@armapirx
It is posible to set almost absolute darkness in arma by tweaking advanced intel in map editor.

Screenshots will show what to do to make darkness and what it looks like in city.

Please let us know if you are still able to reproduce this issue in latest developement build.

Hi thanks for the response :-)

It should just get dark normally without all the strange blue effects coming in after about 9:30pm even with a clear sky and without having to use the editor...
It's as if there's a blue light source illuminating the entire environment.
Something has definitely changed in the latest DEV build compared to the normal Alpha.
Try setting it to midnight without altering the settings in the editor.

Thanks again

I've attached a picture...
They're both from the same mission with exactly the same (default) settings.

TOP picture is Alpha
BOTTOM picture is DEV build

Notice the strange blue light source illuminating environment
and the intense washed out lighting in the town.

True, it has gone from one extreme to another. Now the night is too bright.

Out in the fields is reasonable, as a full moon will provide you with great visual clarity at night, but the blue hue is much to strong. A night with no (waning?) moon is very dark even with the stars, very difficult to see what's on the ground let alone make out individual trees in a woods area, although your eyes start to make out some stuff after an hour or two of basically seeing black.

In the town is pretty terrible though, the street lights shouldn't be as dark as they were, but they were a lot closer to how it should be than the new DEV build.

Damn you guys, you've made me to switch to Dev build! Here is my opinion (based on 0.57.105007).

The new night lighting is a big improvement. I like it much more and it is more consistent with my own experience, however there are some minor issues to be tweaked.

What I like:
Night sky itself is almost never completely black, especially close to the horizon and it's almost perfectly captured now. Maybe a hair too bright, just in the lower horizon area (a visible and distinctive belt of lighter blue sky). The top of the sky dome is perfect.

Unlit terrain on moonless night is black and featureless, as it should be.

New bright lights in Agia Marina area are ideal. Just what I would expect from such area, plus they nicely white-out the NVGs.

Hunter headlights are stronger and more useful right now.

The overall night image creates more lively experience, compared to previous "dimmed" one.

The absolute blackness under the overcast is excellent.

The moonshine appears to be good.

Blinding sun is an improvement, however it could blind even more.

What could be tweaked more:
The objects (people, cars, rocks) and roads are slightly lit by an invisible blue light source, when they should be black and indistinguishable from the terrain, but I think it's the issue with the terrain not generating shadow. I'm thinking here about moonless night and it appears, as if the moon was slightly shining on objects from below/around the horizon - the angle at which the "blue light" falls, hints that it's from near the horizon, there is a shining on the water there, but the moon itself is not visible.

The objects on rising terrain north of Agia marina are not lit by the city's stretlamps, while the terrain is, which produces ugly contrast. I haven't found this effect at any other site with lamps. (Edit: might be caused by something nice in the process of being implemented as well)

While Hunter's headlights are properly strong near the vehicle, they fade out too quickly. Their overall range seems to be good, but too much percentage of the light is "gathered" near the vehicle, instead of being spread out more evenly over the whole headlight range.

Weapon's flashlight is still too weak and has too short range.

Reflex sight glass is filled with blue, if standing in Hunter's headlights and aiming at the black terrain outside of the lights.

At certain angles, side windows in a Hunter turn almost opaque, when viewed from the inside, with the light source behind the head.

The moon itself is almost invisible on the sky. (Edit: it appears to have self corrected after a game restart)

The day light appears too diffuse, even with fog set to 0.

Compass and watch illumination is so weak, that it's impossible to use them at night.

With the new stunning fog, the need to have volumetric light effects is even more apparent.

One special consideration:
The sky at night is slightly navy blue, but this effect is true only with regards to clear sky, away from light sources. In a city, it should appear to be black, because of contrast provided by the streetlapms, also the majority of the stars should be gone. On an overcast night however, the clouds should reflect a bit of streetlamps' light back down, giving the sky a slightly yellow/orange appearance. Now, an overcast night in Agia Marina looks like a clear sky night should look like, while the clear night sky and overcast themselves look unrealistically.

Overall, I think that the new lighting is a step into the right direction, but still not at the end of the road.

ARMAPIRX your detailed and helpful comment has led me to believe that this issue is purely down to differences in monitors and settings because to me it looks perfect as it is. I can see all the details in the town and it looks very realistic.

Just as an experiment I will post a higher resolution picture just to see who can see things more than others.

Point things out and discuss...

in the right hand alleyway everything is clear and visible.

The telegraph poles against the night sky centre of the image are both clearly visible.

The trees are not just silhouettes I can see the leaf detail.

All the detail on the scope is clearly visible including the finger grips on the adjustment dials.

Yes, I see these details, although the telegraph pole and the foliage detail are visible when I look for them and are not standing out of the scene. It's a night with a full moon moderately-high over the horizon, with partial cloud cover.

It is now 10:15 pm where I live and I'm looking out of the window onto my street.
Nothing is glowing intensely as if the houses are radioactive, there is no mysterious blue ambiance and it looks just like ARMA 3 :-)
PLEASE DON'T CHANGE IT.

Tonight is almost new moon, so take that into account, when making comparisons. I remember nights with full moon, when you could see a mice running across a lawn. Once the eyes get used to darkness, the moonlight is enough to see much detail and be able to work like in a daylight. Without the moon, it's just black terrain and navy blue sky. I've attached two screenshots made at the same location, one with the moon and one without and they look like what I remember from being in the wilderness at night. The time was midnight and the sky was clear.

There are certain instances, when objects appear to be much brighter at night, than the terrain. I think it's caused by the fact that the terrain doesn't cast the shadow, but there is also a second separate cause. It's when the moon is just over the horizon or hill top and the light rays travel almost in parallel with the terrain's surface and because of that, they doesn't lit up the terrain.

In such situation, a grass growing on the terrain should reflect much of the light, because the grass would be almost perpendicular to the light rays. This light reflecting grass would make the terrain to appear brighter. Aby object surrounded by a grass would blend in with it and wouldn't stand out. Lit_grass_concept illustrates this, while dark_grass (14th July 2035, 00:00, grid 044066) shows the current state. In Arma3 the grass doesn't appear to reflect the light in such a way, which makes any object lit by the moon, to stand out from the dark terrain, overgrown with dark grass.

By the way, I've noticed, that NVGs in Dev build don't loose brightness under the overcast or in the forest.

Being in a touring band for the last 8 years my life has been pretty much nocturnal.
I travel at night, I eat at night, I see the sun set and rise all the time in all weathers and moon locations and phases.
The only time I've seen the sky pure blue like that is either in cartoons, console games or in the very early hours when the sun is getting close to the horizon because blue is the first frequency that our light receptor cells will pick up due to it being close to the centre of our visible spectrum (much like high and low fluctuations in air pressure @500hz are the most audible to our ears)
When the sun is on the other side of earth the sky appears deep black even with a full moon and the radiosity of the suns light bouncing from the moon appears as white light.
I've never seen a mysterious ambient blue light in the middle of the night illuminating the landscape around me to the point of near perfect visibility.
It's more grey & black until the sun starts to rise in the early hours (depending on time of year)
I mean look at the gun and the landscape... Where is all that blue coming from?

Both "full_moon" and "dark_grass" were taken, while the moon was above the horizon and the blue light comes from the moon. "No_moon" was made, when the moon was way below the horizon and the gun there is invisible, because there is no blue light.

From my personal experience, the only times where nights were completely black, to the point when you couldn't differentiate between the terrain and sky, were with no moon and with overcast, while far away from city lights. Walking through a thick forest, on a moonless night, also proves to be difficult, as you can't see a thing. Maybe bits of navy blue sky between the branches, but that doesn't illuminate the surroundings enough for you to see and you could suddenly hit a tree, without seeing it (don't ask how I know).

Anytime with a clear sky above, I saw that is was dark blue and I was able to make out objects silhouetted against the sky. I was even able to follow dirt roads and sandy paths, which were faintly visible among otherwise black terrain.

With a full moon, I'm able to read or walk without a flashlight.

But there is a trick: you have to be in a complete wilderness for this to happen. Having light sources around, be it a city, railway or an airport, even seen as a glow at the horizon few kilometers away, will make your eyes less sensitive and the sky will appear to be black and you will loose the ability to see. Look away from the glow and after a while you'll be able to see again.

Why the "blue light"? This is a representation of Purkinje effect, which is caused by the fact, that when there is little to no light, humans are able to see only the blue part of the spectrum and become blind to other colours. The moon appears to be white, because it radiates at sufficient intensity, for our eyes to see all the wavelenghts, which combined give white colour.

As I said, the new lighting itself is good and the moonshine is good. What's not so good, is that there are some issues in how the light reflects from various objects versus terrain + plants, and how it's not blocked by the terrain. This is what breaks the scene, not the "blue light" or else.

I was doing another experiment. I took two screenshots (Dev build 0.57.105007) of an OPFOR soldier (better camo) lying on the grass, one was midday and the other was at midnight, with full moon up high above. Then I've heavily blurred and desaturated both images, to take shapes and colours out of the equation. The sun/moon light was illuminating the scene from a similar angle. See the attached screenshots.

While it's impossible to make out the soldier on day image, he clearly stands out on night image. In real life, he would be equally camouflaged on both images, either visible or not (depending on the camouflage). It makes me think, along with "dark_grass" example, that there is something not working as it should, with regards to how different things reflect light in Arma3. It looks like the terrain + plants reflect very little and appear to be very dark, while objects like people, cars, houses, rocks reflect too much and stand out from the scene.

It's true, that you can clearly see a white painted house or a car under the moonlight, but it's never that bright like in the current Dev build (0.57.105007). The difference in perceived brightness between terrain + plants and objects should be lowered and the ability reflect light, should be equalized between these two groups. The individual contrast between light and dark parts of a single object (a man, a tree, a car) appears to be more or less correct.

A formal question to moderators: should I open a separate ticket with my findings, or is it enough to post it here, while we have this ticket open and assigned already?

It's true that with a full moon things are blue but the hue at which you see the environment is not as strong as it is in the game. Some times I spend months out spraying crops at night and being very far away from any bright lights (except the spray rig which most of the time I can't even see) and I don't recall the night with a full moon being as blue intensive as it is in the game. And yes reading a book on clear sky and full moon is very easy to do, I do it all the time and you don't even have to strain your eyes to read.

But even in a city (where I live most of the time), a full moon makes it so much easier to see as well, you can clearly see down strips of road and see every object and detail with ease. But on a moonless night you'll have a hard time seeing in between the street lamps.

As I've already made mention within Bug #10530, "Nightime is not dark enough"; it's as if the background lighting for full moon is statically set, and no lighting changes take place between the other phases of the moon, including new moon or a moonless night.

You can test this by changing the calendar to a new moon night. You'll likely need to visit a moon phase chart to take note of the type of moon phase you see in game, then subtract or add the number of days to a new moon. (I'm having problems specifying a date from the calendar with a new moon, to match the in game moon phases.)

Anyways, you'll notice the background lighting remain completely the same between all phases of the moon. Not too also mention, seeing an ugly 360 degree shaded blue horizon, which means the background is too bright and not blending at all.

Got a similar issue. Night time in Dev Build looks not nearly as good as it looked in the beginning of the Alpha.

Mh...I duplicated this issue by mistake...Forgot that there allready was a ticket + couldnt find any related tickets when I searched for "night"

Anyways:

Duplicate: 0012364

And heres my two cents towards this topic:

The night seems broken on the Dev build at least. The stars look like footballs and the streets are lighted as if it was in a rollercoaster park.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4934308/Arma%203/Night%20time/Screenshot18126.jpg [^]

Somehow its not that bad all night long. The later it gets the worse it gets.

Also it seems I cannot find a night with moonlight anymore.

These bright lights and black darkness everywhere without a light looks awfull=(

YOu had it right before you changed the light settings. I hope you get it right again too.

I happen to get this effect nearly every evening. I think it happens around 22:00.

Also onto this topic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JutD-K28fcc SaveFrom.net [^]

I just happened to realize how nice the clouds look! But if you look at the clouds in the early morning you will notice, that they are way to black at first and then way to orange.

Greetings!

HI, FeralCircus plaese, can you write me, your trable with dark night? I try it, and if is bad weather in night (star and moon are not visible)I see very dark night. Is it still actual a problem? Thanks for info.

I have to admit I was wrong. After some testing my problem seemed to be a bad addon.

However - it could still be that the night is too bright. I cannot compare it since I only have the Dev and not the vanilla build.

Greetz

I just tested the latest developer version and find the night sky is still broken in shades of light blue on the horizon to darker shades of blue as you look upward higher into the sky. These shades of blue are similar to what is seen during early morning or evening hours when the sun is just over the horizon.

This lightness of the sky is similar to what one would see if they were at one of the Earth's poles during Summer, as the sun never sets at the poles during the Summer season.

During 22:00 to 04:00, the sky should be black at latitudes closer to the equator, give or take an hour for a specified season.

Also during early morning and evening, although the sky would look black on the ground, at higher altitudes the sky does lighten on the horizon based on the higher you go, the further you can see the sunset or sunrise.

At 00:00 (or between 22:00 to 04:00 as previously mentioned), the sky should be black and star light should be bright. Everything else looks really good, or really close to reality. (The only other item of concern for me is moonlight of the ground and moonless nights.)

This is usual night brightness. And sky can't be are black.

Anachoretes: I'm stating the sky should be black, or close to black around starlight. If you look through a telescope away from star light, the background or space is black. Last I checked, blue light is rare within astrophotography unless filters are used. The rarity of colors within space are what makes such astronomical items such as Pleiades of great beauty. (ie. How Do Space Pictures Get So Pretty? By Daniel Engber; June 1, 2005; slate.com)

Again, the only time blue should be seen at ground level or low altitudes flown by fixed wing aircraft, is when the sun is just over the horizon. Blue is the color displayed by the sunlight refracting the earth's atmosphere! So when sunlight cannot be seen refracting the earth's atmosphere, the sky should be black with skylight and moon light only. Only white and black, along with some greys, unless it's morning or evening, and depending on altitude. Only if you are looking through a color filter, should you see any other colors in the night sky.

You сan't see the space from the ground. You see light reflection in blue specter. Smaller. Because moon reflect sunlight and sunlight reflect from atmosphere. You should increase your knowledge in this matter.
Or. You can make RAW photo with grey target and look what color produced by the sky.

Anachoretes: You're incorrect. You're only reiterating what I've already stated, but construed to your point of view. The amount of blue light refracted is likely extremely minimal and not even noticeable from what you're describing. I've experienced night time from many locations of the world.

The above attached dark_grass.jpg describes the current level of bright blue I am currently seeing at all times of night with the current developer version.

rogerx is correct. The sky is only blue because of how the light from the sun refracts off our atmosphere space is pretty much black with few exceptions which the human eye can't see. And although Anachoretes is correct in stating that the moon reflects the light of the sun back to us, the light coming from the moon doesn't have the same properties as direct sun light to make the night anywhere near as blue as what it is in the game.

--->and not even noticeable from what you're describing
My eyes and camera notice this. Sky can be deeper..but never black and white.

--->from the moon doesn't have the same properties as direct sun light
Moon have huge albedo, and reflect all specter. Just less.

P.S. Full moon make the night very bright.

HI, I am glad, that you are so good observers. I agree with Anachoretes about blue tone in the night sky. Night sky (clear weather)isn't darkness black. But I agree with Nicolii and Rogerx than night sky in arma isn't real.

Where is the problem?

The Night sky should be more darness and less blue, but not black. I want to have a wonderful night sky. I will make compromis between camera and human eyes. For camera is night sky totaly black. But for human eyes is the sky more bright than ground and its objects.

http://vimeo.com/43797471
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8R-GCrumlI

Are you agree with me? (Night sky isn't black)

If you want dark night use setAperture command

setAperture 30

should do it.

"setAperture 30"

value about 10 is allright for me (without moon)

I feel that a aperture of 12 is correct for the colouration of the night sky, but I know on a full moon the light coming from the moon to light up Earth is about as bright as it is on 0. You can very easily read a book, no problem on a full moon.

And please Gugla, please push for a high res star field. The night sky looks so empty with the few white dots Arma 3 has. http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=12717

EDIT: used settings "setDate [2035,6,10, 00, 00]; setaperture 12;"

Yeah, this is ok for me. Maybe more lighter fog for horizont

Stars are ok, but point texture is ugly, I want change this texturu for all effect, where is this texture used.

to: armapirx

Thanks for your feedback, is it a problem with a compas and a watch still actual ?

Interesting setaperture option. Can't test for another week or so as the computer is down, again.

A note concerning background color of the night sky. I usually find no visual blue color range within the background of night sky photography. However, there maybe a minimal non-visible range of blue color within the night sky from the atmosphere, which is definitely visible during dawn and dusk. Blues (and reds) can also be seen from star light being refracted by the atmosphere, depending on upper atmosphere wind and humidity. (ie. Astronomical seeing - Wikipedia and Atmospheric refraction - Wikipedia)

I have attached an over-exposed nighttime (moonless night) extended exposure of comet Hale-Bopp (1995). (Attached: img0010-compressed.jpg Comet Hale-Bopp 1995 30-60 second exposure taken long after dusk using 1000 ISO Film.) Not the best astrophotography, but demonstrates the range of blue not visible to the human eye within the night sky. If blues were visible, they would mask out the blues seen by the comet and other star light!

As to why you guys are seeing a blue sky in the middle of the night, I do not know why. The only possible reason is if you're seeing sunlight over the poles, while viewing from a polar region. (ie. I'm in the Arctic, so pretty much see this all the time here, including the green and sometimes purple Auroras.) Should also note, the north and south poles will have visible Auroras depending on latitude and altitude.

If you are seeing a blue background, you're not going to see the stars sometimes shine red and blue from atmospheric refraction.

Typically, middle of the night background color is black, white and greys. While, the atmosphere of earth is typically blue and seen while sunlight is reflecting/refracting through the atmosphere. If the night sky were blue in the middle of the night, sometimes blue reflections seen from stars wouldn't be seen. (ie. Astronomical seeing - Wikipedia).

I've also uploaded "img0039-compressed.jpg" of a moon set using 1000 ISO Film, (~5-15 second) extended exposure. Ignore the image quality as it's all I could dig out from my CD archives as my main computer is down for a week, and quality is irrelevant as we're looking at colors only. Just look at the colors, and you can see moon light with the surrounding blue atmosphere being refracted by moon light. What's great about this photo is at moon set, you can possibly see some blue, but only around a very bright full moon and only during moon set on the horizon, and likely only under certain other circumstances, such as just after sunset causing a very bright moon set. Finally, note the extent of the blue seen, as the blue atmosphere almost immediately fades into the black and greys of night time sky!

Thanks Rogerx for your interesting comments.

Now we don't have option setup separate night sky for full moon or moonless. We don't have option setup the night sky for a city area or a ocean area. I must setup value as like compromise for these areas.

I think that a test with the aperture from Nicolii is good a way for resolved this a problem.

Thanks for clarification of limitations of not being able to perform moonless versus moon lit nights.

I think the line at required features can be drawn at moonless and moon lit night skies. It's almost essential to have at least these two values. You could compute an average brightness between the two, but the value provided will always display an injustice between moonless and moon lit skies. :-(

It maybe more appropriate and more preferred to display the extreme possible light levels. In other words, just display the extreme black range of a night sky, while partial lit skies will be displayed during dusk or dawn. This method will display the full extreme of color ranges, but sacrifice moon lit skies? (Still, people are going to exclaim their dismay with this solution, as it's not going to be romantic enough without having a nicely illuminated Hawaiian or Californian moon set or moon lit sky. ;-)

I should note, setting values to display an extremely dark or black of the night time sky during a moonless night, the sky will still be lighter than the ground due to star light, while separated along the horizon. The moonlight will be zero during extremely dark nights, due to the moon being at the opposite side of the earth. The sky will likely be a slightly grey, or a much lighter black versus the ground being black due to having no natural light source except for star light.

rogerx

Don't forget that being closer to the poles leaves you with a much thinner ozone layer. I don't know if that does affect how blue your night sky is (or lack thereof), but it could warrant some research.

I know from working long days on a farm in rural central-eastern Australia that the sky is almost black but not quite. And I'm taking into consideration that circumstances could be different in the Mediterranean regions that the night sky could be of stronger blue than what I see. But I've never been in the northern hemisphere so I couldn't tell you.

The origins of the above attached photos are from Ohio, US.

The night time sky during Summer near the poles is blue, as the sun never sets. The night time sky during Winter near the poles is black (similar to US latitudes) as the sun never rises.

I've traveled between 13N (or 26N) and 66N latitudes, and experienced those night time skies. Personally, other than the anomalies I have mentioned, there is basically no visible blue within the night sky, but yes, the night time sky is a light black due to grey refracted moonlight and star light.

And other than the anomalies previously mentioned, including moon set just several hours after sunset, I have never seen blue skies. Even on full moons as most of the color from the light is in the white or grey range.

I'm really stumped as to why people are seeing blue in the middle of the night, for the back ground sky color!

Aug 16 19:08:13 UTC 2013: OK! I'm going to settle this once and for all, there is no visible blue spectrum (using the unaided human eye) within the night sky! However as previously already mentioned, there are low levels of blue, including red yellow and green in any image, which are undetectable by the unaided human eye. (See: "What color is the night sky?"; Joseph A. Shaw; Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering; Montana State University) As such, from a human's perspective not being on drugs, the appearance of the night time sky is black, or lightly lit as grey during full moon. Again, aside from the rare fore mentioned anomalies.

Aug 16 19:17:27 UTC 2013: Also see "Night Sky" Wikipedia, section Brightness, "When the sun drops more than 18° below the horizon the sky generally attains its minimum brightness" and section Visual Presentation, "Stars are, depending on how dark the sky is, hundreds or thousands of white pinpoints of light in an otherwise black sky"

I can get a pitch black environment again (not that I like it, but it works)...can you confirm?

About a week ago and after pulling the admins leg-off trying to get some nighttime or dusk/dawn variance versus always setting the server time to daytime, I can see the dark skies are pretty dark or pretty close to the real thing, alongside the darkened terrain. (From my eye, it looks really good.)

However, I'm waiting for my night skies to get much darker around here, and I should be experiencing near dark around here as the winter solstice occurs December 21. Just have to wait for the airport to turn off their lights for a night and for the stupid freezing smog to clear from the less then -60F air to be able to see the sky! ;-)

2013.11.28: I just tested the latest developer and find it's dark enough when the weather is set to Stormy weather, but the clear skies during moonless nights are still extremely bright at night. (Bright blue along the horizon.) I don't know if they just changed it within the past day or so either, making it brighter then it has been within the past week. Is the reason they create a light blue horizon during midnight on moonless nights is so beginners are able to fly? I know it's nowhere as bright blue around the Lower 48, but during autumn and spring here in Alaska, the skies are light blue such as dipicted currently! Although, the contrast is much more realistic looking, between the dark ground and night skies. (On a side note, no lit HUD during nighttime, as well as exterior lit tail aircraft number. No exterior aircraft strobe, and they reduced the brightness of the exterior aircraft lights. ;-)

2013.11.29: I speculate the latest dev version lightened the sky again (since I can't roll-back here), although the runway lighting is starting to look really nice. Think they're screwing with you and in order to make the runway lighting look brighter, they're bumping up the brightness on everything. ;-) Or, the guy in charge of the sky lighting is trying to reproduce the light levels present with light polluted skies. My date/time settings within the game are June 24, 2035 23:55, which should be moonless. My Alaskan skies at approximately 19:00 on November 28, 2013 are extremely dark blue and into the black region of color. Currently, it still looks like there's a sunrise or moonrise 360 degrees across the horizon from within the game simulation. My monitor brightness and color levels are set to defaults or standard. (ie. Acer X223W)

Hi, thank you for your attention, I will prepare update light setup fon day and night and I try doing night more dark, a star less bright.

I'm looking at my local sky here in Alaska (December 13) and am noticing the only areas along the horizon where the brightness is equivalent to the game horizon night sky are the following:

1. Specific areas along the horizon where local (or sometimes distant city) lights are causing light pollution.

2. Specifically just prior to dawn or just after dusk time within that specific area of the horizon the sun is rising or setting.

Also note the overly bright sky brightness levels are along the entire horizon within the game. It's possible the game designer took a light meter reading of a light polluted sky from local or distant city lights, and just integrated these extremely bright sky horizon light levels along the entire horizon within the game by accident or unknowingly.

From my knowledge of real world island sky light levels, the real world night sky tends to be much darker as the islands are usually more isolated from city lights from larger more populated continents.

FYI Update as of Game Version 1.10.114700.

I just realized within Anzu's War Games server during multi-player night missions (one of the few great servers hosting night missions), night time darkness seemed much darker and more realistic now compared to the past overly bright night time during no moon scenarios! So I performed some testing within the Editor using setDate and skipTime exec commands using the dates June 24 2034 00:00 (for moonless night) and April 01 2014 22:00 for approximate full moon nights.

The results appear pretty close to realistic (according to my perception) except for maybe some tweaking. For example on half moon nights with the half moon setting over the ocean, I think the moon's ambient brightness could be a little brighter to show the ocean waves? Maybe also increasing the ambient street lighting brightness and other lighting during night time? Another scenario, with white snow covered or white sand/salt covered grounds, ambient lighting is reflected more so than on ground surfaces with darker colors. These are suggestions based on opinion, as I do not regularly use light meters or measuring instruments.

On a side note, aircraft collision lighting should be much brighter at night, similar to during ARMA Alpha versions? Aircraft are still missing tail art/designation lighting or side lighting, and the reasoning I believe is for increasing the visibility of the aircraft during nighttime and aircraft accountability.

I really enjoy the night time scenarios, as the darkness during moonlit skies or even the green night vision decreases the amount of glaring light my eyes or retinas are subjected to, as well as increasing the difficulty of the game.

I did have some doubts ARMA 3 developers would not be able to integrate moon lighting!

2014.03.03 21:15 - Ditto to what FeralCircus stated below. Another example of a few ambient light sources not being bright enough, are headlights on vehicles. When driving, the driver should be able to see at a greater distances with the headlights turned on. Although, there is no switch for high or low beams, so guessing the headlights only have a low beam setting. I also think the street lights (and collision lights) should be brighter. Thinking adjusting one ambient light level source, requires further adjustments on transparency settings, etc. Much like a domino effect. However in my opinion, I think they're definitely on the right path now with the night lighting levels -- albeit, I have no light meter here.

I think it is the best it has ever looked right now :-)
(apart from the massive stars)

Did somebody make the night sky far too bright on moonless nights again? If I'm not mistaken, the darkness of a moonless night was pretty close to the real thing. Just after the latest release, skies now look as bright as just prior to dawn or just after dusk again.

Feels like a yo-yo effect here! ;-) On one release the moonless skies look dark enough, then the next release moonless nights are too bright. Next release they're back to looking dark again, etc.

The night skies with moonlit skies sure looks nice though. Ground looks well lit with the embient lighting. Real close to the ambient contrast of moonlit skies. Moon just looks really distant during moon set.

Would be nice if some of the stars were a different color then just white, and not sure if the stars include the axis of planets which also would be a different color.

Interesting, on a moonlit night on April 1, 2035 approximately 20:00-23:00, can see Pleiades alongside the moon. When Pleiades gets as low as 10-20 degrees above horizon, not sure if it's that visible as it is simulated within the game currently.

Note, one of the most notorious star clusters, are a "hot blue and extremely luminous" stars. (ie. Pleiades Wikipedia) Anyways, I'm off-topic on this.

I was on ANZUS's server last night, and noticed while flying the sky was apparently adequately dark at most times with and without night vision. (Albeit, light glare could have been playing tricks with my simulated eye's light sensitivity.)

I think the server date and time is set +1 day in advance of real time for some reason, and will return later to verify so I can duplicate the scenarios here to ensure the server wasn't modified.

There might be a perception of while walking around on the ground, the night sky still being too light for some odd reason. But while flying last night on ANZUS's server, I thought it was pretty realistic. On further thought, it could be no ambient light is getting into the cocket due to > 50% of the cockpit being blocked by GL solid walls. While on the ground, the GL soldier is completely exposed to any environmental lighting.

I must say though, this GL world does appear to be getting close to realistic lighting levels?

NOTE 2: There are no interior lights within buildings. Most vehicles have no interior lighting? Such as getting into the driver section of the tanks, turn on the exterior lights results in no interior lighting showing the detail of the inside driver window?

For me it looks alright right now. Can we resolve the ticket?

Yes it looks great now :-)
Thank you

Thanks.

sorry but i can't see any difference between now and in beta version !

So why did you put resolved ?

Because the creator of the ticket said it looks good now. I share his opinion.

Maybe you and the OP don't speak of the same thing.

Well if I'm not mistaken, the initial bug with the brightness of the sky caused the ground to also be too well lit. The ground should only be well lit when the moon is visible within the sky. (ie. Reflected sunlight.) Within the current release, the sky is slightly subdued from it's original brightness, alongside with the ground terrain being near dark -- hence requiring secondary sources of lighting. (ie. Requiring flashlights, which is better than prior to when this bug was first opened?)

Seems like a yo-yo effect going on within the development, one release the night sky is too bright, the next release is then at apparently correct brightness. Then the next subsequent release the night sky brightness is again too bright.

However, I tend to agree the brightness is about correct now, taken into consideration for the starlight. I'm thinking the developer responsible for the brightness and colors, might see the starlight brightness not being accurately simulated within the game. Hence, incrementally needing to increase the night sky brightness levels to provide the accurate ground light illumination.

If this is correct, it maybe that this bug is solved, but now we need to look at another bug such as, Bug #12717 "Night Sky is too boring." In other words, the stars might need to be fixed, so the night sky can be more accurately darkened. But then more properly, this bug should be marked as depending on Bug #12717 and not closed.

I also tend to agree with sofianebilal, the night sky is still too light. (Or too blue colored.) But darkening may also not provide the adequate light provided by star light per previously mentioned Bug #12717.

So I'm kind of split on closing or keeping open. Question is, how good do you want the night sky to be? If you want it accurate, then don't close it.

If you don't mind a blue sky which should be near black in light unpolluted skies, then keep working on it. (ie. Light Pollution Wikipedia)

Currently, I think the lightness of the night sky mimics the light polluted skies of New York city as depicted within the photos of the Light Pollution Wikipedia. If this is truly a rural island, nights skies should be pretty well close to dark with vivid white hot stars. Around the area of the air port, the skies should be similar as they are now.

Which reminds me, I need to relocate myself within the game from testing the skies within the airport, to a remote area of the islands! Doh!

(I live near an airport, and can vouch the night skies are well light polluted or similar to ARMA 3 current night sky brightness levels. But when the airport's lights are turned off sometimes at night, the night skies are pretty well dark as I am quite rural! Another factor, cloudy night skies tend to reflect light or light pollution over cities, while in rural areas clouds will block moon and star light.)

I should reiterate, the Light Pollution Wikipedia perfectly demonstrates the issue I'm seeing, "New York City at night shows sky glow" versus "A comparison of the view of the night sky from a small rural town (top) and a metropolitan area (bottom). Light pollution dramatically reduces the visibility of stars."

Again, I need to retest with putting myself into a remote area of the island at night and reverify night sky light levels, instead of testing night sky light levels around the airport!

I had already created a thread about this!

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?159882-Night-is-too-bright-after-0-55-dev&highlight=brightness

and now for have a more natural night sky, we must to put the gamma at 0.8 or less, which result in decrease of global brightness of the game

My main issue is, that the issue what you acclaim does not represent what was written by FerarCircus in first place, in the original ticket description.

I give you two options

1. stick with #12717 and improve it
2. create a new ticket with the description similar to what rogerx wrote (maybe a bit shorter, the elaborate text in additional info)

Last night I went out to a rural location on northern Atlis near the coast where atypically the sky would be much darker due to no possible light pollution from city or airport lighting, and found the sky was just as bright of a blue as compared to viewing from around a city or airport.

Currently, I think the night sky brightness is now similar to light polluted skies. Shrugs, I'm split against closing or keeping this bug open, and will tend to sway if there's strong support for keeping it open for more finesing of the contrast or gamma levels.

Another note, night vision seems extremely too bright at times and upon turning off night vision while flying a helicopter at night, I tend to find there's no other valid light source or moon within the night sky influencing the night vision extreme brightness.

(Nice thread on http://forums.bistudio.com/ concerning this issue. Just remember, it's their game and you can't force people to see the light! ;-)

Don't worry, we will still upgrade and improve lighting setup.

Thanks Gugla.

rogerx, you apparently don't seem to grasp what I'm saying. Night sky brightness is not the focus of this ticket, the original description only involves the night time visibility (ground lighting).

The sky brightness is a sort of "ticket-hijack". Please consider my two options.

ok we are with you in this point! but the problem is that until the day this was not resolved!

test by yourself go to the north of altis with a night with moon, by default gamma (1.0) and see by yourself, you do not even need to use NVG even at very long distance!
the second point is that the brightness of the sky, lamp ... ect and ground are all connected (look screenshot of OP)
before the dev alpha version 0.55 while the light was very realistic sky was realistic with the perfect brightness, after 0.55 dev all that has changed in the same time , and that is why I said in my thread that there is some adjustment needs to be reviewed

and the problem with you is that you want to separate two things that are connecting and changing at the same time and with the same proportion

and I do not see why put a ticket resolved, while it did not!

Fireball: I think what you're saying is based on your own interpretation or point of view. Whether or not influenced by more people internally, I don't know.

Quoted from the summary, "At night (from about 9:30 ish) everything goes all blue and bright to the point where you don't even need night vision to see."

One cannot say at this point, blue was never mentioned! Nor can one say blue is a direct cause. (And after the last patch, I think object lightness is being separated of the night sky light as I'll further explain later here.)

One of the main obvious indicators of this was the cartoon blue color of the night sky, and continues to be blue to this date; and with only temporary displays of a nice dark night sky but only until a subsequent patch reverts the sky back to blue again.

Since the blue sky color was not initially defined as the specific problem but as an apparent descriptive effect, we can neither assume or not assume based on your own interpretation. But the blue sky color was quite evident, and still continues to be to an extent. But I tend to agree with Gugla, that since it's such an obvious issue, I tend to avoid filing the obvious bug and/or feature requests. ;-)

Really, distinguishing between the sky color as a cause or effect, and Fireball's interpretation would require technical expertise of somebody within the color and light modeling of computer GL. I think it's also quite obvious a blue color is going to require more light, as colors tend not to exist without light. But within the latest release I think I can see the object lighting being actively separated from the night sky. (ie. Simulated GL objects being held such as a weapon or ground lighting, are no longer well lit when compared to the brightness of the night sky.)

This is much like Law or legal definitions, we can try to define something as much as possible, but there's always going to be a gray line no matter how much we try to define or rule-out possibilities. And, we're talking about civilians here, or people with highschool or less knowledge filing bug reports. In the end, it all gets down to people, and which way they're going to go. ;-)

sofianebilal, have to realize some progress was made here, and I don't think many developers are going to want to leave the sky at the current light polluted or unbalanced levels, unless they truly love to look at light polluted skies. I think there's only so much time (or spend so much money), and only so much one can do to try to simulate real life before drawing the line someplace.

I think the current night time simulation is bearable, alongside Gugla's tweaking, for which I think is imminent with the NVG brightness oddness. But I've never used night vision myself, so what do I know here. ;-)

I say, gang-up on Bug 0012717 "Night Sky is too boring." Maybe in the future we'll be able to see the Milky Way, with more realistic night sky colors displaying light pollution, etc. I think the line has been drawn at, is the game displaying something that an untrained eye (ie. somebody not knowledgeable about Astronomy) is going to initially detect? And how much further until they end-up integrating sci-astronomy/stellarium? Cheers!

rogerx: What "internal influence"? I'm not BI, I'm doing this on my own spare time.

sofianebilal: Go outside (preferably in a rural area) at a full moon lit night, and you won't need NVG. Use military-grade binoculars and the light will be even be amplified. But the ticket was about achieving pitch black night, and this is currently possible, specifically in moonless nights.

Fireball: Shrugs. I have no idea whom else you discuss bugs with. Just wanted to make mention, I realize you could be discussing (or have discussed) this bug with an internal developer specifically assigned to color and lighting aspects. If you were discussing this bug with a developer privately, then it would be wiser to assume you likely know much more about the technical aspects of color and lighting than even ourselves!

But as I further made mention, after the last patch, I think light emitting sources are now separate of lighting of GL objects or are more exponentially afflicted by some parameters. Hence, creating a situation where none of us are wrong and none of us are right based on this bug description! ;-)

Like I said previously, since few else are complaining, and sofianebilal & I are the only ones desiring darker for feature rich night terrain and skies, probably best to keep this marked as resolved. I think our issues are now likely more finnicky and can be easily pushed under Bug #12717 "Night Sky is too boring." In other words, night sky darkness could be easily a requisite of making the night sky better. (However, some might think a pink sky might make the sky better depending on which time zone they're in!)

By the way, thanks for spending your time with us whiners. ;-)

when there is a full moon the night in arma is brighter

Mass closing tickets marked as resolved more than 1 month ago.

If the issue is in fact not resolved, please create a new ticket referencing this one and ask for it to be re-opened.