Lightening the Map

[Formaldehyde]

Can anyone from the HW graphics development side of things (all one or two of you) say anything about how the ground textures work, and how that darkening effect works?

[Hook]

I'm trying to get my head around a few concepts here.

The whole idea of changing gamma making the whole program run slower is just too strange.  If you believe such a thing is even possible, then do some research and find us some proof.  Microsoft might have something in its knowledge base about it, if it exists.

Also, the idea of "the game is too dark so I'm going to lighten 1276 dds files rather than run a gamma utility" is way beyond belief.  Now, far be it for me to discourage you from taking on such a herculean task, but surely you know JMM can change it with just a few lines of code, right? I've requested a gamma slider in the game for this some time ago, and it's somewhere in the priority list.  

In the mean time you can use Gamma Panel to switch between what you use for photos and what you need for the game.  At least you don't need to mess with other settings anywhere to get the game looking better, and you can go back to the normal settings quickly and easily.  

For what it's worth, a lot of us have highly tweaked our monitors for photo editing.  I don't want to lose my tweaks either.  I understand your problem on this.  But I saved the "normal" setting as a profile in Gamma Panel so I could go back to my default, and have a "high gamma" setting for the game.  Gamma Panel sits on your task bar and you can click on it and select one of these two settings very quickly.  Actually, I'd rather have it there than in the game.

Hook

[Formaldehyde]

Herculean tasks are my specialty.

Why should anyone have to change a gamma setting to adapt to a game?  I'd rather change the files necessary and be done with it for as long as I like.   It looks to be 1-2 graphic files, anyway (judging from the marks on the ground revealed by the alpha layer).  Not too much to fix.

This would be the first time I've been dissuaded from modding something.  If I want to make my crazy, realistically colored grass that doesn't strain your eyes I'ma gonna do it. 

[Hook]

Why should anyone have to change a gamma setting to adapt to a game?  I'd rather change the files necessary and be done with it for as long as I like.

If the gamma is ever changed for the game, whichever files you change will be too light.  Save copies of your old files.

Am I the only person here who remembers games having gamma sliders to adjust the gamma in-game?

Hook

[Formaldehyde]

This is something that is coded anyways.  I just drew the file numbers onto every DDS and viewed them in game.  The dark textures were over the stock grass, but didn't show as a file that was in the "T_Base" folder.

I remember the gamma sliders for certain games in the 90's and even with certain modern FPS games.  I'm not dead set against the idea of changing the gamma, I just really would rather not do it that way.  I enjoy tinkering with game file anyhow, so it's a challenge.

[Ras]

I'm trying to get my head around a few concepts here.

The whole idea of changing gamma making the whole program run slower is just too strange.  If you believe such a thing is even possible, then do some research and find us some proof.  Microsoft might have something in its knowledge base about it, if it exists.

Also, the idea of "the game is too dark so I'm going to lighten 1276 dds files rather than run a gamma utility" is way beyond belief.  Now, far be it for me to discourage you from taking on such a herculean task, but surely you know JMM can change it with just a few lines of code, right? I've requested a gamma slider in the game for this some time ago, and it's somewhere in the priority list.  

[..]

Well, Modders are crazy people. You'll notice soon enough. 
I can't reproduce the performance hit by gamma on my machine. It must've been some major glitch in the game or my system. I did some research and found no indication that adjusting gamma has a noticeable influence on the performance of an application.
So, atm I'm back to gamma adjust plus I've recalibrated my Monitor. I'm still not 100% satisfied and it's good to know that you've requested a gamma slider in game.

This is something that is coded anyways.  I just drew the file numbers onto every DDS and viewed them in game.  The dark textures were over the stock grass, but didn't show as a file that was in the "T_Base" folder.

I believe it could be a shadow effect? Turning shadows off on my machine doesn't make any difference, though. 

[Stoppelhopser]

Any advances in this area?

Just got the full game yesterday after much thought. Works decidely better than  the demo1 and so far I like it.

However I think that the terrain is still much too dark. It's the single most disturbing graphical feature to me. Even on overcast days or in the early evening it's simply too dark.

[AJ]

Google and download, Gapa.exe, a nifty little program that lightens your gamma setting for the game and the game only

[Hook]

Copied from my original post:

You can fix the dark screen with a free utility called Gamma Panel.  I'm using it myself now.

Basically, it sits on the task bar and you click on it and select a gamma profile.  You set the profiles up when you first run the program.  I made one called "Normal" and another called "High gamma".  I've got Normal set to 1.0 and High set to 1.3.  It's very quick and easy to switch between them, and doesn't interfere with anything else.

Download links:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/Gamma_Panel_d2796.html
http://download.cnet.com/Gamma-Panel/3000-2094_4-10703616.html

Enjoy.

Hook

[Gunner24]

Any advances in this area?

I think the question was more about if HW have any intention of doing this - in game ?.

I used this gamma thing, but I must have been doing something wrong because I had to re-set it every time I turned on my pc, which is not a lot of use.

[Hook]

I think the question was more about if HW have any intention of doing this - in game ?.

No.

I used this gamma thing, but I must have been doing something wrong because I had to re-set it every time I turned on my pc, which is not a lot of use.

This is a feature, not a bug.  It does not reset the gamma on your video card, and you wouldn't want it to.  You can do that yourself with your video card if you wish.  A lot of people have their monitors and video cards highly tweaked and don't want that to change.

I reset mine a lot more often than you do.  Every time I start the game, I set it high.  Every time I quit the game I set it back to normal.  The good thing is, I now have a way to set it for every other game that's too dark without changing my monitor or video card settings.

Hook

[Gunner24]

I agree it's a usefull bit of kit, I'm not too unhappy with the "dark" colour so I can live with it.

In an ideal world the game would generate a little lighter colour but no big deal really.

[Stoppelhopser]

Thanks for help gentlemen. Got the utility and start playing around with it.

Nevertheless I wonder if this is a design decision and/or if there is possibly a code fix. Maybe the sun energy for the 3D environment engine is defined too low?  Some textures themselves also look quite dark when looking at them in a graphic program. However I hardly have any knowledge about game engine code etc so I better shut up  .

[TC237]

Hopefully we can get a "fix" via patch or mod.

Until then thanks for the link to the Gapa program Hook, great idea about presets!
I made a batch file that can quickly start the game and Gapa, allows me to "one click" change my Gama:

-Download the Gapa program (Hook's links) and place the gapa.exe file in your HistWar folder (C:\HistWarGames\HistWar)

-Set Gama settings in Gapa: make 2 Presets with a Hotkey for each, one Preset with Gama 1.3 (G key, I named HistWar) and one the Default 1.0 (D key)

:note: I used "G" and "D" as hotkeys for no real reason, just as an example, if there is a better choice let me know

Now make a batch file:
-Make a new text file (right-click in the Histwar folder, select New->Text Document)
-Inside the text document paste:
C:\HistWarGames\HistWar\gapa.exe
C:\HistWarGames\HistWar\HistWar.exe
-Save and Exit
-Rename the text document: HistWarStart.bat
-make a shortcut, place on desktop

To start Gapa and Histwar...double-click on your desktop shortcut for HistWarStart.bat
HistWar should start and you should see the Gapa icon on the taskbar
Hit the G key, your screen should brighten
Play Game........End Game.....Hit D key to reset Gama

....something like that....I'm not a programmer so please advise  

**one problem** with Gapa running, the G or D key is disabled when typing, etc...so Exit from Gapa after use (I was going crazy trying to find out why my post was missing G and D  )

[Hook]

I have my hotkeys set up as control-alt-[ and control-alt-] which don't interfere with anything else.  My biggest problem in the beginning was starting the game and forgetting to set the gamma first and I didn't have hotkeys assigned.  Now I can hotkey any time I wish, just gotta remember to run gapa before the game.

Hook