Landscape Colour Correction

[Demongornot]

I have say i prefer correct realistic (and too immersive and nice to look) but only for standard condition (noon and no cloud) than actual color who are always false anyways for every condition, but yes its better to have correct for every condition too.

And correct color its simple, look at grass, its green, look at forest, its brown, if only this 2 type of color will be correctly represented in DCS that will be better and nice...

I want see color like that http://www.marennes-ulm.com/images/aeroclub.jpg

Grass, forest/tree, road, earth and divert non natural thing in house area too and nice living area like house color variety and other missing thing like mountain color, grass and rock like that :

http://www.geo.fr/var/geo/storage/images/voyages/guides-de-voyage/asie/georgie/107276-28-fre-FR/georgie_940x705.jpg

http://www.clubaventure.fr/upload/georgie_01_cgtt.jpg

http://www.gunyah.com/data/dest_18/georgia-tours-travel-gunyah.jpg

And i want see ground with real grass http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/Images/8630-1/Mi-25s.jpg

This color its not hard to reproduce, put in into the good place for people like me who don't know modding for this sotfware its a wall but ED team must have to do it, and the most harder thing to do (i think) its to create correct color filter and if the filter for weather/atmospheric condition will be not correct its will be anyways better than actual color, more realistic and not a wall for people like me who need good graphisms for immersion...

Its not hard to make green grass !

Its my vision of a realist color, anyways we never will have more details than actually, we just will get grass, forest, city and mountain/rock/earth, no more, well, ok why not but in this case its better to do this 4 things with correct color, for a sunny day if when we look at the texture and after we look through the windows and its not correct, its not a realistic color, if we look at the texture and at the windows and that the color match, its a realistic, correct and nice color, no more no less...

 

For Camera i just want mean that the color are not be created by people look at the windows or take a light aircraft but people working with picture, and old Russian's camera show faded picture a little like graphisms in DCS and anyways its half a joke :D

But yeah anyways a lot of picture is made with camera made in China or Taiwan

 

For the video i talk about the sunrays yes its not exactly the thread but i think we can anyways talk about cause color are really based to the light condition and color can really be affected cause sunrays = shadows in ground and dense atmosphere (when the atmosphere are clear its hard to see sunrays) and a lot of place in the ground will be directly exposed to sunrays, other to shadow and other with diluted light by border of the cloud, ground color and too color in every texture depend of the light environment, and refection and other light effect like sunrays are important for color...

[EtherealN]

Small aside: afaik they are caused by particulates in the atmosphere, not atmospheric density. (These particulates scatter the light in the sunlit portions of the atmosphere, but there is less scattering in areas in shade, causing the apparent difference in brightness.)

 

As for the color of grass, you know that there are quite a few species of grass, right? ;) Color also depends on the exact condition of the grass in question, consider this one:

 

Actual photo and I see a lot of brown grass both in the foreground and in the background... ;)

(Of course, the same things apply here as well - it's a photo and should not be relied on to be exact, especially since we have first the camera, which is not a human eye, then we have the photographer retouching the image to make ot look good, then we have each of our individual computer screens - when I move the window from my main screen to my auxiliary screen, the grass there changes from a greenish-brown to an almost dark brown; and that's running off of the same graphics card with the same settings! What looks right on my screen might look terrible on yours, and adjusting things to make it look right on your screen can easily make it look terrible on mine.)

 

Basically, you're approaching this in a way too simplistic way.

 

Personally, I'd say make the graphics look good as the first priority, and try to stay roughly right. But this fantasy of photorealistic graphics and colors based off of haphazardly chosen photographs in the internet needs to go. It just doesn't work.

[Demongornot]

1) You can trust only the photos you have made and corrected by yourself. Yes, most raw photos need to be corrected to represent real life colors. Most landscape photos are corrected not to have real life colors, but be very vivid and impressive.

 

2) There should be a thread somewhere about terrain building and texture generation. If I remember correctly, more vivid textures look more awful, and you have to live with slightly washed out colors if you want overall acceptable picture.

 

3) Lightning model is not perfect, and won't be. Same problem is present in other games too. Basically, colors are affected by lightning, so you can't get away with simple texture recoloring, because same color can look ok in midday, but can be way off at dusk and etc. Compromise should be made, so that colors were acceptable (not spot on) in anytime.

 

Finally i don't care about photos, its just example, i just have to look through my windows for see house, forest and natural grass in nice mountain...Actually its winter and the grass are more green than DCS in summer :/

The picture that i post for example its exactly what i see in real life finally, or its close and have color like in this picture in DCS just will be perfect...

 

Look here :

Look how the color are just nice, the graphisms are really impressive and the global texture color change without any problems during the "time of day transition"

I'm sure we can have a simulator with this level of graphisms, details, rich environment not matter what people way about view distance cause anyways its not correct in DCS well make better 3D object and rich environment for short range and texture only with 2D object and other things for medium/long range, with good landscape texture we never will see any difference against 2D and 3D object and that will look better in every cases than actual without more power requirement and with a little downgrade of the 3D object its just totally possible, and FPS = First person shooter, create for embody people with correct size and details level and not for embody a camera who will give us when we look at giant boot the impression to see a little plastic model, FPS graphic engine are just perfect for simulation too, not matter if we need to tweak it by replacing 3D object by the single 2D texture for long distance... but don't matter about graphisms render.

About the color, its totally at 100% possible to see the same color, weather and light effect than this video...

 

The color transition and other in this video will maybe for several people don't will be perfect, but its anyways 1000 times better than actual DCS light and color...

And its just ONE example cause i can find a lot of game and 3D software where the color are correctly "simulated"

I hope EDGE will no be create for show big object like little, no range estimation possibility by bad scale effect, poor environment, object without any correct 3D details with poor texture and bad light effect without any possibility to give us dynamics light, time transition and nice weather effect...

 

The atmospheric, weather and other color effect that we have in other game (i talk about game with nice graphisms, not about simulation who always offer us bad graphisms and poor effect) its not perfect or same to real life at 100% but its still better than what we actually have in DCS and i think no body will ask more than that cause its wonderful, not perfectly identical but close to real life and give big immersion...

No compromise are needed, just a good thing like other...

[Demongornot]

Small aside: afaik they are caused by particulates in the atmosphere, not atmospheric density. (These particulates scatter the light in the sunlit portions of the atmosphere, but there is less scattering in areas in shade, causing the apparent difference in brightness.)

 

As for the color of grass, you know that there are quite a few species of grass, right? ;) Color also depends on the exact condition of the grass in question, consider this one:

 

Actual photo and I see a lot of brown grass both in the foreground and in the background... ;)

(Of course, the same things apply here as well - it's a photo and should not be relied on to be exact, especially since we have first the camera, which is not a human eye, then we have the photographer retouching the image to make ot look good, then we have each of our individual computer screens - when I move the window from my main screen to my auxiliary screen, the grass there changes from a greenish-brown to an almost dark brown; and that's running off of the same graphics card with the same settings! What looks right on my screen might look terrible on yours, and adjusting things to make it look right on your screen can easily make it look terrible on mine.)

 

Basically, you're approaching this in a way too simplistic way.

 

Personally, I'd say make the graphics look good as the first priority, and try to stay roughly right. But this fantasy of photorealistic graphics and colors based off of haphazardly chosen photographs in the internet needs to go. It just doesn't work.

 

Sorry my English are not perfect and i need to learn a lot of world, i just include everything like dirt, dust, particle and other smoke and other thing when i talk about atmospheric density and anyways we never will have more than just clear or thick air in DCS...

 

Sorry your picture don't work :/

But i see what you want mean but anyways picture are not finally the best comparison but color in the picture that i have give link in the first post of this thread show good color close to real life, and i have find picture of the Georgia in priority, anyways if the texture color are not perfect but close to this picture just will be really awesome, incredible, nice and immercive compare to actually...

 

Its not simplistic, just see color like what we see when we go and look outside for a day (like today for me) without cloud at noon/afternoon will be nice and better than actual but for every other condition that just must be great and finally simplistic solution can work better than actually...

 

Me too i don't care about modified effect not realistic just for good look, when i talk about "photorealistic graphisms" i just want say graphisms close to reality and with photos from internet if we correct the color after finally that can work too cause we just see several grass color, city (with same color everywhere) and if we forget airbase that's all, we have no diversity, just water...

Until we change the graphic engine and we add a lot of details in the environment and more object, use picture (and check with eyes the difference between real life and texture created) for create new texture can work and will be better than actual and anyways what with graphisms like simulation we can do more ?

Nothing, just nice global color...

[B25Mitch]

I know you're trying to make the same case as me, Demongornot, but I think some of your arguments and expectations are too far-fetched to be taken seriously(e.g. comparing flight sim graphics directly to first-person shooters). We're talking about modelling an entire country here - not just a small valley.

 

I've tried to reproduce EtherealN's photo in DCS and in Rise of Flight, and compared them so we can learn a bit more about how colours contribute to realism.

 

 

Notice how in the real-life photo (and in Rise of Flight), the forests have some very dark areas in amongst the trees which appear almost black, and some lighter areas which give the trees their green appearance.

 

In the DCS landscape, there is no black at all. The darkest colour to be found anywhere in DCS's forests is still lighter than the lightest colour in the real-life forest. The horizon haze is also very grey, compared with the medium blue of the real-life example.

 

Note how similar the average colour is between the three images - this tells us that the differences boil down to contrast, not the colours by themselves. It doesn't really matter how your screen is calibrated - nothing's going to change the fact that the DCS landscape has almost zero colour contrast.

 

Now both DCS and Rise of Flight have their graphical strengths and weaknesses, but when it comes to colours, I really think that DCS could learn a thing or two from RoF.

 

The first change I would recommend is to darken both the trees themselves and the terrain under them to give the impression of a more lush, dense forest. Another improvement would be to give the atmospheric haze some extra saturation and that distant bluish hue we see in real life.

Edited January 15, 2012 by B25Mitch

[EtherealN]

I don't really have anything to add (a bit busy atm), but I really like your approach B25Mitch. The specific example falters a bit since my picture is a bit crap (as an aside, there's a military installation in that picture, see if you can find it :D ), but a I like the demonstration of how to work with the topic and get some workable guidelines for further work from it. Well done and +1. :)

[Nate--IRL--]

I know you're trying to make the same case as me, Demongornot, but I think some of your arguments and expectations are too far-fetched to be taken seriously(e.g. comparing flight sim graphics directly to first-person shooters). We're talking about modelling an entire country here - not just a small valley.

 

I've tried to reproduce EtherealN's photo in DCS and in Rise of Flight, and compared them so we can learn a bit more about how colours contribute to realism.

 

 

Notice how in the real-life photo (and in Rise of Flight), the forests have some very dark areas in amongst the trees which appear almost black, and some lighter areas which give the trees their green appearance.

 

In the DCS landscape, there is no black at all. The darkest colour to be found anywhere in DCS's forests is still lighter than the lightest colour in the real-life forest. The horizon haze is also very grey, compared with the medium blue of the real-life example.

 

Note how similar the average colour is between the three images - this tells us that the differences boil down to contrast, not the colours by themselves. It doesn't really matter how your screen is calibrated - nothing's going to change the fact that the DCS landscape has almost zero colour contrast.

 

Now both DCS and Rise of Flight have their graphical strengths and weaknesses, but when it comes to colours, I really think that DCS could learn a thing or two from RoF.

 

The first change I would recommend is to darken both the trees themselves and the terrain under them to give the impression of a more lush, dense forest. Another improvement would be to give the atmospheric haze some extra saturation and the distant landscape that bluish hue we see in real life.

 

Try the Warm HDR preset - the HDR.fx file can be edited to add contrast, brightness, hue and saturation as necessary.

 

However note that a photograph can be deceptive. ISO speed and exposure time along with aperture will distinctly change all of the variables you wish to emulate - ie what is real is very subjective - that is why there are numerous HDR options.

 

Nate

[BTTW-DratsaB]

Nice thread. I too find DCS (lockon) a bit too "washed out".

 

I remember it was the same for OFP back in the day. BIS managed to fix this quite well with Arma1 and its sequels. I also agree RoF is pretty strong in this area too.

 

Hopefully ED can improve on this with engine updates in the future.

[Demongornot]

I know you're trying to make the same case as me, Demongornot, but I think some of your arguments and expectations are too far-fetched to be taken seriously(e.g. comparing flight sim graphics directly to first-person shooters). We're talking about modelling an entire country here - not just a small valley

 

Create a full country with FPS graphic engine its not a problem, i have already see game with FPS graphics engine who have extremely big terrain close to reproduce a country, the only problem its the view distance and anyways with maximum graphics settings including distance (who don't really ask extremely more computer power than maximum graphics with minimum distance view setting, the fps number difference its not really big) i have do a test and 3D object in DCS don't be show beyond 30km...Low distance or low distance 30Km its useless finally (except for big building, tower and other) cause 2D texture can easily give exactly the same render, maybe better, Arma 2 can show 10Km without need more power than DCS and finally its just better cause the details are extremely more advanced and 10Km = 30000 ft and at this altitude 3D or 2D ground show no difference, after modeling the earth or a full galaxy with every planet with details and more don't will take more power...just more HDD space, full country or not, if we just decrease the 3D detail in any FPS we anyways will keep really nice graphics without need extreme computer, the only problem will maybe are the speed of the detail will appear in the map and anyways when we see FPS game with big distance where we can move the camera at extreme speed its possible without problem for any aircraft speed (including TR-3B :D) and optimized for aircraft speed its just will require less power...

Don't forget that a lot of FPS show useless details for a sim like paper on the ground, interior of building (big building fully modeled with extreme detail) and more...

And FPS graphic engine with big fog = not less fps number (sometime more)

Any simulator with big fog = extremely low fps number, that lags so much...

Why ? cause unlike nice FPS graphics engine simulator are optimized like my a.. and not matter if fog hide or not scenery, simulator will calculate FOG AND scenery and anyways maybe for a nice effect adding ad close distance (i talk about 10/10m maxi) show 3D fog its good but i don't know why simulator persist to show scenery + 3D fog (don't matter of the fog cover 100Km that will almost calculate it at 100% and not just calculate what we see...

I just want to know where the power of my graphic card are sucked and anyways with graphic engine based on the CPU power and without multicore support i'm not sure that its good to ask it, its just not optimized and full of error...

 

Anyways its not the thread but for every light/reflection effect its have NO difference against FPS and Simulation graphic engine...

Light, color, sun and other reflection can be the same...finally the comparison its possible for color...

We can with simulation graphic engine have the dynamic light that we find in every other games, but its create with the same politic that the other part of the graphic engine, its why its missing and its why color are not correct...

If even the color will be corrected its not will be correct of other condition cause light effect are missing and at sunrise and sunset the color will not be correct too...

And with poor detail we just can forget correct color cause a lot of thing who participate to color like nature color like that

http://www.gunyah.com/data/dest_18/georgia-tours-travel-gunyah.jpg

http://www.georgiamountainscabin.com/807f4770.jpg

http://harmonoutdoorsinc.com/gallerypictures/Georgia.springmorn.jpg

And i agree for a single picture its just a only little thing, but finally from the sky when a lot of flower/tree with flower are here its important and that will be sadly only implemented in simulation after 20 year.

And in 20 year we will see graphic engine of simulator with the same graphic render than actual FPS games and with possibility to use it with computer that we have today but anyone still told me that its impossible like if that will never happen but finally things like that its already happen and will happen again...

General landscape color its great but that will never be like real life without adding more rich terrain and landscape...

[Cedaway]

+1 finding the DCS Colours wrong.

edit: Thinking about it, I believe the world could be more 'alive' or immersive with a bit less 'washed out' or more contrasted palette. (My 2Cts)

Edited January 15, 2012 by Cedaway

[diveplane]

many factors come into play as well people have different monitors and tv sets , and color settings on video card options and tv..

[cichlidfan]

many factors come into play as well people have different monitors and tv sets , and color settings on video card options and tv..

 

All of those compound the problem endlessly. The absolute best that could be achieved is to come of with a color palette that is considered the most realistic on a given reference set of hardware.

 

Of course, it will not look that way on a large percentage of the machines out there and so there will still be complaints.

 

I am not saying there is not room for improvement just that I am unsure how one would define the goal.

 

P.S. The sim does look better since I calibrated my monitors.:D

[Trident]

I think Nate is onto something with HDR, the cold preset in particular appears to be way off the mark:

 

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3494554/Re_Snowy_Warthog.html#Post3494554

 

Consider also this crisp, vivid FC/FC2 (so no HDR present at all) screenshot:

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=969465&postcount=1775

 

I think most who find DCS too washed-out would agree that this is much better, despite the basic ground textures for both likely being identical. So it appears that poor HDR configuration is the main culprit, as with so many other games. Sometimes I wonder if the quick and widespread adoption of HDR throughout the gaming industry hasn't been very premature, while it does promise significant improvements of visual quality in theory it often turns out to be DETRIMENTAL in practise. Not only do you pay a performance penalty, in many cases the graphics actually look less realistic than they did before. Whether this is due to poor tuning by developers who don't fully understand what HDR does or a fundamental problem with certain DirectX versions is anybody's guess, but clearly the effect is often worthless. Many titles would have been better off if HDR had not been added in an attempt to secure another buzzword for the marketing material.

 

Comparing with photos is definitely difficult, as what a camera lens and chip capture is not necessarily the same thing as what the human eye would see in the same circumstances (which in turn is highly subjective). In particular it is useless to use ground level photographs, as what you see at altitude is determined by very different lighting conditions and the presence of atmospheric haze.

Edited January 16, 2012 by Trident

[Trident]

Create a full country with FPS graphic engine its not a problem, i have already see game with FPS graphics engine who have extremely big terrain close to reproduce a country,

 

Which one? The DCS Black Sea map is pretty small by flight sim standards and still has about 170000km² of land area - that's more than the entire South Island of New Zealand!

 

the only problem its the view distance and anyways with maximum graphics settings including distance (who don't really ask extremely more computer power than maximum graphics with minimum distance view setting, the fps number difference its not really big) i have do a test and 3D object in DCS don't be show beyond 30km...

 

But the scenery gets drawn out to something like 80km - you can't just neglect that!

 

Arma 2 can show 10Km without need more power than DCS and finally its just better cause the details are extremely more advanced

 

10km is CONSIDERABLY less demanding than 30km in this respect. You have to consider area, not simply distance alone: with a visible range of 30km the area of scenery that must be displayed isn't just 3 times but NINE times larger than with 10km - almost an order of magnitude! And that's without considering that the bare ground is drawn out to even greater distances in DCS, as mentioned above.

[B25Mitch]

Inside the cockpit, the Cold HDR setting has by far the best colour gradient - nothing's hard to see and I get a good mix of shadows and highlights.

 

But outside the cockpit, probably Off or Normal gives the best contrast for terrain.

 

I think I'll stick with Cold for now, because I do spend most of my time in the cockpit.

[EtherealN]

Indeed Trident,

10km draw distance, assuming no z-buffers and a 90 degree FOV, ends up requiring the drawing of around 78,5km².

30km draw distance = 706,5km²

80km draw distance = 5024km²

 

Anyhow, this is an argument Demongornot has been supplied with before, including the fact that said "extremely big terrain" is extremely tiny compared to what is in DCS. It just feels bigger because you walk, drive and ride around.

Edited January 16, 2012 by EtherealN
Brainfart during mathematics... Corrected.

[Bushmanni]

I think the best way to get the colors to look good would be to consult a Hollywood matte painter or someone with similar artistic skills. Measuring colors can be done to some extent but ultimately perceived color is a figment of imagination. You will need an artist to get the colors right as there's nothing else to judge if colors in picture are correct or not but human eye. Then there's also the thing that I can see lot's of "images" in nature that would make me scream "unnatural colors" in Internet forums if I saw something like it in a game.

[aaron886]

Measuring colors can be done to some extent but ultimately perceived color is a figment of imagination.

 

Very true... but as long as you know that nothing will make you truly happy in the end. :smilewink:

[Nate--IRL--]

Excellent BBC documentary (a bit dated though) about the Brain & colour perception.

 

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

 

Nate

[Vekkinho]

Best way to fix those colors to your liking is to create your own season texures with colors more vivid...

 

BTW, I need more snow during winter,it shouldn't be too difficult to add more white fields to the map so keep that in mind when you correct FC/DCS colors!

[Demongornot]

@ Trident & EtherealN i have answer you here http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=1374712#post1374712 its better to talk about it in the good place.

Note that i love learn new things i want to have a conversation and not a conflict, i want to learn new things, but i still sure that we can have really more than actually...

[Vekkinho]

There's this great Winter texture mod I used with FC1.02, it really gave immersion during winter missions:

http://www.lockonfiles.com/index.php/files/file/311-winter-terrain-replacement-pack-for-1.02/

 

I wish for something like that with FC2, current (default) winter textures are too grayish (IMHO) so I wish for more pale white fields to simulate lots of snow...

 

Any ideas of something similar available for FC2 map?

 

 

Edited January 18, 2012 by Vekkinho

[Boberro]

Has anyone modified files to get more real game's colors?

 

I am tired of watching all pastels. HDR can offer 3 schemes, which all of them are crappy (cold too much "glow", neutral is not too neutral, warm is "sweety" and looks nice but not too real....).

 

Look here, esp 19:50:

 

XM28-65BiKM

 

IMHO colors are much closer to reality...

 

Will Edge offer such nice mountains or still flat ones?

Edited March 3, 2013 by Boberro