Night time is too dark, lights have flat batteries...game is too dark in general

  • Thread starter Thread starter CoolColJ
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i think the headlights are bright enough they just aim down

This seems to be the problem, at least sort of. I think it's actually more of a problem with how Polyphony programmed the lighting to work. There seems to be nothing wrong with how far the lights actually illuminate, but they illuminate farther on more level ground and much, much less so on hills. In real life, if I drive up a hill at night my headlights still illuminate the same distance ahead of me just as they would on level ground, but not so in GT5. Let me illustrate with some pictures.

These are brights:


These are dims:


Both look to illuminate a reasonable area in front of you. However, these are on nearly level ground.

Now, here we are on an incline:


Observe how it now illuminates only like four or five feet in front of the car, as though the lights were now suddenly aiming sharply downward? On level ground they shine much farther ahead. The problem looks to be that Polyphony are incompetent and had the headlights shine level relative to the Earth at all times no matter what angle my car is at (up or down).

Imagine the beam shining horizontally no matter what angle your car was at and this seems to be what Polyphony has done. You can't see with headlights that are beaming horizontally if you're going up or down hills such that your headlights shine either straight down at the ground (when going uphill) or straight up into the sky (going downhill).



It's actually sort of hard to tell in the picture but it was easier to see on my television when I took the shot, but my tail lights actually illuminated a much larger area than my headlights were illuminating on this incline. The red glow of my tail lights covered the whole road all the way down to the bottom edge of the photo, while the head lights only covered an area barely large enough to fit two sofas.

On a side note, the time was set as late as I could set it so it was fully dark, but the photo mode insists on making it revert back to dusk. That's why the sky is more blue and the landscape easier to see. I couldn't find a way to make it stop reversing time in photo mode. I compensated a bit by adjusting the camera settings to take in a little less light (I forget what the setting is called).

EDIT:
I wanted to elaborate on something mentioned early into the thread. Admittedly, I haven't read most of the 300+ replies here, so if it's been covered then I apologize, but....

Have you ever tried driving 150 mph at night?

I've driven 60 on dark country roads with my high beams on, with nice headlights, and it's pretty hard to see. At 150 you outdrive your lights pretty darn easily.

At 150mph you are going faster than the lightbeams coming out from the front of your car at roughly 3 x 10^8 m/s?
Some darn twisted logic there.

Okay, here's the thing about outrunning/overdriving your headlights. Yes, light travels at 186,000 miles per second. Overdriving your headlights doesn't mean that you're driving faster than the light can travel or almost as fast as the light can travel, or anything along those lines at all. What it means is that you're headlights only illuminate a limited area ahead of you, and if you're traveling fast enough that you don't have enough time to react once something comes into view, you're outdriving your headlights.

For example, let's say that your headlights are enabling you to see 200 feet (61 meters) ahead of you, but you're traveling at 150 MPH. At 150 MPH you cover 220 feet per second. If something comes into view only 200 feet ahead of you but you're covering 220 feet per second, you have less than one second to respond accordingly. This gives you very, very little time to observe something, make a decision, and physically act on it, and at 150 MPH it probably wouldn't matter what you did because it's not as though you can dramatically alter your velocity in a fraction of a second.
 
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You seem to have nailed it. They just programmed them to go completely horizontal, instead of following the plane of the car.
 
This makes me wonder why there is no sticky thread with a full list of bugs and glitches that is regularly updated and hopefully often read by PD?
 
Pedal-Force
You seem to have nailed it. They just programmed them to go completely horizontal, instead of following the plane of the car.

👍 agree! good job IceMan!
 
I figured the problem of the headlights is this -

The high beams do not add to the effect of the regular lights.
You either get one of the other....

That, plus the terrible projection maths exhibited above, contribute to a generally poor set of headlights. The lighting also gets a touch "thin" at range, as it's texture-based. Adding a single point-source to compliment the full-beams would alleviate both problems, since traditional lighting methods don't tend to suffer clipping... But then you've got a potential performance problem.

The other issue was about HDRI, something I've been very impressed with and somewhat bemused by in GT5. On the one hand, the range of values that can be accommodated is astounding - from brightly lit snowy scenes to pitch-black, clear nights. What seems to be the problem though is both the way the HDRI window is selected and how wide that window is, in terms of the game's maximum range, and how much tone mapping is employed.

Say the game can cover a range of 0 to 1000 imaginary light-intensity units. The window may only be 100 units wide, and is scaled to the gamut of your display (16 to 235 on limited, 0 to 255 on full RGB, for example). The exact "location" of this window seems to be determined partially by the screen's "overall brightness", and partly by the number of visible light-sources, as noted by SHIRAKAWA Akira E.g. a dark scene might have the window cover the range from 120 - 219, whilst a very bright scene might be in the range 750 - 849 etc. The lower limit here might be being incorrectly determined, due to using a cheap (fast) HDRI method and the influence of point-light sources, which may outweigh the pixel brightness. The average screen brightness, for instance, is a bad measure for the HDR aperture, since it doesn't tell anything about the contrast itself.

Now, according to Wikipedia, the full dynamic range of our eye is 1 000 000 : 1, including the effect of the pupil (like a camera's aperture) and the ability of the retina's rod cells to boost their sensitivity in low-light situations (like a camera's ISO setting, which takes time to "build up"). The actual dynamic range (for a given aperture and "ISO" setting, as it were) varies according to the current illumination level and the "settings" of the eye. It's typically around 100 : 1.

So, if the game itself isn't properly calibrated (from "zero" light, to maximum perceivable light, and beyond - preferably using "real" units) then it can be very difficult to get realistic results. Another mistake would be to set the HDRI window to the "width" of the typical display's contrast range, which could either be too low or too high - and is also subject to ambient lighting around the display affecting our eyes, too.

The final mistake is assuming the display's output is linear (see [WIKIPEDIA]gamma correction[/WIKIPEDIA]) such that the window is always set to be linear, instead of applying the gamma curve to the "windowed" range of illumination levels every time the window moves. Or, instead of linear, the gamma is assumed to be a value corresponding to a "typical display", e.g. a flat-panel back-lit LCD etc. The EV setting just seems to offset the HDRI window, so does nothing for the gamma, as noted already.

Despite how complex this all is, I'm sure that in CoolColJ's case, a simple gamma curve tool could help improve the contrast and give the illusion of a better HDRI window width and "location" in the full range of intensities.
 
add more bright in your TV options

that helps a lot

:ouch:

Yes a non-linear tone mapping scheme like Reinhart is sorely needed!
And there doesn't seem to be any global illumination like skylight/star and moonlight etc that would help a lot. At least on Nurburgring and La Sarthe
 
*epically good post*

Nice one. From the pictures, it seems that on level or descending ground, the headlights are correct, but on hills they are way off (if anything, they shouldn't even be lighting the ground right in front of the car... they should be pointing skyward.

Oh, and the outdriving thing... don't bother. I expect another twenty posts regarding the speed of light before New Years.
 
Some cars have the high beam glitched where you can only see the high beam without the low beam, so you have to drive with low beam because high beam is useless.
 
I figured the problem of the headlights is this -

The high beams do not add to the effect of the regular lights.
You either get one of the other....

Some cars have the high beam glitched where you can only see the high beam without the low beam, so you have to drive with low beam because high beam is useless.

IRL most cars don't allow you to high and low beam at the same time. The reason for this is because if you are using high-beam it is assumed you are travelling at a higher rate of speed and want to see further ahead and adding the low-beam will light up an area that
A) You don't have enough time to react to
So you do have more light but it is not useful
B) Makes it harder to see further in the distance due to the foreground being flooded with light
Since our eyes can adjust to varying levels of light, having a lot of light directly in front of you will "close" your iris down preventing your eyes from taking in as much light as possible.

It's important to understand that low-beams are made to light the road in front of you. High-beams are made to light the road really far away, by which time they don't appear as bright but will still reflect off of markers on the road or something that is in your path.

Same thing with factory fog lights being disabled when the high-beam is enabled. A lot of people pull fuses to circumvent this but it makes things worse.

I understand 0 of what Griffith is talking about unfortunately :lol:.

As for the hills ... technically speaking when you are going up a hill your lights should aim higher than normal and when going down they should aim lower than normal unless you have an auto-leveling system on the lights or suspension. Think of the weight distribution when driving up or down a hill. That's why they came out with auto-leveling systems for HID projector headlights, they were blinding everyone on inclines. I don't know how much they would be affected because I haven't driven on very steep inclines in pitch black darkness but it was enough for manufacturers to take notice. Those pictures make it seem like GT5 has it backwards though.

The light output ... post patch it seems pretty much spot on. The problem with lighting at night for a game like this is that not everyone has the same display. Many of us don't even have calibrated displays. Lighting in the room, the way the TV is setup, dynamic contrast settings, using an LCD panel vs plasma or local dimming LEDs, walls that are too close to the display, the color and reflectivity of the walls, etc. These all make huge differences when we are talking about how a display looks when it's dark. The reason for this is the same reason why low-beams affect how far you can see in darkness, your irides close down compared to what you actually need them to be at. LCDs without local dimming LEDs are notoriously bad for leaking light and having poor blacks. Same thing for having your display setup wrong, having ambient light in your room or having light reflect off your walls from your display. You can't really fault PD for the amount of light put out as they were probably designing it for their displays (calibrated hopefully).

What PD need is either to offer light upgrades for vehicles (rally lights, light bars, etc) or offer separate brightness controls in the options for night time and day time but I think lighting upgrades would be easier.

My background to make these wild claims? I'm a light nerd and a display nerd. I've driven vehicles that output nearly no light to vehicles that give out decent light. I've driven these vehicles in extremely dark conditions, sometimes with a little moonlight and sometimes with a lot, and at highway speeds coming home from or going to the mountains to ski. 45+ minutes of the route has no lights except for when you pass off-ramps. Granted, I've never driven the vehicles that have what are regarded as the best HID projectors out there I will admit that. Regardless, they aren't in the game anyways except for the S2K (Lexus LS430 and Acura TL). I'm such a nerd that I have the projectors/bulbs/ballasts from an LS460 but no LS460 (I bought them alone :lol:).

Please note that I do not claim to be a genius. I'm just a passionate hobbyist so if you feel anything is wrong, then please correct me because I am always open to learn more. Although I hope I'm not wrong :lol:
 
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The fog lights on my Subaru Impreza, older model with the large fog lights, are always on regardless if high beams are turned on/off, and you can set the fog lights to be dipped or forward as well with a switch.
They can be turned on/off separately from the main lights.

subaru_impreza_bug_eye.jpg
 
What PD need is either to offer light upgrades for vehicles (rally lights, light bars, etc) or offer separate brightness controls in the options for night time and day time but I think lighting upgrades would be easier.

This would be very cool.

As evidenced by Kaz's own 24h Nurburgring experience; upgraded lights are required for night racing.
 
Although the lights themselves are definitely a problem, as someone said before me an even bigger issue is the lack of indirect light. Take the Nurburgring GP circuit for example. In real life the track is floodlit for the 24 hr race, and the trackside/overhead banners and grandstands are illuminated as well. It would be a massive safety risk if a race like that was actually run in near-complete darkness, and yet that's how it appears in GT5. It makes no sense that the Nordschliefe is better lit than the GP circuit.

Nurburgring2010_20.jpg


4628276583_be5aa5827a_z.jpg
 
Yeap, there are lights all over the place. Looks pretty well lit to me

Onboard Aston Martin N24 Vantage V8
 
IRL most cars don't allow you to high and low beam at the same time. The reason for this is because if you are using high-beam it is assumed you are travelling at a higher rate of speed and want to see further ahead and adding the low-beam will light up an area that


Although I hope I'm not wrong :lol:


Just want to point out one small thing. You are correct about modern vehicles, and that started in the 80s, but on some 80s vehicles and earlier, high beams came on in addition to the low beams, most often, especially on American vehicles, there are/were four different lamps, one 'low beam' and one 'high beam' per side.

I might be wrong on my years, too, my '79 has four lamps, though.

Besides that one minor detail, two more things regarding the OP.

#1, SSR5 is, although a 'night track', the ambient lighting is good enough to race on without headlights.

#2, SSR5 is a 'city track' as well, and I am not sure about where you live, but in the US, brights, or high beams, are not supposed to be used inside city limits, yet, in GT5, high beams are the default.
 
I like GT5 and the more I play it the more I like it (I haven't even played another game since I bought it!!) but it's sad when 10 year old games have better lights on night races than GT5:



Still Nurburgring Nordschleife at night looks great and is very challenging and I wouldn't mind if it was the only track included in the game. Unfortunately Toscana at night in the Lamborghini special event is awful and the various night city courses look extremely dark, fake, and empty.
 
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#1, SSR5 is, although a 'night track', the ambient lighting is good enough to race on without headlights.

#2, SSR5 is a 'city track' as well, and I am not sure about where you live, but in the US, brights, or high beams, are not supposed to be used inside city limits, yet, in GT5, high beams are the default.

I still find it too dark even with "high beams" (well they're not really high beams in GT5, far too weak for that)

On point 2, it's street circuit race track. GT5 does not condone illegal street racing....
The red and white curbs says that much, along with the safety barriers and spectator stands
 
Just want to point out one small thing. You are correct about modern vehicles, and that started in the 80s, but on some 80s vehicles and earlier, high beams came on in addition to the low beams, most often, especially on American vehicles, there are/were four different lamps, one 'low beam' and one 'high beam' per side.

I might be wrong on my years, too, my '79 has four lamps, though.

Besides that one minor detail, two more things regarding the OP.

#1, SSR5 is, although a 'night track', the ambient lighting is good enough to race on without headlights.

#2, SSR5 is a 'city track' as well, and I am not sure about where you live, but in the US, brights, or high beams, are not supposed to be used inside city limits, yet, in GT5, high beams are the default.

Its not just old vehicles. My golf has a seperate lamp for high a low beam. On low beam 1 is on and High beam both are on. Lots of cars still have this arrangement.

As has been pointed out the light plane doesnt shift with the car so going up hill the lights are effectively pointing at the ground 1ft infront of the car.

Ive taken to using the racing line on dark tracks as I find it impossible to learn them in complete darkness!!
 
Well first of all, nothing, not a Zonda R or an LMP, or an X2010, can outrun light. Even 400km/h, or 111m/s, is nowhere near the 300,000,000m/s that light travels.

On the other hand, your lights illuminate about 80 feet in front of you. Driving at 20mph, this distance seems pretty far, but at 100mph, it seems much shorter. This is probably part of the effect of "outrunning your lights."
As you cover distance, new parts of the road are revealed to you. At the rapid speed at which you are moving, your brain probably has trouble keeping up with the newly revealed part of the road. It's actually pretty simple: at 100mph, you might want to have 200ft of distance to react to changes in the road. At night, you only have 100ft, so your time to react to changes is lessened. So to some extent, every corner is a blind corner, and you have less time to react to things, such as spinning cars, on straights.

In terms of how much GT5's lights are off, they seem just a little too short and a little too dim (though some cars have better lights than others, which is realistic).
Overall, they're not too bad. I think the effect of outrunning your lights plays a part in why people think they have too little illumination.

But just watch this video (3:00 is best):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3y3QW5iee8

Cameras do tend to make things a bit brighter, but judging by the length of his light beams, I think that GT's are a little too dim and short.
 
I ran a few times on the Ring at night and I think the lights are very good. I could see pretty much exactly as I would expect from the headlights if not just a bit better of course that also seems correct as race cars likely have a bit stronger headlamp than your average road cars.

No complaints at all in this area from me. I alos really like the way the lights reflect off the dust kicked up and the mist when it is raining. I just need to map the low beam button as like the real thing high beams make it hard to see under these conditions due to light reflecting back at you.

If there is a complaint to be made about the lights and night driving it would be that you can not see the car behind you in the mirror if the gap is very large where you really should be able to see his lights from very far away on a straight.
 
This is my first post here :)
For a while I thought that the headlights seemed a little dim up untill I was in an online race on the Nordscleife one time and I started flashing the headlights, then I noticed that when the blue headlight symbol thing was off, the headlights were a lot brighter than when it was on and that kind of confused me a little as the blue symbol usually means that full beam is on but it seems that on GT5 it's the other way around.
 
It really depends on the car, which might be realistic...but really sucks and is possibly unrealistic again.

Having read this much of this thread, I decided to go and try some more having just given up before.
I thought if it's realistic? What car would have great lights to drive fast...so SLR Mclaren it is, if you had bought one of those and couldn't see you'd be pissed right?

It's great around the Nuerburgring you can actually see through the corner with the high beam on as it shows enough of the road and surrounds. Great fun.

Now why this variation between cars is both realistic and unrealistic? BMW M3 GTR race car, an actual Nurburgring 24hr winner...can't see a thing. Such a great car for an endurance and it's useless for me.
 
Try this:
"kill" all the lights in the room. Adjust the TV brightness and contrast so that the black is true black, dark (very hard to do on an old TV set). Our eyes adjust to the amount of light that get's into it. I your TV doesn't reproduce true black, than your eyes will aquire more light than in real life night driving, and the retina will contract. Thus, the track appears dark..
 
I can recommend an ultimate "try this".

Having just opened the 24hrs of Lemans, and wanting to jump in and complete it, not thinking (still in GT4 24hr mode) I grabbed my FGT car already setup for the track and proceeded.

I was about 3 to 4 hrs in when I realized, Its getting darker.

Thats right boy, "the FGT doesn't have any lights".
You big Dummy.

It took quite a few spins and alot of trial and error, but I eventually turned a few decent laps. At least for driving in the dark.

I continued on and still won the race, but that night part was a real challenge.

I intented to do a race report on it, but I never got around to it.
The fact I felt pretty stupid, probably had an influence on that.
 
I fully agree with the OP.

GT5 (even by day) is too dark. Iv'e cranked up the EV to max. already but it's still too dark. Driving at night is no fun at all. Can't see anything...

GT4 was too dark as well...
 
I fully agree with the OP.

GT5 (even by day) is too dark. Iv'e cranked up the EV to max. already but it's still too dark. Driving at night is no fun at all. Can't see anything...

GT4 was too dark as well...

It's you're TV if it's still dark in day and with +1 EV.

Get a callibration disc!
 
Not sure if someone already said this, but I had to LOL IRL at the thread title. I thought it got dark at night???

I know what you mean though. Like that Toscana race in Grand Tour. Ugh.
 

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