Color, contrast and luminosity

[leuhpoulpe]

Hey guys,

I'm particularly impress by all the stuff that have been shown but there is one detail that bother me a little, yes, it is the color, luminosity and contrast off all your screenshots/videos. I find them a bit "flat", there very little color and a very low luminosity, all that makes the whole thing less attractive as it should be (your work on textures is quite impressive), i've made some basic tweaks on your screenshots to show what i mean, here it is :

Original :

Edited :

Original :

Edited (it was a close to sunset scene, right ?):

Original :

Edited :

Original :

Edited :

I've only tweaked the luminosity, contrast, saturation and a bit of color balance so a post-process filter could do the same job ingame. Like it or not you have to admit that it totaly change the scene, even the sea looks more "alive".
In general it would be nice to give the possibility for the player to apply custom filters, look at skyrim, the amount of PPF is close to the number of players.

So, I guess that was all, once again i am truly impressed by all your work, it is hard to believe that you don't have a 30 people studio giving you a hand.

Bye

 

[Fawz]

A post about this was previously started and a poll was even made on the insider forums to further discuss this. The consensus seems to be that a bit more colour where appropriate should be used, but things shouldn't look unnatural. As it is there is also a limited amount of assets so we haven't gotten the chance to see many opportunities to create colourful settings. At it's core this is also a dark world and the visuals express that perfectly as is.

Madoc has said the following on colour vibrancy:

Games often use under saturated or over saturated colours. This is a stylistic choice but can also be an excellent way of masking poorly made graphics. Even photography rarely has natural colours these days.

We have a strong background in photo-realistic architecture (cultural heritage) and luxury goods and the aim is always high fidelity. Colours don't have to look good, they have to be _exact_. This is always how we work, as much as possible we try to create something indistinguishable from the real thing and colour is often more important than anything else. Also if you give someone who works in fashion or luxury cars the wrong colours they will crucify you.

With the notable exceptions of flowers and modern chemistry and manufacturing, vivid colours are quite rare but when they are appropriate we won't shy from using them.

The "world" is going to be relatively small in scale but we'll try to make it as varied as possible as long as it doesn't compromise realism.

At launch I don't think the game will have multiple colour settings the user can change to fit his needs as the game will be designed with 1 setting in mind. However I don't think it too far-fetched to assume some people will be able to apply colour enhancers (ENB, FXAA, ect...) to make the game look more in line with what they want/expect. It's often the case for many PC games lately and has become easier to accomplish. This is a homemade engine though, so who knows if current tools will work with it.

Your modifications to the screenshots look very good and you definitely have some skill when it comes to such modifications, I actually took some of them to use as wallpapers
But I for one prefer the default look for this game specifically. A few elements like the sea do look a little better as it highlights their existence, but if that's better in-game can only truly be known when actually playing the game. The game is set on an island so maybe having the sea always stand out so much gets annoying after a while, who knows.

I like the dreary dark look of mystery that portrays the Dark Low Fantasy setting of the game. In the end though I guess it's a matter of personal preference and that the Devs get the final word for the default game look.

 

[Parco]

i kinda like the original pictures, as they give you the feeling that you are in a dark world, i think giving everything a lighter picture would ruin this feeling a little bit. but good job anyway, lets see what other people think about this.

 

[leuhpoulpe]

I don't think a dark themed game should inevitably have weak color, for exemple the all mighty Planescape Torment is really colorfull but you still feel the sadness that the game show all along. Same thing for Fallout (the originals i mean), they use only few colors but strong ones and again you still have a really strong post-nuke feeling.

Sometimes a colorfull dark game is even more dark because of that, the contrast between the world and the story in Baldur's Gate is a good example, you travel through beautiful, colorfull environnement but it is not what you see. As exemple when you are at the entrance of the donjon of Lord Firkraag, when you meet the "paladins", it is the situation that give the mood, you do here a bloodbath in a majestic wild environnement, afterall all that matter is the bloodbath. It is to me far more powerfull, if the environnement was less generous you wouldn't be suprised, it would be normal, that's the contrast that makes the scene to me. *hoping that you remember the scene i'm talking about*

Anyway I really think adding contrast (i insist on constrast, i'm not talking of colors here) to the game would be a good thing, a too low contrast can prevent the player to feel "in", it gives that feeling that you are far away, seeing the scene throug atmospheric fog. Many "photorealistic" games make the choice of low saturation (color again ) and constrat, on that i disagree with Madoc, the world is colorfull, look at a simple tree, the green is far stronger than it is in most game. As exemple here is an Irish Beach :

The weather isn't particulary great but the colors are still really strong and the contrast high. I'm not saying that the game should look like that, it was just an exemple to show what i was talking about. ^^

Anyway, my modifications of the images where made to show what i was talking about, i have strongly tweak them to make my point clear, here is a compromise between the two version :

I think the dark ambiance that you guys where talking about is preserved and the "flat" thing a lot less visible.

PS : Thanks Fawz.

EDIT : I don't want to brag, but when i was scrolling fast through the topic I saw my edit of the temple and damn, he jump to my face, i'm dying of the wait to explore it.

 

[the0thMonkey]

I don't think the devs are going to be changing this any time soon, and as Fawz already mentioned, many people on this forum support that decision.

I do think mods that add visual enhancements (even relatively simple post-processing effects) will be developed very soon after the game's initial release, and I am totally in favour of that. If anyone wants a slightly higher contrast world, I'm sure it will be an option.

P.S. Your edited screenshots look nice, but so do the originals. As Madoc said, it's also a matter of artistic preference.

 

[Komuflage]

Personally I think that the world (in SG) do need a little bit more colour, as it looks a bit "flat" "Dried up", but I don't want it to look to Green, Bright and Happy. Like your first "Remake" of the beach looks a bit to happy, the second one looks better. I think the new van Helsing did it quite well, it looks a bit like eye candy, but still quite dark.

 

[Sneil]

II kinda like it, skyrim for example was very dark and dreary , too much so for my taste hat i made a custom enb mod that basically does the above.

I do think the edited screen you made of the stone fortress however is quite a bit oversaturated and looks quite bleh.. the original to me looks much more realistic.

 

[leuhpoulpe]

P.S. Your edited screenshots look nice, but so do the originals. As Madoc said, it's also a matter of artistic preference.

Totaly, it is all about personnal preference... and thanks. ^^

Sneil, you agree with who, i'm not sure.

I do think the edited screen you made of the srone fortress however is quite a bit oversaturated and looks quite bleh.. the original to me looks much more realistic.

Actually the edition was made with a sunset light goal (that's why it's all yellowish), if you look to the very long shadow it is probably close to the end of the day.
The original version has its thing but is everything but realistic. Barely green plantes (always the plants ) isn't realistic.

Anyway, for science (that's how i call myself), i've made two versions of the temple/fortress.

High Saturation (same as seen on the first post)

Compromise

Bleached

Original

Thanks for your feedbacks, it's interesting to hear what people prefer.

 

[Madoc]

With the outdoor screenshots a lot of the lack of colour is due to the fog which is way too heavy when viewed from this distance. The game view is much closer to the ground and fog is typically only just visible at the edges of the screen. The grey fog fades the whole image and washes out colours. We should adjust fog settings for these screenshots really.

This is what the colour is like from an actual in game view:

We did try a contrast / colour enhancing post processing filter. We actually find a noticeable increase in colour kind of disturbing when seen in game. That said we also use professional high colour gamut screens (it's essential that we work in an accurate colour space) and many cheap panels look very washed out in comparison.

 

[leuhpoulpe]

With the outdoor screenshots a lot of the lack of colour is due to the fog which is way too heavy when viewed from this distance. The game view is much closer to the ground and fog is typically only just visible at the edges of the screen. The grey fog fades the whole image and washes out colours. We should adjust fog settings for these screenshots really.

We did try a contrast / colour enhancing post processing filter. We actually find a noticeable increase in colour kind of disturbing when seen in game.

The fog color is a hard thing to balance, the easiest way to do it is to have a dead band, like 10 or 15 meters in your case (view from the top), that way if the player is standing on a bridge or a cliff the fog will not make the scene look wierd. To me fog is more a pain than a good thing with an isometric/top view because you don't have to simulate the atmosphere with this little depth and it will do strange thing when the scene has different high points.

That said we also use professional high colour gamut screens (it's essential that we work in an accurate colour space) and many cheap panels look very washed out in comparison.

I do too, i have to for my work. And to me it is important to not only making true color things but to make things that looks good on most screens, i have two screens for that purpose (one with real colors and one that is a compromise) and every time i see my work on the screen of somebody else... well it is often disturbing.

A good way to avoid these troubles is to avoid too weak colors, the weakest the color is, the highest are the chances that it'll look wierd on a "cheap" screen. Same thing, a lot of screens has a too high luminosity so a high contrasts can be a good thing (for the dark area to stay dark). I'm telling this because on the screen i use when i come here your screenshots are very bleached (almost blueish) but also has very low contrast (even the close view one) and i've set this screen to be a compromise between excellent screens and common screens.

For my work i've finally choose to avoid things that have low contrast AND are bleached at the same time when i can exactly for that, it is frustrating but as long as the majority of player don't have acces to "professionnal" screens i prefer to play this card. That said it is a personnal choice, the example Komuflage gives seems really appropriate for SG to me, colors aren't strong but the contrast counterbalance.

Anyway thank you for your dedication to your project and its community, i won't bother you with this anymore.

 

[Madoc]

Unfortunately low quality screens aren't always just washed out but plain warped in one way or another. If they were anything like consistent we could just design software for low quality screens to provide the majority of people with something suitable. As it is we have to use screens that are "correct" in the hope that cheaper screens don't deviate too far from this supposed standard. Fortunately it seems the trend for abysmal quality screens may be ending, already you can get some pretty decent IPS screens very cheaply now.

I took that screenshot today, it was sunny and I had open double doors into our garden 1 metre from my computer screen. Looking at the two side by side, the balance of colours and saturation seemed perfect. Of course it's always a matter of preference and a stylistic choice. Personally while I do find more colourful images nicer to look at (and they would probably sell the game better) I much prefer the more muted colours when actually playing the game.

Also to consider is that those contrast enhanced images have completely crushed blacks. Shadows on a bright day are far, far from black. This would look ridiculous on shadows from large objects such as buildings or large trees. We are often surprised how much subtle depth there is to the lighting and how realistic this can make the game look, this balance is very easily upset. You also just can't tweak colour and contrast on per frame basis. Some games employ a dynamic contrast ratio (I think mostly just first person view ones) but I find that extremely disturbing.

Ultimately I think you have to play the game to really get a sense of what it actually looks like. It's not very flashy but in its own way it's quite unique, you get a sense of depth that we don't normally see in games, sometimes it almost feels like you're wearing 3D glasses.

 

[Fawz]

Looking at first 1080p video that was shared with backers, the shadows do look especially important to the scene. With the awesome dynamic lighting we saw in the pitch video I think it safe to say that shadows are a very important aspect of the game. As such the compromise of better colors for unclear shadows doesn't seem fitting for Sui Generis.

Thanks for going in depth over the choice of visuals for Sui Generis