Time for a sky color tweak?

[Wraith_TMS]

First, congrats on the new environment capabilities, HTC; they look great!

Given the new capabilities, I suggest a small change in the online environment itself (specifically the sky) might be called for, in order to really get the best out of the new cloud layer and reflection settings.  See my screenshot (offline testing, unedited screenshot) as an example.  Notice how much brighter the environment looks.



Offline, I only lightened 3 sky color settings: horizon fog, clouds, and sky.  I think the overall effect is of a sky at a different time of the year from what we currently have in the MA.  I don't think I've ever seen the arena sky colors change in the last few years, except for special events, so given the beautiful new effects, maybe it's time for a more "summery" look to the sky?   I was inspired by the new cloud layer that was introduced and how it resembled the sky/cloud layer we've had in my part of So Cal over the last few days.  Our local sky here has been a bit brighter, with very high clouds resembling the new layer, so I tried to recreate it a bit with these settings. 

I'm suggesting this because I think that such a change would be simple, not affect frame rates, and would give an immediate, new and brighter look to the AH world to complement the new environment settings.  When reflected on the new shiny bits, the overall effect of a brighter sky could be stunning.

FWIW, 

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[Citabria]

need a more gradiated or texturemapped sky in my opinion.

deeper darker blue the higher the altitude too.

[TDeacon]

Perhaps I am misunderstanding the OP, but "brighter" is not what we need for the sky.  Actually, the sky is too bright relative to the ground on most maps, relative to the real world.  This is especially bad when the sun is low in the sky, but even at "high noon", on most maps, the sky is too bright relative to the ground.  At high noon, a field of grass in bright sunlight, should be relatively similar to the sky in terns of brightness.  Check it out the next time you go outside.  This is both an aesthetic and an eyestrain issue. 

MH

[RTHolmes]

agreed deacon, brighter and more saturated is the last thing we need. I dont expect it to be like western front europe (grey 90% of the time) but the holiday brochure colour palette gets wearing after a while.

[ImADot]

I'm sure I have tweaked these a bit since I put this up on Photobucket, but try these colors offline or in your custom arena and change the time of day to see dawn, noon, dusk and night...