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Thoughts on game brightness and contrast

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Might as well call it CK3, otherwise known as Game of Thrones lite, where all the flavor comes from running 10 plots and becoming king then executing everyone and having 100 kids. As opposed to ya know, actual history and scrollable dates available.

Naw, lets give them 2 bookmarks and intrigue.
 
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tsf4 said:
actual history and scrollable dates available
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Start dates past the first few were generally only used by a minority of players. Even fewer for scrollable start dates, which require an obscene amount of history modding for virtually no payout.
 
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I understand, but they had all that history in ck2, I know it would of been lots of work but some people get tired with the same 2 dates.
 
Does anyone with modding experience know how easy (or hard) it might be to adjust contrast and brightness in the game? Is it as simple as changing a couple of values in a file somewhere? Or will it require decent modding experience? Or is it just not possible?
I for one much prefer the OPs screenshots... I find the current grey wash over everything very hard on my eyes.
 
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You probably won't really need to mod it as you can adjust those settings in the graphic options. Granted, that affects all of the game and not just specific things like characters. But until we actually see how the game looks on our own screens (not recorded off someone else's screen who might prefer a darker contrast and brightness setting), it's hard to really say how it will look. Odds are that you can adjust settings to make it look the way you like.
 
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Lord Canterbury said:
Does anyone with modding experience know how easy (or hard) it might be to adjust contrast and brightness in the game? Is it as simple as changing a couple of values in a file somewhere? Or will it require decent modding experience? Or is it just not possible?
I for one much prefer the OPs screenshots... I find the current grey wash over everything very hard on my eyes.
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It's impossible to say before we actually have the game.

If it is moddable it's likely to be very easy. If it is not moddable then we're more or less out of luck, though there are third party programs that allow you to change the brightness of things in general.
 
@Riamus: How do you know that you can adjust e.g. saturation of the game in the graphics options, have you played an early version? I haven't seen that menu in the game yet, but e.g. CK2 had no saturation or contrast adjustment slider. And nobody's talking about changing it on their own monitor - it would mess up the look of everything outside of the game. I also use my laptop for digital art and it's very carefully calibrated to look exactly the way it would look on a printout, no way am I going to readjust it all the time just for a game).

But if they've included it somewhere in the options, or someone makes a mod, I'll be very happy. I really don't like the grey-beige veil over colors that are already pretty beige-heavy to start with.
 
Evangeline said:
@Riamus: How do you know that you can adjust e.g. saturation of the game in the graphics options, have you played an early version? I haven't seen that menu in the game yet, but e.g. CK2 had no saturation or contrast adjustment slider. And nobody's talking about changing it on their own monitor - it would mess up the look of everything outside of the game. I also use my laptop for digital art and it's very carefully calibrated to look exactly the way it would look on a printout, no way am I going to readjust it all the time just for a game).

But if they've included it somewhere in the options, or someone makes a mod, I'll be very happy. I really don't like the grey-beige veil over colors that are already pretty beige-heavy to start with.
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One of the dev responses or else DD (I forget which) stated that all normal graphic options are available as well as some more specific ones. Now, I admit that doesn't guarantee a brightness/contrast option, but it suggests one. Saturation control may be less likely to be present as it really isn't a "normal" graphics setting as only some games include it. Normally you end up with gamma and very often with brightness and contrast, so I'm expecting those. Again, I agree that this is just an assumption based on them saying that all the normal graphics options will be available.

As far as adjusting your monitor, how long do you normally play a session of CK? I think most end up with at least a couple of hours at a time. Is changing your monitor settings (something that takes less than a minute before and after the game) such a big deal if it gets you what you want and you'll be in the game for a long time? Considering most displays (not all, I'll admit) display a numerical value for each brightness/contrast setting as well as color and saturation, you could very easily write down the normal settings numbers and write down the ones you use for CK3 and then it's an easy matter of changing to those specific numbers. With how much you'll likely play the game, you'll probably have them memorized within a couple of days and won't even need the written down numbers. It's not ideal, but it is an option.

Beyond that, most graphics card drivers these days include the option to set up settings that override game settings for specific games. This lets you set up those settings for just the game you want and it won't change any other games or your normal OS display. It may actually even be a better option than an in-game setting.
 
@Riamus ... I checked Imperator's graphics settings and there is no option to change contrast or brightness. As Imperator runs on the same engine, my concern is that a similar situation would apply for CK3. If it is a simple graphics slider that would be great... but it doesn't seem likely based on past games.

I suppose worst case I can find some third party workaround... but that does seem a rather unfortunate approach for a game that looks rather lovely apart from the (seemingly deliberate) washed out lack of contrast.
 
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In case the game doesn't have this option, and you don't want to fiddle with your monitor settings, then either:

a) Go to the Windows display settings and change the "Adjust brightness level" slider.
b) If the above is not satisfactory, go to Google and search for "brightness control software" (probably without the quotes) and pick your favorite. There are plenty of reviews.

If you do not use Windows, do the same for your OS.

Problem hopefully solved. :)
 
Karlington said:
In case the game doesn't have this option, and you don't want to fiddle with your monitor settings, then either:

a) Go to the Windows display settings and change the "Adjust brightness level" slider.
b) If the above is not satisfactory, go to Google and search for "brightness control software" (probably without the quotes) and pick your favorite. There are plenty of reviews.

If you do not use Windows, do the same for your OS.

Problem hopefully solved. :)
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Both of those options also change your settings outside of the game and I wouldn't want to keep changing it around just because the game isn't designed properly. I hope they'll fix it quickly, but if not then I'm sure there will quickly be a mod (just like there was an anti-cloud mod for Imperator pretty much on day one).
 
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Evangeline said:
Both of those options also change your settings outside of the game and I wouldn't want to keep changing it around just because the game isn't designed properly. I hope they'll fix it quickly, but if not then I'm sure there will quickly be a mod (just like there was an anti-cloud mod for Imperator pretty much on day one).
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With software you can change the settings back and forth with a single click. It's not ideal, but it does make it more or less a non-issue.
 
Karlington said:
With software you can change the settings back and forth with a single click. It's not ideal, but it does make it more or less a non-issue.
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Not even necessary with most graphics driver software. Most modern driver software (at least in Windows, but likely for Linux and Mac as well) includes the ability to change settings based on the game so you set it once and forget it and it has no effect on OS or other games (unless you set it as default for all, of course).

Lord Canterbury said:
@Riamus ... I checked Imperator's graphics settings and there is no option to change contrast or brightness. As Imperator runs on the same engine, my concern is that a similar situation would apply for CK3. If it is a simple graphics slider that would be great... but it doesn't seem likely based on past games.

I suppose worst case I can find some third party workaround... but that does seem a rather unfortunate approach for a game that looks rather lovely apart from the (seemingly deliberate) washed out lack of contrast.
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I haven't played IR, so I didn't know that. You could very well be correct and I just misinterpreted their comment. If so, I apologize for the misinformation. I do still think you need to wait to see it on your own screen before assuming the worst. I haven't watched a ton of videos, but even among the ones I've seen, I've seen different levels of saturation, brightness, contrast, quality, etc. If the video is of someone's computer who has brightness lowered (for some reason, developers seem to think that darker is better as you'll notice most games with gamma sliders have the recommended level set to really dark), then it will obviously look darker than it would on yours if you don't have your settings the same. Of course, they did specifically state that they made the UI "darker" to fit their concept of the time period, so there is that.

I have a feeling the brightness will be higher than what we think from the videos, but probably not quite as high as what some people like yourself are looking for. Using graphics driver software or other software (or mods) to adjust brightness if it's not built-in may be necessary for you to get the best (for you) display of the game. You may also end up wanting a UI mod that adjusts the colors and such to be more what you're looking for as well. I am certain we'll see UI mods pretty quickly. Not so sure about a mod to adjust brightness, though.
 
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Having played around a bit, the various screenshots and video look really good if I just crank my system settings up to 100% contrast...

The downside is having to crank the whole system up to 100%. At which point everything outside the game looks ugly... but I guess as long as I don't alt-tab out to check a wiki page that's okay-ish.

Perhaps more problematically, the political 'paper map' has normal brightness without the grey was over everything... so cranking contrast right up isn't great for that view :(

Hopefully the team might add an option to remove the grey wash... because other than that, the game looks visually stunning.
@Carlberg ... is this something you could comment on please?
 
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Long Game Short said:
This may be partly an issue with their recording. I know for a fact there was a similar one with Imperator streams.
Here's a comparison with One Proud Bavarian's video:
View attachment 605967
It's still dark, but there's clearly better contrast and saturation.
I would like if there were options for it. Remember folks, many of us have laptops without any native display settings.
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What laptop are "many" of you using that can run ck3?
 
Duditsfireguy said:
I'm asking out of curiosity as far as I'm aware most laptops have integrated graphics and won't be able to run the game.
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Most do, but there are still many that have dedicated graphics. It isn't hard to find one when you're shopping for a laptop, but you really need to know that it's what you're looking for or you'll most likely end up with integrated graphics, which is never a good option for gaming.
 
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