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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Feedback: Shade/shadows are too dark
Milotrix
Member, Founder, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
So I don't know if this will get changed later, but from in-game footage of showcases and developmental updates I have seen, whenever it is a bright day with sunshine, the parts that are shaded due to trees etc are way too dark. It looks as if there is barely any ambient light in those shaded areas.... which is not what happens in real life.
In real life, when light hits the ground, walls, trees etc, it bounces and scatters, illuminating even shaded areas, just not directly.... but the way it is now, looks as if shaded areas are almost completely dark, as if it is night time.
It feels like in places where there is sunlight, it is overexposed, while in places where it is shaded, it is underexposed.
Edit: It's not just about being realistic, it is about being ergonomic. If the in-game weather is sunny and bright, your eyes are adjusted to that brightness, then suddenly you pass under a tree and it goes dark, you will struggle to see properly.
Towards the end of the Priest showcase, where they are standing in a high building looking down below, there is a stack of stones, a corner remnant of a building that once was there and it casts a shadow, and you can barely make out anything that's within that shadow, even though you are looking straight down at it and it is a bright sunny day.
Additionally, the constant adjustment that our eyes will have to do from high brightness to deep darkness will strain the eyes. Especially for those who don't have 20/20 vision.
Edit 2: Vaknar (staff member) has responded mentioning that game is still in alpha stage so lighting will be adjusted. I can completely appreciate that the game is still in alpha, just wanted to point this out just in case, because I've played games where the lighting and things like motion blur were so bad that it gave me eye strain and headaches to the point that I couldn't play the game. So I hope AOC will take the ergonomic aspect into the game, and not just how it looks visually.
In real life, when light hits the ground, walls, trees etc, it bounces and scatters, illuminating even shaded areas, just not directly.... but the way it is now, looks as if shaded areas are almost completely dark, as if it is night time.
It feels like in places where there is sunlight, it is overexposed, while in places where it is shaded, it is underexposed.
Edit: It's not just about being realistic, it is about being ergonomic. If the in-game weather is sunny and bright, your eyes are adjusted to that brightness, then suddenly you pass under a tree and it goes dark, you will struggle to see properly.
Towards the end of the Priest showcase, where they are standing in a high building looking down below, there is a stack of stones, a corner remnant of a building that once was there and it casts a shadow, and you can barely make out anything that's within that shadow, even though you are looking straight down at it and it is a bright sunny day.
Additionally, the constant adjustment that our eyes will have to do from high brightness to deep darkness will strain the eyes. Especially for those who don't have 20/20 vision.
Edit 2: Vaknar (staff member) has responded mentioning that game is still in alpha stage so lighting will be adjusted. I can completely appreciate that the game is still in alpha, just wanted to point this out just in case, because I've played games where the lighting and things like motion blur were so bad that it gave me eye strain and headaches to the point that I couldn't play the game. So I hope AOC will take the ergonomic aspect into the game, and not just how it looks visually.
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Comments
I’m from the woods, those show cases aren’t that far off.
To a degree perhaps, except things in real life are still far easier to see compared to looking at things in a game through a monitor... it makes it difficult to see things clearly... which would not be as difficult to see in real life.
Also in real life you are not switching between different amounts of light as frequently as you do in a game, and switching frequently with such high variation between light and dark will straight the eyes....
ergonomically speaking, it is better to make those shaded areas lighter.
It's not about being realistic, it is about ergonomic. If the in-game weather is sunny and bright, your eyes are adjusted to that brightness, then suddenly you pass under a tree and it goes dark, you will struggle to see properly.
The constant adjustment that our eyes will have to do from high brightness to deep darkness will strain the eyes. Especially for those who don't have 20/20 vision.
Could be quite a few things tbh.
Though i will say in the areas that are fully shaded I can agree those areas feel a bit lacking do tot he lack of light not allowing the materials to pop and feel different from one another. Though I wouldn't expect tweaks on everywhere in a world as big as they are aiming for until much later on. They will most likely get everything working and than go over.
There will be a time where they will have time to do more beauty passes and get things where they want.
Yea I can fully appreciate that the game is still in beta and that they are still in the process of touching things up, which is why I wanted to point it out now while they are still working on it, before it is finalized
A shadow should be dark from a far. But if you're standing in a shadow, that shadow should lit up some.
Not only does this have the potential to give players eye strain and headaches, but it is also highly unrealistic. If you sit under a tree or awning on a sunny day it isn't pitch dark in the shade. Even in my own home I generally turn the lights off and open the blinds to let in sunlight during the day and the visibility is fine.
Even still, your feedback is much appreciated!
How are HDR monitor options are usually handled in live captures? Could everything look fine on a HDR screen but then too contrasty in the encodings (and streaming compression)?
I dissagree that the shaded areas should be more grey. Shadows are almost never gray, it's just a darker shade of the color. Like in a forest, where most of the colors are different shades of green and brown, the shadows gets a darker shade of all the colors that's in the forest but it doesn't turn grey. Adding grey would make it look washed out. Even snow doesn't turn grey in the shadows, it's usually more blueish depending on the light.
The reason why it looks unrealistic is because the ingame camera is more comparable with how an actual irl camera works. It's not as complex as our eyes, which has a wider dynamic range and can see more contrast than a camera can. That's why we can see both bright and dark areas in the same view whithout turning those areas either overexposed or underexposed.
A camera on the other hand, will have to overexpose the bright areas in order to make the darker areas visible and vise versa.
Hopefully they will make this right before launch.
yes I completely agree that when it is light, it is overexposed, and when it is shaded, it is underexposed. Thank you for pointing that out.
Also I just meant "more grey" the sense that it shouldn't be as dark, not literally grey