In a good or bad way? Im guessing my new/latest way of changing lighting is behind that --- Post updated --- A short vid, ive mentioned it before but the codec seems to make it darker..
So alittle explanation of what im doing as the latest experiment; Its something originally caused by me thinking that the TOD isnt bright enough at morning and evening, That combined with the brightness getting more crisp and some other effects i like such as normal maps seem to get stronger and so on, when increasing the Brightness attribute on maps sky settings. This is '1' out the box. Increasing that and things quickly get overexposed. Previously i didnt have time to check if textures for things as sunscale gradient and the rest of the possible graidents (fog scale gradient for example, which gave the result of the dynamic TOD fog) worked but some weeks ago i finally checked it out. What i do now is i set the Brightness to 3-5, just 30min ago i think i decided on 5 as a base value, on a few maps ive lowered that slightly to make it work with bright textures as on Hirochi and Utah. Setting the value this 'high' allows for brighter light in morning and evening. This of course leads to hella bright mid days. To control that im using a custom sunscale gradient texture which lets me set luminosity and color of the3 sun throughout the day. This way i can have brighter mornings and evenings but still not get the rest of the day overexposed, believe me when i say i was happy when i figured that out! This does eat alittle extra gpu, atleast on my low/mid PC so fps sinks. Just a few random screens to demonstrate. Also, note the road/asphalt looking more detailed which is caused by the stronger normal maps (i assume, if ive not completely lost it..)
I finally tried the new version after the old thread. It still feels the same, shadows are too dark and sunny sides are too bright and also saturated but when you change the time of day it becomes better but I can still say that it is a little bit saturated. It was always been like that.
Yeah im starting to think i need to get me a ordinary mo itor instead of the hdtv i use, tvat or i need to adjust it further to look like most ppls monitors, kinda hard to sort without a normal monitor myself though. The latest, unreleased, version is less bright during the day and has less dark shadows but the saturation im not sure about. Looks fine on my screen but theres a few things thats possible to use.
So.. i got a plan. Borrowing a monitor from work to see if it looks different compared to my current tv. Youre not the first to mention it looking too dark (on my tv it looks far from overdarkened) and looking at screenshots on my phone or another computer it looks slightly different. Stay tuned
Well i tested the regualr monitor yesterday, high end HP monitor. Cant say i experience what you experience unfortunatly. Latest drivers, Ive even reset 'Nvidia Gforce Experience' to make sure it wasnt doing some weird overlay stuff. It had created a Beamng Profile that was 'Optimized' but removing that didnt change a thing. I might be using a hdmi 720p cable now, usually using a fullhd one with my tv. Only difference i can say i see is that the monitor is slightly more dull, less crisp, than the tv. No overdark or overbright stuff (unless its just a taste difference between you and me). If you want to you can take a pic with your phone, compare that to your monitor so that they look similar (to make sure your phone isnt doing some funny fake hdr filter stuff) and upload so that i can see what it looks like
Good news, found the issue. If i bang in and out of Fullscreen it once in a while goes mega contrasty. My guess is that thats what you see all the time. Issue is/was that Nvidia flipped between Limited and FULL dynamic range if i left "Use default color settings" checked. Once i checked "Use Nvidia color settings" and changed Output Dynamic Range to full i got that result every time i went in and out of fullscreen. The Limited one is usually used for TV thats bad but i have a good one although it didnt recognize it. Also the somewhat high end monitor i tested didnt support Full so i couldnt see tha issue there. --- Post updated --- Just a few test screens to see that my changes actually works/looks the same on several different monitors, now that a major issue might be fixed..
Apart from the screen record codec making this vid dark i hae been having weird contrast problems with my latest releases, found it to be Nvidias dynamic output that clamped the output to be between 16-236, instead of the full range 0-255, which led to me putting in faulty values to get the result i wanted, on my computer. Hope its fixed forever now and ive started adjusting all the values to what i want again lol. First test vid. As stated this gets darker when i record the screen, might need to look at other screen recorders.
Nice work so far, you should take a break, lol. You did so much in such little time --- Post updated --- Also, I like the bright reflections, it looks like you remade beamng in a different engine --- Post updated --- Hey I just realized something. I was looking at a stop sign in east coast usa and when I got farther from it, it got whiter until it was just a white hexagon, it might be the base game but I think it is the mod. The sign is in the first place where 2 roads meet ahead of the highway spawn. It doesn't really matter, and it might be meant to be like that but I just wanted to put it out there.
So um, do i just download the latest or it's reasonable to wait for your experiment. I don't really like to cache beamng much since it does "mess" some stuff Edit: I've tired of this stuff, how do i remove pixelated shadows? It's all over interior, just kills the mood, may you know
The sign thing is due to the latest way o lighting the map, it effects the specular maps and in certain angles (when the sign is lit and it reflects in your viewing direction) itll light up enough to look more or less white, if far away Wait for my latest release, its around the corner! Yeah the whole clear cache thing sucks slightly but theres a workaround so that it doesnt more or less delete everything in your documents folder. Just go to the Documents/Beamng.drive-folder and delete the latest cache-folder (if you look today itll be named "cache.0.20.1.2" . I always do that or just delete specific folder in that cache folder so that the game dont have to reload everything each time. That way youll keep the rest thats in there and also your settings and so on. Why i dont have this in the instructions is that i try to keep it simple for folks, some can get nervous by doing stuff like that. About the shadows, in the World Editor in each level you have specific shadow settings. You find those in the Sun-settings. There you can increase resolution, increase/decrease smoothness and so on. Screenshot dump from the latest version --- Post updated --- Latest version out, hopefully less beat than the ones before! Contrast issue hopefully solved (if you thought the white/black balance was wrong before it was probably this) Install: * Open the Beamng launcher, hit Support Tools, Clear your cache. Dont start Beamng. -Alternative to this is to go to your Documents/Beamng.drive-folder and delete the latest cache-folder, at the moment its called "cache.0.20.1.2". That way you wont loose as much stuff as compared to the Clear Cache-option. * Unzip the folders and the postfxpreset-file from the AL5.zip into your Documents/Beamng.drive-folder so that you get the folders called Art, Core, Levels, Shaders and the AL5.postfxpreset-file into your Documents/Beamng.drive-folder * Open Beamng, click Options from the main menu. Make sure you have advanced menus activated to see the POST FX button. * Scroll down so that you see the POSTFX button. Click it. Click 'Load Preset...' and look up the file that was in the AL5.zip. should look something like this: 'C:\Users\YourUserName\Documents\BeamNG.drive\AL5.postfxpreset' , that way you also know youve extracted the folders and file correctly. * Make sure you activated light rays, its check box is above the POST FX button. Done! EDIT 2020-08-18: the levels folder in AL5.zip has been updated to the one released on page 3. No need to download that now.
Thanks for the shadow part.. I also didnt like those shadows lol. Also where is 4? I only see 3 and 5 lol.
Since you provide us with edited levels and im not the only one having low res shadows, consider doing a v.2 for crispier shadows, just a suggestion, downloading the 5th AL rn, appreciate your work as a graphic geek. Edit: What do you think about exposure = 2 on Italy, it's kinda works don't you think
Mod (speaking about AL5) is HUGE FPS eater. Screens without (left) and enabled (right). (Just spawned car at Grid map)
This is probably obvious, but where do I find sun-settings? I looked at the new and old world editors and can't find it
Thanks --- Post updated --- Yeah I went down 30ish fps also, from around 70, (although my monitor only runs at like 40)
Ill come back to the posting and answer you all in a while but for now ill post an addition to the AL5, should bring fps up slightly (very slightly) and take away some of the brightness, as i didnt like a few of the overblown stuff Install: Extract the levels.zip into your Documents/Beamng.drive-folder so that it overwrites the current files in the levels-folder. Go into your latest cache-folder (still named "cache.0.20.1.2") and delete the folder called levels, that way the game reload only the levels, now with the latest small change. Done EDIT: OBSOLETE AND FILE DELETED. AL5.ZIP ON PAGE 2 IS UPDATED SO THIS FILE IS UNNECESSARY.
