Friday Facts #168 - Nightvision Nightmare

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Lilly
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Re: Friday Facts #168 - Nightvision Nightmare

Post by Lilly »

My preference goes to image 2. Though it looks wrong because the RGB channels are modified directly. Instead, the nightvision areas should be lighted based on their luminosity. This should then be blended into the unlighted areas. The luminosity can be multiplied by a nightvision_color, to add a green tint for example.

The GLSL pseudocode I've come up with:

Code: Select all

uniform bool nightvision_enabled;
uniform vec4 nightvision_color;

in vec4 color;
in float lightness;
out vec4 result;

void main(void) {
  result = lightness * color;
  if (nightvision_enabled) {
    // Compute luminosity
    float y = dot(color, vec4( 0.2126, 0.7152, 0.0722, 0 ));
    // Enhance dark areas
    result += (1-lightness) * y * nightvision_color;
  }
}

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Re: Friday Facts #168 - Nightvision Nightmare

Post by richrich »

my nickel... make it function the way current, real NV works and looks. Anything else really isn't NV. An additional HV option would be good as a standalone, as some might prefer one over the other.

I wanted to compliment the Factorio team for the overall game performance. It is one of those very rare games that continues to deliver excellent performance despite constant changes and enhancements.

Congrats on excellent work and continued success. Looking forward to 15!

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Re: Friday Facts #168 - Nightvision Nightmare

Post by Zaflis »

Someone asked for light?
need_light.jpg
need_light.jpg (358.44 KiB) Viewed 5707 times

Dasani
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Re: Friday Facts #168 - Nightvision Nightmare

Post by Dasani »

silverkitty23 wrote: Not that "negating nighttime altogether" should be ruled out instantly (even though that wasn't Xterminator or I said at all) because maybe it's only meant to be a hindrance at the start of the game. "Using a pick takes time, you really have to work at a coal patch to get coal. What you want a drilling platform? But that negates the picking at coal altogether with no downside." "When the game starts, you have to carry materials around and insert them into machines yourself. Belts and inserters negate that altogether with no downside."
The problem with your comparison examples is they are arguing against features already present in the game and the fundamental core mechanics of what the game is. My argument is against NEW things being added that negate downsides or disadvantages.

And once again... Not sure why it really matters because mods can give you exactly what you want. It doesn't have to be part of the core game.

There are tons of mods that make the game easier and more convenient. I've seen mods that make all resources unlimited so ore patches never run out, i've seen mods that increase crafting speeds, i've seen mods that remove the green tint of nightvision, i've seen mods that make trains run on electricity instead of fuel, i've seen mods where there is no night time at all, there are mods to hook train cargo wagons up to logistic networks, etc etc etc.

You can mod the game to play any sort of way you want to really, but it doesn't mean the base game should reflect your personal desires when it's negating existing game mechanics. Regardless of what the devs do, you can change it to suit your whims. But I don't think full color, unimpaired nightvision should exist in the base game anymore than I think unlimited resources or invincible walls should. I'm alright with things having a downside just like using speed modules not only uses more resources, it uses more power, and it causes more pollution. Downsides.

But really it's not worth arguing over. Devs gonna dev. Players gonna play.

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Re: Friday Facts #168 - Nightvision Nightmare

Post by Proxy »

maniak1349 wrote:I always though that nightvision should look something like that:
Without NVG
one question tho.
what are those... Things. they appear Green on the map and you made walls with them.
what are they.

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Re: Friday Facts #168 - Nightvision Nightmare

Post by malecord »

I don't understand all this hate toward night vision.

Night exists and this is a fact. Nightvision is there to help, not delete day-night cycle. If one doesn't like night he should mod it out or mod in an artificial sun recipee.

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Re: Friday Facts #168 - Nightvision Nightmare

Post by Deadly-Bagel »

I would like to point out that using a deep red for a thermal night vision or something is really going to screw over about 20% of players because we just can't see it. Think of trying to read navy on black, or light green on yellow.

At the very least provide a colourblind option (ideally for the rest of the game too!) that uses blue instead or something.
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Re: Friday Facts #168 - Nightvision Nightmare

Post by ssilk »

TL;DR: Nightvision should be what it is: a nightvision.

With that in mind I would like
Image
mixed with
Image

Ok, not so extreme!

That needs also a shortcut, to turn that NV on/off.


PS: And when we are at toggle for the slots of the powersuit: I think we need also a toggle to turn the roboports on/off.

PPS: Hm. Hm. I have an idea: What if the nightvision learns us to see the world more with the eyes of the natives? And how lights disturbs them?
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silverkitty23
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Re: Friday Facts #168 - Nightvision Nightmare

Post by silverkitty23 »

Dasani wrote: The problem with your comparison examples is they are arguing against features already present in the game and the fundamental core mechanics of what the game is. My argument is against NEW things being added that negate downsides or disadvantages.
The game is unfinished. No feature is frozen. And there's still no reason to assume that darkness has to be a permanent disadvantage - maybe it's only meant to be a hindrance at the start, like how everything else gets easier as you go on.
Dasani wrote:But I don't think full color, unimpaired nightvision should exist
You keep falling back on telling me that I want something I don't want. I'm completely fine with dark areas being difficult to look at and not in full color.

What I want is for *areas that are already lit* to keep looking good. I want the *lit* areas to be just like you don't have nightvision at all. It's simple, while your character is bobbing his/her head around to view 360 degrees(!), s/he's also toggling NV mode so as to not look at lights while the goggles are activated. In a world where you can see behind you and through walls, you can turn off your NV when looking at a lamp.

If not that, then at least NV should start up later in the day and turn off earlier in the morning - with NV installed, you literally spend more than half the time looking at puke green *even in places you're spending megawatts to light up*. Remember I spent a bunch of resources and time to light my base up, why should that be thrown away? Why is *that particular thing* the necessary and only possible downside to nightvision in your mind? why can't something else be the downside, other than wasting my investment in lights, making the game look like crap half-to-two-thirds of the time even in places that looked fine before I got nightvision? Why is that the only downside you'd consider acceptable? Why is that even acceptable?

Also: if we break out of the game mode and look at the meta-game mode, remember that to move copies, the game should look good in videos and screenshots. That doesn't mean I want the dark areas to become fully lit - I just mean that areas that look good at night in the early game should not look bad at night in the late game.

Also: mods are never an answer, because you can't rely on third-party volunteers to make your product worth selling. The game should always look good, and any given 60 second period should contain at least one thing you'd proudly screen shot, even without the help of people outside the company.

But, you are right. It's not worth arguing about. I was originally presenting my case to the devs and the community at large that "realistic" needn't be a consideration because of the circumstances, then you came and told me I wanted everything handed to me on a silver platter. It wasn't an argument until you totally mischaracterized me. So, anyway, I've made my case to the devs, in as much as they read the forums, and I don't like dealing with people who put words in my mouth, so I'm done.

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Re: Friday Facts #168 - Nightvision Nightmare

Post by MeduSalem »

ssilk wrote:mixed with

[img]...[/img]

Ok, not so extreme!
ssilk... no offense... but I think you smoked a little bit too much J.J. Abrams. :lol:

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Re: Friday Facts #168 - Nightvision Nightmare

Post by raid »

I always really likes the Night Vision Mk3 from bob's mod which showed everything in milky white during night.
Required two polished diamonds though :)

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Re: Friday Facts #168 - Nightvision Nightmare

Post by Zaflis »

Original issue was that nobody uses current night vision. The green screen is hard to look at, and it's better off fighting in the dark and use lamps. Devs were trying to think of something to improve it so that it becomes something more useful. See this is what it's now in live game:
Image

Some suggestions i've seen in this thread look even worse than than the 3rd pic in blog post. How does it help getting more people to use it if you nerf it even more? Everybody loves special effects, but think about placing inserters, looking at circuit connections and all basic things for factory building. Any "glow" effect on top of small details would make them disappear.

Does factorio use any shaders anyway? I would guess that making glowy borders to aliens for like thermal vision is a little bit costly operation. Uniform/Overall glow is easier to render. Making actual border sprites for aliens in all angles would be completely out of question. (It would come with a significant cost to video memory.)

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Re: Friday Facts #168 - Nightvision Nightmare

Post by gallomimia »

Add something very bright to light up critters and beasts, and players, and maybe vehicles too. Night vision is about seeing threats, and heat sources are usually the worst kind. I really like the NV effect. My games usually get completed without so much as researching night vision, because it was so annoying before. Between the look, and the loss of 2x3 space in the armor, it just wasn't worth the science vials. Looking forward to this new stuff.

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Re: Friday Facts #168 - Nightvision Nightmare

Post by darkfrei »

Green effect of night vision is very OK. But the picture must be much better when I use a lot of them. Or next Mk., that costs much more, but Google's are not so green.

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Re: Friday Facts #168 - Nightvision Nightmare

Post by bobingabout »

Eh.... As long as I can still mod things to change the colour, I don't really mind.

My MK2 night vision changes the colour to yellow, and MK3 changes it to white.
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Re: Friday Facts #168 - Nightvision Nightmare

Post by Zarnoo »

Love the final nightvision look, this it's in keeping with the "goggles" concept.

Filters would also be good, like a thermo camera which picks up biters and the like, just to give you some options to play with

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Re: Friday Facts #168 - Nightvision Nightmare

Post by Nova »

Everything which doesn't reduce the green "fog" significantly is not good in my opinion. The nightvision takes space in the power armor and consumes energy. Both are things which could be better used for more shields or exo skeletons. The nightvision in its momentary composition is not worth it in my opinion. The green stuff reduces the visibility for lightened areas drastically and only helps a bit for the dark areas.

My suggestion: The nightvision should either have no or a very, very small effect on lit areas. The glow effect from the third picture is... bad. Remove that. The darkening of only red and blue is pretty interesting. How about not fully removing them, but only halfway, or something like that?
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Re: Friday Facts #168 - Nightvision Nightmare

Post by Engimage »

MiloRK wrote:Here's another test example. I reduced the greyscale to %80, and made the biters stand out a bit more:
New Night Vision and Thermal
It works really well with some of the other mechanics, like rail signal color, fire, headlights, and so on. Not all the images I edited turned out very good though, so I decided not to share them ;)
This is almost perfect
Also on this picture
Noisy
I really like the idea of a visual noise. So I would say the idea of monochrome + noise for areas with light<50% would be really nice.

And thermal is a really nice addition. This would work really well as a MK2 version of vision goggles.

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Re: Friday Facts #168 - Nightvision Nightmare

Post by MeduSalem »

PacifyerGrey wrote:I really like the idea of a visual noise. So I would say the idea of monochrome + noise for areas with light<50% would be really nice.
Honestly I find visual noise effects distracting... I always get the feeling my graphics card croaked or something if it starts to dump pixels in random color all over the screen.



At this point I really say... make it greyscale and maybe thermal for biters. And areas already covered by lamps in normal color. Everything else is NOT needed and only kills the purpose of using the nightvision further because people hate it when their vision is blurred with a ton of effects.

That or just leave it as it is because the game has several BIGGER issues than the stupid night vision.
Last edited by MeduSalem on Mon Dec 12, 2016 3:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Friday Facts #168 - Nightvision Nightmare

Post by factoriouzr »

MiloRK wrote:Although I agree with some of the new night vision criticism--it could use some work--I really like the thinking behind it! Rewarding placement of lighting is an interesting idea, and other optic benefits could add to the usefulness of researching and wearing night vision goggles. Here's my stab at a night vision concept:
Normal Vision.png
Night Vision.png
Maybe you could upgrade your optics to get thermal vision:
Normal Vision_1.png
Night Vision_1.png
Great Friday Facts, as always!
Currently I never use night vision as I find everything with night vision just not as detailed and I don't like the green tint.

I really like how these images look and I like the idea of researching thermal upgrade to night vision. So far, I think this look is the best, however I would still like the option to set the tint colour to my liking and it would be nice as an option to make night vision look like daytime (or closer to daytime) with enough upgrades. Definitely get rid of the green tint by default and make it configurable. It's the future where you have thousands of things in your pockets. Where robots build bases and we are still stuck with green tint night vision? Seems very outdated.

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