[Amnesia] Screenshot criticism thread

[CarnivorousJelly]

Everyone else must have their gamma at 11 out of 10, because I cannot see either of those except the light source in the middle.

I think its time to upgrade your monitor, andy

Or stop using your iphone to look at them :p (my phone turns most amnesia screenshots black)

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The screenshots look delightful, Hardarm

[Hardarm]

Thank you all
Adrianis and Andy: I don't find them so dark, but I will upload a brighter version on my thread for other people to see.

[Rapture]

The second picture's billboards look really nice, just something about those colors blending together.

[Kman]

I'd change the color of the light coming through the hole to a dark purple/blue, since those colors naturally contrast very well with the orangish yellow light those lamps give off.

[Acies]

http://www4.picturepush.com/photo/a/1246...Screen.bmp

[Adny]

nice looking colors and textures. classic acies modeling

the area underneath the catwalk/walkway looks empty. not sure what would work in context of sci-fi, but perhaps some storage containers or pipes?

[Rapture]

Needs more fog rising up to obscure the environment. Something like Doom 3 Mars Installation.

[Statyk]

The area setup is nice, but your lighting doesn't look right, in a bunch of scenes, not just this one. You should use less pointlights, but make them larger, add pointlights around that light that's really large but dim. It's a metal environment, light is bouncing like crazy. There should hardly be any pitch black areas.

[Acies]

nice looking colors and textures. classic acies modeling

the area underneath the catwalk/walkway looks empty. not sure what would work in context of sci-fi, but perhaps some storage containers or pipes?

Thank you :] I originally had pipes there, but removed them (1 year old modeling looks ugly!). I was looking at tips along these lines - I'll get a new screenshot once the pipes/stuff has been put there.

Needs more fog rising up to obscure the environment. Something like Doom 3 Mars Installation.

Hehe yeah, fog is awesome. I toned down the fog.. I'll look into making my own particle system (already have some smoke set up), because in my opinion the Amnesia fog doesn't look too good once you start nitpicking it. That might just be me? Thank you.

The area setup is nice, but your lighting doesn't look right, in a bunch of scenes, not just this one. You should use less pointlights, but make them larger, add pointlights around that light that's really large but dim. It's a metal environment, light is bouncing like crazy. There should hardly be any pitch black areas.

Thank you. I'll try it out, but as you pointed out I do this in a lot of my "pieces" - because I think it looks good : D

To go into my thoughts on this (my view on lighting in Amnesia blabla): The pupil of the eye expands as humans step into darkness. Amnesia has added the "nightvision" to account for that. So even if the player enters a "pitch-black" area that area will actually not be pitch-black; because the nightvision adds an ambient+pointlight around the player. In reality / real life you can enter areas which are so dark that you cannot literally see your hand in front of you. White night elected to remove the "nightvision" in order to more accurately convey darkness (my guess). I do not want to do that however, as that would require me to be overly attentive to lighting - making 100% sure there are no "blind-spots" in where the player might get lost.

Continuing on the above, as you (in real life) enter a bright area the pupil of the eye shrinks, letting in less light. The bright area won't be blinding, but "dark" areas will be become darker. That's why, when standing in a lit area, looking out into darkness it's literally impossible to see anything. Amnesia doesn't account for this in any way.

I have therefore elected to exaggerate/fake lighting to account for the "scare factor" of standing in a bright area looking into total darkness. I can't adjust the game to make dark areas darker when standing in the light - but I can fake it through planning my lighting. In this case it's more of a "fake but introduces scare mechanics" versus "accurate world but doesn't account for the mechanics of the human eye". I'm not arguing there is a right and wrong in this, IMO either choice is fine by me. I'm just trying to point out that I'm not oblivious to the choices I've made - I've given it careful thought.

I do appreciate your imput Statyk! Hopefully this little rant won't deter you from providing me with constructive criticism in the future :]

Cheers ~

[CarnivorousJelly]

I find pitch-blackness can be mimicked (a bit crudely) with black fog areas. Although the whole level would have to be black to make it look decent