talking colours

1st Official Post

    just wanted to bring up a kind request for those who deal with sceneries or cultivation editing.

    The easier the scenery creation gets the more attention should be given to quality issues,

    including your overall consideration of colour-management and reality-likeness.

    I am observing a silent trend to monotone greenish landscapes which could potentially drag aerofly back

    to the minor quality level of its predecessors. Spreading generic buildings all over the place may not

    necessarily enrich the product in terms of a realistic look.

    Raise your awareness for quality before uploading anthing under time pressure or for other ego reasons.

    Make your own judgement on how good things look, i just wanted to put a flag, thanks.

    I hope ipacs will work on the sky colours and on terrain shades soon, that will enrich the sceneries and

    even patch better if terrains are properly coloured.

    correct landscape colours (lighted or shadowed, close or far):

    compare to the below piece of land (actual screenshot from aerofly),

    which has less vivid colouring and a narrow colour scheme

    and that appears green-brown, independant of vegetation type or distance:

    Edited once, last by Almdudler (October 9, 2017 at 10:47 AM).

    • Official Post

    Hi Almdudler,

    If you compare images please set the conditions in Aerofly right at least :)

    I see the sun is already starting to set, if it where mid day like in my picture Aerofly also has more contrast and more vivid colors.

    We have had similar topics in the past and I agree the colors in Aerofly could have more contrast, the sky could be more light blue and the horizon needs a bluish fade instead of the gray-blue we have currently. I'm also not very fond of the sunset colors, they should be more orange not as pink and the typical early sun very local orange/yellow blow on the horizon is missing yet. But this isn't very far up the priority list I'm afraid and in my opinion it looks quite good still. Yeah it could be a bit more saturation and contrast but its not that bad actually.

    Jan, just flagging (making aware of potential), not a critic.

    Providing these infos as time and stage still could make a difference

    for futher developments, i hope you understand that as such.

    Since nobody knows your priorities, i don't see a reason why not to provide such observations.

    Save it in your drawer and pick it once it becomes a priority for you.

    Hi,

    "correct landscape colours" depend on many, many factors:

    Daytime, date, blue sky - scattered clouds with shadows - overcast sky, degree of humidity in the air, seasonal vegetation, even the latitude on earth. Perhaps many more ...

    Your comparison 'real - sim' is rather interesting: It looks to me, that our atmosphere contains a large proportion of blue light.

    I assume, IPACS relies on commercial aerial images and aerofly geoconverters rely on USGS or GE/VE images.

    So the image colours mainly depend on the providers.

    I did not succeed to create a similar image like your blue real one. If a graphics artist can provide values for whatever parameters (saturation, gamma, RGB...), we could run batch jobs to do this. But up to now I don't know how to achieve this. Any manual operations on separate image areas are all but impossible.

    Regards

    Rodeo

    • Official Post
    Quote from Rodeo

    If a graphics artist can provide values for whatever parameters (saturation, gamma, RGB...), we could run batch jobs to do this. But up to now I don't know how to achieve this.

    Or just change the parameters in the shaders. That would be easier and not everyone would need to re-download their 130 GB of Aerofly :)

    Quote from Rodeo

    Hi,

    "correct landscape colours" depend on many, many factors:

    Daytime, date, blue sky - scattered clouds with shadows - overcast sky, degree of humidity in the air, seasonal vegetation, even the latitude on earth. Perhaps many more ...

    Rodeo

    And most definitely Camera and screen gamuts, dynamic range and white balance settings and capabilities.

    Since both are shown on the same monitor, it's fair in that sense that the display is somewhat taken out of the picture (pun intended), but the camera used to take the real picture and the screenshot may have a different white balance. I can take real picture that look just like the aerofly pict in your example.

    You may also notice that in the two examples you provided (beginning of thread and last post), the "real" pictures have very different characteristics. In the first one the shaded part (real pict) is essentially the same saturation and about same color temp as FS2 just a bit less exposure (normal, in the shade), the sunny part is warmer, (normal too, sun makes it warmer in colors). To me, it's all normal and fine as FS2 doesn't have the sunny/shade contrast like this so FS2 is in the right middle, because it doesn't have the sunny/shady effect, and it's probably really hard to do. In that case, to my eye, FS2 looks like the right saturation, a bit less contrast, and a mid level white balance (not sunny, not full shade), so just about where I'd expect it.

    Case in point, cameras have different white balance settings for either case, because they just cannot do justice to both at the same time like our human eye can. So in your first case I wouldn't adjust the FS2 pict as either way (towards shade or sun) would make the other one even worse.

    Now the second picture, which clearly show a general difference, the main difference between the two picts (real/FS2) right now is color temperature (i.e. white balance to simplify), it may also be slightly more saturated for the "real" one. I would be really careful there, as the difference between looking with your eye (which on top is different for different people) and a camera is already very hard to judge. If you don't believe me, look outside your window and take a picture, now compare the two. Now tweak white balance, saturation, tint, exposure, etc.. until you think it's exactly the same SIDE by SIDE (picture to real view with your eye), that should take some time, if one ever finds an answer. Most likely the best will always be some kind of compromise.

    So the point here is that it will be very difficult to have anything look satisfactory to everyone and in every conditions. We all have different sensitivity, and the human eye is always more capable than any camera.

    One could, justly so, argue that it is irrelevant in the sense that the same person/eye looks at real scenery and at artificial scenery, but it makes it difficult however to have artificial scenery be the same feeling for everyone. I can make artificial scenery that looks just like real to me, and someone else will find it different because their eye is more sensitive to something else (color balance, saturation, light, etc..).

    Here as I thought, I had to make it way cooler and a very slight increase in saturation. I still didn't get the blue right (water) as they are fundamentally different. If I get a similar blue the rest of the colors will be completely off. Personally, I wouldn't want FS2 to look like this (way too "blueish"). Now does FS2 have the perfect white balance and compromise (contrast, temperature, tint, saturation), maybe not. It may be slightly too warm for most people and slightly undersaturated (what you refer too as "greensish", but is more "reddish"), but if so, not by much at least to my taste.

    FYI the "real" picture to me, with a somewhat trained eye, looks way too cold in white balance and undersaturated. It's part subjective, part experience, and part the conditions of the picture (could be the camera, would be atmospheric conditions, could be the glass filtering, or any combination thereof). On the other hand the FS2 pict is too warm, and slightly undersaturated also.

    Both could use a bit more contrast too, but that's expected with atmospheric haze, so I'd say in that sense it's a good match and a good setting.

    The point here is that, to me, neither look real, they both look like a picture taken of real scenery through a camera that has slightly off settings for the conditions (everything is too blue, blue greens, greys are too blue on the "real" one, too warm for the other). I'd say something in between looks "real".

    I put "real" in quotes, because it really is a representation of real, though a certain camera with its particular settings and performances. We don't have a real reference here, and we can't no matter what we do, it will always be through a camera.

    Another point, it may just be that the setting of anybody's particular display (screen or otherwise) is off too. Just like cameras, displays (screens or otherwise) have a certain setting, and that influences picture colors perception. Not the case for you as one pict is too cold, the other too warm, but just be aware of the issue when speaking of colors. It also means that a given color set, doesn't render the same for two different people with two different displays.

    Your thoughts are smart and heading the right way Rodeo.

    Having a close eye on the raw material may tell transformation needs.

    A Graphic Artist would probably investigate the raw data format from aspects like the file types (.tif down to .bmp),

    the bit-rate (down to 24), the scheme (RGB/CMYK), experiment with channels and turn the gamma knob up and down.

    He or she would find the total sum of colours that exist in 1 sat image. Can be 20, can be 6 million,

    and would fight for eveyone in the dev meeting.

    Hollywood would build a compiler, throw all the stuff through that filter and get a non-dynamic solution package

    that looks good at one time of the day, and mainly edit with filters.

    NASA would run the full visible and non-visible light spectrum from ultraviolet to infrared and gamma over 1 picture, fuse it and

    deliver it to the public as scientifically enhanced reality, while the server farms are melting.

    As Sat imagery from known sources priotize contours over colour dynamics, the purchased material represent a specific time of the day,

    that is cheaper for customers like game devs and allows to process pictures at high speed, which is top priority for video games.

    aerofly seems to work with such 1 standard colour model, where colours get darker, less saturated and

    overlayed by some orange thing as the day ends, while the sat images remain unchanged.

    That is fine and brings the result we know and nothing different should disturb the official priority list at all.

    The colour spectrum rotation during the daytimes has not been considered a weapon of arts in the game industry.

    Who would want a shock-and-awe visibility experience like real life provides us with? hoooo. Not me please. Nobody would ever leave the house again.

    i would want one of those VR-cubes to put on my head and stay virtual all day long.

    experimenting dynamic colour interaction (run the uv-to-gamma filter against the 6 million colours in their 24-bit images,

    while brightness increases and decreases) that may be something for someone who really has a lot of free space. inda head n inda diary man.

    For me however, this is not a whether or not, but a when and how thing.

    the hardware giants are waiting.

    Therefore maybe the answer for IPACS could be, if it's not too hard, to have any or all of the following sliders:

    - Exposure (brightness)

    - Gamma (contrast and artificial dynamic range compensation)

    - Color Temperature (white balance)

    Technically one can adjust their display to do all that, and hopefully the FS2 scenery is "compromised" to the mid range, but like they say, they rely on imported data, so a lot has to do with the capture equipment and conditions.

    One thing for sure, to aim for a perfect "out of the box" image for everyone is impossible. Mere displays technology, evolution and settings will ensure that.

    @ussiowa

    your thoughts are valid and i partly agree.

    what i marked as "real" was to differentiate from virtual,

    and as you explained, reality may relate to its viewer's constitution.

    (Despite what you see are in fact the colors of a swiss landscape at a clear day at 6000 feet).

    As most males suffer from a natural chromosome taking their ability to interprete colors in the red-green range correctly

    (you may know this from your last medical, so do i), i am having negative feelings against brownish monotone landscapes

    as we had them in older flight sims.

    My approach is finding the truth, triggering digital possiblilities to gain more of the real thing,

    whereas i consider "real" as a standard value against the results of enhanced colour engines that will dominate future

    applications.

    Quote from Almdudler

    I hope ipacs will work on the sky colours and on terrain shades soon, that will enrich the sceneries and

    even patch better if terrains are properly coloured.

    well, you're quite right. The difficulty in photoscenery making is colour balancing, and depending on the raw material you start from it can be quite desperate.

    The photomaterial of the Swiss scenery is the more than 20 years old Endoxon base with extreme saturated colours that served for all Switzerland Pro series since 2003.

    However, as long as the lakes are painted electric blue with partially very low res satellite pictures in the middle, I would not complain about green grass or sky exact colour. I very much hope IPACS will do something to correct the Swiss lakes that unfortunately look so ugly in AFS2...

    Cheers

    Antoine

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    Edited 2 times, last by Trespassers (October 9, 2017 at 9:53 PM).

    I take all this with a grain of salt. I've actually been an art teacher (long ago) and consider myself to have a fairly good eye for visuals/color, yet I've found, especially in those who complain of "cartoon" colors in sims, a general unawareness that reality is often pretty "cartoon like" and some of those saturated colors that can be offputting to some are actually totally legitimate. It's a balance.

    http://www.lovethesepics.com/2015/03/stunni…-china-36-pics/

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    • Official Post
    Quote from Almdudler

    just take the first picture as a reference (passenger with a smile in a sailplane) for all comparisons.

    That's not a passenger actually. That is me flying from the rear seat cause the pilot in the front is currently busy holding up the camera :D

    That was an awesome flight in the Duo Discus over the Black-Forrest in Germany.