I think what we have is pretty good. After talking to some other guys on teamspeak and taking a look at google images I agree though, the day-night contrast isn't huge. I understand it's alpha but I'm curious to what degree the devs want to go towards realism while still remaining legible. And it's not lost on me Uber has spent a lot of time looking at similar images already. Here's what we have: Noon Twilight Contrast Midnight Here's real life: Noon Twilight Contrast Night I like the horizon in these shots. I remember Neutrino talking about lighting for darksides and making them look less flat, I'm sure this has come up but I think it looks great. In general I think darker nights and brighter days could have a memorable impact on the game's aesthetic, especially combined with unit/structure lights (night-time robot cities anyone?). Naturally a concern is the contrast between Day-Night and LOS. Short of replacing the traditional LOS=Light RTS mechanic, something like Blizzard's WC3 could be done: Day Night Notice how the color palettes for day and night are distinctly different, such that LOS at night isn't mistakable with LOS in daytime or FOW in daytime. That's one thing WC3 does well but I think PA day-night has much more visual potential and could be even more dynamic while still remaining legible. TL;DR Brighter days, darker nights, visual praise, robot fights.
It may be an old effect, but I really liked the +dither command in TA. That conferred LoS really well, and there may be a more modern way to achieve a similar effect. I'm thinking the dark clouds effect from C&C3 or the mysterious smoky darkness effect from Amnesia: The Dark Descent. As for day/night cycles, night needs to be darker. While it is night, units should glow/be illuminated by lights/always display their strategic icons. It needs to be apparent that it is night, as this might affect some gameplay decisions.
Totally agree with you and I liked Uber concept about lighting system. In Warcraft 3 day/night cycles is one of features which make game alive. I'm doesn't have much experience with GLSL, but I already try to play with shaders. Good news is PA engine is extremely flexible, it's track changes in files and recompile & reload shaders on the fly, so I don't even need to restart client. PS: At moment fog of war kills most of lighting, so I experiment without it.
It would be really cool to have it dark, and see building lights come on and such. There isnt any reason why you cant make it dark and still be able to see. Stealth games are very dark but you can still see what your doing. There could even be certain advantages / disadvantages when its night / day.
The important thing to having good contrast in the shadows is to have good ambient occlusion and other ambient lighting effects. For the purposes of an RTS, SSAO or HBAO or a similar technique should be good enough. This would allow more definition in the shadows and thus more visibility and contrast even at a lower light level. It does look extremely flat and boring as it is. Blue Marble NG is computer generated and isn't like real life. Refer to 70's photos from Apollo for real life Earth shots. The real contrast between day and night is obviously not suitable for gameplay.
I can only give screenshots for TA, the other two games I don't have on hand. Greyscale: Dithering: Dithering always produces weird scroll effects though, and Greyscale is just as good (and it looks sexy)
Not done. We don't even have any kind of post processing in yet. In other words I don't disagree with you, we aren't happy with it yet either.
thanks, I hope this thread wasn't taken as a reproach. I am legitimately enthused by the potential and like what we already have. mushroomars: Yeah the black and white occurred to me too but I figured it wouldn't be aesthetically suited for PA. The dither is basically just noise I guess? I appreciate the screenshots.
Well, you could make the noise resolution larger of the Dither (yes, Dither is functionally pixel noise) and it would fit a bit better. But I think Greyscale is the best step towards an ideal LoS display, as it doesn't clash with the game's BEAUTIFUL (cannot stress how frigging awesome) lighting. IMHO, the darkening approach to LoS perverts the shadows and lighting. And despite all my whining I must say, this is the best-looking RTS I have seen since TA. It already trumps SupCom in so many ways.
My point is that darkening does not play well with dynamic lighting, and greyscale would work out much better. Also, I think dithering looks cool <3
Reminds of that hell planet from the Chronicles of Riddick. That movie was terrible, but I could TOTALLY see 1000° Celsius sunlight as being a challenging planet in PA. Any bots that stumble into the sunlight for too long melt into slag. Oceans boil away in the sunlight, and it is constantly cloudy, dark and snowing on the far side.
The problem with your image, is the light side is now over bright, and the dark side is still dull, and not dark enough.
