CoD screenshots (merged)

[Dude27]

Actually, the new ones are MUCH better, good global lighting, REALISTIC WATERS for this weather... maybe with a little more contrast overall but colors and global lighting are also MUCH more realistic and no more "GAMEY"!

Yes, ocean from this altitude doesn't have reflections like a windless lake and colors are also less cartoon (overdone tints) and much more realistic. Cloud are much more real now with an expected shade from gray to white instead of the old horrible magenta to white tint.... all in all, the new graphics are a very nice evolution in the REALISTIC looking way... Really, I don't know what you want: a simulator which look like a (old) game or a simulator which look like real weather and lighting? At least in this dpt, I see a real improvement on these new screens.

Originally Posted by Jaws2002

Yeah.
Identical screenshots taken in older versions have much larger size. And the difference is very easy to see. In the latest versions you have very washed colors and no reflections. I'm not even talking about the latest beta/apha thing. This one is even more messed up. so let's let this one out.

(this shots have been resized so they don't pass the 1MB in size limit for my free photobucket acount, so don't worry about the size)
New version:



older version:





New version:



Older version:

[addman]

I have to say, that the lighting we have right now is IMO better then what we had before. It just seems more naturally realistic then the quite over-done effects in the first version of the game. I think it's a matter of taste rather then "this is better than that etc" type of thing. For me, the earlier versions the water was too reflective, didn't look realistic, like previous poster said it looked "gamey".

[MBF]

Originally Posted by Dude27

Actually, the new ones are MUCH better, good global lighting, REALISTIC WATERS for this weather... maybe with a little more contrast overall but colors and global lighting are also MUCH more realistic and no more "GAMEY"!

Yes, ocean from this altitude doesn't have reflections like a windless lake and colors are also less cartoon (overdone tints) and much more realistic. Cloud are much more real now with an expected shade from gray to white instead of the old horrible magenta to white tint.... all in all, the new graphics are a very nice evolution in the REALISTIC looking way... Really, I don't know what you want: a simulator which look like a (old) game or a simulator which look like real weather and lighting? At least in this dpt, I see a real improvement on these new screens.

I concur. The new screenshots are way better, the water in particular looks fantastic.

[Jaws2002]

Originally Posted by Dude27

Actually, the new ones are MUCH better, good global lighting, REALISTIC WATERS for this weather... maybe with a little more contrast overall but colors and global lighting are also MUCH more realistic and no more "GAMEY"!

Yes, ocean from this altitude doesn't have reflections like a windless lake and colors are also less cartoon (overdone tints) and much more realistic. Cloud are much more real now with an expected shade from gray to white instead of the old horrible magenta to white tint.... all in all, the new graphics are a very nice evolution in the REALISTIC looking way... Really, I don't know what you want: a simulator which look like a (old) game or a simulator which look like real weather and lighting? At least in this dpt, I see a real improvement on these new screens.

I think it is exactly the oposite. A lot of people want the a ww2 game to look like a grainy 60 years old ww2 film. The world around us is colorful and live. I see this in a lot of sims and games pretending to make it look "autentic" by throwing a grainy filter over everything. Just because most of the images videos we see are black and white, or at best with washout colors, it doesn't mean the world was black and white back then.
Most of the oceans on this planet are BLUE. This is how light works. The color we see is te results of a multitude of factors and two important ones are Reflected blue sky and scatering of light through the water. both this effects make things blue. In some areas of the globe the water is indeed green, but the sky is still blue and the reflection of hte sky will give it a bluish tint.
Overcast skies make most bodies of water look green, gray. This was well depicted in the early versions:

The same water is green under the clouds and blue under the blue sky with the sun, when the sun is behind you:

green and choppy under overcast sky:



bluish under clear blue sky, with the sun somwhere behind:



Anyway, those clouds reflections only hapeened under certain conditions when the sun(light surce) was in certain position and from certain altitude.
In the first version of the game those reflections were not so strong anyway. As i already said, those were in a version that added too much blue tint.
Do this quick search in google photos "clouds reflected in the sea". You'll see plenty images, (many of them taken with high quality cameras) that capture the effect perfectly.

The sun at sunset doesn't behave like it is, a light source pointing towards us through a thick layer of dense lower athmosphere, but like a cheap HDR effect placed on top of things. The sun rays at sunset are red/orange, not grey.


The thing is tho, in the original lighting engine, the light behaved naturally and dynamically and influenced the colors of the things around us, differently depending on the conditions at the time.
Now almost all that dynamic part of the lighting engine is gone.

[scotchegg]

Originally Posted by Dude27

Actually, the new ones are MUCH better, good global lighting, REALISTIC WATERS for this weather... maybe with a little more contrast overall but colors and global lighting are also MUCH more realistic and no more "GAMEY"!

Yes, ocean from this altitude doesn't have reflections like a windless lake and colors are also less cartoon (overdone tints) and much more realistic. Cloud are much more real now with an expected shade from gray to white instead of the old horrible magenta to white tint.... all in all, the new graphics are a very nice evolution in the REALISTIC looking way... Really, I don't know what you want: a simulator which look like a (old) game or a simulator which look like real weather and lighting? At least in this dpt, I see a real improvement on these new screens.

Totally agree. Waiting for the full patch myself, but going on the top two pictures, the sea in the first one looks much more natural and less 'rendered'. Obviously will have to wait to see it in motion, but from that picture it's the best simulation of the water in the Solent I've ever seen, and growing up near Southampton I've seen it enough.