darker darker interiors

Post » Mon Feb 07, 2011 9:02 pm

Screenshots of various brightness levels:

Arlington Public Library Lobby - 20:15:22 RGB
http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/Fallout3/DarkerInteriors/ArlingtonPublicLibraryLobby-Ambient-20-15-22-Default.jpg

I went somewhat bright in the library lobby, because when the player enters, there's not time to turn on a light before they get svcked into a forced conversation with the scribe. I chose 12:12:12 and 15:15:15 for the other sections of the library.

Farragut West Station - 8:7:7 RGB - the "glowing" typewriter issue
http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/Fallout3/DarkerInteriors/FarragutWestStation-Ambient-8-7-7-GlowingModelProblem.jpg

Farragut West Station - 8:7:7 RGB - Default lighting and with the nightvision goggles (at 2x brightness)
http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/Fallout3/DarkerInteriors/FarragutWestStation-Ambient-8-7-7-NoAssist.jpg
http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/Fallout3/DarkerInteriors/FarragutWestStation-Ambient-8-7-7-NVGDoubleBright.jpg

Even with the glowing typewriter, I still settled on 8:7:7 there instead of making it brighter in an attempt to make the glowy item stand out less.

Marigold Station - 5:5:7
http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/Fallout3/DarkerInteriors/MarigoldStation-Ambient-5-5-7-NoAssist.jpg
http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/Fallout3/DarkerInteriors/MarigoldStation-Ambient-5-5-7-NVGBright2x-Boost20.jpg

Maybe Marigold is a little dark, considering that it would be a location that gets discovered early. OTOH, it's only inhabitants are ants and they'd be unlikely to setup additional light sources.

Museum of Technology - 9:10:15 RGB
http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/Fallout3/DarkerInteriors/MuseumOfTech-DeltaIX-Ambient-9-10-15-Default.jpg
http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/Fallout3/DarkerInteriors/MuseumOfTech-DeltaIX-Ambient-9-10-15-NVGs.jpg
http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/Fallout3/DarkerInteriors/MuseumOfTech-DeltaIX-Ambient-9-10-15-PipboyLightMod-Grey3X.jpg

Super-Duper Mart - 10:10:10 RGB
http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/Fallout3/DarkerInteriors/SuperDuperMart-Ambient-10-10-10.jpg

A dark location, but not pitch black. Kind of a middle of the road choice at 10:10:10.

Tenleytown/Friendship Station - 5:7:8 RGB
http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/Fallout3/DarkerInteriors/TenleytownFriendshipStation-Ambient-5-7-8-Default.jpg
http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/Fallout3/DarkerInteriors/TenleytownFriendshipStation-Ambient-5-7-8-NVGDoubleBright20.jpg
http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/Fallout3/DarkerInteriors/TenleytownFriendshipStation-Ambient-5-7-8-PipboyLightMod-Grey3X.jpg

Tenleytown is a good location to test at because of the Brotherhood of Steel graffiti on the wall that needs to be seen by the player. Without any additional light source, the player can just make out the pipes along the wall and see just enough of the graffiti to know there's something there. And hopefully it encourages them to turn on a light or NVGs.
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Annika Marziniak
 
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Post » Mon Feb 07, 2011 12:23 pm

Oh yea thanks for reminding me about the master issue, I'll fix that now that I have stuff installed.

I'm also working on an update to RIL and then the DLC in the nearish future. The update mostly is just more or less making the metro systems incredibly dark, noticed different metros had different ImageSpaces so I've been giving them all a consistent one, and then testing with NVG and they make them bright as day still so it's what I ultimately wanted.
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Inol Wakhid
 
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Post » Mon Feb 07, 2011 8:20 pm

Awesome, I really like RIL so it's good to see it's going to have another update! :)

What was the master issue? Are you saying that RIL was an .esm and that caused issues?
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Ernesto Salinas
 
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Post » Mon Feb 07, 2011 7:25 pm

Oh yea thanks for reminding me about the master issue, I'll fix that now that I have stuff installed.

I'm also working on an update to RIL and then the DLC in the nearish future. The update mostly is just more or less making the metro systems incredibly dark, noticed different metros had different ImageSpaces so I've been giving them all a consistent one, and then testing with NVG and they make them bright as day still so it's what I ultimately wanted.

Here's my take on the DLCs:

- MZ is pretty much fine as-is in terms of ambient lighting
- Op:Anchorage might have a few spots that would be useful, except you can't take NVGs in with you
- Pitt suffers from the same issue as Op:Anchorage, you don't have access to NVGs for much of it.
- PL definitely has places where the ambient light could be adjusted
- BS adds a few locations that need ambient light adjustments

Also, some metro systems are a bit more occupied then others. Places like Meristi I would expect to be brighter. Seneca has the 2 ghouls (and it isn't very big) so it doesn't make sense to make that pitch black dark either.
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Quick Draw III
 
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Post » Tue Feb 08, 2011 1:44 am

Awesome, I really like RIL so it's good to see it's going to have another update! :)

What was the master issue? Are you saying that RIL was an .esm and that caused issues?


I copied the .esp's when they were flagged as masters VIA FO3Edits Masterupdate Mode, so if you didn't use that yourself they would be loading WAAAAAY to early and you wouldn't get half of the changes.


And @ Snabbik, yea that's kind of what I'm going for. Like I said on the page the new version is very much a WIP, I'll likely increase the ambient lighting a bit now that they all have the super dark image spaces, and I don't think I changed Meresti but maybe I did.

I'll also likely change caves and utility areas and whatnot to be much darker as well; thought thats going to take considerably more effort to weed through which ones need to be changed and which ones don't.

I just wanted to release a non-master .esp mostly and figured I'd release a new version to show its still alive.

EDIT: Going into the Citadel Lab reminded me that my game didn't look right, I had it to bright since my reinstall and I forgot to adjust the in-game brightness. I've made a quick guide and posted it on the file description and readme, and here it is again for those reading.

****CRITICAL****
Make sure you've got your monitor brightness levels set correctly, AS WELL AS the in-game. Someone correct me if I am wrong but the quick rundown is, (for LCDs) you want to max out your contrast, then adjust your brightness according to a chromatic scale (http://w4zt.com/screen/ has a bunch, "A to Z" one is the best). Then once you've got that set up you want to adjust your in game brightness to the point where the second black square is one point above the same level of blackness as the actual black square. For me that just means all the way down, YMMV.
****CRITICAL****
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brandon frier
 
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Post » Mon Feb 07, 2011 1:49 pm

I've always used:

http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/index.php

http://www.normankoren.com/makingfineprints1A.html#Monitor_test_pattern

http://www.photoscientia.co.uk/Gamma.htm

I think the first link is the one I use most often for monitor calibration. (I check my monitor about once every 6 months.)

...

When you toss the next version up (v73), I'll sit down and take a look at the locations and give you feedback.

The ESPs that I'm working off of didn't change the imagespace modifiers at all (Darker Interiors - Fear the Dark). I had two ways that I adjusted things:

1) Load the ESP up in GECK, then I went down the list in alphabetical order. That made it easier to make places like Germantown go from lighter to darker as you go lower in the building. Or to make sure that I didn't have one part of Arlington Public Library 30x the brightness of another part.

2) Load the ESP up in Fallout 3 Edit, and compare to the master. This made it easier for me to do color correction on the ambient lighting. I tried to match the general flavor of the Fallout3.esm file where possible, just darker. It's also a lot easier to find DLC locations using this method.

I flip back and forth between the two methods. I'll make a bunch of adjustments to light levels, then go try out a few locations. Or I'll go through the list cell-by-cell in alphabetical order in GECK and look for wildly different levels that are really part of the same building.

It's tedious, but there aren't really that many interior cells in Fallout 3. I was able to go through them from top to bottom, twice, in a few hours (if that). It's going back and checking them in-game that takes the most time.
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His Bella
 
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Post » Mon Feb 07, 2011 4:27 pm

I've always used:

http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/index.php

http://www.normankoren.com/makingfineprints1A.html#Monitor_test_pattern

http://www.photoscientia.co.uk/Gamma.htm

I think the first link is the one I use most often for monitor calibration. (I check my monitor about once every 6 months.)

...

When you toss the next version up (v73), I'll sit down and take a look at the locations and give you feedback.

The ESPs that I'm working off of didn't change the imagespace modifiers at all (Darker Interiors - Fear the Dark). I had two ways that I adjusted things:

1) Load the ESP up in GECK, then I went down the list in alphabetical order. That made it easier to make places like Germantown go from lighter to darker as you go lower in the building. Or to make sure that I didn't have one part of Arlington Public Library 30x the brightness of another part.

2) Load the ESP up in Fallout 3 Edit, and compare to the master. This made it easier for me to do color correction on the ambient lighting. I tried to match the general flavor of the Fallout3.esm file where possible, just darker. It's also a lot easier to find DLC locations using this method.

I flip back and forth between the two methods. I'll make a bunch of adjustments to light levels, then go try out a few locations. Or I'll go through the list cell-by-cell in alphabetical order in GECK and look for wildly different levels that are really part of the same building.

It's tedious, but there aren't really that many interior cells in Fallout 3. I was able to go through them from top to bottom, twice, in a few hours (if that). It's going back and checking them in-game that takes the most time.


Someone to actually give feedback on bad cells would be awesome. Nice guides as well, I'll include them in the readme. I'm not sure how much I'm going to dabble into adding/modifying ImageSpaces everywhere (not modifiers), as I generally like how the non-underground stuff is; although I'm loving the settings on the one I'm using for metro's it's got a really good HDR effect. The darker colors give a lot of murkiness to it and the lighter colors make it so you can just barely make out general shapes; also gives a better illusion that there are real lights in the game and I've got the ambient light pretty close to how I want it right now and it looks really good, so maybe I will eventually mess around with the others.
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Katie Samuel
 
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Post » Tue Feb 08, 2011 12:46 am

I just did a quick glance and now I see how you did things. The darker interior mods always brute-forced it by adjusting the ambient on individual cells - you went with changing the lighting templates instead. Which is the smart way.... :D

Since I'm playing a brand new save and will be visiting nearly every location on this playthrough... I've downloaded and installed v72 of RIL.

I think, initial guess is that BasemantDefaultTemplate is going to be too dark (4:4:4) compared to the CavesDefaultTemplate of (4:4:8) with the 2nd caves at (4:6:8). So the basemant template, the wasteland interior template and the NukaColaPlant02Template might all be too dark compared to the others.
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kyle pinchen
 
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Post » Mon Feb 07, 2011 9:35 pm

@Scarecrow - What hattix mentions. He has his Fellout mod I like to use. As do many others. Also I think it would be great to continue using both Fellout and RIL. Yours for interiors and fellout for outside. I load yours after fellout. Then the megaton lighting mod after yours.

It seems to be ok. Nothing strange that I can see happening. But wonder if this is something you could keep in mind as I do like using these 3 in tandem. =)
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Jeffrey Lawson
 
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Post » Mon Feb 07, 2011 2:44 pm

Follow-up for this morning - I think there's going to need to be a different lighting template for "newbie" metros like Marigold or semi-occupied and another lighting template for occupied metros. Marigold was just too dark for my tastes given that it's a newbie metro that the player might hit before level 8. Will setup a more organized list later.

(At the moment, experimenting with placing random mines in the wastes... whee.)
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Michael Russ
 
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Post » Mon Feb 07, 2011 8:20 pm

Mmm I doubt I'm going to change anything based on "newbieness"; maybe the occupied ones although the general idea for the Metro's is that they are basically a scary dungeon. I'll look at which cells are referenced by the template, but generally basemants are terrifyingly dark :laugh:
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ANaIs GRelot
 
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