Lighting vs realism in games

[walld]

Some games try to overdo the realism and the scenes are really dark.

I found several of the scenes in "The Island [MichaelFenix]" to be so dark I had to skip most of it.


I get the idea of realism, but really? There are obviously levels of lighting that set scenes and timing, but I also think that it is pretty easy to discern the time of day, and I think it is preferred to see the scenes rather than immerse for most of them.

 

[okok42690]

Lighting is a big part of realism and unfortunately people always get it wrong. making things darker/harder to see doesn't make it more "realistic" it only hides the imperfections and makes it more "moody" and sometimes Temo level cinematic. for actual realism, lighting just has to be accurate enough to make sense in our brain. for example if a scene is in a room, and theres a couch in the middle, the lighting can't all just be from above, there has to be some side lighting, whether its coming from windows or other light sources.

 

[valenvaryon]

Lighting is a big part of realism and unfortunately people always get it wrong. making things darker/harder to see doesn't make it more "realistic" it only hides the imperfections and makes it more "moody" and sometimes Temo level cinematic. for actual realism, lighting just has to be accurate enough to make sense in our brain. for example if a scene is in a room, and theres a couch in the middle, the lighting can't all just be from above, there has to be some side lighting, whether its coming from windows or other light sources.

Yeah this applies to like every ReShade preset i've downloaded for skyrim / fallout / cyberpunk. So many people seem to equate "realistic" lighting with "pitch fucking black". I wonder if it has something to do with like people who are more into image editing / production have a different brightness and color calibration on their monitors, so it looks entirely different to them.

 

[Animal_OG]

Some games try to overdo the realism and the scenes are really dark.

I found several of the scenes in "The Island [MichaelFenix]" to be so dark I had to skip most of it.


I get the idea of realism, but really? There are obviously levels of lighting that set scenes and timing, but I also think that it is pretty easy to discern the time of day, and I think it is preferred to see the scenes rather than immerse for most of them.

I agree, I don't know that game, but I made the same "mistake" when I started learning Daz. A key concept in rendering is understanding Tone Mapping and how the renderer is trying to simulate the human eye when being exposed to light:
ISO controls how sensitive is a camera to light that reaches it.
Aperture controls how big is the hole the light is going through (imagine your pupils adjusting to light when going dark <-> bright)
Shutter Speed controls how long the sensor is exposed to light.

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I rendered this as an example of the "eye" trying to catch a ton of light; it's a dark scene, but looks tasty in my opinion.

At the end of the day it's just faster and easier to leave everything in default and click render. I can already imagine people going "if the dev didn't spend so much time fucking around with lighting we'd have more sex scenes" LOL

 

[okok42690]

Yeah this applies to like every ReShade preset i've downloaded for skyrim / fallout / cyberpunk. So many people seem to equate "realistic" lighting with "pitch fucking black". I wonder if it has something to do with like people who are more into image editing / production have a different brightness and color calibration on their monitors, so it looks entirely different to them.

I still firmly believe they do that to hide imperfections, I remember the game of thrones prequel, house of dragon, its episodes were so freakin dark that people had to implode their tv brightness so they can watch it

 

[Eye]

Lighting is a big part of realism and unfortunately people always get it wrong. making things darker/harder to see doesn't make it more "realistic" it only hides the imperfections and makes it more "moody" and sometimes Temo level cinematic. for actual realism, lighting just has to be accurate enough to make sense in our brain. for example if a scene is in a room, and theres a couch in the middle, the lighting can't all just be from above, there has to be some side lighting, whether its coming from windows or other light sources.

City of Broken Dreamers is a great example of good dark lighting.

 

[borregad]

at the same time, too bright makes everything look plasticky. i don't think good lighting's easy to master, and i really respect games that can do it well

 

[encassion]

If there are more than a couple of sex scenes that are too dark to see details then I turn it quit playing. If non-sex scenes are overly dark I can tolerate it for the most part. If I can't see the relevant action then why bother? I shouldn't have to use my imagination to see people boinking in a game with pictures. Of course, the same applies to implied penetration. If you make a game with sex scenes then I should be able to see every naughty detail, not just "trust" the game that the dick is indeed inside her anus.

 

[Kastel0]

That also happened in movies and tv shows in the last 10-15 years.
Some consider that Nolan's Batman trilogy was the origin, being a "darker" Batman. The problem is Nolan's Trilogy is great because they are amazing movies, the "darkness" was only one element.
So some creators thought: "this is dark and cool, so I will make something even darker to be even cooler".

cough! Zack Snyder cough!

 

[kenny86]

The majority of people making WEG are solo devs with no experience or formal knowledge trying to hit big. Lighting is something that even big studios get wrong, so no wonder wegs suffer from it, especially since a good chunk of them are based on HS/KK which aren't particularly that well equipped.
The games that hit the worst for me in that regard were now and then/interim domain. 80% of all the scenes are in low light environment, it's annoying as fuck.

 

[gertbert11]

Whether it is harmful to your health is a matter of taste. Lighting and realism in games are important aspects that significantly influence the gaming experience. While realistic lighting promotes immersion, the pursuit of realism in graphics and physics can be challenging and resource intensive.

 

[DragonsFear]

if done correctly ity can be beautiful
the main problem is that people who make these kind of games often think that they can do it with ease where programmers/graphic disighners had to take years of classes and have more than a decade of experiance with doing it right

moral of the story, unless you really want to dedicate over a decade to leurn just don't do it, bec you simply don't know how to, so will screw it up in the end

 

[ukalias]

Some games try to overdo the realism and the scenes are really dark.

I found several of the scenes in "The Island [MichaelFenix]" to be so dark I had to skip most of it.


I get the idea of realism, but really? There are obviously levels of lighting that set scenes and timing, but I also think that it is pretty easy to discern the time of day, and I think it is preferred to see the scenes rather than immerse for most of them.

I have run into the problem of having darkness ruin sex scenes in a lot of games. I prefer seeing the sex rather than realism too lol

 

[stark]

Creators need to add things that don't exist in reality to make the experience better for the player/viewer.
It's like the quote from one of the lord of the rings cinematographers when they were doing a night scene and somebody asked where all the light was supposed to be coming from. 'the same place as the music'

 

[Loliholic]

I prefer light.
Not only because it sucks to stumble through dark dungeons, but also because screens tend to turn into mirrors if they display dark stuff...and honestly, i prefer mental self inserting over seeing myself instead of the game ^^

 

[Finwin]

I don't mind if its dimmed a bit but it can never be dark I still need to see whats going on.

 

[pedromega]

Oh, just found this topic after my of the same type was closed recently.
Why so dark?

Let's make one thing clear. Dark images ≠ more realism. And it will never be.
Monitors were never intended to represent real brightness of objects.
Firstly, they never could. No screen could adequately represent real brightness of brightest objects the same way as no headphones should ever be able to reproduse loudest sounds you could hear in real life.
Secondly, there never was any need to mimic real world light levels. That's just not something that can attribute to our perception of realism. What matters to us is relation between dark and light areas, not levels of brightness of them. The same with sounds. We don't stop percieving sounds as realistic once we turn down volume a notch.

My theory is simple, and it boils down to a single word: incompetence. Once creators understand that dark images achieve nothing, they'll stop doing that at once.

As for me, I end up relighting images for myself for some games. That's much easier that tweaking monitor and videocard settings to achieve something similar. Unfortunately, the best tool for that I know of is Adobe Lightroom. And while it's good in atutomatic mode, the results aren't perfect still. And taking into acoount its paid nature, I can not recommend that for everyone.

 

[EpicWaxFlame69]

I don't have any knowledge of what devs do or need in order to make 3D rendered VN games. But I do understand both cinematography and photography. And while I don't know if the two terms translate the same for Renders. What I do understand is dark scenes shouldn't be about "how much light do we not need" but rather "what lights are needed to add to the scene". Maybe that's a bad example.

Like if it's a scene where a character is in a bedroom at night, you still want to light your characters. Maybe it's a blue hue from the moon light or striking strips of light from busy traffic if they're in an apartment. while also still back lighting them to give your character depth. and so on. Or if they were in a park at night. maybe they're lit from a single light post or moon light again.

Basically I feel like a dark scene shouldn't just be purely dark. Like unless if your intention is a pitch black room with a mysterious/unknown vibe. people should always be lit up.

 

[Hongbottlo]

I haven't seen any VN type game with interesting lighting yet. Are the any?

 

[pedromega]

interesting lighting

What exactly do you mean by that? What interest in lighting do you have?
Are you talking about image quality in general, or something really specific?