EB Lighting File - Vote

[Goth]

Hi Guys
Currently I am working on visuals for the battlefield at EB and we are introducing lots of new things such as realistic dustclouds, new skies and battlemap lighting. Its the battlemap lighting that we need your help with. So far we have created 4 slightly different variants of the lighting file and we need your input to decide which will become the main one to be used in the next release of EB, so if you could vote and give us some feedback it would be great.
Here is the download file Attachment 3116 it has 4 different lighting files , unpack the file with winrar and you will have 4 folders ,options 1,2,3 and 4 copy a file from a folder and paste it into your EB\Data folder, try playing your campaign for a while so that you get to view how the lighting works in different enviroments.
Heres a little teaser of what else we have done at EB
firstly 2 screenshots of a combination of the new lighting(option1), new dust clouds and one of the new medium skies


2 screenshots of a combination of the new lighting(option1) and one of the new heavy skies



Thanks Guys

Goth

[Slaxx Hatmen]

I like number 1 especially with all that dust! I always wanted to see more dust during combat since its always done in the movies but in RTW the dust is almost nonexistent. Also, those storm clouds in pic3 look badass!

[Goth]

From a modder as good as yourself those are great compliments indeed celt.

Thanks mate

Goth

[Slaxx Hatmen]

From a modder as good as yourself those are great compliments indeed celt.

Thanks mate

Goth

Hey you yourself made a whole mod by your lonesome!

[AceOfSpades]

I think I'll try this out.

[Sarkiss]

wow, the skies and dust look amazing! great job!

[I Am Herenow]

Really nice, just that the clouds in pic 1 seem to down to the ground - shouldn't they be a little above the horizon?

[Goth]

Hey you yourself made a whole mod by your lonesome!

Ah yes , its much nicer being part of a team and being able to concentrate on one aspect of a mod rather than doing everything. It gets a bit mind blowing having to do all that work,although to be honest I did borrow alot from other people , not least from yourself celt

wow, the skies and dust look amazing! great job!

Thanks sarkiss, The dust is working very well, it can look a little bit light for northern Europe but if we make it any darker it then looks too dark for the desert so I think we have have struck the best medium. As for the skies, well there are many more to come, we plan on doing the full 26 skies for the next release of EB.

Really nice, just that the clouds in pic 1 seem to down to the ground - shouldn't they be a little above the horizon?

Thanks mate, No need to worry about the cloud being too low , this sky has since been remade and with skies we are producing now it may not even make it to the final release, yep skies are getting better all the time.

Thanks guys
Goth

[I Am Herenow]

Wow, sounds great!

Got any skies that really stand out? Like black clouds, lightning, stuff like that (althought I suppose lightning might not be viable seeing as rain is random)?

Also, could you create two dust types, if there are problems of them being too light or dark? I don't want to criticize you or anything - just asking if it's possible.

[Goth]

2 different types of dust cloud arent possible I am afraid although it would be a good thing.
Back to what you mentioned in your previous post about sky coming down to the ground , is it that the sky obscures the mountains in the background? If this is so then this does not happen in game, it is a feature of the screenshot function I am afraid, for some reason screenshot puts sky in front of background features but in game background features are in front of sky, weird but true.

Goth

[AceOfSpades]

Tbh, I see no more dust than before and the lighting changes only effect a few units that I can see, and even those are only a tiny bit darker. No new clouds either.

Am I doing something wrong? I'm using option one, btw.

Thanks for making this though, the ss look great!

[Goth]

Hi Ace
Dust and new clouds are not included in the download above, the screenshots are purely a taste of whats to come , you will have to wait for the next release of EB for them.
The file included is only the lighting file so people can test it , if you are seeing little or no difference then you may not have installed it right but first try a custom battle in summer with calm weather at midday. This setting produces the greatest change and if you see no difference here then something is wrong.

thanks
Goth

[Nelduin]

I Think the "option 3" is the better.

No too dark, no too light.

[AceOfSpades]

I tried that, goth, and I do see the effects now (just slightly). Perhaps its just because they are all darker that I don't notice it that much. Looks nice though, and I can't wait for the next EB release!

[RedFox]

AFAIK there are only 24 skies in RTW, 1 for each hour of the day.
And the skies seriously need more work, they're too stretched, make them float in the sky, should be done easily with photoshop.

But the lightning, definitely the 3rd one, not too dark, not too bright, the units look just crappy in 1st and too gloomy in 4th.

[AceOfSpades]

An EB unit? Crappy? That's blasphemy!

[RedFox]

An EB unit? Crappy? That's blasphemy!

No, it's called constructive criticism and usually helps developers further improve their game.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Well, I don't know that calling something "crappy" is necessarily constructive, but I think the rest of the post was helpful.

I just wouldn't trumpet that great helpfulness to modders is achieved specifically by referring to something they made with an adjective that means "like fecal matter", that's all I'm sayin'.

[Goth]

Well constructive critisism is always welcome, Redfox saying there are 24 skies is correct, The numbers for skies go to 26 but numbers 24 and 25 are missing so he is correct there.
He is also right on the sky in screenshots 3 and 4 , these skies were made from a panorama with a ratio greater than needed to create a sky for rtw, so the panorama had to be squashed along the horizontal axis which makes the sky look unrealistic. I have since overcome this problem and am now producing panoramas of greater quality and the proper ratio(though not because of your comment redfox).
On the last point about option 1 looking crappy , i think redfoxes comment is unfortunate and incorrect. The entire point of this thread is to find the option that is most popular and the way things are turning out, option 1 is proving to be the most popular, I am finding that the setting people prefer depends to a large degree on the monitor they are using and I am finding alot of people really disliking option 1 even though its the most popular. On some monitors option 1 is so dark that people cannot see any detail whatsoever proving that preference is to a large degree monitor dependant.Taking this into account I can understand the reaction of redfox but his wording is erm......Crappy

Thanks
Goth

[AceOfSpades]

Strange, then, that when I report bugs in the bug reporting section I am looked at as an annoyance.

I give up. I'll fix what I can for myself and let everyone else figure out the bugs.