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

[JG27_PapaFly]

Originally Posted by winny

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]

Originally Posted by JG27_PapaFly

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]

Originally Posted by winny

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]

Originally Posted by JG27_PapaFly

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]

Originally Posted by winny

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]

Originally Posted by bongodriver

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.