Why so dark?

[pedromega]

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This is a screensot from a game "The Way". Well, you probably see an almost black rectangle. But actually this a scene with a charachter, his emotions, some action, and some environment.

We see nothing of that just because ... because of what, actually? Well, this is the question of this topic.

Why so many games lack basic sence of brightness? 3D modeling is hard, storytelling is an art, but applying levels in any photo editor? Is that so much to ask for? ​

Here, let me apply some levels in random image viewer/editor to this image.



Looks a lot better, doesn't it? So why do so many developers omit this basic step?

So yeah, but this a single image, you may say. Well, let me show you almost all 7000 images of this game.



You see that basically third of them are dark-to-black. And another third are just too dark to be good. Only brighter third is somewthat ok.

To wrap this up, here's one more picture for your entartainment.
All those pictures grouped by their brightness into 9 groups. And then averaged and plotted their histograms over. Just to see how dark they are.


Again, we see that third of all images are almost entirely black. And only 10-20% could be considered well lit. But why? I have no answer.


So, tell me. Do you see extremely dark games as well? Can you name these games?
Or is that just me?

 

[NateDawg59]

I can't say I've run across games that are that dark throughout. Scenes yes, games as a whole no and I would not like that. In your example, perhaps the dark scenes are attempting to convey a moodier ambience until certain circumstances show up? There are quite a bit of light images there as well. I know nothing of this game so I really can't help. If the scenes aren't supposed to be dark, that's a different problem entirely. Perhaps the developer messed something up, perhaps something is up with your side graphics-wise.

 

[sam46]

Recently some of game scenes made me question my screen brightness, I'm not sure if the scene is too dark or there's something wrong with my monitor or my w11, not sure

 

[labant]

Some drugs can make you sensitive to bright lights, maybe the dev is only a concerned citizen?

 

[El Buho]

Recently some of game scenes made me question my screen brightness, I'm not sure if the scene is too dark or there's something wrong with my monitor or my w11, not sure

I have asked the same question about why many game scenes are too dark, and get various dumb answers. They say "it is supposed to be night time in the bed room" SO What? fuck realism, I what to see whats going on! Or the screen brightness BS. Truth is the dev does not know how to make the game lighting look good.

 

[SegmentCoalescing]

This can also depend on the monitor used by the developer and what the settings are. I've been wondering if they even use calibrated monitors?
As an example: TN monitors, especially "gaming" ones, have a washed out look to them which very well could be why some games look darker to us but "normal" to the developers.

Of course, it can look this way because the developer wants it to as well.

 

[DrPark]

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This is a screensot from a game "The Way". Well, you probably see an almost black rectangle. But actually this a scene with a charachter, his emotions, some action, and some environment.

We see nothing of that just because ... because of what, actually? Well, this is the question of this topic.

I dunno. I can see this picture perfectly well. It's dark, yes, but I assume that's because it's night. I can still see the guy perfectly fine and in color (blue clothes, white skin, red mouth), the grass is still clearly green and the background is visible too. Sandstone bricks with some bushes infront of it (the latter admittable are only dark shadows infront of the brick house).
If you only see a black rectangle, I'd expect something to be off with your screen settings.

Here, let me apply some levels in random image viewer/editor to this image.



Looks a lot better, doesn't it? So why do so many developers omit this basic step?

Not really. Yes, the colors are brighter but it doesn't look like night anymore - assuming this scene is meant to be night (I haven't played this game).
On the other hand: After you upped brightness in an editor instead of rendering it with more lighting? The image is now very noisy and looks bad and grainy. Worse than the original one.

IMHO: If the scene is supposed to be at night in an unlit residential area, the first one is way better.
If it should be a well lit scene (day), then it should've been rendered with proper brightness and ambient lighting, not simply cranked up the brightness in photoshop in post. So no "basic step".

 

[iluvpxrn]

ive never seen games this dark before, most of the times its the settings on my monitor affecting the brightness. I've played The Way and it was not this dark

 

[AlBetGam]

Some devs are just bad at rendering/ I think others are good at the technical side of making renders, but not the artistic side. They can create an image but they don't understand what makes that image enjoyable to look at or not (e.g. ever seen a game with absolutely beautiful characters... that just kinda stood there stiffly in every scene without emoting or interacting?). One of those things being "it should be easy to see everything in it".

 

[Scales]

I find that forcing HDR via windows 10 helps balance out the colors when its full screen... but it does makes darks look even darker when the rest of the screen is mostly bright.

 

[pedromega]

I can see this picture perfectly well.

Here's the histogram of that first image.
Basically what this histogram tells is that almost all image pixels must show lower than 10% brightness of your monitor.
If you see them with good resolution and color, it probably means that your monitor washed out or at least crunches brighter colors. In other words, you see what you should not see and thus you get distorted representation of an image.

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Yes, the colors are brighter but it doesn't look like night anymore - assuming this scene is meant to be night

Sure. It doesn't look like day either. It does not look like anything. Man's skin and jeans are brightest objects in the scene, but judging from the shadows, they should be in the dark. That paints totally impossible picture, and making it darker does not solve any problem.

The image is now very noisy and looks bad and grainy. Worse than the original one.

Increasing brightness of the image inevitably increases brightness/contrast of the noise. So yeah, you see what was there in the first place. All I did was I just magnified it.

If the scene is supposed to be at night in an unlit residential area, the first one is way better.

That's the thing. Unlit residential area to me sounds like a waterless river. That's why astronomy is almost impossible near any cities - too much light pollution. And here we see perfect darkness in the middle of a street and brightest thing is the man himself.

If it should be a well lit scene (day), then it should've been rendered with proper brightness and ambient lighting, not simply cranked up the brightness in photoshop in post. So no "basic step".

That's not the point. The point is that that's not how you make night scenes. Not just by cranking down brightness to 10% of normal level. That is made with lights, colors, and contrast. Just pay attention to a movies and even some good real-life photos. If they are all dark, that means they are just bad. They may be 95% dark, but they have to have some bright spots. That's how we calibrate our vision.

And yeah, to counter your point, it's quite easy to make a day scene out of this night scene just by cranking up levels. It will still look like shit (because source is), but it will be much more like a day than a night. And even more noise, of course. Not sure how you'll see this picture (I suspect your monitor is much unlike most of others), but for me this looks like a shitty day picture. Here you go:




Thanks to everyone else for your opinions. And thank you, DrPark, as well. It was curious to know how differently we percieve the same picture.

 

[uncleben28]

Some drugs can make you sensitive to bright lights, maybe the dev is only a concerned citizen?

any examples ? *takes out a note pad*

 

[RandMierdin]

I can see the first image just fine. The second image with light added to it looks ridiculous for what is clearly a scene at night. I looked at the preview images for that game and they are lit appropriately. They are bright when they should be and darker when it's night time.

Also, if an image is too dark to see what is important, you don't use an editor to brighten the entire image like that. You add a light source before rendering that illuminates the important parts enough to be seen without affecting the overall ambience of the image.

 

[lewdguy69]

I can't see shit either. But I am pretty sure my monitor is old af. I even had to zoom in to read what was written on the shirt. Can't see the shape of his hair clearly, If he had a ponytail I wouldn't know.

I also want to point out one thing, I know it's nighttime, but don't streetlights exist in this game universe? Is there any explanation why there aren't any on the street where the character is? That would help a lot.

 

[pedromega]

I can see the first image just fine.

Well, we have another proof that there's a huge difference in monitors here. My monitors are IPS, LG brand. Different models, but they both show equally dark this image. What can you share about your model? Is it TN, IPS, or something else? I'm curious is there any correlation to a panel type. Also, any chance you tweaked your video card output settings or cranked up brightness/contrast/gamma in monitor settings?

The second image with light added to it looks ridiculous for what is clearly a scene at night.

As I said earlier, it looks bad primarily because of bad lightning, not because exposure is high. Look at any movie, you'll easily find a scene that is mostly dark, but you'll never see a scene that is completely dark, without any bright spots.

Here's a city street night scene from a movie that is even brighter than the one I edited.

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You see that it is night. Not by low brightness, but by specific light, high contrast, and extremely dark shadows.

Here's a scene in a forest, which at night is much darker than any city street. Yet, we see as much light, as in my edited image.

Also, if an image is too dark to see what is important, you don't use an editor to brighten the entire image like that. You add a light source before rendering that illuminates the important parts enough to be seen without affecting the overall ambience of the image.

Exactly my point, but it works in reverse as well. To make a night scene, you don't just make a day scene and lower the brightness to pitch black. You change light source. As a result, some parts of image may become extremely dark. But some parts must remain well-lit.

To everyone.​

If you care or just curious about image accuracy, check out online monitor test and calibration tools, like this one:

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Notice that for accurate test results you must use monitor native resolution and 100% scale in browser.

For me, according to these tests, my gamma calibration seems perfect, contrast almost ideal. On black level, I start to see from square 4, and on the white level I see up to 248. Not ideal, but good enough, IMO.

 

[VND]

Well, we have another proof that there's a huge difference in monitors here.

I streamed some times. And for me with my HDR settings I could see just fine, but the streamers didn´t saw shit. So yes. It depends on monitor settings and hardware, it seems.

 

[pedromega]

And for me with my HDR settings I could see just fine, but the streamers didn´t saw shit.

That could be the reason. None of my monitors/PCs support HDR. Maybe developer had one, but did not care to check results with those who lack HDR.

 

[SegmentCoalescing]

I streamed some times. And for me with my HDR settings I could see just fine, but the streamers didn´t saw shit. So yes. It depends on monitor settings and hardware, it seems.

Do any of the streaming services support HDR though? Even if the viewers use HDR monitors/TVs with HDR enabled on the OS level it will look weird if there is no support for it.

That could be the reason. None of my monitors/PCs support HDR. Maybe developer had one, but did not care to check results with those who lack HDR.

I don't know if Ren'Py or Daz supports HDR metadata at all.
I've been thinking about that along with the calibration thing I mentioned earlier.

It may work with AutoHDR, but it is probably not that accurate.

 

[MattShizzle]

It's annoying in movies, too.

 

[pedromega]

I've been thinking about that along with the calibration thing I mentioned earlier.

Yeah, your calibration idea and a cheap TN gaming monitor hypothesis was my first thought as well.

Also, there is such thing as a color profile. And color profiles can be heavily influential on image rendering. So, showing the same image with and without color profile may produce quite different results. What's more, color profiles are nothing new (unlike HDR) and do not require any special monitor to work. What's crucial, Jpegs support embedding color profiles, but not all image viewers make use of them. So, the same Jpeg on the same PC with the same monitor may look both bright and vibrant or totally bleak just depending on your choice of image viewer software. And Renpy is quite mature system to support color profiles. So, problem solved, right? The image was intended for a profile-aware app (specifically - Renpy), and I open it in non profile-aware viewer, hence my disappointment, right? Well, I opened this image in Gimp (which is profile-aware) and there is no indication that there is any profile within this image. So no, this seems to be false path as well.


A little side-note.
I opened a

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. Nothing special about video itself, but picture was really dark, especially for the first two minutes. Author talks about HDR, so maybe that's somehow an HDR video, I thought. The rest of the video was bright, though. However, when I downloaded this video and opened it in video player, it was really bleak. This video uses BT.2020 color range which is much wider than more common BT.709 range. So, to play it properly, player has to have some support for it. Still, color ranges are more like color profiles in images and have little to do with brightness overall.

Here's the same image in a browser window and in a video player. Clearly, my player lacks some support of this color conversion.

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