Where are the files for day/night/twilight?

[Hitman]

I'm looking for the files that control how much light is rendered depending on the hour of the day. In many games those are graphic files with a colour gradient going from white (Day) through orange (Dusk/Dawn) to night (Black or dark blue), are they in the "EnvAtlantic.dat" and such, in the "Env" folder? Or is there any other file that controls how much light is rendered in the 3D world depending on the hour of the day?

I'm interested in tweaking the dusk/dawn ambient light to reduce it heavily, for the purpose of reducing the vampire vision bug (If I can't have the crew spot well during twilight, I might alternatively make twilight be as dark as night so their spotting range is correct for the visibility :hmm: ).

Thanks for any help

[von Zelda]

There was a mod posted on 3-14-07 by Rubini called GWX 8km more lighter environment. He made changes to 2 files regarding the Atlantic in the env folder.

I did a search for envcolors_atl and it popped up.

[onelifecrisis]

I'm not sure if this is what you want, but the colour of the sky is held in a tga stored in the Env\SkyColors_XXX.dat files. Use DatTexExtract.exe to get the image out (and put it back in again after altering it).

The crews vision is, I believe, unaffected by graphical settings such as light levels - but I'm not certain about that :)

[Kpt. Lehmann]

There was a mod posted on 3-14-07 by Rubini called GWX 8km more lighter environment. He made changes to 2 files regarding the Atlantic in the env folder.

I did a search for envcolors_atl and it popped up.

As I recall (that was a very long time ago) Rubini was trying to make the nights not be so black from the player standpoint.

for onelifecrisis: The player U-boat AI crew is very much affected by light levels. This is easiest to see with aircraft spotting distances when set at different times of day using single missions where you can specify said times of day.

It has been about a year since I finished tweaking the sensors for GWX... and a fair bit of logged R&D was lost when I had to replace my PC... However, IIRC the higher the setting of "light factor" the harder it is for your crew to spot objects.

(Sensors.Cfg)

[Reece]

I know what your after Hitman, and although changing the Env files do alter the environment light a little it is only slight and changes the overall view .. just a little!:doh:
What you want to know ( I think) is what I would like to know also, this issue came up quite a while back but the conclusion was that it is hard coded.:cry:
Back then I wanted to change the night going to the high end of twilight, no further, this would give a much brighter night than any changes made to the Env files, If I had to make a guess the answer could lie in the scene.dat file, although I've worked on sunset - sunrise - colors - reflection - sea height - viewing distance, I have not tried the brightness of the various phases, may not be possable, but then again it might.:D

[Hitman]

Hi Reece,

actually what I wanted is to eliminate the dawn/dusk moments by reducing it to only some seconds/minutes.

Currently the code for SH3 manages the response of visual sensor to ambient light as follows:

Day time: Visual sensor day mode
Night time: Visual sensor night mode
Dusk/Dawn: Visual sensor also night mode

The problem: When you raise a lot the configuration to ensure correct night spotting distances, the crew is blind during dusk/dawn.

Now, since we can't change the way the game hadnles the visual sensor, I was hoping we could change the way the game handles the ambient light, i.e. the game couldn't care less about how much light is really rendered on screen (What you actually see) but uses apparently the time of the day as a base to switch to night sensor (Rigging for red in the game). And it does it during a time when there still is light for the player, therefore the undesirable effect of you seeing ships clearly the crew doesn't detect :damn:

To change that I had thought of making that intermediate dusk/dawn situation actually be FULL night. That would make the sensors performance match properly the current environmental conditions the player is seeing. :hmm:

[bigboywooly]

In which file did you find this Hitman

Day time: Visual sensor day mode
Night time: Visual sensor night mode
Dusk/Dawn: Visual sensor also night mode

Is it not possible to get the dusk\dawn JUST to use Visual sensor day mode :hmm:

[Hitman]

Well that info came from Rubini, and it seemed correct in the limited testing I have done yet.

Is it not possible to get the dusk\dawn JUST to use Visual sensor day mode

Sure....but AFAIK that part is encoded. Or not?:hmm:

[bigboywooly]

Depends what file its in

[Hitman]

On a second thought, no, it's not possible what you suggested :damn:

The game apparently only has two situations for the sensors: Night/Day, but the switch from one to the other is the rig for red situation. And that one is unconnected to the ambient light in the 3D environment. Thus, when you rig for red at dusk, as far as the crew goes, it is now pitch black night,a nd they will not see a ship rendered wher in fact you stil can see it :shifty:

[Rubini]

Yes...this is hardcoded until now.
Hitman is right, at daw/dusk the game works with the night settings for AI visual detection (for player crew and AI units). I recently tried some changes on the Scene.dat on the sky sections, adjusting the sun angle (goes from +90, mid of day to -90 mid of night IIRC). I didn´t had any good result but i make only few and quick tests. Perhaps you could look at this again Hitman?:hmm:

BTW, in this last round of tweaks what I liked is that i achieve to push the "8km visual player distance" - the max distance where the player can see smoke on the horizon - yet more away: 9200km without fog (was 8900m at max stock/GWX/Stay Alert) and 6300m for light fog (was 4900m for stock/GWX/Stay Alert) just modifying two settings on Scene.dat (nothing more). I also made my heavy fog a bit more "fog". These are a big improvement in player area into the game IMHO for 8km players.:up: