Dear Crate, the game is painful to look at since you changed the brightness.

[RxJunkie]

Big thanks for the effort and communication medierra! Enjoy your Christmas.

[Crank]

Yeah, I didn’t think you were intentionally trying to trick anyone. Given that you can’t just fire up the old build and take a new screenshot, you probably had to dig around for one and had no idea what the time of day or weather was when it was taken. I wanted to point out though that I think some of the assumptions about changes that people drew from looking at those two shots was based more on weather and time of day than actual graphics changes. I mean, yeah, there were significant changes to some things but others, like the water and fog haven’t been touched.

Weather…? GD has a weather system? About to pass 200h of game time and I haven’t noticed that, either it’s really subtle or I’ve been completely blind to it while spanking the unruly.

I imagine this whole lighting thing didn’t really go as hoped, but just how often something worthwhile comes easy

[CDQUINT]

I dont like the change.

[eisprinzessin]

Weather…? GD has a weather system? About to pass 200h of game time and I haven’t noticed that, either it’s really subtle or I’ve been completely blind to it while spanking the unruly.

There is rain, lightning, fog, sandstorms, seeds floating in the air and leaves dropping - not sure if the last two are actually part of the weather system, though. Check your video settings, if weather is turned on.

[Corpsecrank]

Based on those shots on the first page the second image looks over saturated not washed out. It’s like the color became to vibrant but the brightness is causing it to also seem washed a bit.

I liked the dark setting it felt grim if you know what I’m sayin. At the same time I do agree that there can be such a thing as to dark.

But please do not base the visual design on a stream ever again. What looks dark on a stream is not even close to that way on your own screen while in the game. The stream is merely an illusion of how dark things really are and I am not sure why that happens. I noticed it watching youtube videos also. Maybe this is an issue during capture or something?

Elements do need to pop from the terrain. I am glad to see this is being taken into account because it is to often overlooked and models blend right into the terrain. You can’t see a damn thing when it matters the most if this is the case. Keep pushing to make the models stand out it is an important aspect of this.

I can’t really say where to go I mean the dark setting felt so fitting but we also need functionality so we need a solution. Could in game light sources be added to darker areas for more visibility? I guess I keep picturing torches on a wall in dungeons providing the extra light as an example. It feels more realistic doing that. The sun adjustment is probably a good way to deal with some of this also. I like the idea of moving the sun to change things up. To bad the sun only effects a portion where it takes effect.

[Crank]

There is rain, lightning, fog, sandstorms, seeds floating in the air and leaves dropping - not sure if the last two are actually part of the weather system, though. Check your video settings, if weather is turned on.

Well damn. I’ve always had everything on high setting and on, except depth of field, and I’ve never noticed chance of climate while playing. Extremely confusing, I have to take a look of that when I get back home after holidays. Perhaps its just not that pronounced and I’ve been zoned out while mass murdering.

Never ever have I heard thunder, that’s for sure…

[krell_154]

You can clearly see lightning while standing in Devil’s Crossing.

[powbam]

Grim Dawn 1.0.0.7 Hotfix 2

By the way, what’s the story behind that sudden change of lighting and camera?
Did the engine get an update or something?

I just had to make a similar reply on Steam so I’m going to do ya a quick copy paste here…

Actually, they determined that something actually was broken and they admit to getting a little heavy-handed in the aftermath of tweaking it. No biggie.

Sounds like other people’s monitors are maybe brighter / lower contrast than mine as it doesn’t look bad to me… however, I agree it came out a bit brighter than was probably intended.

Looking at the before and after screenshots, they both look kind of bad to me in different ways… so I’m thinking maybe we need to adjust things more toward the middle.

[u][b]What happened is we fixed an error in the specular shader for terrain, which then required a bunch of adjustment. Some terrain textures were also replaced with higher resolution versions, which may tend to look less… bumpy? when the camera is pulled out… but also less low-rez and crappy.

Then on top that, I made some significant adjustments to the post-effects for two reasons - 1) I cringe everytime I see the game being streamed and it’s so dark in places you can barely tell what’s going on. It looks flat, sort of drab and a lot of people have said the same. 2) I was running through Homestead recently and it was so yellow and drab, I just got sick of looking at it and basically flipped out on the post effects / lighting.[/b][/u]

I then also asked for the sun angle to be changed around because it was coming from in front of the camera, which resulted in the player and scenery objects always being in shadow from the default view. It also makes enemies blend into the background more… I feel like things pop a bit better from the scenery when the light is behind the camera. This change made everything brighter. The sun angle was also raised a bit, which may have caused for less normal-map relief at noon in-game.

If you look at the before and after shots above, the before looks really flat and overly dark to me but yeah, there is greater terrain detail closer to the camera. The after shot is washed out and overly bright, I agree but it has more depth and looks more dynamic.

Changes have been made to reign things back in a bit. I’m sure there will never be universal agreement on what looks best but I think with some iteration we can arrive at something that will be better than the “before and after” above, for most people. Changes will take effect when the hotfix rolls out in 1-3 days.

medierra was feeling chatty that day and he posts a whole lot on the subject in that thread… so, for those interested: fun with medierra begins here.

Knock yourselves out.

On that note… The lighting is looking damn spooky at night now

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk

[Starbuck]

My current mission is to hunt down and kill the pink unicorn that is inhabiting Blood Grove, its obnoxious flatulence is turning the whole area pink. Level 80 Witch Hunter deployed for this dangerous task but if successful the land will be returned to its normal hue. Wish me luck compatriots!