Comments on: Screen Brightness – What a Nasty Thing

By: SasQ

SasQ — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 23:26:22 +0000

Exactly, it’s not a matter of brightness, but a matter of CONTRAST. It can be dark if only each part [especially the player and its enemies] is easily distinguishable from the background.

By: Anton

Anton — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 09:51:06 +0000

#1 is good for me, if the main character will have some light source. The other screens lack contrast on my monitor, the shadows don’t look like shadows at all… perhaps I need to check my gamma again :)

By: Eli

Eli — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 01:01:31 +0000

They all seem far too bright; I’m sure a game like this could stand to be quite a bit darker.

By: Juuso Hietalahti

Juuso Hietalahti — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 20:17:55 +0000

Amazingly many replies – I really didn’t think people would be this keen to say how stuff goes.

Thanks everybody for replies. Most appreciated.

By: Junkyard Sam

Junkyard Sam — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 07:01:19 +0000

Funny blog post, I’m actually at work right now dealing with this precise issue!

I have two monitors here – a Dell consumer LCD, representing worst case scenario. And I have a Wacom Cintiq, which tends to have a bright gamma response in the dark areas:

DELL CONSUMER LCD:
PIC 1 = Too dark, can barely see player.
PIC 3 = Best of them

CINTIQ:
PIC 2 = Best of them.

Hey, make THIS image your backdrop in Windows and stay calibrated to it. It’ll help you:
http://www.ballisticpublishing.com/call_for_entries/colour_calibrate_gama2_2.jpg

and then use QuickGamma (it’s free)
http://quickgamma.de/indexen.html

Your ideal situation is to develop based on a properly calibrated monitor… test it on a CRT, because LCDs are notoriously blown out in the dark parts…
And then add a gamma slider to your game.

Good luck and thanks for the cool blog.

By: Gorgor

Gorgor — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 06:43:06 +0000

I’ve got 2 monitors. On the right one, picture #2 is quite ok for dark zombie game, but player is barely visible. On the left one, all pictures are too bright (at picture #4 any shadows barely visible:-)).

By: TKE Super Dave

TKE Super Dave — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 06:12:00 +0000

At first I was going to say that 1 is far too dark to be playable but then I saw your post on the indiegamer forum where the pictures were a lot bigger. After seeing the bigger pictures, 1 is playable but the character is just to close to the background color.

The #2 one is probably the closest to what I would consider a zombie style, although I think Accord at the indiegame forum did post a good suggestion. “In TV and movies, there is a trick that is done for night time – basically, they put a dark blue filter on the camera. For night time, there needs to be some color. Set your ambient to a really dark blue, and your light to really pale white/yellow. It should improve things a lot.” Although I think this is the affect your going for anyway, I feel as though it’s not quite there.

The 4th is far to bright on both sets of pictures to make a game scary at all for me. The 3rd is not too light but isn’t too dark but rather looks like it’s a day time with some extra light as the flashlight.

By: Reives

Reives — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 03:27:26 +0000

I think to convey darkness, it is often effective to work with the greyscale on top of toning down the actual brightness. A higher greyscale combined with a much lower displacement of brightness should give it a lack-of-light atmosphere yet still keep the visibility effectively high.

By: Travisuped

Travisuped — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 00:41:01 +0000

Alright. Picture 2 would be just barely playable if I were really into the game. Picture 1 would be totally unplayable.

However, I’ve taken to bumping my gamma up to 1.5 for all values using xgamma, and at that setting, any of those images above would be workable.

By: Russell

Russell — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 21:18:48 +0000

I like #1 the best, by far. Sure, the shadows get a *bit* murky, but just have enough local lights to add contrast and interest to certain areas, and you’ve got yourself a moody zombie game!