Author Topic: Knossos Launcher does not apply lighting settings  (Read 2297 times)

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Knossos Launcher does not apply lighting settings
As the title says I can't get my lighting settings to work using the custom flags in the knossos launcher. The game looks bland and far worse than what I remember: https://imgur.com/a/H2xG5qb
My custom flags are "-ambient_factor 128 -spec_exp 16 -spec_point 1.0 -spec_static 1.0 -spec_tube 1.0 -ogl_spec 80 -bloom_intensity 75 -fxaa_preset 9 -cap_object_update 0"

These should give the game a dramatically different look than in the two screenshots, no? Emissive light is also disabled, but seems to be enabled.
What do you guys think?

My log: https://fsnebula.org/log/5cd18b7ccb0d3311ba2e7178

 
Re: Knossos Launcher does not apply lighting settings
If you want those flags to actually do something (especially -ambient_factor) then use SCP version 3.7.4.

The 3.8.0 ruines the graphics by making HDR mandatory and causes that washed out and bland look that you described. Also the specular effect is much weaker (shining looks worse) in 3.8.0 and cannot be adjusted by -spec_exp or -ogl_spec anymore. These 3 mentioned commandlines don't do anything in 3.8.0! The only way to kill HDR is to set -bloom_intensity to 0, but it's hardly an ideal solution, because it eliminates all kinds of other post processing effects like bloom.

There is still hope that HDR will become optional in 3.8.2. After all, the huge changes regarding the modularity of the engine were hardly even discussed within the community. In 3.7.4 you could switch every graphical feature on and off while 3.8.0 was the first release in SCP history where new graphical features were made mandatory. I don't think there was even a community vote for this kind change in coding philosophy. 3.8.0 broke the philosophy of modularity which was established back in 2002.

My advice: Stick with 3.7.4 and you can use all your custom flags, or use 3.8.0 with the following:

Rhymes' Settings
    -ambient_factor 80
    -spec_point 0.3
    -spec_static 2
    -spec_tube 0.7
    -bloom_intensity 10
    -no_emissive_light

Still, it's no longer possible to achieve the same cool that had 3.7.4 no matter how you try to tweak launch parameters.

« Last Edit: May 07, 2019, 09:24:51 am by Lykurgos88 »

 
Re: Knossos Launcher does not apply lighting settings
Ah that explains it then. However the settings you provided seem decent enough. Thank you very much, my duder.
Shame that FSO degraded in terms of visual fidelity. I preferred the legacy system, especially since this means that the recommended settings for Diaspora won't look as good anymore either..

 

Offline Mito [PL]

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  • Proud Member of Slavicus Mechanicus
Re: Knossos Launcher does not apply lighting settings
Firstly, the log states that lighting flags are found and applied.
Secondly, I think I recall that Knossos will not work with pre-3.8.0 builds and has got none of these downloadable. This leaves you with 3.8.0-3 and all the nightly builds since then.

@Pacman110: You're basically using a default FS2 set of lighting settings... I suggest you to check out these: https://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/Sample_Lighting_Settings

The thing with "blandness" and emissive lighting supposedly enabled is related to your ambient_factor: the value of 128 is horrendously high with the new renderer. Actually, I think it's the maximum value. For example, I like dark and shady views and I'm usually using the value of 73 or 75.
Ambient factor acts... strangely with these new builds. Up to about 70 it makes no change whatsoever, and above it it's a very steep line up to 128.
You can experiment with lighting yourself, there's an easy method. Just press F3 in the main menu, select a background (would be for the best if it was one you know), select a ship and then use the "Render options" menu to fiddle around a bit. It lets you check ambient, light from the suns and bloom. Find the values that make you satisfied and go with them!
For example, my settings: -ambient_factor 73 -spec_point 0.3 -spec_static 1.0 -spec_tube 0.3 -spec_exp 0.7 -bloom_intensity 35

@Lykurgos88:
HDR is one thing, the bloomy lights. But PBR, so the whole reflection handling system in place can simply be no longer controlled by one or two flags. I'm not a specialist on that but PBR basically lets the modellers handle how materials on their assets behave. So there isn't a way to use a general override for this - there's a map especially dedicated to handling this and the model/texture creator has to make it.

Gah, I think a SCP dev should answer you rather than me.
How do you kill a hydra?

You starve it to death.

 
Re: Knossos Launcher does not apply lighting settings
That was super helpful. Cheers!

 

Offline ngld

  • Administrator
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  • Knossos dev
Re: Knossos Launcher does not apply lighting settings
There is still hope that HDR will become optional in 3.8.2.
HDR became necessary since the PBR renderer doesn't work without it. General consensus was that PBR looked great and should be implemented. See this thread for the whole discussion.
One reason we have less options now than we had before is that the code was cleaned up a lot. A few of the options were recently removed because they don't actually do anything anymore (i.e. -ogl_spec) and other options were removed to keep the renderer code maintainable (we really need more graphic coders... or multi coders... or just coders in general).

3.8.0 broke the philosophy of modularity which was established back in 2002.
Um... this isn't the first time that stuff has been removed from the engine. FSO had a DirectX renderer way back but that was removed since it's easier to only maintain the OpenGL renderer which works on all supported platforms.

Shame that FSO degraded in terms of visual fidelity.
The old lighting presets don't work anymore since the renderer changed too much but once you use one of the new lighting presets, IMO it looks better than it did before. Especially once you add the new PBR ships.

My advice: Stick with 3.7.4 [...]
Knossos isn't compatible with 3.7.4 due to a number of changes related to how the launcher and FSO communicate. You'll have to use another launcher for 3.7.4.
I'd recommend trying one of the recent nightlies. There've been a number of tweaks to the renderer since 3.8.0 which might improve the lighting for you. Also, most of the recent mod releases require nightlies at this point.

I'm not a specialist on that but PBR basically lets the modellers handle how materials on their assets behave. So there isn't a way to use a general override for this - there's a map especially dedicated to handling this and the model/texture creator has to make it.

Gah, I think a SCP dev should answer you rather than me.
Sorry, not an expert either but here's a pretty good explanation.