Bright light vs Colored lights additive math reality vs game play-ability

[SilentRuin]

The lighting system in FGU is flawed for a gaming environment. Using pure additive math for white lighting is going to have anyone with a bright white light, as simple as a lantern, wash out any other colored light in range. This includes things like faery fire and other effect generated colored lights. Those effects are not made so that they can only work in pitch darkness with no vision modifiers. I get the math - but its not game playable. If I have a colored light - even dim - then I still want the players to be able to "see it" even if its washed out somewhat. Visibility being key. No effect lighting (or placed lighting) of a different color than white should be wiped out by a white light (all the colors are in a bright white light). This may make sense in math terms but in game terms it basically breaks it.

In no case do I ever want white bright white lights to wipe out all other bright or dim colored lights. I get blending two colors gets another color. But white light is all colors and if you try to apply that math additive rule unmodified to another color (which is part of white) then you usually wipe it out.

I consider this a bug as FGU is a game not some math reality matrix. If I have a different color and it gets blended, great - I can tell there is some different color there. But if it literally wipes it out making it invisible? As the lighting system currently does with bright white lights? That's wrong. Game wrong - not math wrong. And this is a game.

The current mechanics basically makes all other colored lights near a bright white light (background, lantern, whatever) get overwhelmed and players can't see it.

You can test it simply enough - faery fire is a dim light (0/10) by spell definition of blue/green/violet your choice. Any white light intensity (dim or bright) will basically wipe it out. Even making faery fire a bright light will still be wiped out by any bright white light (barely visible in a dim light which is fine). Dim white light vs Dim any other color will make it virtually invisible. Bright white light vs Dim or bright any other color will make it virtually invisible.

Math additivity logic should always have a "limit" to keep the blend minimally human eye visible You should always be able to see something about a different light color on the map even if it is washed out or blended as long as it is visible.

Any other DMs/players think this is a bug or is it just me?

[MrDDT]

I think dim light of any color should be seen even if bright white light is overlayed in that area. The area should be slightly color tinted to the dim lighting color.

I fully agree with you.

[Zacchaeus]

Some in depth discussion on the technicalities of lighting here https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...oves-the-color

And, no it isn't a bug. It's meant to be that way since that's how it's programmed.

[LordEntrails]

I don't see it as a bug. But, IMO that is irrelevant. *
I understand how and why the behavior is as it is.
I have work arounds for it. In short I don't use 255,255, 0 for yellow lights. I use something more like 125,125, 0. Then overlaps is not really a problem.

I would hate to see SmiteWorks spend developer time reinventing how this works when there are so many other more valuable, to me, issues.

I look at it this way, is this really the most important thing? Or would I rather see work on architecture, or the support of community developer, or single vs double, or new rulesets, or consistent window and button behavior or zoom to fill map behavior or something else?

* Whether it is a bug, issue, or enhancement request; it is working as intended. Behavior changes, such as this, should be (imo) put on the feature request list so that users can vote on it. What anyone of us wants is really only anecdotal, it's what the community wants changed/enhanced/added that should generally (imo) be the focus of SmiteWorks.

[SilentRuin]

I am amazed at how putting a RGB component minimal blend visibility number after calculating the blended colors - which they certainly do blending calculations now - is somehow more than 5-30 min of dev time not including testing.

You set RGB blended result to minimal visibility thresholds. Poof - done. Almost every other game dealing with light contrast deals with this to insure lighting actually "works" in white light blending.

Claiming wiping out all other colors in the name of "I understand the math of it" is irrelevant. For a game, its basically making lighting definitions useless when dealing with white light.

Still no surprise. Defining point source lights or effect lighting of non white color will probably remain wiped out when a similar or greater level of white light is present (short of defining some color that somehow survives that blending according to above poster?). And it will be claimed "IN THE NAME OF MATH" these things will remain useless when some lantern or other bright light source wanders into your range.

Because this is how it should work.

Agree to disagree.

[LordEntrails]

I always laugh when my developers tell me it will only take them 30 minutes. Somehow the change never shows up in the pipeline for a couple of sprints.

[SilentRuin]

I always laugh when my developers tell me it will only take them 30 minutes. Somehow the change never shows up in the pipeline for a couple of sprints.

Oh for sure it depends on the competence of the dev and understanding of the code and ramifications. But somewhere there is code that does the blending calculation for a point or area (matters not) and that result can have a bottom limit for visibility set to show something visible in the one or more combined lights. Likely outside of our view to override. But not theirs.

And unless its crazy code - tis a simple change.

[Griogre]

I agree with Silent Ruin, and I have done so since the FGU beta. Additive light while being "realistic", IMO, is just not a good game mechanic and particularly with dim light it is hard to see where it ends. It's the number one reason I don't put any lights on my underground maps.

On development - the maths have to be calculated either way - but since they went additive I assume it's optimized that way with a light mask/grid instead of intersecting shapes but the Unity engine might lean more one way than another.

[rocketvaultgames]

I agree it's not a bug, but I'd love to see it work the way Silent Ruin suggests. I gave up on using colored lights long ago because they never get seen by the players who invariably have something that will make them show up white.

[SilentRuin]

I agree it's not a bug, but I'd love to see it work the way Silent Ruin suggests. I gave up on using colored lights long ago because they never get seen by the players who invariably have something that will make them show up white.

The only use for colored lights (even though modules I use have them defined in effects which are useless when point source or effect on characters or NPCs have their own white light source) is when you have no background lighting and no effect lighting - usually as point sources of some colored light. Pretty rare limited usage due to the additive math used with white light sources.