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[nkarafo]

I noticed some games that focus on dark environments, mainly horror games, look pretty bad. And the reason for that is the black levels are completely crap. Instead of deep blacks you get washed out greys.

For me it started with RE2 Remake and continued with both Little Nightmare games and i'm currently dealing with this in Visage. The later becomes even worse if you try to disable the film grain effects. By default it isn't as bad as RE2 or Little Nightmares 1 and 2 but it was still bad enough.

Anyway, all these games feature gamma options but that doesn't really help that much, only slightly. Because of this, i had to use Reshade with the "levels" filter to fix the contrasts. RE2 especially becomes tolerable:


Original:

With Reshade (touched up a bit because the default values were too intense):

Little Nightmares Original:

With Reshade:

As you can see, by darkening the dark areas, you don't lose any information. The original grey darkness still covers as much. The only difference is that one looks like a washed out image and the other, well, not as much.

I'm sure i'm forgetting more games that had this issue. But it's something i don't remember seeing in games before RE2. I did also have similar issues with RE7, but i remember fixing them via the the game options, without using Reshade. Though maybe i need to re-play the game to make sure i remember correctly.

Thing is, you can use Reshade on PC but console users will have to deal with the grey darkness in those games.

So how is this a thing then?

 

[Vick]

Because people don't understand how slides and calibration patterns work.

Remake 2, Remake 3, RE8, all came with absolutely perfect calibration tools.

This is how RE2 always looked:

All you had to do was to set the first slide (highlights intensity) all way up, the second (black levels) all way down, and the third one (brightness) between the middle and the end, which is +5.

Super sorry for anyone who played RE2/RE3 with a completely screwed up picture thinking it was intended because of Digital Foundry incompetence.
The game actually looked absolutely stunning since D1, with the perfect and completely intact moody digital cinematography (also seen in Trailers and DLC promo materials), which truly shined on calibrated Plasma/OLED.

 

[buenoblue]

Then why don't the developers just set it right straight out the box? You know like every other game.

 

[Vick]

Most do. Default settings in 99% of games are correct.
Not sure what happened with late RE games. I guess they wanted people to adapt the settings to their monitors/panels due to the super dark nature of these games, since with the correct settings you'd need almost perfect panels to properly display the totality of near-black informations.

 

[Kuranghi]

Because people don't understand how slides and calibration patterns work.

Remake 2, Remake 3, RE8, all came with absolutely perfect calibration tools.

This is how RE2 always looked:

All you had to do was to set the first slide (highlights intensity) all way up, the second (black levels) all way down, and the third one (brightness) between the middle and the end, which is +5.

Super sorry for anyone who played RE2/RE3 with a completely screwed up picture thinking it was intended because of Digital Foundry incompetence.
The game actually looked absolutely stunning since D1, with the perfect and completely intact moody digital cinematography (also seen in Trailers and DLC promo materials), which truly shined on calibrated Plasma/OLED.

I'm not talking about OP here, they are playing in SDR afaics but I think the problem people had was the HDR mode is broken in both games. I just went back to replay RE2 and 3 remake and playing in SDR is the best way I believe now.

Are you using Rec.709 or sRGB colour space? If its console I guess that might not be an option, I'm on PC but couldn't find a screenshot showing the Display menu to verify.

I found the first two screens are fine like you say if you have your TV calibrated properly, because black level will be elevated if you choose anything above 0 on the 2nd screen and lower the first screen just lowers the brightness of the highlights.

The 3rd screen in 2 I'm not sure about though, I was only able to get to a point where the presentation was too contrasted some of the time but most other scenes looked much better, this was in Rec.709, if I use sRGB some shadows are always elevated no matter what I set the 3rd screen too so I settled on Rec.709. That was -1 left of center for the 3rd screen. If I used sRGB then -6 from centre was the best balance but I still preferred how sRGB looked. I came across this post is what sent me back to SDR to try and make it look better - https://www.resetera.com/threads/re...erformance-thread.92851/page-12#post-16821651

You are saying +5 from center looks best for you? Thats a grey mess for me, so I think I'm misunderstanding what you mean for the 3rd screen.

In RE3 remake its way easier, first two screens are set the same as before and the 3rd is set to default for me as the left symbol is invisible when the screen comes up (If the first two are set as they are), if I go +3 from centre then I can just barely see the left symbol, so +2 from centre is when it disappears for me really, but that just elevated all the shadows again so I've left it on 0/centre for now. I still don't get shadow detail crushing if I go -2 from centre and the shadows are deeper in areas where they have put that colour cast/fog in but now the whole thing presentation pops less and some colours are dulled.

What model screen/TV are you using?

 

[Kuranghi]

Yeah its just a few games really as Vick said, most are fine out of the box. I was playing Abzu the other day and thinking how perfect the presentation is in that game, its pitch black when it needs to be, its got detailed highlights (Well as much as they can be in SDR) and it can do a foggy, grey effect when its needed too.

Everything just transitions perfectly and I don't constantly think "is this right?", ruining the immersion like RE did (in HDR anyway).

 

[nkarafo]

Because people don't understand how slides and calibration patterns work.

Remake 2, Remake 3, RE8, all came with absolutely perfect calibration tools.

All you had to do was to set the first slide (highlights intensity) all way up, the second (black levels) all way down, and the third one (brightness) between the middle and the end, which is +5.

Super sorry for anyone who played RE2/RE3 with a completely screwed up picture thinking it was intended because of Digital Foundry incompetence.
The game actually looked absolutely stunning since D1, with the perfect and completely intact moody digital cinematography (also seen in Trailers and DLC promo materials), which truly shined on calibrated Plasma/OLED.

Ι play on a PC monitor, not on a HDR TV.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Interesting

 

[buenoblue]

Yeah i am never satisfied with how any capcom game has looked in the last few years. Nearly every other game I just play at default settings and it looks great but capcom games always look super washed out, or lacking detail in the dark areas. That's on my tv and monitor.

 

[Vick]

Are you using Rec.709 or sRGB colour space? If its console I guess that might not be an option, I'm on PC but couldn't find a screenshot showing the Display menu to verify.

Yeah, this is on Pro.

I found the first two screens are fine

Every screen is made with the same settings so every difference you see is due to the game aesthetic. They were all part of a comparison but at the moment i'm not able to find the "before" ones. Some, like the last one, were a complete mess on Default settings.

You are saying +5 from center looks best for you? Thats a grey mess for me, so I think I'm misunderstanding what you mean for the 3rd screen.

Yes, the third slide needs to be set at +5 if your black levels are set all the way down in the second slide. If gamma looks wrong, switch to sRGB or vice versa.
Remember, the game does have a particular cinematography so it's obviously not going to be pitch black in most rooms.
But the main hall is a good example of a place which should have "a black black".
Properly set, the game looks correct 100% of the time regardless.

In RE3 remake its way easier.

Same thing for RE3, the game is just more contrasty than RE2.

What model screen/TV are you using?

Panasonic VT50, Pioneer KRP-500M.

Ι play on a PC monitor, not on a HDR TV.

Exactly, all the more reason to use those calibration patterns.

Yeah i am never satisfied with how any capcom game has looked in the last few years. Nearly every other game I just play at default settings and it looks great but capcom games always look super washed out, or lacking detail in the dark areas. That's on my tv and monitor.

Of course you're not satisfied, the game looks like shit as is.

 

[Kuranghi]

Yes, the third slide needs to be set at +5 if your black levels are set all the way down in the first slide. If gamma looks wrong, switch to sRGB or vice versa.
Remember, the game does have a particular cinematography so it's obviously not going to be pitch black in most rooms.
But the main hall is a good example of a place which should have "a black black".
Properly set, the game looks correct 100% of the time regardless.

I'll have another look just now but it was really grey before, not like some rooms, just everything is really wrong looking. I have this feeling that the "eye adaption" brightness changing effect gets fucked up on PC when you adjust settings sometimes, or alt-tab to desktop or the like. Maybe thats part of my problem of why it seems so inconsistent.

I will check the main hall with your settings in both colour spaces.

I'm on an LCD, but its Sony ZD9 from 2016 and it has amazing shadow detail, local dimming and black level which makes other games look amazing in SDR or HDR so I don't think its a the game "tested on OLED(/Plasma) instead of FALD LCDs" problem that I've encountered in other games.

 

[MeatSafeMurderer]

They're mimicking a common trend in movies right now, which is to intentionally limit the RGB range, giving grey blacks and dull whites. I'm not sure exactly when it started or what its actual purpose is...but it looks an awful lot like they're trying to mimick the look of limited range RGB (16-239) being displayed on a full range display (0-255) without correction...which is frankly retarded. Also because RE2's black level shifts around room to room you can't just set it and forget it in reshade. The real fix is to modify the game's shaders directly using something like 3Dmigoto to get rid of that ugly as fuck filter entirely.

 

[Vick]

I'll have another look just now but it was really grey before, not like some rooms, just everything is really wrong looking. I have this feeling that the "eye adaption" brightness changing effect gets fucked up on PC when you adjust settings sometimes, or alt-tab to desktop or the like. Maybe thats part of my problem of why it seems so inconsistent.

I will check the main hall with your settings in both colour spaces.

Please let me know.

On an SDR monitor, your game should look like the screens i've provided (or at least almost identical, since those were taken with a step before the minum black and a one before the max white). If they match, i know for a fact that the game will look correct 100% of the time, under every circumstance.
And i know just because i have thousands of hours and i've been playing with these settings since the R.P.D. Demo.

They're mimicking a common trend in movies right now, which is to intentionally limit the RGB range, giving grey blacks and dull whites. I'm not sure exactly when it started or what its actual purpose is...but it looks an awful lot like they're trying to mimick the look of limited range RGB (16-239) being displayed on a full range display (0-255) without correction...which is frankly retarded. Also because RE2's black level shifts around room to room you can't just set it and forget it in reshade. The real fix is to modify the game's shaders directly using something like 3Dmigoto to get rid of that ugly as fuck filter entirely.

That's the Digital Foundry explanation, and it's garbage.
The game looks correct in Trailers and Officially relased DLC screenshots.

You just have to physically set black to 0, and white to 255 with the provided, super accurate and deep calibration patterns.

"Also because RE2's black level shifts around room to room you can't just set it and forget it in reshade. The real fix is to modify the game's shaders directly using something like 3Dmigoto to get rid of that ugly as fuck filter entirely."

Believe me, this is nonsense.
Every single visual choice is preserved and properly displayed with the correct settings.

 

[MeatSafeMurderer]

That's the Digital Foundry explanation, and it's garbage.
The game looks correct in Trailers and Officially relased DLC screenshots.

You just have to physically set black to 0, and white to 255.

"Also because RE2's black level shifts around room to room you can't just set it and forget it in reshade. The real fix is to modify the game's shaders directly using something like 3Dmigoto to get rid of that ugly as fuck filter entirely."

Believe me, this is nonsense.

No, it's the explanation. I've done said modifications to the shaders and it's 100% intentional color "correction"...and if you know HLSL it's piss easy to remove. It's not my only problem with the game's visuals either. The tonemapping is crap and has blotches in certain colors (it's really obvious in the taillights of the cop car at the gas station, atleast in SDR). The vignette is applied with no weighting for bright parts of the image, meaning that lights and such in the corners of the image look dull and dim. The grain is way too heavy handed and there's banding without it, when all they needed to fix it was a pass of simple temporal dithering before quantization. The sharpening applied to counteract TAA blurring is WAY too strong which results in nasty as fuck halo artifacts.

But hey...you believe whatever you want if it makes you happy.

 

[Vick]

No, it's the explanation. I've done said modifications to the shaders and it's 100% intentional color "correction"...and if you know HLSL it's piss easy to remove. It's not my only problem with the game's visuals either. The tonemapping is crap and has blotches in certain colors (it's really obvious in the taillights of the cop car at the gas station, atleast in SDR). The vignette is applied with no weighting for bright parts of the image, meaning that lights and such in the corners of the image look dull and dim. The grain is way too heavy handed and there's banding without it, when all they needed to fix it was a pass of simple temporal dithering before quantization. The sharpening applied to counteract TAA blurring is WAY too strong which results in nasty as fuck halo artifacts.

But hey...you believe whatever you want if it makes you happy.

I must have imagined providing perfect looking screenshots then, or putting thousands of hours on perfect looking videogames for four years on $4500-$2000 calibrated panels.
I must have also imagined Capcom coming up with three calibration patterns in their games, blatantly in need to be corrected as also stated by their description. But sure, it's "100% intentional color "correction"".

You're complaining about the game's cinematography and use of filters, while never even having seen that presentation the way it was meant to be seen.

 

[MeatSafeMurderer]

I must have imagined providing perfect looking screenshot then, or putting thousands of hours on perfect looking videogames for four years on $4500-$2000 calibrated panels.

You complain about the game's cinematography and use of filters, while never even having seen that presentation the way it was meant to be seen.

Does "the way it was meant to be seen" include the well documented hideous blotchy reflections? But hey, I see from your screenshots that you left the lens distortion and chromatic abberation on...so I don't expect you to have an eye for these things. You didn't imagine anything, you're just blind to the problems.

 

[Vick]

But hey, I see from your screenshots that you left the lens distortion and chromatic abberation on...so I don't expect you to have an eye for these things.

Yeah, i'm one of those in line with digital artists.
You must be the other kind, which makes your "I don't expect you to have an eye for these things." all the more ironic.

 

[MeatSafeMurderer]

Yeah, i'm one of those in line with digital artists.

Those the same "artists" that shat out this travesty? (Look at that blotchy broken tonemapping...exactly where I said it was...as I said, just because you didn't notice the problems doesn't mean they aren't there)

Spoiler

Oh...and hey, would you look at that, when you get rid of the dogshit color correction (and replace the tonemapping...and tone down the sharpening...and add temporal dithering...and weight the vignette with pixel brightness) the game looks so much better.

 

[Kuranghi]

I don't mind that they wanted to put colour casts over certain areas and fuck with the black level to make it look foggy. Thats what they wanted to do so I'll experience that, I just want the black level to be pure black when they wanted it to be like that, thats what I'm striving for.

 

[Kuranghi]

Please let me know.

On an SDR monitor, your game should look like the screens i've provided (or at least almost identical, since those were taken with a step before the minum black and a one before the max white). If they match, i know for a fact that the game will look correct 100% of the time, under every circumstance.
And i know just because i have thousands of hours and i've been playing with these settings since the R.P.D. Demo.


That's the Digital Foundry explanation, and it's garbage.
The game looks correct in Trailers and Officially relased DLC screenshots.

You just have to physically set black to 0, and white to 255 with the provided, super accurate and deep calibration patterns.

"Also because RE2's black level shifts around room to room you can't just set it and forget it in reshade. The real fix is to modify the game's shaders directly using something like 3Dmigoto to get rid of that ugly as fuck filter entirely."

Believe me, this is nonsense.
Every single visual choice is preserved and properly displayed with the correct settings.

Here is the main hall, in Rec.709 (sRGB is the default on PC I think), with 1st screen set to max, 2nd screen set to minimum and 3rd screen set to default/centre:

If I go up to the objects that are really dark/shadowed in the above image the eye adaption adapts to make them more visible, nothing is crushed.

This one is the same settings for first two screens and 3rd screen set to your setting of +5 from centre:

When I am in really dark rooms like the West Office with your settings nothing looks like its in shadow, its quite grey, even though there are no lights in the room. I'll try and get pics but Mr X. just killed me ha.

They're mimicking a common trend in movies right now, which is to intentionally limit the RGB range, giving grey blacks and dull whites. I'm not sure exactly when it started or what its actual purpose is...but it looks an awful lot like they're trying to mimick the look of limited range RGB (16-239) being displayed on a full range display (0-255) without correction...which is frankly retarded. Also because RE2's black level shifts around room to room you can't just set it and forget it in reshade. The real fix is to modify the game's shaders directly using something like 3Dmigoto to get rid of that ugly as fuck filter entirely.

What colour space did you play in? I find sRGB to have a weird presentation no matter what combination of settings I set for the 3 screens, nothing was ever in shadow unless I turned the 3rd screen down to near the minimum and then shadows were obviously being crushed.

 

[MeatSafeMurderer]

What colour space did you play in? I find sRGB to have a weird presentation no matter what combination of settings I set for the 3 screens, nothing was ever in shadow unless I turned the 3rd screen down to near the minimum and then shadows were obviously being crushed.

sRGB. Rec 709's gamma is too high to my eye. It's weird though because there should be almost no difference visually, the sRGB and Rec 709 color spaces are (almost) identical.

 

[nkarafo]

That TAA filter though, makes the game way too blurry @ 1080p. The other options make the game too jaggy. Can't find a good middle ground. TAA + Reshade LumaSharpen probably.

 

[Vick]

Those the same "artists" that shat out this travesty?

What travesty? The game looks stunning..
If you do what those calibration patterns ask you to do, at least.

Oh...and hey, would you look at that, when you get rid of the dogshit color correction (and replace the tonemapping...and tone down the sharpening...and add temporal dithering...and weight the vignette with pixel brightness) the game looks so much better.

Don't know about that.. what i see here is something akin to ENB RE5, which means a game with botched cinematography. It's cool, but that ain't no RE2R.

Yours:

Vanilla (properly set):

Yours:

Vanilla (properly set):

Yours:

Vanilla (properly set):

Sure, vignette can look nasty in some rare instances:

Yours:

Vanilla (properly set):

But that's it, and it's not something really noticeable while playing/moving the camera.
In terms of gamma, visuals and atmosphere, once properly set this entire game is a stunning spectacle. And when i say "entire game" i really mean it, including Menus and Models:

 

[MeatSafeMurderer]

What travesty? The game looks stunning..
If you do what those calibration patterns ask you to do, at least.


Don't know about that.. what i see here is something akin to ENB RE5, which means a game with botched cinematography. It's cool, but that ain't no RE2R.

Yours:

Vanilla (properly set):

Yours:

Vanilla (properly set):

Yours:

Vanilla (properly set):

Sure, vignette can look nasty in some rare instances:

Yours:

Vanilla (properly set):

But that's it, and it's not something really noticeable while playing/moving the camera.
In terms of gamma, visuals and atmosphere, once properly set this entire game is a stunning spectacle. And when i say "entire game" i really mean it, including Menus and Models:

Congratulations, your "properly set" settings exhibit both black crush and raised black levels...somehow...also your first screenshot exhibits exactly the same fucked up tonemapping bug I was pointing out.
Like I said, you don't have the eye for this.

Edit: Also...THIS...is what that gas station scene looks like with my modifications.

Notice how the taillight does not have the same bug present. That's because I totally gutted the shader and replaced the tonemapper with another, specifically Timothy Lottes' which he presented here: https://gpuopen.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/GdcVdrLottes.pdf

 

[rofif]

Again the same resident Evil topic.
You are NOT supposed to make it look pure black. This is how game is mastered and every room has it's separate color scheme/filter.
Changing it actually crushes detail and causes too much banding. it is how the game looks and is supposed to look I think

 

[nkarafo]

Again the same resident Evil topic.
You are NOT supposed to make it look pure black. This is how game is mastered and every room has it's separate color scheme/filter.
Changing it actually crushes detail and causes too much banding. it is how the game looks and is supposed to look I think

Little Nightmares is also pretty bad in this.

It's not just about RE.

 

[Vick]

Here is the main hall, in Rec.709 (sRGB is the default on PC I think), with 1st screen set to max, 2nd screen set to minimum and 3rd screen set to default/centre:

If I go up to the objects that are really dark/shadowed in the above image the eye adaption adapts to make them more visible, nothing is crushed.

This one is the same settings for first two screens and 3rd screen set to your setting of +5 from centre:

When I am in really dark rooms like the West Office with your settings nothing looks like its in shadow, its quite grey, even though there are no lights in the room. I'll try and get pics but Mr X. just killed me ha.

Yeah, that looks different from mine, as you can see by the last pictures i've posted.
I'd say the first screen, Default third pattern, looks similar to what i see on mine, but too dim between 10 and 30 IRE.
Second is too bright. I'd try with +2/3 on your set.

Edit----

Ok, i just browsed your pictures on my panel, and actually your second picture (+5) looks exactly like mine, with the exception of the absent vignette on yours which actually makes a HUGE difference in terms of perceived brightness.

I've set my third slide to look correct taking that aggressive vignette filter into account, but once removed it may give the impression of being too bright.

Congratulations, your "properly set" settings exhibit both black crush and raised black levels...somehow...also your first screenshot exhibits exactly the same fucked up tonemapping bug I was pointing out.
Like I said, you don't have the eye for this.

Black crush around edges on dark game featuring aggressive vignette?

Raised blacks on game which changes its black levels on a scene by scene basis? If you stop seeing raised black outside the R.P.D. and in most rooms, you fucked up.

Blacks are black where they should be.

Again the same resident Evil topic.
You are NOT supposed to make it look pure black. This is how game is mastered and every room has it's separate color scheme/filter.

Exactly what i'm saying.

Changing it actually crushes detail and causes too much banding. it is how the game looks and is supposed to look I think

Wrong. The game is supposed to look the way it looks when you set those patterns the way the game tells you to do.

What a coincidence it then looks exactly like Capcom wanted people to see it when promoting it:

 

[MeatSafeMurderer]

Black crush around edges on dark game featuring aggressive vignette?

Raised blacks on game which changes its black levels on a scene by scene basis? If you stop seeing raised black outside the R.P.D. and in most rooms, you fucked up.

No, black crush in the center of the image. Nothing about your images are black. They just look like the gamma is too high and they still have raised black levels. I.E. they look like utter shite.

Edit: Here, your "properly adjusted" screenshot vs my modified shader. Not only can you not see the corner in yours thanks to the black crush but the black level is NOTICEABLY higher. You come in here spewing shit about DF, claiming the it's all fine and to know all the answers, then you provide screenshots which only serve to prove OP's point.

 

[rofif]

Little Nightmares is also pretty bad in this.

It's not just about RE.

Oh I've not played it.
But If I were to change brightness and contrast settings in every game to match "until You don't see this image", most games would be ruined.
Normally I leave it all default and be sure my monitor is set correctly

 

[Kuranghi]

Yeah, that looks different from mine, as you can see by the last pictures i've posted.
I'd say the first screen, Default third pattern, looks similar to what i see on mine, but too dim between 10 and 30 IRE.
Second is too bright. I'd try with +2/3 on your set.

Okay, at least I'm getting somewhere then.

Its funny you said +2 because if I am perfectly on-axis to the TV (Where I sit normally), the left image disappears when I get to +4. At +5 is verrrrry dim but there, I can only really see it when my room is very very dark though. BUT, If I go off-axis on the set (to raise the black level/decrease the contrast and see what I shouldn't be able to) then the left image actually is completely disappearing at +2.

So I'll give +2 a go from now on to see how that looks.

 

[Vick]

No, black crush in the center of the image. Nothing about your images are black. They just look like the gamma is too high and they still have raised black levels. I.E. they look like utter shite.

If you're referring to black being 1 instead of 0, it's due to what i posted already here:

(or at least almost identical, since those were taken with a step before the minum black and a one before the max white).

It looks like utter shite to you, fine. I'd still take what Capcom did over your smear job.

if I am perfectly on-axis to the TV (Where I sit normally), the left image disappears when I get to +4.

Damn, i always forget about that LCDs characteristic.. but on a similar note, plasma dithering can also be extremely useful in calibrating near-blacks.

Let me know.

 

[MeatSafeMurderer]

If you're referring to black being 1 instead of 0, it's due to what i posted already here:

1...instead of 0...LOL...it's not even close to 1. I'll let my edit do the talking...

No, black crush in the center of the image. Nothing about your images are black. They just look like the gamma is too high and they still have raised black levels. I.E. they look like utter shite.

Edit: Here, your "properly adjusted" screenshot vs my modified shader. Not only can you not see the corner in yours thanks to the black crush but the black level is NOTICEABLY higher. You come in here spewing shit about DF, claiming the it's all fine and to know all the answers, then you provide screenshots which only serve to prove OP's point.

 

[Vick]

1...instead of 0...LOL...it's not even close to 1. I'll let my edit do the talking...

Yeah, here it's not close to 1 because that hallway is supposed to look like that.
If you're not able to understand why and prefer your edit, there's really nothing i can do for you.

Edit: Here, your "properly adjusted" screenshot vs my modified shader. Not only can you not see the corner in yours thanks to the black crush but the black level is NOTICEABLY higher. You come in here spewing shit about DF, claiming the it's all fine and to know all the answers, then you provide screenshots which only serve to prove OP's point.

Stop editing the posts ffs.. lol

Yeah, because DF failed three times by now at explaining why those patterns are there and what they do. And we both perfectly know what OP meant with his post.
It's not about that hallway being moist, it's about the game looking like ass uncalibrated.

Nice job on the tonemapping though.

 

[Kuranghi]

sRGB. Rec 709's gamma is too high to my eye. It's weird though because there should be almost no difference visually, the sRGB and Rec 709 color spaces are (almost) identical.

Cool. I know its weird yeah, its the same setting on most TVs, ie they say "sRGB/Rec.709". Can't get it looking right in sRGB on my set though, maybe the TV isn't handling it properly due to not seeing a flag of some sort or something else entirely.

 

[Kuranghi]

Congratulations, your "properly set" settings exhibit both black crush and raised black levels...somehow...also your first screenshot exhibits exactly the same fucked up tonemapping bug I was pointing out.
Like I said, you don't have the eye for this.

Edit: Also...THIS...is what that gas station scene looks like with my modifications.

Notice how the taillight does not have the same bug present. That's because I totally gutted the shader and replaced the tonemapper with another, specifically Timothy Lottes' which he presented here: https://gpuopen.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/GdcVdrLottes.pdf

I'm going to finish my current run(s) in SDR but I'd appreciate if you could PM me a few links to get me started with doing what you did to fix highlight tonemapping so I can see how that looks on my set. I'd probably not change the colour grading/gamma but I do dislike the blown-out highlight look they went for, Kinda defeats the purpose of one of the things HDR does better than SDR, ie showing more highlight detail, not just brighter but solid white.

 

[rofif]

Yeah, that looks different from mine, as you can see by the last pictures i've posted.
I'd say the first screen, Default third pattern, looks similar to what i see on mine, but too dim between 10 and 30 IRE.
Second is too bright. I'd try with +2/3 on your set.


Black crush around edges on dark game featuring aggressive vignette?

Raised blacks on game which changes its black levels on a scene by scene basis? If you stop seeing raised black outside the R.P.D. and in most rooms, you fucked up.

Blacks are black where they should be.


Exactly what i'm saying.


Wrong. The game is supposed to look the way it looks when you set those patterns the way the game tells you to do.

What a coincidence it then looks exactly like Capcom wanted people to see it when promoting it:

So Redident Evil 2, 3 and 7 are the only games I know which actually expect user to tweak the sliders.
In no other game that needs to be adjusted

 

[MeatSafeMurderer]

Yeah, here it's not close to 1 because that hallway is supposed to look like that.

A dark unlit hallway isn't supposed to be dark? Yeah okay, whatever dude. You do you.

I'm going to finish my current run(s) in SDR but I'd appreciate if you could PM me a few links to get me started with doing what you did to fix highlight tonemapping so I can see how that looks on my set. I'd probably not change the colour grading/gamma but I do dislike the blown-out highlight look they went for, Kinda defeats the purpose of one of the things HDR does better than SDR, ie showing more highlight detail, not just brighter but solid white.

This is actually all in SDR. Are you on PC? Unfortunately you can't modify the shaders in HDR (atleast not as far as I know) because 3Dmigoto doesn't work on DX12, only DX11. It's kinda technical (you need to know HLSL and, in the case of this game, assembly) but I can re-enable the color grading (actually already done, I thought ahead and added a toggle!) and PM you the files if you want?

 

[Vick]

So Redident Evil 2, 3 and 7 are the only games I know which actually expect user to tweak the sliders.
In no other game that needs to be adjusted

Resident Evil 7 Default looks good.
It started with RE2.

A dark unlit hallway isn't supposed to be dark? Yeah okay, whatever dude. You do you.

You're acting like a child, but still using that condescending tone..

You might as well run these pictures under Photoshop's curves ASAP since the folks over at Marza Animation Planet are apparently clueless.

Are you seriously not getting why that hallway looks like that? Or why some rooms look different than others?
Are you not aware that some people's entire job at Capcom is to make sure that they do?
Do you not understand why messing with the game look in a certain room will lead to problems elsewhere?
Are you not aware of what the entire point of a "calibration" is?
Are you denying the game patterns work like i said they do?
What do you think they are there for?

 

[MeatSafeMurderer]

Are you seriously not getting why that hallway looks like that?

Because Capcom put a dogshit filter over the top, that not only alters the color balance of the image but raises the black level unnecessarily, like I've already said.

Or why some rooms look different than others?

Because Capcom chose to vary the filter room to room for arbirary reasons.

Are you not aware that some people's entire job at Capcom is to make sure that they do?

What, make sure that the black level is raised for no reason?

Do you not understand why messing with the game look in a certain room will lead to problems elsewhere?

Except it doesn't. I've played the game from start to finish with my mod (RE3 too!) and there are no problems. There are no areas that are too bright, no areas that are too dark. Everything is perfectly balanced, as all things should be.

Are you not aware of what the entire point of a "calibration" is?

Yes, which is why my monitor is calibrated to be color accurate, which is why your screenshots look dogshit on it.

Are you denying the game patterns work like i said they do?
What do you think they are there for?

To correct for dogshit calibration most displays ship with. Or atleast they should be. In the case of RE2 messing with them is mandatory...and I have mine set correctly. See my mod doesn't bypass those sliders...there's just no way to get a good black level basically anywhere in the game without modifying the shaders.

 

[fart town usa]

I'm the type of gamer that will tweak video settings for like 10 minutes and then readjust when I get into a super dark/bright area until I get a setting that I'm satisfied with.

I feel like it mostly comes down to whatever you're displaying it on. One thing I've come to find out is that I can get fantastic visuals if I use my Elgato HD60s as a way to play HD console games on my laptop. I was doing that with Twilight Princess HD, I tweaked the video settings in Elgato and it was just absolutely insane how good that game can look. My wife was even like, "what is that? that looks amazing!"

 

[Vick]

Because Capcom put a dogshit filter over the top, that not only alters the color balance of the image but raises the black level unnecessarily, like I've already said.

Yeah, it's called cinematography.

Because Capcom chose to vary the filter room to room for arbirary reasons.

It's called cinematography.

What, make sure that the black level is raised for no reason?

It's called cinematography.

Except it doesn't. I've played the game from start to finish with my mod (RE3 too!) and there are no problems. There are no areas that are too bright, no areas that are too dark. Everything is perfectly balanced, as all things should be.

Really? Because i can see lots of problems already, like that hallway losing any uniqueness to it, R.P.D. exteriors looking warmer and more monochromatic than they should, Main Hall having an absolutely awful and super dull color grading.. perfectly balanced my ass.
What about Menus? Or models? Wonder how they'll look now that you've messed with the game to fix nonexistent problems.

Yes, which is why my monitor is calibrated to be color accurate, which is why your screenshots look dogshit on it.

Calibrated to be "color accurate"? What Delta have you achieved? What about the rest of the parameters? Which software did u use? Which probe? Who did it? What technology are you using? Which model of which brand?

Because if something that looks stellar on a KRP looks like dogshit on a supermarket LCD, that's not the source fault.

To correct for dogshit calibration most displays ship with.

Is that why the Default values are not correct according to the same pattern description?

In the case of RE2 messing with them is mandatory...

Oh.. so we finally have a fucking point.

and I have mine set correctly.

So how did you set yours?

See my mod doesn't bypass those sliders...there's just no way to get a good black level basically anywhere in the game without modifying the shaders.

Nonsense. That's the only reason that second pattern is there for.
But i guess if you want 0 blacks on every scene because you're totally oblivious to artistic choices, than yes, you have to mod.

 

[MeatSafeMurderer]

It's called cinematography .. But i guess if you want 0 blacks on every scene because you're totally oblivious to artistic choices, than yes, you have to mod.

I refer to my initial post, that you initially said was wrong, but now apparently agree with:

They're mimicking a common trend in movies right now, which is to intentionally limit the RGB range, giving grey blacks and dull whites. I'm not sure exactly when it started or what its actual purpose is...but it looks an awful lot like they're trying to mimick the look of limited range RGB (16-239) being displayed on a full range display (0-255) without correction...which is frankly retarded.

If you can't make scenes look visually distinct without raising the black level and drowning the game in piss and blue filters...or perhaps teal and orange, it's hard to tell...well you're just not that artistic. Especially not when that is the popular look in Hollywood right now. Last I checked copying everyone else is the exact opposite of art.

 

[TonyK]

Because people don't understand how slides and calibration patterns work.

Remake 2, Remake 3, RE8, all came with absolutely perfect calibration tools.

This is how RE2 always looked:

All you had to do was to set the first slide (highlights intensity) all way up, the second (black levels) all way down, and the third one (brightness) between the middle and the end, which is +5.

Super sorry for anyone who played RE2/RE3 with a completely screwed up picture thinking it was intended because of Digital Foundry incompetence.
The game actually looked absolutely stunning since D1, with the perfect and completely intact moody digital cinematography (also seen in Trailers and DLC promo materials), which truly shined on calibrated Plasma/OLED.

I need to try this

 

[Vick]

I refer to my initial post, that you initially said was wrong, but now apparently agree with:
"They're mimicking a common trend in movies right now, which is to intentionally limit the RGB range, giving grey blacks and dull whites. I'm not sure exactly when it started or what its actual purpose is...but it looks an awful lot like they're trying to mimick the look of limited range RGB (16-239) being displayed on a full range display (0-255) without correction...which is frankly retarded."

I disagreed because the reason the entire game looks like utter crap uncalibrated is not because "they're mimicking a common trend in movies, which is to intentionally limit the RGB range", but because the game required to be calibrated.

The visual style of the game, like some artistic choices carried out in some rooms, fitting your description to some extent is another matter.

 

[MeatSafeMurderer]

I disagreed because the reason the entire game looks like utter crap uncalibrated is not because "they're mimicking a common trend in movies, which is to intentionally limit the RGB range", but because the game required to be calibrated.

The visual style of the game, like some artistic choices carried out in some rooms, fitting your description to some extent is another matter.

The "visual style" makes the game look like crap. I think that of unmodded RE2. I think it of unmodded RE3. I think it of every movie I see commiting this sin. Black and white levels are not a matter of artistic choice. Back in my day games / movies actually had black in them. It's not a matter of every scene needing some black, it's a matter of there being black where there should be black. If a room is supposed to be dark the average pixel luminance in a spot that is clearly supposed to be pitch black should not be RGB 11, as it is in your hallway screenshot.

Also...while we're on the subject of retarded "artistic choices"...RE5 was set in Africa. What's the main hall of the RPD's excuse? Is that in Africa too?

 

[Kuranghi]

I'm the type of gamer that will tweak video settings for like 10 minutes and then readjust when I get into a super dark/bright area until I get a setting that I'm satisfied with.

I feel like it mostly comes down to whatever you're displaying it on. One thing I've come to find out is that I can get fantastic visuals if I use my Elgato HD60s as a way to play HD console games on my laptop. I was doing that with Twilight Princess HD, I tweaked the video settings in Elgato and it was just absolutely insane how good that game can look. My wife was even like, "what is that? that looks amazing!"

Is this a TV or a monitor you are playing on? If its a decent TV (It will still be worth it for most sets, maybe more so for a really cheap one since it might be really inaccurate out of the box, but if its quite cheap it might not have very granular control to do a good calibration in the first place) then you should pay someone to calibrate it so you don't have to mess with settings for every game, you'll just set your console HDR system settings and maybe in-game settings if they have them.

A good calibrator will get the best out of the capabilities of your set, highest contrast without crushing the blacks or blowing out the whites, accurate colour, neutral sharpness, etc. You can still change things afterwards, which will reduce the accuracy, but at least you are starting with the best possible baseline.

 

[Vick]

I need to try this

If you only ever played RE2R with "Default" settings, be ready to be mind blown since the very first burger frame.

The "visual style" makes the game look like crap.

I would agree, if what's on "Default" was the actual game. It would be more than "crap", it would be absolutely unacceptable under every possible point of view. It would a be a complete mess, a damn trainwreck.
But luckily i've played another game.

Back in my day games / movies actually had black in them. It's not a matter of every scene needing some black, it's a matter of there being black where there should be black.

I get you, i've grown up with CRTs and super contrasty games, and that's why i love Plasmas and always use super high Gamma (2.4).

If a room is supposed to be dark the average pixel luminance in a spot that is clearly supposed to be pitch black should not be RGB 11, as it is in your hallway screenshot.

Did you know in real life there's no such thing as 0 blacks though?
The simple presence of that flashlight, in that instance, would prevent the walls from being pitch black.
Not saying that's the reason the hallway looks the way it does, as that's clearly a color grading choice, but still.

Also...while we're on the subject of retarded "artistic choices"...RE5 was set in Africa. What's the main hall of the RPD's excuse? Is that in Africa too?

But the Main Hall of the R.P.D. doesn't have raised black levels.

This is how your Main Hall looks (vignette off) after all the modding:

This how the Main Hall looks (vignette off) after Kuranghi simply set those Patterns correctly:

 

[MeatSafeMurderer]

This how the Main Hall looks (vignette off) after Kuranghi simply set those Patterns correctly:

I never said the problem with the main hall was its black level. No...the problem with the hall is that it (and everything in it...including skin) is piss yellow...just like much of RE5.

 

[fart town usa]

Is this a TV or a monitor you are playing on? If its a decent TV (It will still be worth it for most sets, maybe more so for a really cheap one since it might be really inaccurate out of the box, but if its quite cheap it might not have very granular control to do a good calibration in the first place) then you should pay someone to calibrate it so you don't have to mess with settings for every game, you'll just set your console HDR system settings and maybe in-game settings if they have them.

A good calibrator will get the best out of the capabilities of your set, highest contrast without crushing the blacks or blowing out the whites, accurate colour, neutral sharpness, etc. You can still change things afterwards, which will reduce the accuracy, but at least you are starting with the best possible baseline.

Well my main TV, a Panasonic plasma, always looks great. The TV I use for gaming in the basement is my wife's old LCD. Thankfully it has a shit ton of video settings but it's still not anywhere near as good with colors as my plasma is. The other TV is for retro gaming, Sony Trinitron. I have read about calibration services but not super necessary at this point for me. Maybe someday. Honestly though, I'd still probably tweak the settings for each game/movie, ha. Just an old habit.

 

[Umbral]

I never said the problem with the main hall was its black level. No...the problem with the hall is that it (and everything in it...including skin) is piss yellow...just like much of RE5.

I’d like to see a full playthrough with your mod, just out of curiosity.