Sky Color Modders?

[LawnDart]

Awesome work as always Blaze & SE! I've always felt the colors in Lock On are a bit cartoonish, which is why I usually tweak my monitor to a less saturated setting. This will help!

 

Now, can I talk you into sharing those porta potties... One for Deuce! :megalol:

 

 

P.S. OT... Your airport signage is pretty close, but no cigar... there's one mistake I can spot.

[Aeroscout]

Love it! Where can I get it?

EDIT: Never mind. Found it. Didn't look at the attachment. I'm loving it. I don't mind the gray. Actually makes it more realistic, IMO.

 

Also, could you explain what you changed and how to do this in case any of us wish to tweak it in the future?

 

Thanks, and awesome job!

 

Aero

Edited May 20, 2010 by Aeroscout

[Liger Zero]

@Blaze:

 

Are you planning to release that airshow mod?

[Blaze]

:no: It's team-only, so to use it you have to be a member of VPJT. This thread is only about the sky-color mod.

Edited May 25, 2010 by Blaze

[omgamibig]

:no: It's team-only, so to use it you have to be a member of VPJT. This thread is only about the sky-color mod.

 

Good job on being part of the community. How about we start releasing mods for everyone not in VPJT? :rolleyes:

[Alper22]

I think problem is about clouds. Not the sky. Its allways blue. More realistic clouds can show us some good landscapes from air.

[SilentEagle]

Any way to get the horizon haze to look a bit less gray? Other than that; very nice indeed!

 

Blaze and I came up with a slightly less gray and purple sky and horizon.

 

Original:

 

V1.0:

 

V1.1:

[BlackSharkAce]

where can we download v1.1 ? looking good :)

[SilentEagle]

Get it at http://www.lockonfiles.com/index.php?/files/file/1650-deeper-blue-sky-v11/ or

Get it at http://files.lockon.ru/upload/iblock/518/DeeperBlueSkyV1.1.zip

 

Also Attached

DeeperBlueSkyV1.1.zip

Edited December 14, 2010 by SilentEagle

[BlackSharkAce]

lovely !

thanks !

[SuDepp]

THX!

 

Installed and running it :thumbup:

 

Greets

S@uDepp

[Bucic]

OK, years with the awful manga-like sky is enough of a motivation for me to dig into it. The problem is that I've read tens of posts and none of them clearly explains how to change RGB values. Tossing in a bunch of lines of code doesn't cut it.

 

The closest bits of explanation were supposed to be:

 

That's not really a fix, just a little ARTIFICE in the sky luminance.

 

The files are located at:

\Eagle Dynamics\Lock On\Bazar\Effects\SKY

sky_basic.dat

sky_new.dat

skyfog_b.dat

skyfog_v.dat

Open one file for time (using a text editor) and locate this section:

... omissis ...

;add r1.z,r1.z,c9.z ;r1.z=lumE*cos_gamma*cos_gamma+1

add r1.y,r1.y,r1.z

mul r1.x,r1.x,r1.y

mul r1.y,r1.x,c17.x ;r1.y=luminance

;-----------------------------------------

... omissis ...

make these changes:

... omissis ...

;add r1.z,r1.z,c9.z ;r1.z=lumE*cos_gamma*cos_gamma+1

add r1.y,r1.x,r1.z

mul r1.x,r1.x,r1.y

mul r1.x,r1.x,c17.x ;r1.y=luminance

;-----------------------------------------

... omissis ...

and save it.

 

 

and

 

For those who'd like to experiment:

try changing

 

to

 

Then c11, c12 and c13 respectively. You'll get exact color coefficients to deal with.

 

what it is:

x component is red

y - green

z - blue

 

So, if you want the sky color to have 50% less blue component (for example), add the following:

 

before the line

 

Not quite beautiful, but something to start with ;)

 

None of the quotes contain the right explanation. If anyone has the knowledge please reply and be specific.

 

- which lines?

- which values?

- what value correspond to what value in RGB code, respectively?

 

Anything less than that is not really helpful.

Edited November 25, 2010 by Bucic

[joker62]

OK, years with the awful manga-like sky is enough of a motivation for me to dig into it. The problem is that I've read tens of posts and none of them clearly explains how to change RGB values. Tossing in a bunch of lines of code doesn't cut it.

 

The closest bits of explanation were supposed to be:

 

 

and

 

 

 

None of the quotes contain the right explanation. If anyone has the knowledge please reply and be specific.

 

- which lines?

- which values?

- what value correspond to what value in RGB code, respectively?

 

Anything less than that is not really helpful.

 

Sorry, but I can't help You. When my work was finished I deleted all researches.

I haven't updated my work for DCS BS becasue I'm satisfied of this sky, ... and soon will have good improvements in the sky, that already are in DCS DCS A-10. Not perfect, but good for me.

As You've found, better informations are in SkyColorMod 1.0.zip. At present, I use my very short free time only to fly BS.

 

Best regards.

antonio (mitch789 was my old username).

sky artifice - general notes and screens.pdf

sky artifice coverage.pdf

[Bucic]

Thanks joker, but the pdfs don't contain enough information either as to how manipulate RGB settings. Just which lines to modify and few examples...

[joker62]

Thanks joker, but the pdfs don't contain enough information either as to how manipulate RGB settings. Just which lines to modify and few examples...

 

Bucic,

 

I've tried to remember my work.

Attached are 3 screens of modified sky_basic file, just as example:

 

sky_basic - 01.jpg

note here the values for RGB conversion

 

sky_basic - 02.jpg

here I've made changes in luminance parameters (sorry, but You must check changes in each file into SkyColorMod 1.2 final package.zip to understand, because I deleted my notes and records. example:

add r1.y,r1.y,r1.z > add r1.y,r2.x,r1.z

 

sky_basic - 03.jpg

here I've made changes in RGB (see note upon). example:

dp3 r0.x,r1,c10 > dp3 r0.x,r1,c11

dp3 r0.y,r1,c11 > dp3 r0.x,r1,c11

dp3 r0.z,r1,c12 > dp3 r0.z,r1,c11

 

Remeber to apply these changes in each file: sky_basic.dat, sky_new.dat, skyfog_b.dat, skyfog_v.dat, and to check each time the result in the sim. I don't known is these files are also in DCS BS. I don't more worked on sky.

 

That's the best I can do for You. Hoping this can help.

 

Best regards.

antonio

[Bucic]

I still have no track to pick up and stay on. I don't want it to sound bad but everything you wrote so far is evident just from reading and comparing the original and the modded sky color files. For example I've seen the 'RGB conversion' note before but it means absolutely nothing for someone not familiar with pixel shaders programming.

 

If this is all you have (too bad you've lost your notes) then please at least try to explain why one sky color mod modifies the values near the line with 'gamma+1' (mul, add, ... lines?) while the other (DarkWanderer's) modifies some values near 'dp3' lines?

 

Or maybe we could try a different approach.

 

1. You've changed c10, c11, c12 to c11, c11, c11. What's the logic behind that modification in regard to RGB.

 

2. You've changed r0.x to r0.y. What's the logic behind that modification in regard to RGB.

 

Edit:

If you can't help me with nothing more that's fine. I really do appreciate your time you've spent trying to help me :thumbup:

Edited November 26, 2010 by Bucic

[Bucic]

Can someone guess a possible pattern from the image below?

 

 

 

Edit:

Well, I've been bitchin' about ridiculously white haze so... here's a proper haze :)

 

 

alternatively

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 9, 2010 by Bucic

[Yuya6104]

hi can you upload you files please?

 

an your trees too?

[Bucic]

Modman 7.3 compatible package available. NOT tested. Let me know, if it works.

 

 

DOWNLOAD:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/21d1k2syukoeg2u/blue_haze_white_sky_mod_v0p1_by_bucic.zip

 

Readme:

- primarily - changes the original plain white haze to a more realistic, blue-ish haze.

 

- changes the original manga-blue sky to white

 

It's more like moving the original sky 'out of the way' rather than fixing it. It kind of looks like loved but unrealistic exaggerated HDR effect found in many games.

 

I still haven't found a way to deliberately (!) alter RGB values in the sky shader files:

 

sky_basic.dat

sky_new.bak

skyfog_b.dat

skyfog_v.dat

 

If you know how to do it, please post your suggestions here:

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=54159

Edited December 10, 2010 by Bucic

[Blaze]

Very nice Bucic. :) Would be nice to have sky color change based on weather and seasons...

[Bucic]

AFAIK there were always been changes based on weather etc. It uses the sky color set in pixel shader files as a 'base', so it appears. And no one has discovered how to DELIBERATELY alter that base sky color yet.

[DarkWanderer]

Who summoned me?..

 

Since Bucic asked me to help...

(...I can't refuse to lend a hand, however, don't expect wonders...)

 

Actually, shader editing is pretty straigthforward, if you know the basics of vertex shaders and/or assembler. You can get a glimpse on them here.

Basically, what we need is that:

 

• oPos is vertex position (everything that goes here doesn't interest us)
  
• oD0 - diffuse color (actual color of the sky)
  
• oD0.xyz = rgb of output color
  
• c** are constants, either set by the engine, either #defined in the assembler code itself
  

 

The tricky part is the file structure. I didn't dig deep into it, but I can draw a coarse picture. The algorithm does the following:

1. Positions the points of an abstact sphere around the camera (this part ends at 4 oPos.* lines)
   
2. Calculates color coefficients based on some scientific formula (possibly, something of these series) in YUV(?) color space
   
3. Converts the HSV into RGB via matrice defined in c10-c12 and writes them intro oD0.
   

Knowing this, you can easily dig deeper and find out what this is all about ;), and for now, get some clues on actual editing.

 

What can we do?

First, we can define our own constants. Example:

def c23, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7

This gives us a constant with x = 0.4, y = 0.5, z = 0.6, w = 0.7

This is what some mods do - redefine the constants supplied by the game to modify the formulaes output.

Note: if you don't want to redefine anything, all user-defined constants numbers should start from 23, as all preceding (excl., possibly, 21) are already taken.

 

Second, we can modify the color output of the shader.

Base code:

mov oD0, r0

- directly moves values from registry 0 to output color.

 

Example modification 1:

mad r0.z,r0.z,c23.x,c23.z
mov oD0, r0

- maps the x->y range of output blue color to 0.4*x+0.6->0.4*y+0.6

 

Example modification 2:

mul r0, r0, r0
mov oD0, r0

- calculates the color value as a square of itself (pretty nasty looking, but shows the idea)

 

Example modification 3:

mul r0, r0, c23
mov oD0, r0

- directly multiplies the output values by provided constant values.

 

Note that the line second from the end does the same with c22 - but it's effect is cancelled by the subsequent command.

 

Please also note, that if you modify sky color, you should apply the same change to fog color - to avoid bad color misaligning of sky and far mountains.

 

Given the information above and some patience - you have your chances ;)

Edited December 8, 2010 by DarkWanderer

[Blaze]

Thanks DarkWanderer!!! :)

[Bucic]

Thank you DarkWanderer!

 

But I think you forgot about the one example I need :music_whistling:

How do I set sky color of e.g. RGB 210, 215, 240? :) Or any given HSV, no matta, I can provide values in both color spaces.

[DarkWanderer]

The answer is in the text.

You can take a screenshot (like you did), pick a probe of RGB values of the current color and compute the coefficients to multiply the output with.

1 in shader = 255, 0 in shader = 0.