Monitor Calibration (touchy topic)

[nbohr1more]

I've been meaning to broach this topic for awhile but I know it's a sensitive area so I've put it off for far too long.

 

Calibration is very important and is especially important for developers.

 

How many times have we seen comments like "that screen is too dark", "the ambient_world in your map is too bright" (etc).

 

Without a consistent standard, all these judgements are fairly arbitrary.

 

Now calibration is not a cure-all because different displays still have different capabilities but it's the least we can do to attempt to ensure some

sort of standard is in place.

 

Here are some calibration sites:

 

http://epaperpress.com/monitorcal/index.html

 

http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/

 

Please attempt to calibrate as best as possible and (if you are willing) take cellphone or camera shot of your screen to show how close it is to ideal calibration.

 

Or at least chime in with a "Calibrated" post.

 

Thanks!

 

Time for me to fiddle with calibration lest I be a hypocrite

[nbohr1more]

OK, calibrated as well as this cheap monitor will go.

 

(I did this awhile back but it never hurts to recheck.)

 

Now to TDM a little and see how wrong I am about things, so I can look for things to apologize for in the WIP screen thread

[OrbWeaver]

Please attempt to calibrate as best as possible and (if you are willing) take cellphone or camera shot of your screen to show how close it is to ideal calibration.

 

Calibrating your monitor is a good idea, but taking a picture with a camera doesn't prove anything. You're just introducing more uncalibrated devices into the signal path (the sensor of the camera, the image conversion and handling code), and on top of that the camera will automatically adjust the exposure based on the brightness of the scene so you don't have anything close to a fixed reference.

 

If you truly want to calibrate your monitor (for visual effects work, for example) you need to use a dedicated piece of hardware which detects the screen colour using an accurate sensor and feeds the data back to associated software on the PC.

[Melan]

How many times have we seen comments like "that screen is too dark", "the ambient_world in your map is too bright" (etc).

 

Without a consistent standard, all these judgements are fairly arbitrary.

There is a light calibration room in the tutorial mission. I would say that should be a reliable yardstick for both players and mission authors.

[STiFU]

Orb is absolutely correct. We have one such tool at work. However, I didn't get it to run under windows 7. It is pretty old.

 

But honestly, the best thing you can do is to get a display that has a fixed sRGB-Profile or similar. When I activate the sRGB-Profile on my Eizo, I can't change anything anymore. Not brightness, not contrast, nothing. It doesn't look as good as in the other profiles, but it is perfectly calibrated. So, for doing some photoshop work, I use that profile, but for gaming I switch to more visually pleasing profiles or just switch over to my TV/couch!

 

Anyway, I don't see any harm in raising gamma ingame, when I feel like the mission is too dark. I have to fiddle with gamma anyways, depending on the current room illumination, since I don't have fully darkening blinds on my windows.

[Bikerdude]

@Stifu, that reminds me I have been meaning to get something like this.

 

@All, anyone got one of these for sale..?

[nbohr1more]

There is a light calibration room in the tutorial mission. I would say that should be a reliable yardstick for both players and mission authors.

 

This is a useful tool but the problem lies with the fact that your screen's calibration settings will differ from your in-game calibration.

If we enforced that all players and mappers set gamma and brightness to 1 and then used their monitor settings to tune it to taste

that would standardize things further. The second part of that sentence is where the problems will still crop up because once you

have your monitor set to your preference it will alter how you perceive others' work as well as how you design your look.

 

Still, that would act as an anchor I suppose. Having both monitor and in-game settings in wacky-land would make comparison completely void.

 

One thing I'm not sure about is driver settings. These too can be used to adjust the look but I'm not sure if driver color, gamm, contrast (etc) affect screen-shot

output too (I don't think so...) But here we have yet another knob. Players\Mappers will have good TDM tuning, good Monitor tuning, but screwed-up driver colors digital vibrance etc

because they fiddled with them for some other game or application.

 

Yeah, a calibration device would be cool. I guess there aren't too many being made so they are probably pricey?

[STiFU]

There are calibration devices ranging from 50 € to 170 € on Amazon.

 

Anyway, I still think this is a non-issue. Why should there be need for a standard? Just adjust the gamma to your personal preference and you're done. Unless you work with textures, precise calibration should not be an issue.

[nbohr1more]

Well, that's it right there. Mappers can make custom textures and can use material overrides to change them in their maps.

Mappers can choose ambient world, primary and secondary lights to brighten their scenes.

 

The result will be overly bright or overly dark if they make choices based on a poorly calibrated monitor.

 

It's mostly a mapper or asset designer issue but players can also be part of the issue when they complain about missions

or post screens and videos that do not reflect the intended appearance of the missions. Having a wild-west standard means

that there is no good way to say "No, that screen you posted does not reflect what TDM looks like, it's too bright and saturated.

You have poor calibration." or challenge a variety of criticisms.

 

It matters to me because I enjoy dark maps and when you choose dark lighting and textures you are right up against the technical

limits of monitor technology. Proper calibration allows you to test that limit within a safe range of options. If you are overly bright,

you will go too dark in your design and if your are overly dim you will over-brighten your scene to compensate. The latter is generally

better since you cannot retrieve detail from the low precision range of a render but it leads to less contrast and mood. So it's a tightrope walk.

Sure, it's not important compared to something like "AI design" etc. But it affects the range of artistic options at the frontiers of the hardware

and there should be some sort of applicable standard so that mappers and asset designers can know the limits and make use of them.

 

Sure, TDM is hobby project from a fan community but it's a big enough project that some sort of coordinated calibration would be helpful.

Maybe we can't be like a AAA game studio where everyone has their environment audited for calibration but we can at least make some

sort of discussion or awareness of it.

[Hiradur]

I usually search for reviews of my monitor which show the OSD settings after the calibration with a professional device (example: http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/dell_u2415.htm section 'Calibration') and download the provided ICC profile to tune the graphics card as well. It may not be perfect due to spread for standard factory models but it's been good enough for me.

Edited November 17, 2015 by Hiradur

[Springheel]

Most people have to brighten their screenshots in post anyway so details can be seen. What looks good in game while you're moving is often far too dark for a static picture.

 

And since the way the game looks will vary completely depending on how much ambient light is in the room around you, I don't see any specific standard being realistically achievable. Like STiFU, I constantly have to adjust the gamma based on what time of day I'm playing.