Old lighting...

Semivivus

Semivivus
Due to various settings mix-ups and/or bugs (apparently exclusive to my machine no less, as I don´t remember anyone else experiencing this) following the controversial "Ambient Lighting" update from sometime in 2018-2020, I started observing the most diabolical Milky Way bands, absurdly blindingly bright stars and the highest-albedo planets I´ve ever seen in the game - varying based on planet and star type. This lighting continued to persist, even following the tweaking/removal of the abovementioned "Lighting" update. It eventually disappeared after wiping the "Graphics" folder sometime in 2022-2023, which I hadn´t done before. Now, naturally, having ruined it, I´m wondering how to bring it back.

Starting from this ridiculous libido of Capitol in the Achenar system:

1.jpg

2.jpg

3.jpg


If anyone knows how to bring this lighting back, I would greatly appreciate some instructions. I´m unable to fathom as much as lifting a finger to sift through all the graphics options and ini file settings myself, so it would be great if someone could do all the work, and I do nothing.
 
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Rat Catcher

Rat Catcher
The only thing I can think of immediately is ensuring your Gamma settings are correct...
gamma.png


The left side on 'pops-in', on my PC, from completely gone to barely visible and appears to be as right as the game lighting permits.

...but it does mean you have to do something yourself, so I expect the advice will be ignored.
 

Semivivus

Semivivus
Setting gamma to max produced this result:

gammamma.jpg


Not quite the same.

I believe this somehow stems from the old "Ambient Lighting" update, which added a tint to the Milky Way and in-system bodies depending on star class/colour. At the time, players complained about the "haze" and unrealistic ambient lighting that illuminated objects it shouldn´t have according to those players.

Besides that, I recall the persistent fog-like overlay - visible on the second star for example - that appeared almost everywhere, even lighting up the dark sides of planets. After I deleted the Graphics folder, both the fog and the bright lighting effects disappeared.

I liked that level of brightness, although stars now are also bright enough as they are.
 

DjVortex

DjVortex
Rat Catcher said:
The only thing I can think of immediately is ensuring your Gamma settings are correct...
Click to expand...
If we get super-technical, gamma settings shouldn't really be used to control brightness. Optimally, the gamma setting of the game should match the gamma of your display, as that will result in the most accurate colors (at least on the more high-quality displays; with cheap displays you won't get accurate colors no matter what you do anyways.)

Of course in practice people use gamma settings to change the brightness.

(The problem with a wrong gamma setting, ie. if the gamma of the game doesn't match the gamma of the display, is that eg. linear color gradients will not look linear. In most games that won't make a difference, but if there's anything that requires that level of accuracy, it will look off.)
 

Neilski

Neilski
DjVortex said:
If we get super-technical, gamma settings shouldn't really be used to control brightness. Optimally, the gamma setting of the game should match the gamma of your display, as that will result in the most accurate colors (at least on the more high-quality displays; with cheap displays you won't get accurate colors no matter what you do anyways.)
Click to expand...
Good point, but I don't think the game gives us any other way to control the brightness, does it?
 

Semivivus

Semivivus
SlickPBW said:
Yeah, my brain stuttered when it hit “diabolical” and then momentarily stopped at “libido” but I decided that I wasn’t going to comment unless someone else brought it up first. You can’t hit us old guys with that stuff too early in the morning.
Click to expand...

I was hoping for a chuckle but didn´t mean to strike a nostalgic chord - bringing up something so long gone and inaccessible to all of you.
 

Rat Catcher

Rat Catcher
DjVortex said:
If we get super-technical, gamma settings shouldn't really be used to control brightness.
Click to expand...
Indeed so - but is the only real control over brightness and contrast the game provides in a useful form.

I agree, with a calibrated monitor (as I use) gamma is used to match the capability of the display - and agreed again, on my super-cheap monitor, colour and contrast accuracy will never match the good one, but is 'good enough' for normal play etc.
 

Valorin

Valorin
Semivivus said:
Setting gamma to max produced this result:

View attachment 414490

Not quite the same.

I believe this somehow stems from the old "Ambient Lighting" update, which added a tint to the Milky Way and in-system bodies depending on star class/colour. At the time, players complained about the "haze" and unrealistic ambient lighting that illuminated objects it shouldn´t have according to those players.

Besides that, I recall the persistent fog-like overlay - visible on the second star for example - that appeared almost everywhere, even lighting up the dark sides of planets. After I deleted the Graphics folder, both the fog and the bright lighting effects disappeared.

I liked that level of brightness, although stars now are also bright enough as they are.
Click to expand...
Since you mentioned the tinting of the milky way...
Yes, there was a lot of complaining. That was me!
Local stars tinting the background, including the milky way... The whole skybox... It's absolutely horrible. It has to go away,
 

Semivivus

Semivivus
Valorin said:
Since you mentioned the tinting of the milky way...
Yes, there was a lot of complaining. That was me!
Click to expand...

Finally someone whose memory is still firing on all cylinders.

Valorin said:
Local stars tinting the background, including the milky way... The whole skybox... It's absolutely horrible. It has to go away
Click to expand...

And that it did. In my case the tinting was gone, but the various lighting effects remained (which, to my knowledge, wasn´t the case for other CMDRs). Then I randomly removed the Graphics folder, and those effects disappeared for me too.
 

Lhorndra

Lhorndra
In my experience, you don't need any kind of third party tools to butcher how the game looks, although they can make the process easier.

Your screenshots look like they have a lot of bloom as well. Set bloom to ultra in your game options, then copypaste this into your GraphicsConfigurationOverride.xml:

XML: 
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<GraphicsConfig>
    <Bloom>
        <Ultra>
            <GlareScale>0.025</GlareScale>
            <FilterRadius>1.0</FilterRadius>
            <FilterRadiusWide>3.0</FilterRadiusWide>
        </Ultra>
    </Bloom>
</GraphicsConfig>

Those values will reduce (!) the in-game bloom. You want a lot of bloom, so play around with the values a bit and see. I'm very sorry that you have to do a bit of work yourself as I am not at my Elite PC right now.
 
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