Elements of the stream were over bright. Considering the new lighting system, this was majorly disappointing. The train in particular from outside views seemed so bright it didn’t feel like it belonged to the world. DTG needs to get on top of this feedback from players before further DLC is released.
I don't want to burst your bubble, but has this ever happened before when something was going to be released?
When I heard Matt say something to the effect of brights are much brighter and darks are much darker in the announcement stream video, I knew this would be the case. It is kind of the opposite of what needed to happen. He followed it up by saying they needed to get the eye adaptation right to compensate for that. The thing is that eye adaptation struggles more when the dynamic range is greater and as it brightens up to accommodate the dark areas the bright areas have to get seriously overblown. TSW did not need darker darks as one big criticism is how daytime shadows are too black and nighttime is too dark. I couldn’t see much difference in dark areas in the stream while the overly bright things in the game has now definitely got worse, I could see that. A full evaluation can be done when I have control of the camera and see it on my screen but from what I saw in the stream I’m expecting it to be worse than what we currently have in TSW2. Eye adaptation is an annoying effect in games at the best of times so I’m never going to be a fan of it. I’m sure they can make tweaks to it to make it better but I think what they want the result to be doesn’t match with what the players (okay maybe just me) want. We want it to look more realistic but that doesn’t mean trying to squeeze the entire dynamic range of real world lights into the much smaller dynamic range of a screen, which is what it looks like they are trying to do. They do keep saying ‘real world values’ as if it means it must be good.
...that's beacause the general lighting has changed in TSW3 and looks a little different than in TSW2. As said on the big QA stream on Tuesday, the sun is now 1000 times brighter than before and all light sources have been adjusted to real, physically measured lumen values. That's why trains from TSW2 had to be adapted first, when placing them on a TSW3 route, by using an adjustment algorithm or tool. In other words, everything is illuminated more realistically with the new lighting system.
I'm wondering if they have eventually done some tweaking for the night lighting. That part was shown only briefly in yesterday's stream and I cannot tell from it if there was even a slight improvement. But if they didn't make any changes for it, then the part related with freight trains runs at night on this new German route will be for true hardcore players I presume.
I agree that the whites in the game including the ICE train itself, looked over exposed and need to be toned down a tad. The light flash entering and leaving the tunnels will also start to annoy after a while unless reduced a bit.
You can’t really judge the quality of the stream. Settings may have been adjusted. Until I can actually play the game and see it with my own eyes on my tv, then I’ll make my decision.
For each game you have to regulate the HDR based on its graphics, movements, etc. Ex I can't play GT7 with the same graduation as fifa. neither the god of war with the crash bandicoot. Depending on the TV and the HDMI cables you have, you can improve the brightness and dark areas on the screen, it does not always depend on the game.
