Those of us who were here when AH2 Beta was finally on-line, would feel an impending sensation of deja-vu. The old AH2 Beta terrain, was suffering the same responses from the gamers as the new 2.10 terrain;
"It's too dark!" I've always wondered if the PC monitors HTC were using in their offices were perhaps much too dark. For one thing, every new screenshot in the News section, in my case, must be viewed with quite a high gamma setting with my monitor. Seeing how most everyone seems to exclaim that the new 2.10 terrain is much too dark, it seems the problem isn't on my FE alone.
Now, don't get me wrong, HT and Pyro. Despite some obvious problems, I for one, think the new terrain depiction is an overall a large step in the right direction. The sky colors are definately much better, and the sky-horizon-ground transtions also seem to be much more natural. As a matter of fact the tone and feel of the sky blue color is very close to the color settings I've suggested in the past.
Also, the depiction of individual trees are very good.
However, like many people have mentioned, the tone of the green used for the ground is way too dark, and so is the water texture.
This dark tone sort of neutralizes the various small shades and bump depictions (on a textural level) in both the water and the ground, and gives out an impression to most people that none of the light from the sun is reflected on the ground - overall, making it look like the ground is covered with dark, matte, carpet of non-reflective green paint, rather than looking like a covered with living grass. I believe this is the reason why people are pointing out that ground-level light/shading isn't in place. If none of the mechanisms concerning how light/shading is applied to the ground has been changed with 2.10, then the only plausible explanation would be that the terrain textures are too dark to begin with.
Therefore, I suggest the following, HTC. It's a pretty straight-forward, easy fix which has been suggested before when AH2 Beta came online. I'll bet Superfly can just do it in 5 minutes or something:
1. Change the tone of the ground textures Just up the brightness of the "green" in the ground texture about 20~30%, and change the contrast level according to it. The same thing should be done to the water textures, too.
2. The trees and shadows The tree shadows seem to be not using real lightings, to depict highlights and shadows. I'm not too sure about this, since my test-flight was very brief... but to me, seen from the air, it seems the shadows cast by trees are just solid texture depiction, instead of real light-object-shadow depiction.
Anyhow, the shadows are much too dark, and too detailed with leaves and all, and sometimes it looks strange because the angle of the sun doesn't effect how the shadow is cast on the ground. Individual trees look good, but a group of trees with forests, are a problem because the ground looks very messy when looking from above. Would there be any way to fix this?
3. The brown roads The road depiction looks very good from the ground, but again, the tone looks a bit too reddish-brown from my FE when in air, making it look like a reddish-brown patch of mud rather than dry dirt trail. Perhaps the "red" tone can be turned down a notch with the textures.
I'm at work right now, not to mention that I've lost access to the AHPic site, so I'll probably have to find another server provider.. but I'll try make some mock-up pics when I get back.
ps) An interesting side effect... the ground being so dark, the ack and gun fire tracer rounds look much brighter and dynamic. Perhaps something can be done with the tracer textures too.
(I'm sure you remember me throwing a tantrum about how the 'accidental by-product' of bugged tracer rounds looking much better than the normal rounds, when AH2 Beta first came out, Pyro.
)
ps2) another small problem seems to be that the color of the dust trail a ground vehicle throws up on dirt road, is white, instead of being brown. Should be looked into, IMO.
ps3) We really need better hit sprites, guys!
ps4) I'm wondering.. is there any chance the ground textures could also be connected with a 'materials.txt' file to depict how lighting is handled on ground level?
ps5) One thing I've forgot to suggest..
How many types of ground textures can be used? Currently, the 'green' parts of the terrain is used by a single type of texture, which is all-green of same tone. If there is something that can help with realistic looks, it would be using three~four different types of textures to depict various shades of green according to terrain..
For example;
Take a look at the following pic of IL2 terrain. Notice how the ground has some open 'dirt spots' where grass doesn't grow. This small kind of variety could help a lot to make the terrain feel less dull.
