Examples on how to setup volumetric lights?

[SeriousToni]

When volumetric lights were officially supported, I was blasted away on how good the Screenshots looked. So I tried to implement some in the update of my FM.

But actually I always ended up with removing them because it looked rather strange with many small dark dots appearing in the areas of the light or when NPCs walk through them.

As I read that many FM authors already implemented them into their missions, I wonder what setup did you use? Which colours and density worked for you?

My plan was to use a volumetric light for the fireplaces in this mission. But no matter how ai played around with density and colour, I always endet up having those small black and grey tiny dots around. Also the rest of the room looks out of place if the torches on the wall DON'T use VL but the fireplace does.

I can't find another way but to listen to your experience with VL. Thank you!

[Wellingtoncrab]

The dithering you are seeing can be reduced quite a bit by disabling the sharpening filter in the graphics menu. You can also increase the sample size via the console but this has a performance cost. There is no removing the dithering - though I imagine as the effect is worked on and polished it will get better.

I used volumetric lights extensively for fireplaces in my mission and I found it was as much a matter of selecting the right texture as changing the color and fog density to get an effect I liked, but this will always be subjective. I have had comments from players who still prefer to play with volumetric lights off.

I recommend trying some of the candle/fireplace textures with “fall off” in the title, but more just to experiment.

The connection feature makes changing light values in real-time, including the texture and volumetric fog density, very painless if you are not using that yet.

[SeriousToni]

3 minutes ago, Wellingtoncrab said:

The dithering you are seeing can be reduced quite a bit by disabling the sharpening filter in the graphics menu. You can also increase the sample size via the console but this has a performance cost. There is no removing the dithering - though I imagine as the effect is worked on and polished it will get better.

I used volumetric lights extensively for fireplaces in my mission and I found it was as much a matter of selecting the right texture as changing the color and fog density to get an effect I liked, but this will always be subjective. I have had comments from players who still prefer to play with volumetric lights off.

I recommend trying some of the candle/fireplace textures with “fall off” in the title, but more just to experiment.

The connection feature makes changing light values in real-time, including the texture and volumetric fog density, very painless if you are not using that yet.

Thank you very much for your insights. Can you point me to a campfire that you like so that I can have a look at your setup in one of the missions you mentioned? (room, mission name) Thst would be very helpful I think.

The connection feature is a bit weird. I tried it and the camera is synching however the light changes don't seem to be synching properly ingame for me.

[Wellingtoncrab]

Do you have the last box checked in the connection configuration?  “update on change” I thinks it’s called. It will be greyed out until the .map files between DR and the game are in sync which you can do by saving the map in DR.

[SeriousToni]

18 minutes ago, Wellingtoncrab said:

Do you have the last box checked in the connection configuration?  “update on change” I thinks it’s called. It will be greyed out until the .map files between DR and the game are in sync which you can do by saving the map in DR.

Oh I think I wasn't saving the file each time. That could be the problem. Thanks again!

[Obsttorte]

Did you try altering the volumetric_dust spawnarg? Maybe that value is set too high (from the wiki the default seems to be 0.002).

[stgatilov]

1 hour ago, SeriousToni said:

Oh I think I wasn't saving the file each time. That could be the problem. Thanks again!

I remember there were two modes: update on map save, and update on any change.
Perhaps you were using the former approach...
Tooltips should know better

[SeriousToni]

31 minutes ago, stgatilov said:

I remember there were two modes: update on map save, and update on any change.
Perhaps you were using the former approach...
Tooltips should know better

Oh sorry I didn't notice that there were tool tips. When I first saw it half of the options were grayed out so I didn't pay attention to them later. My mistake!