New Battlemap Lighting - Vote

[Goth47]

Hi Guys
Currently I am working on visuals for the battlefield at EB and we are introducing lots of new things such as realistic dustclouds, new skies and battlemap lighting. Its the battlemap lighting that we need your help with. So far we have created 4 slightly different variants of the lighting file and we need your input to decide which will become the main one to be used in the next release of EB, so if you could vote and give us some feedback it would be great.
Here is the download file http://www.bestsharing.com/files/sRe...0file.zip.html it has 4 different lighting files , unpack the file with winrar and you will have 4 folders ,options 1,2,3 and 4 copy a file from a folder and paste it into your EB\Data folder, try playing your campaign for a while so that you get to view how the lighting works in different enviroments.
Heres a little teaser of what else we have done at EB
firstly 2 screenshots of a combination of the new lighting(option1), new dust clouds and one of the new medium skies


2 screenshots of a combination of the new lighting(option1) and one of the new heavy skies



Thanks Guys

Goth

[Redmeth]

I'm already using the one posted on the TWC forums (there was a link in the may preview) I like it but I think it could be a bit lighter the units just seem too shaded from one side.
Which one of these (1,2,3,4) would be closest to the one posted on the TWC forums? And my choice would be the next one (the one a bit lighter)
EDIT: Yes tried number 2 and this is just right (number 1 is okay also but in battles were more shade is present is just too dark and you can't make out details on units, number 2 may be just a bit too bright in the desert but overall is better IMO so I vote #2

[Goth47]

I should have mentioned this in the 1st Post, Option 1 is the 1 that I posted at TWC, it happens to be my favourite but most people prefer a bit lighter. Personally I think Option 2 and 3 will be the most popular.
Thanks Redmeth

Goth

[Obelics]

hi, i cant see any difference, could you suggest some custom battle settings to better understand the differences, could be just me, i tryied it on the default CustomBattle without modifing anythink in the settings, by AS vs Pontos. Cant see nothink different between the first and the last choice. Thanks!

[Goth47]

hi, i cant see any difference, could you suggest some custom battle settings to better understand the differences, could be just me, i tryied it on the default CustomBattle without modifing anythink in the settings, by AS vs Pontos. Cant see nothink different between the first and the last choice. Thanks!

Hi Obelics
I have just checked to make sure I havent uploaded all the same files and the files are correct. There is definately a difference between each of them. Try a Custom Battle in western gaul in summer at midday with weather set to calm. Try looking at units from all angles but pay particular attention to the shaded side of the units as the biggest difference is there. If you are only used to vanilla lighting it may be difficult to tell the subtle differences between these files as they are all darker than vanilla.
Hope this helps and thanks for your help

Goth

[Obelics]

ok thanks goth, i tryied it in the midday-battle as you sayd, and it seems i can notice some difference between the first and the last. Pheraphs it was in the morning-battle that i wasn't able to notice it. I dont vote again, tomorrow i will try the 2th and the 3th too, i still haven' tryied this choices.
I want to try it in a campaign too...

[Kebabson]

Nice werk!

I would like to see every option area/weather specific if possible


greetings kebab

[hoom]

Cool, I stumbled on the TWC thread before the May preview & have been using that Option 1 version.
Its good but sometimes feels like the lighting is from flash bulbs so I'll be looking forward to using some of the more mild versions

[Redmeth]

Looking at how the votes are distributed I remembered something when I first used the new lighting settings (the ones from TWC) I changed the settings on my monitor (increased the brightness and contrast) and kept it this way and thus for me number 2 is just right but for some people who keep their monitor darker (I use a LCD they are brighter than CRT's from what I remember) they might say 4 is right or 3 or someone who uses bright settings could say 1 is right for them.
So I think that the voting is somewhat too subjective (so to speak) as all people don't have the same brightness settings to start with.

[Michaelis]

I would say this: go with ANY of these options, just please do something about the weather. 19 out of 20 battles, there's a storm and it rains. Yeah I know all that stuff about the skies weeping etc. but it's a little annoying. I think I read sthg a long time ago about rain affecting archers' lethality - wet bowstrings and so on. Is this why it almost always rains during EB battles? I even fired up the vanilla RTW to check, and it doesn't rain anywhere as often during battles, so this inclement weather business must be an EB thing.

[Obelics]

voted the second, but im not too good on discerning on the lights, i noticed that with the first one some units appeared almost totally black in some scenarios, at last on my monitor.

[hoom]

Funny, I don't even remember the last time I saw rain in a battle.

What part of the map are you fighting in Michaelis? North/North West perchance?

[Foot]

I would say this: go with ANY of these options, just please do something about the weather. 19 out of 20 battles, there's a storm and it rains. Yeah I know all that stuff about the skies weeping etc. but it's a little annoying. I think I read sthg a long time ago about rain affecting archers' lethality - wet bowstrings and so on. Is this why it almost always rains during EB battles? I even fired up the vanilla RTW to check, and it doesn't rain anywhere as often during battles, so this inclement weather business must be an EB thing.

I think that the weather is just random, and I don't recall adding any files that effected this, if there are any such files to begin with. I highly doubt that this is a EB thing, I imagine you just got a run of rainy battles, can happen I believe.

Foot

[Michaelis]

2 Sweboz campaigns, 2 Getai campaigns, 1 Luso... Lusotannian... Lusitannian? Hell, Iberian campaign. Rains all the time! The weather gods hate me.

[pezhetairoi]

I think I like lighting 3. Lighting 1 seems too dark on the units by any standard. And since I like printing out screenshots to decorate my room with, I like to be able to see the units instead of dark shadows, so yup, 3 for me.

[BozosLiveHere]

I think that the weather is just random, and I don't recall adding any files that effected this, if there are any such files to begin with. I highly doubt that this is a EB thing, I imagine you just got a run of rainy battles, can happen I believe.

Foot

Chance of weather events, by climate type, can be set in descr_daytypes.txt. Our version is almost the same as vanilla, we actually lowered the chance of hazy weather for the mediterranean_summer climate.

[Goth47]

Looking at how the votes are distributed I remembered something when I first used the new lighting settings (the ones from TWC) I changed the settings on my monitor (increased the brightness and contrast) and kept it this way and thus for me number 2 is just right but for some people who keep their monitor darker (I use a LCD they are brighter than CRT's from what I remember) they might say 4 is right or 3 or someone who uses bright settings could say 1 is right for them.
So I think that the voting is somewhat too subjective (so to speak) as all people don't have the same brightness settings to start with.

Yes it never occured to me about different monitors, On mine option 1 looks best and that is with the brightness set very low.
Foot has come up with a really good suggestion , we will choose the most popular to be installed with the game but have a sub folder in EB called Options or something like that , in this folder we will have the other lighting files for people to install themselves . That way we make everyone happy

Goth

[hoom]

So I have done some comparisons & to me option 1 is closest but I think it could do with being just slightly lighter, definitely closer to 1 than 2 though.

[MiniMe]

Spent whole weekend chasing AS as Baktria and switching Lighting options.

Option 1 appears to be Veeeeeery dark.
I say Option 2 is Ok =)

2 Goth47: manythanx.

[Cybvep]

Yeah, option 2 appears to be the most optimal one...

EDIT: But sometimes it's too dark ;) .