the box and all I had to do was reset the gamma to default.

The hill on the left is a little dark in either but I can clearly see the textures elsewhere in both.

[neko kyouran]

Xanthan:  if you're referring to the midnight screen shot, I can't see much of anything but the basic outlines of char and distant make out of the terrain.  the rest is pitch black, and for it being midnight, i believe that's exactly how it should be. 

like i said, add in a movable light source and it's fine.   I don't see why the devs should go through all the trouble of changing all the maps to be brighter, when along the lines the movable light sources are coded into the game, in which they'd have to go through all the trouble to change all the maps as to what they are now.

edit:  the current monitor i'm using is the craptacular one you get for free when you buy a dell optiplex 280, as i'm at work, and work went with the cheapies to save money, as all i do is look at SQL code all day, so they don't believe being able to see pictures on screen reasonably well as a high priority to allow me to do my job. 
 

[Prolix]

yes I was referring to the noon/midnight pictures and can see the terrain textures quite clearly, much better at noon but still visible at midnight.

[Sevis]

Even with my monitors brightness set to lowest, and contrast set to highest, they all look fine to me....

[LigH]

You all have different monitors.

Don't make the players mis-tune their monitors to enjoy the game - allow the game to get tuned instead... if possible.

Unfortunately, there are so many different graphic cards, different operating systems, ...

OpenGL is a nice cross-platform API. To some extent.

[Rigwyn]

How about making some torches available ?
Or something roughly equivalent to lamp posts ( ie. glowing moss or crystals in fixed locations )

Torches would look cool....

[Nilitha]

Now there's a good idea, but how about portable torches ones that we can carry about and light up.
Or...maybe a spell that would make the spell caster glow?

Personally i'm having quite interesting black areas in BD near the fortress which I can't do anything about, otherwise the lighting in Hydlaa is a little dark but ok - just glad we don't sustain damage from running into things!

[LigH]

I would be very surprised if there was no "Light" glyph, and no simple spell to brighten your walking path.

It may just need to be implemented, by a) settings developers, b) effect designers, c) {maybe} engine devlopers...

But brightness from dynamic light sources is just one factor. Another factor may be brightness by level design.

[Hrothbert]

I can understand all the techinical aspects of whether or no the areas or whole game is too dark but to be fair I play on a MAcbook laptop and have no problems with lighting, except maybe in the dungeon or caves (but that is the whole point there), I also have not adjusted anything by way of brightness for my monitor or in the PS settings.

I find the lighting differences to be just fine