Default coloring/contrast/brightness levels changed in trunk

[Volatar]

Between, 2.2.1 and the current SVN the options menu has gained a bunch of options. My issue seems to be with one of these. Previously only gamma was available. Now gamma, brightness, and contrast all are in this menu. In addition, the default settings have changed, causing a brighter, comically bad look. This also highlights the need for Anti-Aliasing more, due to the contrast with the dark background.

Here is a comparison screenshot: http://img25.imageshack.us/my.php?image=colorchange.png

My questions:

Q: Why were these extra bars added.
my assumed partial answer: Features = good, ability to have different brightness/contrast settings than desktop = good

Q: Why have these new settings not been set to default to values that preserve the coloring of the previous version? (I guess you could tell me to do it, and I probably can, but it should have been done in the first place)

Statement: Please do not leave the defaults this way. Settings are not easily computer to computer portable (I move between 4 different computers in a normal week). It will take too long (and be annoying) to tweak 3 different bars on each computer. In addition, few new players will bother to tweak 3 bars (especially without some kind of "preview" within the menu) and will probably criticize the bright colors and textures as being unnatural and immersion breaking. Even things this minor can lose players. 

I would categorize this as a feature turned bug.

[bayo]

Hello. When i swith from 2.2 to 2.3, i am very surprised by this light too. Now 2.2 look to me very dark.

[geever]

I think the look of the dev branch is way better than the old one. I see no reason to change it.

-geever

[Volatar]

How about realism? Real camo is not that bright colored. 

[keybounce]

I think the look of the dev branch is way better than the old one. I see no reason to change it.

-geever

I can think of several:

1. "Contrast" and "Brightness" are bad names -- they have horrid baggage. Exactly what do they mean? Are they light TV sets, where one is "black level" and the other is "gamma" -- no, you've got a gamma. So what do they do?

2. What if I have a calibrated monitor? Suddenly, I have to use a single number for gamma that fails to take into account bright versus dark differences?

3. What if my three colors are different adjusts? In my case, with just a single "gamma" number I have a horrible blue color-cast on my screen.

There is no "Leave screen unchanged" option. I deal with multiple systems by having each system calibrated as best I can with a good calibration tool for that system -- there is no way that a generic single-number calibration tool can compare to a system specific per-color tool.

Can you tell me briefly what "brightness" does? Does it affect white level? Black level? Midtones? How about contrast? Does it actually run a "sharpening" or "blurring" pass on the display based on how high/low it is set? Is it sharpening, or unsharp mask? Don't those have two parameters, not just one?

Etc.

PLEASE, don't just say "Oh, look, more Tv-like controls, that's good".

Grumble grumble personal-itch-to-scratch grumble grumble.

[geever]

See R_FilterTexture (r_image.c:1011).

-geever

[DuKe2112]

I'm not sure, but those might be two different things.

Did you notice that the gui in both versions looks the same?

Only the lightup of the models is different and I noticed quite some time ago that that differs depending on who compiled it. Mine were so bright that the faces were almost white.

I also like the old view. It was slightly blurred yes, but it fit into the gui and did not hurt the eye.