Sand Patch Grade seems darker than the other 7 routes I have. This applies both inside engine cabs and outside. Even at 3:00pm on a clear day, it's noticeably darker/dimmer than other routes. It's like the brightness just needs to be turned up a few notches. Can anyone else confirm or reproduce? Thank you! Edit: I've increased my TV brightness which helped immensely, but I still think SPG is darker than other routes. I'll play with the increased brightness for a bit to see how it goes.
I felt the same way driving around at noon on SPG felt like it was 7am (on TSW2 and 3). It really stood out to me when I went to the area in real life and then was checking the same areas in game, and found the accuracy of buildings and scenery was great but it was too dark all the time. I had to do lots of editing on screenshots to make them look close to real life, see my thread: https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/sand-patch-grade-in-real-life.58421/ I ended up “fixing” it by messing around with tons of different settings but settled on two things: 1. Follow this video (if you have PS5): (long story short instead of adjusting to where the suns are “barely visible” like Sony says adjust them to the first step where they become invisible) 2. Then increase the GAMMA settings on TV. I maxed mine out (Sony X85) and it seems to have improved SPG and all other routes by making them close to what a real sunny day looks like. There’s no actual brightness or gamma settings in TSW so you need to work with the PlayStation and global TV settings. This seems to have made everything overall pretty realistic while blacks are still black (ie dark tunnels). I did notice that night skies in TSW3 are a little greyish (not sure if game or because of my settings). IE I spawn into Hoo Junction at 1am, the ground and unlit areas are pitch black which is good I think but the sky itself is a little bright/grey. East Coastway is a little bright overall. But I can always lower the gamma a bit on a case by case basis by route since like you pointed out the actual colour realism varies by route. It’s hard to set up one route to look perfect because that could be throwing off others. Compare SPG with HSC which in real life are in the same area only about 1hr apart and look the same but in game the lighting and colours are way different.
Thanks for confirming that it's not just me! I have been adjusting my TV brightness as needed and it has made the route much more enjoyable!
