[REQ] inside lighting

[the_belgian]

this is one i already missed in SH3,but maybe it can be done in SH5.

in a german sub you had 3 types of lighting;white,red and blue.
would it be possible for someone to create a blue-light mod?

[martes86]

Red lights were only installed in the Control Room and the Conning Tower, IIRC.

Cheers

[the_belgian]

yes,but what about those blue lights.

[Sailor Steve]

What about them? Where were they installed? When were they used, and what for? Do you know any of this for a fact, or just because they were in Das Boot, which is hardly a guideline for accurate history?

[martes86]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Do you know any of this for a fact, or just because they were in Das Boot, which is hardly a guideline for accurate history?

Das Boot may be unrealistic about the crew impressions, but as far as the set goes, I find it pretty well done.

[the_belgian]

quote from
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_th...in_a_submarine


why blue lights on warvessels?

Here's the short answer: to preserve the night-vision of the submarine's crew, while retaining adequate color and depth-perception abilities.

The long answer? Well, to understand that, let me take you back, just before World War I, when early submarines were starting to come into their own.

Back then, all military vessels--surface and submerged--relied on red-colored lighting for night operations. The theory, at the time, was that red-hued light only saturated the red photo-receptors of a person's eyes, thus leaving the green and blue receptors unaffected. Hence, all-important "night-vision" could be preserved better by stimulating only *one* of the three photo-receptors (humans can see red, green, and blue, and have receptors for each of these three "primary" colors). In addition, red had the advantage of a high-frequency wavelength (about 560-570 nm). When coupled with a low-powered intensity of illumination (through lower wattage, typically 4-6 W; what your standard incandescent "night-light" puts out), the light effectively "died-out"; it was hard to detect from long distances. Perfect for surface-going ships.

But, how did this make its way to the world of the submarine?

Remember, early submarines were really not much more than surface-going small frigates (some would say, using the British term, more like "corvettes") that *could* submerge under water. Back then, submarines did the majority of their fighting "above-the-beam"; from a surfaced position. That's why all those old WWI-WWII era subs have huge deck guns--you're not going to fire that thing from underwater!

Instead, the purpose of a submarine was to stealthily sneak up on an enemy contact, quickly surface, fire off it's deck guns, and submerge before it could be fired upon. (Although torpedoes could be used, they were--for the time--fraught with unreliability, were expensive, and required the boat to remain on-station until impact--due to their cable-operated guidance--thus rendering a submarine highly vulnerable to counter-attack.) Thus, the deck gun was the most favored means of primary attack.

Most submarine surface attacks were carried out at night (I don't care what's depicted in U-571, that was a completely different, highly-desperate situation). Thus, transitioning from the enclosed, controlled conditions inside the boat to the exposed, uncontrolled conditions *outside* the boat had to be done as quickly as possible. As the ship came to Battle Stations, and subsequently surfaced, the Chief of the Boat would "rig for red," dimming (or extinguishing) all work lights, and lighting the red lights, so as to prepare the men for going topside, into the night. Remember what I said, a few paragraphs ago? By saturating the men's eyes with red-colored light, their blue and green "night-vision" perception was thus unaffected, making "recovery time" once topside much quicker!

In fact, this tradition is still used by submariners, to this day. When a sub surfaces, the lights are switched to red (as accurately portrayed aboard the USS Dallas in The Hunt for Red October). As Cpt. Mancuso and his XO go up to the weather bridge, the lights switch to red--the holdover from the old submariner days!

So, what's with the funky bluish-green lights, you ask? It has to do with two developments, namely: better understanding of how the human eye works, and advancements in computer-display technologies.

First-off, the human eye. By the mid-60's, scientists had discovered that red-light saturation actually *decreased* night-vision, to some extent. It wasn't necessarily the hue of the light that affects night-vision (though that fact is still debated), but rather the intensity of illumination. See, red-hued light requires almost *twice* as much illumination to provide the same candle-power as lower-frequency (420-460 nm) blue-hued light. Thus, red-light is prone to induce more glare, and will negatively affect the cones (photo-receptors) of the eye. Blue-green light at a *lower* illumination is actually better, providing more color "information" per degree of illumination.

Which leads to the second development...

Red light kills depth and color perception. Sonar operators--who relied not only on their well-trained ears, but also their well-trained *eyes* to interpret the sonar plot)--were reporting trouble reading their spectral plots in the intense red light (coincidentally, most sonar plots are now green-and-blue, and sonar shacks are *always* rigged in blue lighting). The Navy conducted many studies and tests, and found out--sure enough--that blue light would actually be better for *modern* submariners. Since they hardly go topside, now, to fire their armaments, the whole "preserving night-vision" mechanism is unnecessary. Instead, accurate color and depth-perception, especially when translating instrument output, is paramount. Again, using The Hunt for Red October, as the Dallas goes to Battle Stations, the blue lamps are switched on!

There's further, more in-depth and technical reading, here:

http://www.equipped.com/nitevision.htm

http://stlplaces.com/night_vision_red_myth/

http://www.astromax.org/activities/members/kniffen.htm

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_th...in_a_submarine

but notthing on blue "nightlights"...

[ETR3(SS)]

First of all anyone who takes anything in a movie as the gospel truth, shouldn't. Plain and simple. Unless it is a documentary. Hollywood uses visual effects to keep the viewer interested.

Your post seems like you've done half of your homework. You are 100% correct on the blue lighting vs red lighting. However there were only two places on my boat that had blue lighting. Sonar and Radio. When we wanted to surface the boat or just go to periscope depth at night, we would rig the control room for black. As in no lights, except for the back lighting from gauges and indicators.

EDIT: Oh and one more thing, if you are going to copy/paste from another site you should make it a quote. So I take back my comment about you doing your homework. Also your source has NEVER served on a submarine, making him a somewhat less than reliable source.

[the_belgian]

OK...that's enough to scare me of from asking for mods.
only one remark;why is a "das boat crew"mod considdered as adding something to the game(see SHIII) and blue lights are a no go since "lack of realism"?

(i added quote and source to my privious post)

Originally Posted by the_belgian

OK...that's enough to scare me of from asking for mods.
only one remark;why is a "das boat crew"mod considdered as adding something to the game(see SHIII) and blue lights are a no go since "lack of realism"?

(i added quote and source to my privious post)

ask away, we all make errors sometimes, thats how we learn new things.

never stop asking (or learning) thats why some mods are for realism and some are just because we like it that way. if you liked the lights ask for the lights or how you can learn to do the lights yourself.

we will need lots of ideas and lots of new modders for sh5 and you might just be one of those if you take the time to learn with the rest of us.

[Sailor Steve]

I can understand the need for blue lights. My only question is whether they had them then. I've seen no evidence one way or the other, and my only personal reference is my own service on a destroyer. She was built at the end of World War 2, and at my time (1970) we had only red lights. But of course that wasn't a submarine. I just never heard of blue lights until I saw Das Boot.

Originally Posted by the_belgian

OK...that's enough to scare me of from asking for mods.
only one remark;why is a "das boat crew"mod considdered as adding something to the game(see SHIII) and blue lights are a no go since "lack of realism"?

Excellent question, and one I ask myself. I use the Das Boot Officers mod, which changes the little icons at the lower left, just because I like them better than the stock ones.

Das Boot Clothes is a little trickier. I've seen photographs of u-boatmen wearing only part of their uniforms, but we did that when I was in the U.S. Navy. Civilian clothes? I don't know. I've been told they did, and of course they did it in the movie. I don't remember if it's mentioned in the book or not, and my copy is well out of my reach right now. I use the mod because it looks cool and I like it. Realistic? Again, I don't know.

And the same is true of the blue lights. They look cool, and sometimes arguing for realism is nice but you want a cool mod anyway. Using external views is totally unrealistic, but I do love to look at those ships in the harbors.

[JScones]

Blue lights weren't adopted until after WWII. In a WWII U-boat it was red and white only. The sleeping quarters were always darkened, the engine rooms always white. Only the control room and conning tower had red or white lights.

I'm not sure which one of my U-boat books here is the source on this, but can look through them if anyone really wants to question me.

[Hitman]

However there were only two places on my boat that had blue lighting. Sonar and Radio. When we wanted to surface the boat or just go to periscope depth at night, we would rig the control room for black. As in no lights, except for the back lighting from gauges and indicators.

But you didn't serve on a WW2 german uboat, did you?

Just joking, of course you know it first hand about a post-war US sub, but I am not sure what was rigged for what in a WW2 german Uboat. Conning tower for red, that's sure. Control room? Hmmmm, not sure, probably also.

In US subs I have readed (In Jim Calvert's book IIRC) that only the conning tower was rigged for red, so the watch crew spen there the last minutes before going topside and to relief the watch standing ones, and also getting used to the red/dark environment. The control room was normally white lighted. But I guess there were many differences from boat to boat, it's hard to say that had something like a standard practice in this

In a WWII U-boat it was red and white only

Yup, that's consistent with everything I have found so far about german uboats. The best research of the matter AFAIK has been done by the guys in www.u-historia.com and they said that the only reference to blue lights they could find was one external, adopted for training uboats.

[the_belgian]

just brainstorming!;
i think that the red light is only eye-candy and it doesn't influence the NPC crewmembers but only the player(unless he sits behind his computer in a bright room).therefore would it not be possible to create a mod that creates an overlay that can be used while the normal shiplighting(white) is in on?
it schould need some extra commands to be added(red lights on/of and blue lights on/of)that overrides the ingame red lights on/of.
the idea is simple;create a full screen overlay in red and blue that are placed when the commands are used.
when leaving the interior this would give a problem but maybe by fading out on the moment you go trough the hatch(and fading in when entering the interior) this could be solved.outside the sub the red-blue schould also be inpossible to use,of course.

below i tried to give an impression how an overlay would look inside the diverse compartments.

[ETR3(SS)]

Originally Posted by Hitman

But you didn't serve on a WW2 german uboat, did you?

Just joking, of course you know it first hand about a post-war US sub, but I am not sure what was rigged for what in a WW2 german Uboat. Conning tower for red, that's sure. Control room? Hmmmm, not sure, probably also.

In US subs I have readed (In Jim Calvert's book IIRC) that only the conning tower was rigged for red, so the watch crew spen there the last minutes before going topside and to relief the watch standing ones, and also getting used to the red/dark environment. The control room was normally white lighted. But I guess there were many differences from boat to boat, it's hard to say that had something like a standard practice in this

The only U boat I've been on is the U-505, well after she was captured. But my comment was more to the "Red October" comments. Also something of interest, I'm not sure how far back the practice went but crews going topside at night wore special red "glasses" up to an hour before their watch. That enabled a crewman to roam about the boat in areas not rigged for red.

[Nisgeis]

US crews in WW2 initially had to make do with a red bulb in place of a white one, but quickly changed to white bulbs and red goggles for those about to go topside. The remarks were that green beans, mashed potatoes and steak were much more pallatable when they were eaten by white light.