Lighting in Release 225 Status

[FireAngelDth]

Sadly that’s not on ps4.

[Studiaux]

I looked forward to the lighting changes and overall quite like them given the mentioned fixes coming.

As with any change like this, there will be some kinks with existing builds…primarily those at the edge-most cases of darkness under the former system. And, uh, lighter-colored marble. Marble is SO SHINY now that I burst into laughter when I saw it and am still in a little bit of disbelief.

Overall, though, I think the lighting change does mostly accomplish what it set out to do.

Here’s some before-and-after of my build.

the changes also fixed a few weird lighting issues like the one seen here:

[Tarka]

I play on a PS4 on a 55" 4k Samsung TV and i think the game now looks spectacular. Absolutely great job devs, thank you!

[CrazyClaws]

At first I thought “ wow total eclipse “

But now looking at some of my builds and others they look better with a bit of dim lighting in areas.

The idea to brighten gleam and lanterns with the transformation tool would be great might help some people cope a little better with the lighting problems.

I would personally like to thanks the devs for their hard work in trying to improve the game and make it more let’s say “ interesting “ for everyone.

I just love the water effect now it looks great The details you have worked hard to get will be appreciated by those that don’t mind change in a growing game.

Also love the colour of foliage and plants etc now it’s like they had a season change and now it’s summer and they all changed love it

I take my hat off to you devs I would have loved to do this as a job…if you need any help just ask I’m free lol just kidding or am I…@James

[EdWe]

I have a similar setup, (panasonic 4k instead of samsung) and also for me is a great improvement. Really great job
I have tried some different settings setup on my TV, but at the end i came back to the original.
Apart from a few minor adjustments needed everithing looks far far better to me.

[CrimDeity]

@james I have some specific questions that I’d like to ask so I understand a bit more what’s possible.

1.) Is it technically feasible to maintain the updated lighting system as it is now, but have say a transformation tool as you proposed before for changing the lighting intensity of gleam, but for the dark blocks too? Allowing the dark blocks to reflect a bit more light without the colors being wrong as they were before?

Quoted from another player:
“I think @james did mention a little while back that changing blocks finish from matt to shiny, in degress, would be relatively straightforward to implement.”

[Testing] Texture reflections, are they final?

New material rendering and lighting is still a WIP. We’ve already updated the shaders, but some of the textures still need updating. We can vary the “shininess” of the materials independently. Some can be super shiny some can be dull. Marble does look extra shiny there - which I don’t think is deliberate. Heck, we could even allow players to craft “shiny marble”, “marble”, and “matt marble” if we wanted to give players full creative control. We could do this for many blocks.

2.) Can you please put yourself in the player’s perspective and address the fact that the goo/paint will be hard to obtain as they are locked behind exo worlds (which are few and far between, and get cleaned out in 24 hours when some of us might not be on to access it) or will be expensive due to their rarity.

You suggested to those who were affected by the lighting changes to “just go repaint our builds”, but have you considered the difficulty in obtaining the paints?

3.) Instead of 1 or 2, can you simply allow dark colors/black to reflect a bit more light when there’s a light emitting object (including gleam) near them so they aren’t pitch black and obscuring detail?

4.) Is it true that underground builds with no windows/access to sunlight still dim light sources when the sun is out, outside of the build?

Thanks in advance for your reply/consideration

[FireAngelDth]

Yea all the chisel work that would need to be done. Plus coin or time spent making marble or brick. And also I used colors I liked and wanted for my builds. Now I’m told to change it to something else that doesn’t fit the palette I had intended for the build because the build no longer looks good in the intended palette. Also all the resources I basically wasted on making those items that were meant to be used but now have no use for me

[CrazyClaws]

As James quoted

If you still find that you’re unhappy with your build and actually want the shiny blocks to be brighter then the easiest solution would be to use the new Goo farming system to create some lighter spray colours and redecorate your build. The advantage of this is that there is no need to rebuild. Just spray the blocks and the colours will change.

[Stretchious]

@CrimDeity

which are few and far between, and get cleaned out in 24 hours when some of us might not be on to access it) or will be expensive due to their rarity.

Just to clarify a misconception here… only the exo worlds are rare. Goo itself is generally the 2nd highest resource on the world after flint, which is usually around 15-20%. I don’t think it’s possible to clean out all the goo deposits that quickly.

[CrimDeity]

Specifically to this, quoted from a post directed at james:

"Can you please put yourself in the player’s perspective and address the fact that the goo/paint will be hard to obtain as they are locked behind exo worlds (which are few and far between, and get cleaned out in 24 hours when some of us might not be on to access it) or will be expensive due to their rarity.

You suggested to those who were affected by the lighting changes to “just go repaint our builds”, but have you considered the difficulty in obtaining the paints?"

Also, why? Because it hasn’t affected you?

Why not just fix the issue with black blocks instead of telling everyone that has dark builds to paint them white or yellow?

[Mayumichi]

This is kind of related to the other issue of not having a trello board or another form of tracking coming changes easily.

We’ve known for months that this change is coming, we just couldn’t see how our builds would look with it.

@james

COMING CHANGE - The material rendering is currently being changed to not destroy and blowout the colour on highly specular surfaces and generally improve the behaviour of ambient lighting and realism (in terms of energy conservation of lighting model). This will be a pretty big visual change and will make sure that blocks retain their base colour much better effectively so that things look ‘‘smoother’’ rather than like they’ve been covered in shiny white wax. This has been quite a bit of work and has required us to modify all the specular maps in the game. But it’ll definitely be worth it.

There’s also been many cries from the community to change the lighting, praises of how it looked in EA (this is closer to that). I think what we see now is a combination of trying to bring back the old look and improve it.

What happened to the beautiful lighting

Oh yes please! Come back my lighting, man! That’s like my number 1 complain about the game right now … besides same-face-syndrome. It’s really hard to pinpoint what I’m missing, but overall the old screenshots seem to have more contrast and more vibrant colors. Nostalgia Time: [20170824210342_1] [20170930223929_1] [20171222204848_1] [20171226142459_1] [20171226142433_1] [20180212173333_1]

But there are downsides to this, one is the changes to old builds we’re seeing. Then there’s the subjectivity of what looks great, and the medical conditions that are affected by this.

[catfud]

Putting this to the test today… Going goo hunting when I get home from work in 5 hours

[CrimDeity]

Thanks for clarifying that, but exo worlds are still pretty rare and sometimes will go a week without them.

Still though, why should I have to repaint my build a completely different color when I want it black?

I still feel like it would be better to just allow some more light on black/dark surfaces.

It seems like it would be the easiest fix. (Especially a tool that changes the intensity.)

[CrazyClaws]

I have dark buildings and I’m not overly concerned I don’t mind changing things its what comes with changes in games like this. Maybe they might change how the paints become available it’s only just come out so best wait and see .

[Stretchious]

@CrimDeity

I still feel like it would be better to just allow some more light on black/dark surfaces.

It seems like it would be the easiest fix. (Especially a tool that changes the intensity.)

Yup I’m definitely in favour of this option too. Makes it possible to have the effect/intensity you want with the gleam colour of your choice.

[Mayumichi]

I went to the T5 exo, 0 goo left or then it does’t spawn on it. There’s a bit of misinformation on where it spawns.

Testing 224: Farming! (continued)

The original testing post in the beginning says Goo is found on Elemental Exoworlds then Goo can be found underneath Rock (most often underground) on Exoworlds Spray tinting announcement says Goo kernels are found on Gem or Lucent Exoworlds So uhh, yeah

[james]

@CrimDeity

1.) Is it technically feasible to maintain the updated lighting system as it is now, but have say a transformation tool as you proposed before for changing the lighting intensity of gleam, but for the dark blocks too? Allowing the dark blocks to reflect a bit more light without the colors being wrong as they were before?

We’re are looking at the palette distribution - how black is black, how white is white. We may try experimenting with the distribution of the colours and review the white and black points.

@CrimDeity

2.) Can you please put yourself in the player’s perspective and address the fact that the goo/paint will be hard to obtain as they are locked behind exo worlds (which are few and far between, and get cleaned out in 24 hours when some of us might not be on to access it) or will be expensive due to their rarity.

The Goo wasn’t cleaned out in 24 hours. There is a huge amount of Goo still there. Goo will not be rare.

@CrimDeity

3.) Instead of 1 or 2, can you simply allow dark colors/black to reflect a bit more light when there’s a light emitting object (including gleam) near them so they aren’t pitch black and obscuring detail?

See…

@james

Night time darkness balance - the darkness balance is very display dependent. Different displays can present a different range of dark colours. We balanced the lighting against our displays, laptops, and TVs. But there will definitely be displays where the game appears too dark (and too bright). Given the variation in display the best solution is to expose a slider for players to find a balance that matches their display.

TODO - add an option for all players to balance their own darkness balance.

@CrimDeity

4.) Is it true that underground builds with no windows/access to sunlight still dim light sources when the sun is out, outside of the build?

No it’s not true.

[CrazyClaws]

The said tool has already been mentioned the transformation tool will be able to brighten gleam so James said in the post too think they will be working on that sooner rather than later I hope.

[CrimDeity]

Thank you, I really appreciate such a prompt response.

I’ll be patient and see how the new tweaks will affect my build/eyesight lol

Cheers!

[CrimDeity]

Yeah, I did see that and it looks great.

I just wanted to clarify I was also talking about a similar tool that would work on normal blocks too. (To change the lighting reflection intensity, changing from shiny to matt, etc.)