Friday Facts #168 - Nightvision Nightmare

[Klonan]

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-168

[Proxy]

First.
And can't wait to see the Final Night vision effect

[Masterfox]

The last paragraph somehow made my hopes go higher that we will not need to reboot the game every time a mod is added or updated. And the ideas for night or heat vision looks great as well, though I would prefer slightly lower glow on the borders.

[daggot]

How about some tiers on the lights to provide distance of illumination? Or, has that been tried?

I like the idea on the third take. It was also what got me to think about research that would let you extend the throw of the lights.

[TheUnk0wn]

How about making different varities of the nightvision as an additional option in the game? So the players could choose the one they prefer the most...
Heat goggles would be interesting, too, but it isn't that good of an idea if you are staying next to your factory... Some sort of filtering or something?

[madpav3l]

That second picture looks the best, the 3rd picture is just awful...

[drvic10k]

I don't like any of those night vision images, I will still use a mod to remove the green effect

maybe if you replaced the night vision equipment with something else so that it would not require the green efect to look realistic

[daniel34]

And the ideas for night or heat vision looks great as well, though I would prefer slightly lower glow on the borders.

Agreed. Night vision should consider the effect of lamps and draw it's surroundings in normal colors (like in picture 2), but the glow effect (picture 3) at light - non-light borders is just too intensive / too green to look at. A mixture between picture 2 and 3 would do fine.

[Nightvision 0.14] This washes out the colors, reduces contrast, and makes the picture pretty unpleasant to look at.

If I compare picture 1 and 3 I see that the colors are even more washed out and reduced in contrast (visible on the trees in the north which are completely green and the assemblers on the middle west, what color is which assembler?) and unpleasant to look at, as the contrast is too high for dark areas (forest) and too low for the factory below the forest.

That second picture looks the best, the 3rd picture is just awful...

All in all I'd also pick picture #2 as it's still pleasant to look at, although the dark areas could look a little bit more blurry and low-contrast.

[deef0000dragon1]

Ill be honest, The night vision is still terrible, no matter how you look at it. I intend to use a mod that just removes the green.

If you do keep up with the terrible green effect, please let the color be a choice for someone to make, or even to turn it off altogether as a game setting. Colorblindness is a thing that exists, and forcing someone to use a specific color can be SOOO obnoxious for that.

[Ghoulish]

3rd pick is nicest IMHO, it needs to look like there IS a night vision system in use, the 2nd is a little too vanilla looking.

To be honest, I think the best thing Wube could do, would be to release a few of these features that have been discussed in recent Friday Facts for Christmas! Start the old ball rolling on the 0.15.

Yes / no? Yes the community screams! Either way happy holidays all.

[DrWily]

What if there were upgrades to the night vision goggles that allowed for clearer night vision all the way up to everything appearing as daytime?
Currently I play with full daylight on all the time because my eyes can't handle the swing to dark or the green tint.
-DrW

[KatherineOfSky]

"Then we added white highlights to light sources and it finally started to pleasant to look at. "

I'm still looking for the picture that "looks nice"....

As a person who thrives on color, I have to say that ALL of them look absolutely sickening. The third makes me literally nauseous. I hope that you will find a different solution. Maybe just "not so dark"... Even with the current green settings, I can't stand to use nightvision, so I tend to bumble around in the dark!

I would suggest removing green all together from the equation, (it just makes me ill so see the world drowned in swampwater) -- maybe just do a grayscale, as you proposed, or low light conditions to simulate night (white polar nights?), or perhaps one of our fellow Factorian artists can find a good solution.

[Xuerian]

I don't mind #1 and #2, if you're going to change it, is what I'd prefer. #3 is.. Well it's not helpful.

The post above me is pretty reasonable.

[Tev]

That second picture looks the best, the 3rd picture is just awful...

So much this.

Second picture looks very good imo.

[BigD999]

The night vision technology today don't have the green effect on the high end models. I think as a solution removing the green effect and add a gradate effect so it looks like almost day time near you but get darker feather away with a reduction of how far you can see if you didn't have them on so there would be a down side to them with out having the green overlap effect. so say the max you can see is 150 units without the googles but with is 100 units.

[nolcotin]

Your biggest problem with nightvision is that you're trying to simultaneously address 2 design goals:

(1) Nightvision should improve the appearance of dark areas
(2) Areas the player lit should still look accurate

In real life, you only wear night vision when you go into dark areas. In a brightly lit area, nightvision would wash out and present a less compelling image than unassisted vision.

My proposal:

Make Nightvision easy to toggle on and off - the player only puts on your nightvision goggles when going into a dark area. This still rewards the player for lighting things up, while still allowing a thematically appropriate filter that truely does improve visibility when venturing outside the base. In brightly lit areas, nightvision can still look terrible - it's not for here. Splitting out Identification, friend or foe (IFF) functionality would allow the player to have an accurate picture of what's going on at all times.

These were some quick mockups trying to illustrate the concept - ideally there's be some proper green filtering and soft edges going on.

Default State

Night Vision - Washing out Brightly Lit areas, making dark areas visible

Night Vision Off with IFF module on

Night Vision On with IFF module on

[exi2163]

I cannot agree on "pleasant to look at". The third image is by far the worst. When running non-modded game i just stick with the night because i hate the green effect as it turns on too early so i have to see it longer than i have to walk in the dark.
Yes, the third pictures looks way more realistic but creating a steam engine from some tubes and metal sheets with just an axe or bare hands is not realistic either.

Perhaps you could play around with graphics with VR-Goggles in mind. They could enhance the vision with a clear view of all built items regardless of the lighting conditions.

[Mooncat]

I would like to have the effect from #2 + the green from #1. The green in #2 is too much. But that's just my opinion.
Hopefully you will find the best solution.
(Worst case is replace night vision by objects sensor which highlights objects in darkness? lol)

Can't wait for the developer tool! It will certainly make mod production to be much more efficient, especially for tweaking the balance while cooperating with many other existing mods.

[3trip]

I'd like to see something between 2 & 3 as well. Or maybe start as 3, then add a few upgrades towards 2.

Oh, can we have a thermal vision upgrade? Where biters, furnaces and other hot spots appear extra bright?

[Arch666Angel]

OH GAWD! Not having to restart a hundred times when adjusting and testing gfx, overlays etc would be so amazing!!!