The Grass and Vegetation colours are too light: Yes or No

[*Buzzsaw*]

Salute

A lot of people have commented on the 'dayglo' look of the landscape in the game, there is a predominance of the type of lime green seen on hippie posters of the late '60's.

Anyone who has flown over England and France knows the real colours are much more muted and darker in tone.

What do you think?

Should the Developers adjust the greens towards the darker, more emerald side of the spectrum?

Or should they stay the same?

[choctaw111]

I haven't had a chance yet for personal one of one time with it, but in the movies I've seen, the colors look OK.
Hopefully other problems will be worked out first.

[Fritz X]

Looks great at dusk, dawn and night.

But the daylight environment looks a little too much like candy land. I for myself would greatly enjoy a darker shaded green.

[JumpingHubert]

ingame control of gamma, brightness etcpp would be nice.

[Jaws2002]

Nobody cares right now.

[PE_Tigar]

I wouldn't say we need it to be darker, but less saturated, a friend has just lowered saturation on his monitor and it looks much, much better.

[exile5121]

it could use a a bit of darkening, But really it does look -good- that said it could look better

[=XIII=Shea]

Yea it would be great to grass and vegetation darker,its to bright imoh

[ChrisDNT]

"Nobody cares right now."

Except the professional reviewing sites which say that the landscape in Clodo does not look like England.

But of course, this is not important.

[ChrisDNT]

"ingame control of gamma, brightness etcpp would be nice."

As I've repeated it almost everywhere for the past two years.

But of course, this is not important.

[NaBkin]

yes, much to colorful imho! why couldnt they take the WoP textures :(

[bongodriver]

Anyone who has flown over England and France knows the real colours are much more muted and darker in tone.

I have flown over the whole of europe practically, and I really don't find this green offensive in any way.

here is a pic of me flying over the actual Cliffs of Dover, check the green and tell me what you think.

[*Buzzsaw*]

I have flown over the whole of europe practically, and I really don't find this green offensive in any way.

here is a pic of me flying over the actual Cliffs of Dover, check the green and tell me what you think.

I think your picture speaks for itself, the green there is much more muted than the very dayglo lime green of CoD. If the game had the colours seen in your photo, I'd be quite happy.

[JG52Uther]

Colours look ok to me,and I live in the UK.Funny that a few weeks ago people were complaining about a particularly lurid green in one of the shots,while I was looking out my window and seeing a field the exact same colour!

[ChrisDNT]

"If the game had the colours seen in your photo, I'd be quite happy."

Yep, would be nice too to have a sea not so black !

[David Hayward]

yes, much to colorful imho! why couldnt they take the WoP textures :(

WoP is shrouded in an ugly greenish anti-epilepsy haze.

[Letum]

Yer, it's not right as it is.

[bongodriver]

Yes I see I didn't choose the best pic for any conclusivity to my case,

one more, this is not shopped I assure you, I am just trying to illustrate that on a bright summer day the colurs of kent are almost luminous...

[SsSsSsSsSnake]

WoP is shrouded in an ugly greenish anti-epilepsy haze.

I thought that too when i 1st played it but turning the ingame brightness to 50% made it look really good and its only the bob map that initially looked over green unbrightened,all the other maps were fine. i like the COD colours but would prefer slightly darker shades given the choice

[ChrisDNT]

"...that on a bright summer day the colurs of kent are almost luminous..."

but the sea is not black.

Btw, it's not a problem of intensity, it's a problem of color palette.

[*Buzzsaw*]

Yes I see I didn't choose the best pic for any conclusivity to my case,

one more, this is not shopped I assure you, I am just trying to illustrate that on a bright summer day the colurs of kent are almost luminous...

:)

Once again, I see two or three fields, with a particular type of crop, (can't say what it is, but obviously not natural vegetation) which is light green. (by the way, not as lime green as CoD) The rest of the vegetation, in particular the natural areas, is much more emerald in colour, much darker. So I think your picture is an argument for a change in colour.

[bongodriver]

Once again, I see one field, with a particular type of crop, (can't say what it is, but obviously not natural vegetation) which is light green

actually those fields are a bright yellow, the crop is rapeseed, which perhaps adds to my case, in real life those colours are much more intense.

all I am saying is.....is this really just semantics, can we not live with the green at least for now?

[Damixu]

The scenery over the merry old England at average fair whether day seems to be somewhat too bright and bland to be really credible.

[Triggaaar]

Monitors are factory set with too much brightness and saturation. Of those who'd like it to change, how many have recently had their monitors calibrated?

The landscape has changed since 1940 and I don't know what it was like then, but England is known for having a green and pleasant land, and it looks fine on my calibrated monitor.

[bongodriver]

The landscape has changed since 1940 and I don't know what it was like then

Everybody knows it was all monochrome, sometimes with a sepia tone :)

[baffa]

I think it needs to be a bit desaturated but it still looks pretty good as it is, they should definatly work on getting the game working first before changing the "small" things :)

[IvanK]

Rapeseed is a modern crop not around to that extent in the old dart in 1940

[RCAF]

I think it needs to be a bit desaturated but it still looks pretty good as it is, they should definatly work on getting the game working first before changing the "small" things :)

I think that having brightness and contrast sliders (which should have been in the game at launch!) would certainly be enough for now. It would be easy to implement in one of the earlier patches without detracting from more important efforts. Then they can worry about the actual colour palette later when the game is more universally stable.

[seacondor]

To me it looks like there is to much yellow and not enough green. Looks like it was a very dry summer. However I have the grass off at the moment so that might help.

[fruitbat]

Rapeseed is a modern crop not around to that extent in the old dart in 1940

not around at all in the '40s.

for the record, wheat never looks as light green as it does in the autum/winter, already (April) it has turned to a much darker green, and will stay like that until it turns goldern in late june/july.

i work on farms in south east kent by the way, amongst other stuff.

In bongodrivers second pic, which must of been taken towards the end of april early may, looking at the rape.

you can quite clearly see wheat fields (the dark green ones).

by the way, is that ramsgate i can see in the background, looks like your on approach for manston:cool:

[Ctrl E]

that lime green we see on most of the fields does not exist in real life. only in lime cordial.

[bongodriver]

spot on fruitbat, 8th of may, and yes it's Ramsgate, that is the Stearman based at Manston that I fly.

obviously I was not making any suggestion rapeseed was around, I just thought the general colour of that pic is not exactly a million miles away from the in game colours.

[fruitbat]

we each know someone thats knows each other i think, lol

one of the guys i fly with in the dangerdogz, lives next door to the guy that owns the flight school at manston and is friends with him, and he's walked around the hanger and eyed up that stearman!

we're going up to manston to have a walk around together soon:)

[RocketDog]

I live in the South West of England and do a bit of flying. From the air, the colours can be quite bright (more so than some simmers expect), but the acid green that CloD shows all over is actually quite rare. In fact, by late summer, there is quite a lot of brown as fields are harvested.

Wiltshire:

May
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v402/RocketDog/May29a.jpg

July
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v402/RocketDog/July25.jpg

July
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v402/RocketDog/July25a.jpg

August
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v402/RocketDog/August7a.jpg

August
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v402/RocketDog/August7.jpg

[bongodriver]

Yes I obviously know Mark and Sue at TG very well, from being a full time instructor with them and now I freelance, I only really fly the Stearman for them.

[bongodriver]

@Rocketdog.....that looks like Kemble in the last pic? have you seen a Learjet40 reg G-STUF? I used to fly that.

[*Buzzsaw*]

Salute

Well, its clear people would prefer a different shade of green for the landscape.

Hopefully, after the major issues relating to optimization have been solved, the developers will consider revisiting the colour palette they currently are using.

[Lixma]

Just changing the tree colour to something less 'tropical' will go a long way to curing the palette.

[sigur_ros]

Trees are the worst part, easily fixed by making them rich dark green, 2 second job in texture editor. *sigh*

[JG27_PapaFly]

Before everyone gets too excited about the "right" colors, bear in mind that the developers have probably used calibrated monitors, while 99.9% of players just use out-of-the box flat screens, which are too bright by default, have poor color gamut and a rather cold color temperature. Simply put, today's cheap, big TFTs are rubbish. I use an older, high-end, calibrated CRT and many different TFTs side by side and the difference is drastic.

Before any valid statement on colors can be made, monitors should be calibrated:
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/spyder2pro.html

TFTs that acutally have a decent gamut are really really expensive ;)
http://www.eizo.com/global/

[RocketDog]

TFTs that acutally have a decent gamut are really really expensive ;)
http://www.eizo.com/global/

Then perhaps the game's colour palatte should be designed to work with the monitors we have rather than the really expensive ones we don't?

[Romanator21]

...Because everyone's monitor is slightly different and nothing the team will do will look quite right for everyone. Additionally, on properly calibrated screens, things will look too dark.

But frankly, I think the CoD colors are fine as they are.

[JG27_PapaFly]

Then perhaps the game's colour palatte should be designed to work with the monitors we have rather than the really expensive ones we don't?

Color and gamma settings should be customisable ingame, but in such a way that nobody can draw advantages from some extreme settings in online gameplay.

Can't you customise some of the settings in your gfx driver specifically for this game? I use custom gfx settings for IL2FB in my nvidia driver, however i don't remember whether gamma and color settings can be changed.

[bongodriver]

Green is supposed to be such a 'calming' colour........

[jimbop]

Rapeseed is a modern crop not around to that extent in the old dart in 1940

Not too sure about this. Whilst rapeseed oil only became a human food after WW2 it has been used for industrial purposes like lubrication and as a biofuel (lamps etc) for centuries. I think it could even have been grown widely during the war for precisely these purposes but am not sure about this.

After WW2 the erucic acid was bred down to levels which made rapeseed oil fit for humans. Further refinements including the removal of bitter glucosinolates were done much later in the late 70's/early 80's to generate canola which certainly is a modern crop (and getting more modern with today's much more precise modifications).

[bongodriver]

http://www.farming-simulator.com/

just a thought.......I personally am here because I wan't shoot stuff in the air

[jimbop]

http://www.farming-simulator.com/

just a thought.......I personally am here because I wan't shoot stuff in the air

Not interested in historical accuracy?

[bongodriver]

Not interested in historical accuracy?

First I wasn't aiming at you......just in case I have yet again offended.

To an extent yes I want accuracy, but colour of grass discussions are getting silly, it is obvious that a majority a saying it needs to change.....thats fair enough, I'm all for democracy.

[doghous3]

Well, the first thought that came to mind when I looked down at the land was it was a bit bright compared to the typical green of the English country-side on a bright summers day.

But, there are more pressing matters. :p

[Scarf Ace!]

I don't know in what dreary, dry, and dark region of the earth most of you guys live in, but when I compare IL2's colours to the colours I see here in Switzerland, I'd say the grass and stuff is perfectly fine.

[jimbop]

First I wasn't aiming at you......just in case I have yet again offended.

To an extent yes I want accuracy, but colour of grass discussions are getting silly, it is obvious that a majority a saying it needs to change.....thats fair enough, I'm all for democracy.

No offense since I agree with your sentiment entirely. 'Getting silly', though? Discussions about the grass colour have been going on for months... Can be entertaining reading! ;)

[Korn]

Yes the greens are off...


I don't know what's with all the talk of monitor calibration & such. Yes most of us have cheap TN panels, sometimes badly calibrated. But when i can see photos / films and they look alright and Il2 doesn't i'm thinking maybe the problem it's not the monitor.

[fruitbat]

Not too sure about this. Whilst rapeseed oil only became a human food after WW2 it has been used for industrial purposes like lubrication and as a biofuel (lamps etc) for centuries. I think it could even have been grown widely during the war for precisely these purposes but am not sure about this.

After WW2 the erucic acid was bred down to levels which made rapeseed oil fit for humans. Further refinements including the removal of bitter glucosinolates were done much later in the late 70's/early 80's to generate canola which certainly is a modern crop (and getting more modern with today's much more precise modifications).

after speaking to several farmers about this who are all local to the area, and that i work for, they all said that rape wasn't grown in kent until well after the war.

[andmcq]

Yea, the daylight colours seem overexposed or something. It looks like happy marshmellow people are going to jump out and start singing a sing-a-long.

[engarde]

1C Maddox: Vegetation of Britain.

Gardens of Dover.

[bongodriver]

Can be entertaining reading!

can't argue with that...:)

[fruitbat]

hi bongodriver, check pm's;)

[RocketDog]

Color and gamma settings should be customisable ingame, but in such a way that nobody can draw advantages from some extreme settings in online gameplay.

Can't you customise some of the settings in your gfx driver specifically for this game? I use custom gfx settings for IL2FB in my nvidia driver, however i don't remember whether gamma and color settings can be changed.

This wouldn't be a good idea because the aircraft colours and sky are fine as they are, it's just the landscapes that are too bright and pale a green to match the real thing. If we adjust out monitors to darken the land, we will also affect the sky and aircraft.

I do a bit of gliding and I would described the South of England in summer as having greens that vary from bright green to dark green, with the trees generally appearing darker than the fields.

Again, here is the SW of England in late summer from about 2,500' and RoF's colours for comparison.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v402/RocketDog/102_2902.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v402/RocketDog/ROF2009-10-3023-18-16-78.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v402/RocketDog/rof2009-11-0223-16-07-16.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v402/RocketDog/rof2010-09-0521-55-45-10.jpg

[proton45]

I was watching a well known UK tv show, just as I was thinking about this issue. I guess that this is Jersey Island, but thats not far off the mark...

[II/JG54_Emil]

It looks to me personally a bit like in a cartoon.

If one would black+whiten all textures slightly, it would look perfect.

Bu this is only my personal opinion.

[MD_Wild_Weasel]

:)

Once again, I see two or three fields, with a particular type of crop, (can't say what it is, but obviously not natural vegetation) which is light green. (by the way, not as lime green as CoD) The rest of the vegetation, in particular the natural areas, is much more emerald in colour, much darker. So I think your picture is an argument for a change in colour.

these are rape seed fields, and go yellow as they flower during the early summer. Tbh , i see most of you commenting on how England should look , but you live elsewhere in the world. what exactly qualifies you to comment on how my great land should look like? It looks fine to me.

[Letum]

these are rape seed fields, and go yellow as they flower during the early summer. Tbh , i see most of you commenting on how England should look , but you live elsewhere in the world. what exactly qualifies you to comment on how my great land should look like? It looks fine to me.

As another Englishman....
It looks ridiculous to me!

As it has been said before, rape was not grown in the UK until well past the 50's and if you take the plkane down low, you will see grass, not rape rendering.

[MD_Wild_Weasel]

As another Englishman....
It looks ridiculous to me!

As it has been said before, rape was not grown in the UK until well past the 50's and if you take the plkane down low, you will see grass, not rape rendering.

try altering your moniter ,works a treat for all grass enthusaists:rolleyes:

[Remo]

Then perhaps the game's colour palatte should be designed to work with the monitors we have rather than the really expensive ones we don't?

And on whose screen are they to base the colours ? Your's or mine ?
Bacause the whole point is that the colour on the the cheap screens differ WIDELY !!!
They make colour profile fit your screen then the colours are dark and bland on mine or 90% of the other ppl. You say lots of ppl complain about the colours , but in truth I only see a few ppl that complain very loudly about it.

Dont complain about the colours unless you have a proper calibrated screen + neutral gamma + you passed a colour blind test .
If you pass the three criteria above (and have proof) , then by all means.

But if your are a typical games ( specially Shooters ) then your gamma is probably way to high. Adjust it in your graphics Drivers..
Also ppl tend to up their gamma to help them see on night missions , don't expect accurate colour saturation if you do , and don't complain if you did..

[RocketDog]

You say lots of ppl complain about the colours , but in truth I only see a few ppl that complain very loudly about it.


True. And we're mostly pilots who have flown over England ;).

[Flanker35M]

S!

Voted for a tad darker color. Not much would do it.

[Remo]

True. And we're mostly pilots who have flown over England ;).
I'm not saying your perception of the colour is incorrect, but I am saying you MIGHT be barking up the wrong tree when you blame the game for the bright colours.
As a note I'm a programmer that works with graphics and a lot of screens..
I say try to fix your screen/graphics settings 1st ..

[pupaxx]

I'm more inclined in something like this
5246

[Robotic Pope]

try altering your moniter ,works a treat for all grass enthusaists:rolleyes:

I have an explaination for everyone. In 1940 Grass rust was obviously a big problem ;)

http://overgrownlawn.com/lawncare,permalink,RustOnYourGrass

Turf rust is easily identified by the orange pustules on the surface of the leaves. Infected areas of lawn take on a generally yellow appearance with an orangey cast. Initial sites of infection on leaves are light yellow flecks that soon enlarge to form round to elongated pustules that rupture through the grass epidermis to release the powdery spores. Depending on the species, the spores may be red-brown, brownish yellow, bright orange or yellow.

[baronWastelan]

It was looking right 5 years ago. Did they throw all this out??

http://www.gamesaktuell.de/Storm-of-War-Battle-of-Britain-PC-132480/Bilder/Storm-of-War-Battle-of-Britain-Vorschauen-PC-710950/galerie/1058760/#?a_id=710950&g_id=-1&i_id=1058760

[JG27_PapaFly]

Here's one other issue: i see many have posted pics of the landscape in question, most of them taken with P+S cams.

I do lots of landscape photography as a hobby, above and underneath water. That taught me not only to calibrate my monitor, but also my camera! Determining the hue of the colors we see outside is a very difficult task.

The only way a cam is going to record colors that are anywhere near the real colors is by shooting in raw and developing the files in a raw editor that has been calibrated for your specific cam (u do this by shooting a test chart and letting a calibration algorithm analyse the output). This essentially provides a calibrated cam.
And there still is the issue of exposure: even with a calibrated cam, your colors will look very different if you over- or underexpose a little.

P+S cams are very bad in this respect: not only are they inaccurate at recording colors, they also oversaturate the recorded colors by in-camera processing before tossing out an 8bit jpeg image with a narrow gamut.

Oleg is a photographer, he knows of all these issues. I can clearly see that he worked really hard to get the looks right in this sim, and he deserves our respect for that. This truly is a piece of art and looks way better than anything out there, sim or not.

What I'm trying to say is this: the matter is much more complex than anyone would imagine. You also want to find a setting that interacts well with the game engine itself, with the way it renders and with color range limitations.

S!

[bongodriver]

It was looking right 5 years ago. Did they throw all this out??

just looks like a photoreal texture thrown over a basic mesh, photoreal is fine viewed from an altitude but down low it looks awful even if you liberally sprinkle it with objects and trees, COD has managed to find a way to look good from high right down to ground level (despite the shade of green they used)

[winny]

If your colours are wrong fix your settings.

This was done using only Contrast and Saturation. And can easily be achived with most Graphics Cards control panel

I've posted this before.
The very right hand side of this pic is the original

http://i822.photobucket.com/albums/zz147/winistrone/Greencopy.jpg

EDIT : Sorry it's the middle one that's the original, the right one has green channel turned up.

[bongodriver]

If your colours are wrong fix your settings.

This was done using only Contrast and Saturation. And can easily be achived with most Graphics Cards control panel

I've posted this before.
The very right hand side of this pic is the original

now that's an interesting result, what were your settings?

[winny]

now that's an interesting result, what were your settings?

For games I usually have high contrast and lower the saturation/gamma.

First I grab a screenshot and open it in Windows then have the graphics properties window open at the same time so I can get it right without having to switch apps.

It's not an exact science but my method is to take the colour out completely, increase the contrast so that things I know that are black in reality (Spitfire spinner for example) appear as black as possible without losing definition then gradually bring back the colour till you're happy.

You're desktop will probably look like s**t when you're done but just save it as a profile.

All this 'wrong colour pallete' stuff is not true. It's personal preference.

These are a result of only touching the contrast. No colour changes at all

http://i822.photobucket.com/albums/zz147/winistrone/Contrast.jpg
http://i822.photobucket.com/albums/zz147/winistrone/stripes.jpg

The lighter bands are the original.

If you are happy with the way it looks then fine if not, tweak.

[Jotaele]

I allways use in the nvidia control panel, the digital vibrance(saturation), i put it to the 30 %, then in the green chanel, i down the brightness to the 40% , i use abit more contrast too or less gamma.Try it, the game improves drastically.

[JG27_PapaFly]

These are a result of only touching the contrast. No colour changes at all

http://i822.photobucket.com/albums/zz147/winistrone/Contrast.jpg

The lighter bands are the original.


Problem solved.
Your shots also illustrate why Oleg chose a low contrast per default: he found a good compromise that displays the sunlit landscape and important details hidden in shadows. The instruments are pitch-black in the high-contrast image. Our eyes have a dynamic range that is far greater than that of any machine. In real-life, sitting in a plane we see both the landscape and the instruments without problems, and without having the feeling that there is no contrast. To achieve this in a game, or in photography, you have to lower contrast. IMO Oleg did the right thing here.

[machoo]

The landscape looks very good , the greens need to be desaturated though.

[winny]

Problem solved.
Your shots also illustrate why Oleg chose a low contrast per default: he found a good compromise that displays the sunlit landscape and important details hidden in shadows. The instruments are pitch-black in the high-contrast image. Our eyes have a dynamic range that is far greater than that of any machine. In real-life, sitting in a plane we see both the landscape and the instruments without problems, and without having the feeling that there is no contrast. To achieve this in a game, or in photography, you have to lower contrast. IMO Oleg did the right thing here.

I really pushed the contrast up high for that, more than I would acually prefer. But I do like my blacks black. CoD is a little too soft looking for my taste.

You're right about Oleg. It's a happy medium. People have different expectations of what they should see on a monitor. Some, because of the medium expect a photo-y version of the world on screen. You're wrong about the eye though. Look at a bright light and then stick something inbetween you and the light. It dosn't take a lot to get a silhouette. And even a bog standard camera 'sees' IR.

My real point is that to have so many people vote saying it's wrong on a developers forum when in fact it's got more to do with how they are set up locally than the actual software seems a bit, well, pointless.

[Macka]

As shown in the above pics, is one way to adjust the way you percieve how the land looks to you. The other is just use the game the way it was designed to and reflect terrain at differing times of day. The way we do in real life Aerial and Survey photography, Rule No.1: Sun Angle. Rule No. 2: Altitude... and a bunch of others I wont go into for fear of boring you all to death, all contribute to contrast on final images.. All the following screenies are in game shots with no monitor adjustments (only time of day changes). As a specialist Aerial Photo Navigator for the last 30 years I can say they (Devs) have made a pretty good replication of the way the terrain reflects the sun and reproduces the look. Here are examples of different times of day and hence different sun-angles reflecting back into virtual camera. Make sure you have your land shading setting on as well it makes a big difference.

Morning through to afternoon with default game time at the end
http://img859.imageshack.us/img859/5503/shot20110407190459.th.png (http://img859.imageshack.us/i/shot20110407190459.png/)
http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/6/shot20110407185042.th.png (http://img818.imageshack.us/i/shot20110407185042.png/)
http://img863.imageshack.us/img863/8316/shot20110407185018.th.png (http://img863.imageshack.us/i/shot20110407185018.png/)
http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/5205/shot20110407184832.th.png (http://img39.imageshack.us/i/shot20110407184832.png/)
http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/6977/shot20110407184601.th.png (http://img705.imageshack.us/i/shot20110407184601.png/)

Nothing too garish or contrasty about those except for default maybe borderline. So have a play with the times of day and you will probably find all is ok

[JG27_PapaFly]

You're wrong about the eye though.

Don't underestimate the abilities of our eyes m8. As a cancer researcher and biologist i assure you nothing beats our eyes! They reach a maximum dynamic range of 1:1.000.000.

Under normal conditions we still have a dynamic range of 1:10.000, which means i can still resolve details in areas that are ten thousand times darker than the brightest area in my field of view.

A monitor/camera is good if it reaches 1:1000 or 1:2000.

[winny]

Don't underestimate the abilities of our eyes m8. As a cancer researcher and biologist i assure you nothing beats our eyes! They reach a maximum dynamic range of 1:1.000.000.

Under normal conditions we still have a dynamic range of 1:10.000, which means i can still resolve details in areas that are ten thousand times darker than the brightest area in my field of view.

A monitor/camera is good if it reaches 1:1000 or 1:2000.

Which is why I have the contrast higher on my screens.

I'm not underestimating. Really, but practical experience tells me that the difference in colour between a good colour photograph taken on a good camera and real life is actually quite small and subtle.

Sometimes I read a post where people make out that a photograph can't be used a reference because it's not RL.. It's pretty close!

Anyway we should probably be comparing video cameras to the eye. No exposure time involved.

[JG27_PapaFly]

Which is why I have the contrast higher on my screens.

I'm not underestimating. Really, but practical experience tells me that the difference in colour between a good colour photograph taken on a good camera and real life is actually quite small and subtle.

Sometimes I read a post where people make out that a photograph can't be used a reference because it's not RL.. It's pretty close!

Anyway we should probably be comparing video cameras to the eye. No exposure time involved.

No. I'm afraid you don't understand the basics of contrast perception and display.
The image in the default game is already at your monitor's contrast limit. Load your images you've posted into photoshop and have a long good look at the histograms. The default shot has just a tiny little headroom at the bright end, and blacks are black.
The image with increased contrast is just darker. You dial in more contrast, but your monitor can't display that, and this transformy the complete instrument panel into a pitch-black mess. You'd have to switch on cockpit lights to read your instruments at noon on a sunny day, and that's something you just don't have to do normally IRL.

Video cameras, just like photo cameras, have exposure times.

[winny]

No. I'm afraid you don't understand the basics of contrast perception and display.
The image in the default game is already at your monitor's contrast limit. Load your images you've posted into photoshop and have a long good look at the histograms. The default shot has just a tiny little headroom at the bright end, and blacks are black.
The image with increased contrast is just darker. You dial in more contrast, but your monitor can't display that, and this transformy the complete instrument panel into a pitch-black mess. You'd have to switch on cockpit lights to read your instruments at noon on a sunny day, and that's something you just don't have to do normally IRL.

Video cameras, just like photo cameras, have exposure times.


I'm not here for an argument about how the eye works.

And don't tell me what I know about the basics of contrast perception and display, I'm talking about what I like, not what is right.

The only opinion I've given is that I like my blacks black. I haven't said that I think the default settings should be like the high contrast images I've posted. I think CoDs standard settings are perfectly ok. However increasing the contast, for me brings more colour depth to my monitor.

Because my specific monitor shows that the spinner on a hurricane looks greyer than it should and the Brown camo on it is not as rich as on a RL hurricane, I turn up the contrast. I'm not on about scientific stuff. I'm on about playing around with your settings till you're happy. Not jumping up and down at the delevopers.

I meant no exposure time in the eye. That's probably wrong too :)

[unreasonable]

As another Brit who was born and lived in Kent I agree with the posters who are saying that the vomit lime green is just wrong (as well as being disgusting). It is not even the colour of fresh grass. It especially not the colour of grass in late July/ August. You might see it in a very young crop, or immature rapeseed, but not at the relevant time of year. BTW I distinctly remember the first time I noticed a bright yellow rapeseed field from a train window, and it was sometime in very late 70s IIRC.

It is no use blaming us for having crappy illudjusted monitors - the fact is that other sims can get this right - as previous posters have shown with RoF screenshots.

Contrast, lighting etc I am very happy with - I hope CoD lives on, it will be a remarkable piece of work, but I would prefer not to fight back nausea every time I look at that green.

[ElAurens]

I'm talking about what I like, not what is right.



The entire problem in a nutshell.

In the old days of film cameras (My degree was in Photo Journalism) most people preferred the "look" of Kodachrome slide film over any other color film stock. It was no where near accurate, colors were way over saturated, etc... And every photographer that I knew back in the day would try to mimic the "Kodachrome look" that National Geographic made popular by manipulating camera settings and lighting as much as they could. Because it's what the audience wanted, even if it was totally unreal, and believe me it was unreal.

Now I work on antique cars for a living and have not thought about this in a long time. I'll let you know in ten days, when I get the game, how I think it looks on my monitor.


Knowing what I know about Oleg's photography background, I'm willing to bet that what we are seeing is the best compromise possible on the really poor monitors that the vast majority of us (myself included) are forced to use owing to cost constraints.

*EDIT*

What is default game time? Noon as in IL2 I would guess?

[Robert]

Looks fine on a CRT. On the LCD's I've seen the landscape looks like a different game.

[ElAurens]

Believe me, if there was a 24" 16:9 CRT that didn't cost as much as a Ferrari, I'd have one...

[baronWastelan]

just looks like a photoreal texture thrown over a basic mesh, photoreal is fine viewed from an altitude but down low it looks awful even if you liberally sprinkle it with objects and trees, COD has managed to find a way to look good from high right down to ground level (despite the shade of green they used)

I agree, the textures look fine, just the colors are too candy-land. But with all those golds and yellows, I can imagine I'm flying over California ;)

[BlackbusheFlyer]

Concur with many comments made above including Bongodriver, I have flown all over the UK over many years and the colours in the sim do not offend me. What I have seen change over the years is particularly in the south there is far less meadow and more planted crop.

I often had this argument in FSX, simmers seem to believe to be realistic you need to have fairly washed out colours. That just is not the case. England's fields on a clear sky day can be very vibrant and vivid (even more so than in CoD), when flying at 18,000 ft England is a patchwork of bright colour. Another belief is the sea should be very dark, in reality when the sun is out and winds are light it is largely sky blue.

I have been lucky enough to have spent most of my life flying and can only impart my observations.

[sigur_ros]

http://www.calendars.com/img/products/400X400/201100002379.pnghttp://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachment.php?attachmentid=5190&d=1301958818


Trees need to be darker, almost black.

[mazex]

If they just add a gamma slider I guess it all would be fine... As it is now it's not that hard so tweak the gamma a bit before launching though... As usual...

[David Hayward]

That "Rural Britain" photo was probably taken with a polarizing filter.

[Letum]

If they just add a gamma slider I guess it all would be fine... As it is now it's not that hard so tweak the gamma a bit before launching though... As usual...

nah, that would mess up the sky, cockpits, etc.
They are all fine.

[ChrisDNT]

"If they just add a gamma slider I guess it all would be fine... "


I repeat it since so long, "add a gamma setting in the game setup", so simple, but it is perhaps too much simple as a solution !!!

[machoo]

Salute

A lot of people have commented on the 'dayglo' look of the landscape in the game, there is a predominance of the type of lime green seen on hippie posters of the late '60's.

Anyone who has flown over England and France knows the real colours are much more muted and darker in tone.

What do you think?

Should the Developers adjust the greens towards the darker, more emerald side of the spectrum?

Or should they stay the same?

You can make the colors whatever you like by just adjusting them in the Nvidia ( or Ati ) controle panels. In the Nvidia controle panel under 'Display' under 'Desktpo settings' adjust the 'Digital Vibrance' slider. Mine is default at %50 - I moved it too %30. The colors are realistic now. You can't compare colors because everyones screen is different - it quite possibley looks completley normal on the developers screen too because they have the settings that are different to you.


See http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/3362/unledut.jpg (http://img59.imageshack.us/i/unledut.jpg/)

Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

[*Buzzsaw*]

http://i822.photobucket.com/albums/zz147/winistrone/Contrast.jpg

Problem solved.
Your shots also illustrate why Oleg chose a low contrast per default: he found a good compromise that displays the sunlit landscape and important details hidden in shadows. The instruments are pitch-black in the high-contrast image. Our eyes have a dynamic range that is far greater than that of any machine. In real-life, sitting in a plane we see both the landscape and the instruments without problems, and without having the feeling that there is no contrast. To achieve this in a game, or in photography, you have to lower contrast. IMO Oleg did the right thing here.

Sorry, I don't see your solution solving the problem, in fact what you are doing is creating an unreadable set of instruments in the cockpit.

Look at how black the cockpit is in your shots.

The fact is, this is a game, there is no automatic iris adjustment possible for your eyes to make when you look down at the instruments. The gamma levels have to stay the same for both the exterior and interior.

In real life your eyes adjust to give a proper exposure. The game doesn't.

Which means to get a realistic exterior/interior balance, the developers need to tone down the exterior colours to represent what would be seen by the eye. Right now they are leaving them at the type of iris opening level which an eye adjusted for the cockpit would see. So they look overexposed and washed out.

Game needs to be adjusted.

By the way, the vote in favour of a change is now 3-1.

[reflected]

France looks weird too. Here's a funny little comparison. It's amazing how one can find the exact some landmarks both in CloD and RoF! :cool:

http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/4632/18117602.jpg

http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/800/59994005.jpg

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/8085/47745638.jpg

http://img863.imageshack.us/img863/7996/42065368.jpg

Summer, same time of day (7:30 AM)

[rollnloop]

For these particular screenshots, i find CloDo's more realistic, by far.

Strange because usually i find RoF more enjoyable to my eyes.

[ATAG_Dutch]

For these particular screenshots, i find CloDo's more realistic, by far.
Strange because usually i find RoF more enjoyable to my eyes.

I'm not sure whether it was the latest version update to RoF or an updated Catalyst driver for my card, but the colours in RoF seem to have been toned down a heck of a lot for some reason. I don't like it as much as how it was either.

Anyway, thought I'd upload this picture of some green English grass on a bright sunny day.
It was taken on my phone, but it really was this luminous.
Also a shot of the CoD landscape.
Just goes to show I suppose.:grin:

[proton45]

I'm not sure whether it was the latest version update to RoF or an updated Catalyst driver for my card, but the colours in RoF seem to have been toned down a heck of a lot for some reason. I don't like it as much as how it was either.

Anyway, thought I'd upload this picture of some green English grass on a bright sunny day.
It was taken on my phone, but it really was this luminous.
Also a shot of the CoD landscape.
Just goes to show I suppose.:grin:

People complain about the color being to bright...but really, Oleg has got a very fine eye. His choice of color tone is really quite accurate for a bright day. I would love to see a study on color memory...it seems to me that most people prefer a "desaturated" color pallet, but I find it funny when people think its more realistic. War could never happen on a bright and sunny day...it just doesn't feel right (lol)

[RocketDog]

I'm not sure whether it was the latest version update to RoF or an updated Catalyst driver for my card, but the colours in RoF seem to have been toned down a heck of a lot for some reason. I don't like it as much as how it was either.


Quick note: in RoF the default colour saturation was reduced from 1.000 to 0.750 a few updates ago. I agree it looks too washed out. You can set it back to 1.0000 (or anything you like) by editing the startup.cfg file. There is a line saturation=0.75000, just change that to whatever you like. I set mine to 1.0000 and it looks much better.

[RocketDog]

Trees need to be darker, almost black.

Agreed, trees in the UK look very dark from the air. CloD's trees look a bit too "tropical".

[ChrisDNT]

Oh, come on, the problem is not really the shade of green, but the "pastel effect" when in the air (on the ground, it's pretty ok, they should have done a tank sim).

[ATAG_Dutch]

Quick note: in RoF the default colour saturation was reduced from 1.000 to 0.750 a few updates ago. I agree it looks too washed out. You can set it back to 1.0000 (or anything you like) by editing the startup.cfg file. There is a line saturation=0.75000, just change that to whatever you like. I set mine to 1.0000 and it looks much better.

Thanks Rocket, I'll give that a try.

Edit: Just tried it - much better, thanks Rocket!

Meanwhile, here's a shot of a tank for Chris, some UK 'Real Scenery' from FSX (which has no trees or grass at ground level, or any kind of shadowing, and is wholly dependant on the ambient light conditions when the satellite flew over) and a shot of a Heinkel which looks a little bare for some reason!

[2033cyborg]

yes it would really be better....
looks pretty good over the chanel...

[Jatta Raso]

well maybe if we had complete weather system that provided more dense clouding or even overcast, then much of the light of the graphics engine would be filtered and we'd get the intended darker colours...

[Smokeynz]

The poll should read, "how many calibrate their monitors" before making judgement on what is correct or not correct.

Then you need to make a personal judgement on if the question of what a scene looks like is of personal preference or design intension. The creator in all reality has final say.

Colour perception, contrast perception is really in the eye of the beholder, as we contrast adapt and colour adapt.

For contrast adaption, look at the pic in my sig, the grey bar through the middle is the same shade all the way across(if you don't believe me cover up the grey scale that surrounds the bar). As has been already pointed out in previous posts the human eye can adapt to two or more contrast situations, ie viewing from inside a room on a sunny day. A camera has to choose to set for outside or inside, but not both.
This is the same for video and picture production, although there are tricks, in the end the camera or video has to manipulate the image.

Colour adaption works the same way, a little more complex, however our perception of grey is actually based upon ilumination, the light source.
Problem is that we can be fooled with this as we adapt to make make white seem white, when the reality is a colour(greyscale) shift can be occuring.

Couple with this the concept of gamma. Gamma is actually a legacy thing derived from CRT designs. Although the effect CRT gamma turned out by chance to match the human vision response which is actully log in shape.

Gamma itself is a complex thing, too complex to go into here in brief, except changing gamma response alters your perception of colour, greyscale and contrast. The catch, if you mis match the settings from the creators setup you won't see what they intended.

The basic problem is this, without your personal computer system and screen calibrated to match standards of sRGB you will struggle to correctly describe colour, saturation etc. Gamma is typically set to 2.2, however CRT gamma is closer to 2.35
Computers, video graphic cards and monitors are quite varied in their ability to resond with "true" colour, hence why video calibration equipment exists.

I run a small video calibration business with international accreditation, although calibration is a quite large business world wide.

[Gamekeeper]

11 pages and nobody has posted real life and COD side by side:

http://mission4today.com/AWX/images/Capturecod.JPG http://mission4today.com/AWX/images/Capturecod2.JPG

http://mission4today.com/AWX/images/codcompare1.jpg
http://mission4today.com/AWX/images/codcompare2.jpg

[sigur_ros]

Calibration isn't going to magically make trees darker and denser compared with rest of landscape like real British countryside:

http://i.imgur.com/xi4Ae.jpg


Besides the desaturation, Wings of Prey gets very close to real.

http://i.imgur.com/gbf1x.jpg


And not so much CloD

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachment.php?attachmentid=5190&d=1301958818

[leggit]

totally and utterly subjective discussion. colour particually within a light and landscape context is constantly changing....there are NO correct range of colours....given some of the photographic evidence being used to illustrate different points of view....a number of people need to go and get their eyes tested.

[RocketDog]

totally and utterly subjective discussion. colour particually within a light and landscape context is constantly changing....there are NO correct range of colours....given some of the photographic evidence being used to illustrate different points of view....a number of people need to go and get their eyes tested.

I think it is not unreasonable to expect the game to attempt to reproduce what one sees with the naked eye when flying over the South of England. Arguments that if it doesn't, it's our fault, rather than that of the game are a bit contrived.

[ChrisDNT]

The two screenshots of SigurRos are cruel !

[ChrisDNT]

"there are NO correct range of colours"

Simple minds do not understand that if a boundary may be indistinct, it nevertheless exists.

[ATAG_Dutch]

11 pages and nobody has posted real life and COD side by side:

http://mission4today.com/AWX/images/Capturecod.JPG http://mission4today.com/AWX/images/Capturecod2.JPG

http://mission4today.com/AWX/images/codcompare1.jpg
http://mission4today.com/AWX/images/codcompare2.jpg

Excellent post if I may say so, and worth repeating.

[Katana1000S]

It does seem a bit too light/pastel shaded, but you cant argue with the picture comparison above I guess.

I've yet to see some of our dark dank miserable UK weather in the sim yet though, just enough to keep the aircraft flying and not grounded :)

[RocketDog]

The majority of the field colours aren't bad, although I have never seen the "acid green" colour that CloD uses for a minority of fields. The main thing CloD gets wrong is the colour of the trees. If the game is meant to take place in the late summer months of the BoB, then the trees should look darker than the surrounding fields. You can see in the above screenshots that WoP gets it right, but CloD makes the trees too pale and bright. The effect is quite clear in these images of Wiltshire in summer taken from about 2,000' - 5,000'.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v402/RocketDog/Club_Libelle_716/P1000007.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v402/RocketDog/Club_Libelle_716/P1000119.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v402/RocketDog/Club_Libelle_716/DSC01684.jpg

[ATAG_Dutch]

It does seem a bit too light/pastel shaded, but you cant argue with the picture comparison above I guess.


Maybe this shows the real reason for the colour pallette.

See Wellington Bomber thread for how Biltongbru modified it to his liking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjZ8kwQr1so

[Friendly_flyer]

The Wellingtons look "good on film" (actually very good), but the South English countryside in august, looks a lot more lush. The film looks more apprpriate for a hotter and drier (Spanish?) climate.

[David Hayward]

Besides the desaturation, Wings of Prey gets very close to real.


You can't be serious. The WoP image looks like crap. Everything is puke green.

[unreasonable]

+1 RocketDog

The trees in the London streets look OK because these are (IRL) mostly introduced limes and planes which do have a vivid pale/mid tone green leaf.

South of England forest and copse is oak, elm, hormbeam, beech etc.

If you compare the colour of an actual RL mature leaf from these trees to a lime or plane tree leaf they are much darker than the leaves of the immigrant trees (I know, ironic ;) ) and much darker than grass.

Those who are defending the colour choice seem to want to have it both ways: on the one wing they say that it is all subjective, so there is no right answer. On the other wing, they say that Oleg is jolly clever and so could not have got this wrong. Both these arguments cannot be right.

In this case he (or whoever) has made a mistake, easily fixable, with an options slider for tree albedo!

[ChrisDNT]

A gamma setup available to the end user, is it so hard ?

[ATAG_Dutch]

[QUOTE=unreasonable;261037Those who are defending the colour choice seem to want to have it both ways: on the one wing they say that it is all subjective, so there is no right answer. On the other wing, they say that Oleg is jolly clever and so could not have got this wrong. Both these arguments cannot be right. [/QUOTE]

I'm one of these people, and I think they can.

From earlier posts, the colouration at low level/ground level is very good indeed.

It's only as we gain altitude that it starts to look a little strange.

Even then, if you set the time of day to early morning/late evening in the game (with shadows) it looks superb.

It's the midday light conditions at altitude which look 'washed out' to some, including me.

Now I have no personal experience of looking at this particular 1940 landscape at midday in summer with no cloud cover in very low humidity, but would assume that any of these variables would significantly alter what we see with our eyes/brains, which of course is very different from what a camera 'sees' before the image is reproduced either on variable quality film or digitally.

What I do know, is that if the colour needs to be like this at midday in order for it to be as gorgeous as it is at sundown or sunup I'm willing to accept it, because that's when CoD is at its best.

I don't have WoP, but all I see in these comparitive posts is a world of very cheap sunglasses.

Having said all that, I do support the idea of some in game adjustment to compensate for people's personal preferences.

[MD_Wild_Weasel]

OMG you lot still ranting about grass? to much time on your hands or something?:rolleyes:

[ATAG_Dutch]

OMG you lot still ranting about grass? to much time on your hands or something?:rolleyes:

Yeah, I know. Work is very boring today.