beta patch atmosphere & lighting at altitude

[Baron]

Originally Posted by Sammi79

Hmmm are there really people here who think the game looked better before this beta patch? Might be time for an eye test guys... before the patch only the planes looked okay. Now the landscape and the planes fit together - it doesn't look like I'm flying over some patchwork middle earth anymore - the shoreline render is so much better it used to increase the size of rivers etc the further away from the viewpoint they were creating this odd archipelago effect at altitude - fixed. IMHO the game looks about 200 x better now and is easier to spend time on as a result. The haze effect is pretty realistic in my experience of looking out of plane windows - some days it is much much worse - what gives? Hope some more good work gets into the official patch before its released. The only difference in the OP pictures that makes people choose the old one is the exaggerated specular highlight on the weathering texture other than that the new pic is a clear winner.

Problem is that haze isn't suppose to affect everything. It isn't suppose to affect the ac it selfe or the landscape close to it/you. Haze is only suppose to be visible at distance. Unless we are talking about fog witch is another thing entirely.

As it is now they v hazed up pretty much everything, and toned down/ messed up dynamic lighting in the processes witch is incorrect. I mean, dynamic lighting was/is one of the BIG selling points of this game...no?

Seems to me some of you made the colour of the ground/landscape such a big deal you are willing to mess up everything else in order to get that part right.


Edit: The more i look at the 2 pictures and compare the more id say they v COMPLETLY ruined the dynamic lighting effect, and not by their own choice as i understand it, details in clouds, its just a grey blob in the middle now, are gone and so is the effect of bare metal. Hopefully there is a better way of doing it or that it will be improve. If not, id choose the pre beta version any day of the week.

[Sammi79]

@ Baron - I don't follow... the haze is an effect of distance, close objects are almost unaffected. In fact the OP pics the foreground objects are more defined in the post patch shot, the shadows are deeper, (dynamic lighting like) and the specular highlight is unchanged apart from on the weathering texture where it has been toned down (a little too much maybe). The extra haze (i.e you can no longer see unbroken waves on the surface of the ocean from 4km above is more realistic. The clouds are a bit brighter post patch but their detail level is unchanged. Anyway my opinions on the matter are not based purely on those pics but from flying the sim, I don't see any haze in the cockpit, the sun glare looks very realistic now, as do the shadows, all in all a much more satisfying experience. Still loads of bugs etc... but progress is being made.

Look, the landscape looked pretty terrible before especially the shoreline render and now it looks pretty good - wherein is the problem? The new sounds and revised graphics have bought me back to playing now and then instead of vaguely considering uninstalling for good. I would hope now that most people were happy enough with the cosmetic side of CLOD now to start worrying about the serious bugs, FM/DMs and additional content,as for me another graphical revision is unnecessary at this stage.

[Baron]

Just to avoid any confusion. The left pic is the "old" patch and the right is the "new" patch.


Judging by that i stand by my opinion.


Its pretty clear they have used some kind of filter that affects everything otherwise the ac would look identical on both pics. The shadows for example may be "deeper" (?) in the new patch but they are much more undefined, just look at the shadows cast by the canopy framing, its a complete blur.

But like i said if it can improve and bring back the foreground detail, the ac and dynamic lighting effects in particular, im all for it, however, something tells me that that might be impossible, its either or. (im no expert so im just guessing)

I dont know why they cant just tone down the ground colours but it really doesn't matter THAT much to me. Detail and lighting on objects closest to me etc does.

[Ekar]

Even if the blueish haze is somewhat of an allover effect, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Normal light during daytime is tinted blue in reality, so this is more realistic than what we had before. If CloD were a sim about sitting on the couch at night with only a desktop lamp to light the scene, the light would realistically be tinted a warmer colour.

I think the lighting we have now is miles ahead of what it was before. It may be hard to appreciate that through the image comparison in the original post, but running through the replies in the beta thread, it seems that most people really like the new lighting. This isn't a step backwards, not at all.

[philip.ed]

You'd never see a Hurricane like you see in that first picture. Look at those rivet and panel lines; you'd barely see them at that distance, let alone when standing right up next to the plane, so in this sense the new patch is a considerable improvement. The colours of the Hurri look a lot better too (IMHO the colours in general are far improved)
Yes, the bare metal doesn't seem to have the same level of lighting detail, but IMHO this is a small insignificance compared to the tangible improvement of the patch itself.