(dx11) Too dark shadows, is there any solution?

Goibaka

Goibaka

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Hello guys! I'm doing track tests on dx11 at new transfagarasan project but I have shadow problems. When mountain shadows falling on road then the ambient light turns as if it were night time!!!!.....I need headlights....why?.showing some screenshoots.....











Such as the tittle of this thread says......how can I fix that? these shadows give a very ugly look. if anyone has any ideas to correct this, please let me know then.

Thanks a lot.

Annotation: Curiosly, this problem didn't happen with the first pre-realease beta dx11 that ambient light was controlled by autoexpossure. When you was a dark area then expossure was higher.
 
I still have not received any reply about. I now know, the problem is expossure effect.

it would be good to inplement the autoexpossure option according to the amount of light that is shown on the screen, less light --> higher exposure value and more light --> less exposure value (as the human eye works). It seems to work linked to time of day but do not goes through the camera.

As an alternative (It isn't the same effect), visibility in shaded areas can be improved by modifying the following value:
DevMode
PostFX\Misc\ Sky S Lum = 1.5 (by default) to 4 or higher values

I wish set that custom value to new value by default, someone could help me?

I would be grateful to receive any response from Studio397 team

Regards
 
Goibaka said:
I still have not received any reply about. I now know, the problem is expossure effect.

As an alternative (It isn't the same effect), visibility in shaded areas can be improved by modifying the following value:
DevMode
PostFX\Misc\ Sky S Lum = 1.5 (by default) to 4 or higher values

Regards
Click to expand...

Hi, really in trouble with this problems, especially in certain circuits (ie: Monza) with a lot of trees. Is the above fix portable to the regular version of rFactor in an easy way or is it just a dev feature?

When they say that they're working on it.... for how long is it gonna take, please?
 
After the last December update, the problem hasn't been fixed. Studio397 has implemented Image Based Lighting Ambient but it only affects to reflections of environment.

rF2 still needs a solution a this problem. It means rF2 should implement a real time lighting exposure or allow a greater Sky Shadow Luminance.

I don't understand Why it hasn't been taken into consideration yet.
 
Goibaka said:
Studio397 has implemented Image Based Lighting Ambient but it only affects to reflections of environment.
Click to expand...

You won't have IBL on your track, if you don't add it to your scene.

You can add a global IBL to your scene and add local IBL's.
What Influence exactly does, and how to do local IBL's: I don't know... (wait for Tuttle's guidelines)

Adding a global IBL isn't to difficult: you"ll need to add this text at the bottom of you scene file

IRRADIANCE_PROBE=IRRAD_GLOBAL
{
INFLUENCE_RANGE = (50.0)
PROBE_POSITION = (0.586,0.500,-41.755)
}

The IBL ambient color will depend on your probe position (X,Z,Y).

You can toggle IBL on and off in Dev mode.

IBL.jpg
 
thabks for your reply. IBLA is great but it is other effect

You must remember that I am talking about amount of ilumination. Any real scene is affected by the lighting provided by the sky and other factors. How can I do Sky ilumination higher for global scene? I wish that the shadows receive more illumination due to the sky or better solution is implement Auto expossure lighting.
 
Please, I wish Studio397 provides support to fix it. Black shadows are too ugly. Also it doesn't let see road signs because there isn't ambient light.
 
**Please see below. Was thinking out loud, and it doesn't appear to help.

I know it's an ugly workaround, but have you tried placing IBLA probes in the affected area, with a dark texture underneath the road and the IBLA placed above that texture (but below the road)? From a very quick test on a track in devmode it appears the probe doesn't use current shadows at all, so despite being placed above a shadowed track the cubemap shows a bright road texture and IBLA actually makes the shadow appear even darker when enabled.

Perhaps tricking the local probe with a dark texture can help alleviate the issue?

*I think I've got this the wrong way around. If instead your probe is next to a bright object (overhead, or close to overhead, such that the sun causing the shadows you've screenshotted will make it very bright at that point) it might help create more ambient light for that probe.

**Ok, final edit. I think you can disregard this, it doesn't seem to help make the shadowed area brighter, thought it's a cool effect and definitely helps with object depth.
 
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Your example looks very good , but then i opened joesville to see 397's settings where i tried the same thing and it looks too bright when i increase sky s lum, everything gets brighter including objects that look fine.

I experimented a bit and i found a better solution, decreasing "Light color to ambient" makes shadows brighter, in fact it seems strange that decreasing this makes shadows brighter instead of darker so it may actually been set the wrong way and the reason why shadows look so dark in game except if i m missing something. Around .3 or .4 shadows look less blueish and much more natural (.8 default joesville value).

Something else that worked is increasing s lum a bit but also decreasing t lum, it works roughly like reducing scene contrast and shadows look brighter while light reflections look smaller (less bloom) which maybe is more photorealistic , i mean how much light does painted container edges reflect... Sky S Lum 3.00 - Sky T Lum 1.90 worked for me (joesville).

Another way is AmbientLightMappingType set to CustomColor with RGB each set to 1.0 shadows look much brighter, i guess its the same as "Light color to ambient" set to 0.

But the question is how do u save/import these settings to any track, it would be really nice if scn file had all those attributes to tweak, so we can re-package ~120 locations no problem, including those on steam which are automatically updated... (err)
Meanwhile scn file has a setting called "Ambient Color" which from what i read is supposed to affect shadow color with default values at 126,126,126 but testing it didnt make any change at all so it may have worked once upon a time but not in latest builds..
Is there a global HDR file/setting, i cant find anything, btw this version doent have gjed so i used gmotorviewer app which only saves a HDP file in my documents folder, so if its not saved in the SCN file or any file inside the track files how does it work?

Also will those changes work in PostFX low settings or do u need max setting just to see changes in shadow color?
 
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Yes enduser, you are on same way. All right!

"...in fact it seems strange that decreasing this makes shadows brighter instead of darker so it may actually been set the wrong way and the reason why shadows look so dark in game..."

It happens.....because there is a autoexpossure problem (knowing problem from S397). Currently, autoexpossure is linked to day time and not camera brightness to keep Albeldos ......

First beta dx11, used autoexpossure linking to "camera brightness" and it worked perfectly under shadow areas......but not now.

Will S397 give us a solution? at the moment it seems that they do not know how to do it.
 
I found (!) the default hdp file in devmode folder, the tracks i have tweaked all have no hdp config except one so far, seems everybody uses the default one which is convenient in this case...

Playing around more i think the sky S/T values are good the way they are , with noon daylight u need the brightness, and i was ready to try Light color to ambient at 0.3 which looks good for me and load a couple of tracks so i try to save a new config and rename it to replace the default one... u cant save anything atm its fucked up and default file has no values to tweak in it , bummer.

Until next patch with a working gdgJed then.
 
Everybody should request this correction to S397 because is in full development now, later this will be late. For me it isn't a minor problem.
 
This shadow problem suspends a very beautiful project of track, what a pity.

I hope you'll get the help you deserve as soon as possible.
 
Goibaka said:
Hi guys:
Other example:



Someone could tell me how can I set "Sky S Lum" for my default value or for any track?
Thanks
Click to expand...

Hi,

Guys, those numbers you are messing with, are scalers for the sunlight transmission and the sunlight scattering. What you are doing here is to tell the engine to bounce back more light from the surfaces than what they could, which is totally a bad move. This means that albedos will go borked, the entire PostFX, Auto Exposure, Car Shaders, Dashboards Shaders, Glow/Flares Thresholds, everything that works with albedo, will go borked. Do not mess with numbers you don't know what they are for, please. This can mislead other users, other than suggesting to hack core files. (I don't think you could btw).

The AutoExposure has the function to balance shades and lights, and it's doing its job. Contrasts are also part of the tone mapper. Shadows are a totally different area, and shadows in those shots are fine.

I'm not sure why you think what you see it's wrong. You are sort of expecting surfaces in shadows/selfshadow, to emit light, or scatter more light than what the real albedo can. You are in a shaded area, with dark rocks, dark trees, dark mountains and fog. Not sure why you are expecting all those very low albedos to bounce back all that light the way you are doing in the second shot. Maybe you have gamma balance problem with your monitors?

You should always think graphic engines like that, in a dynamic way, not only focusing on a single picture. Again, you could get a single picture looking good (for your personal expectations) and then get a totally blown frame, overexposed, the next corner, where you have only direct sun with no shadows, and maybe a noon condition, with white cars around, bright materials etc..

Said that, guys, please do not suggest anyone to hack the sim files. We do NOT support anything of what you are suggesting here, and those numbers that you are tweaking they have nothing to do with shadows.

Thanks.

PS: If I'll keep reading about hacks, I'll be closing the thread.
 
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