Ashes Afterglow TC - closing the vault

[CyberneticPhantom]

Hello folks something came to mind while walking in the middle of the night with the full moon out and shining and that is how awesome would a night level look coupled with Ashes? As we've never played on a map that has been in the middle of the night before only sewer levels and dark rooms with no lightning on. And I personally would love seeing Vos adding a night level into his future work.

While i perfectly understand that he and his team solely decides what will be added in the game or not I thought it would be nice sharing my thoughts and see if others share the same opinion as me or not.

The second level of Ashes 2063 is at night and so is the beginning of Dead Man Walking although I could see the argument that it's early morning in that case. Also in Afterglow we technically have two nighttime levels don't we? The arena fight and the final level but I guess you're only outside for part of those two.

More night stuff could be cool though in future releases with how well Vostyok and the team are with atmosphere.

[Ihavequestions]

The second level of Ashes 2063 is at night and so is the beginning of Dead Man Walking although I could see the argument that it's early morning in that case. Also in Afterglow we technically have two nighttime levels don't we? The arena fight and the final level but I guess you're only outside for part of those two.

More night stuff could be cool though in future releases with how well Vostyok and the team are with atmosphere.

A proper night level would include proper night lighting with a blueish-grayish palette, but that is actually missing in The Missile Gap. The Rink is not a night level, it's day outside.

[CyberneticPhantom]

The second level of Ashes 2063 is at night and so is the beginning of Dead Man Walking although I could see the argument that it's early morning in that case. Also in Afterglow we technically have two nighttime levels don't we? The arena fight and the final level but I guess you're only outside for part of those two.

More night stuff could be cool though in future releases with how well Vostyok and the team are with atmosphere.

A proper night level would include proper night lighting with a blueish-grayish palette, but that is actually missing in The Missile Gap. The Rink is not a night level, it's day outside.

It's definitely night time during the Rink lol

I'd also argue Missile Gap is night time or at least early enough in the morning for it to still be dark out and basically be night time.

I do see what you're saying though in terms of color palette and stuff

[AmissaAnima]

Yea I guess I missed that during my playthrough due to my settings in Zdoom although it would be nice to see more night levels seeing as we don't have that many kicking around.

[Ihavequestions]

It's definitely night time during the Rink lol
I'd also argue Missile Gap is night time or at least early enough in the morning for it to still be dark out and basically be night time.

I do see what you're saying though in terms of color palette and stuff

Well, yeah, they're supposed to be dark but are still fairly bright, giving you daylight colors that are just a tad toned down -- not enough for a proper nighttime setting. This mod in general is too bright on too many occasions.

[CyberneticPhantom]

It's definitely night time during the Rink lol
I'd also argue Missile Gap is night time or at least early enough in the morning for it to still be dark out and basically be night time.

I do see what you're saying though in terms of color palette and stuff

Well, yeah, they're supposed to be dark but are still fairly bright, giving you daylight colors that are just a tad toned down -- not enough for a proper nighttime setting. This mod in general is too bright on too many occasions.

I won't argue with you about how you prefer your lighting lol I don't really mind how it's been done so far. I love those skyboxes too though, they're pretty great

[june gloom]

Great to hear an update is forthcoming -- that'll keep me busy while I'm visiting family cross-country!

Regarding light levels... I actually think the mod is very good with its lighting, though some parts are dark enough that if you adjust your lighting a certain way they become basically un-navigable when your lantern is dead. I would actually like to see a flashlight now that GZDoom allows for spotlighting. Perhaps in a fan episode?

(Speaking of which, how does one go about making a fan episode? Dead Man Walking was baller and I've got some ideas I've been wanting to play with.)

[CyberneticPhantom]

Great to hear an update is forthcoming -- that'll keep me busy while I'm visiting family cross-country!

Regarding light levels... I actually think the mod is very good with its lighting, though some parts are dark enough that if you adjust your lighting a certain way they become basically un-navigable when your lantern is dead. I would actually like to see a flashlight now that GZDoom allows for spotlighting. Perhaps in a fan episode?

(Speaking of which, how does one go about making a fan episode? Dead Man Walking was baller and I've got some ideas I've been wanting to play with.)

I do think it would be pretty cool to see different characters using something besides the solar lantern even if I do like it with the Scav himself personally.

Also if I had to guess you could probably just private message Vostyok and ask or just wait and I'm sure he'll say something whenever the update comes or he decides to post something here. If you do get to though I look forward to seeing whatever you and the others have come up with

[shimotsuki_yumi]

Absolute kino

[Plasmazippo]

Hello folks something came to mind while walking in the middle of the night with the full moon out and shining and that is how awesome would a night level look coupled with Ashes? As we've never played on a map that has been in the middle of the night before only sewer levels and dark rooms with no lightning on. And I personally would love seeing Vos adding a night level into his future work.

While i perfectly understand that he and his team solely decides what will be added in the game or not I thought it would be nice sharing my thoughts and see if others share the same opinion as me or not.

As others have mentioned, there are the Boneyard level in 2063, the first level in Dead Man Walking, and the cannibal stadium and road to site SIGMA in Afterglow. They're some of my favourite levels precisely because they're at night, so there's plenty of wiggle room for cool and fancy lighting play.

It's definitely night time during the Rink lol
I'd also argue Missile Gap is night time or at least early enough in the morning for it to still be dark out and basically be night time.

I do see what you're saying though in terms of color palette and stuff

Well, yeah, they're supposed to be dark but are still fairly bright, giving you daylight colors that are just a tad toned down -- not enough for a proper nighttime setting. This mod in general is too bright on too many occasions.

Regarding light levels... I actually think the mod is very good with its lighting, though some parts are dark enough that if you adjust your lighting a certain way they become basically un-navigable when your lantern is dead. I would actually like to see a flashlight now that GZDoom allows for spotlighting. Perhaps in a fan episode?

(Speaking of which, how does one go about making a fan episode? Dead Man Walking was baller and I've got some ideas I've been wanting to play with.)

I like to load up Caligari87's DarkDoomZ to fine-tune the darkness in those levels. As a nice bonus, in legacy 2063 when the lantern was a huge nuisance that I didn't care for at all, I used DDZ's flashlight function shamelessly as my light source, set to simple/incandescent/handheld so it jiggles like it's attached to Scav's clothes like one of those old military L-shaped flashlights that can take a proper beating.

In Enhanced and Afterglow, now that the lantern is so much better, I refrain from that, it's a bit cheesy. Rather, I go for RicardoLuis0's Flashlight+ so I can modify the light to be a very dim and short-ranged beam (like an LED penlight with almost dead batteries, it's plausible for Scav to have one if you think about it) that really only serves as an emergency lighting alternative when I burn through all of my lantern battery in levels where I can't recharge it at all.

EDIT: Forgot to mention one thing about the enhanced lantern: in the normal light levels of the mod, it brightens up rooms very slightly even beyond the dynamic light's radius. If you darken the game with DDZ, that effect is lost and all you have is its circle of light.

[AmissaAnima]

Yes there are some night levels but none of them never really feels like it's night as it isn't exactly 100% dark. The only noticeable thing that you can notice if it's night or not is if you look up at the sky as barely any of your surrounding are effected by nightime i would love to see nighttime levels having the level appear darker regardless to what your brightnesss is set too, I just feel like the current night levels doesn't have that much of an impact.

[Ihavequestions]

We've had the lighting discussion before. Bottom line was and is, many people seem to either have improper display settings or a mediocre display or both, or they play in a too brightly lit room, getting all kinds of reflections, etc., and the maps are designed in a way to accommodate for those facts, so fewer people will complain about the game being 'too dark' while in reality it is objectively too bright in many areas. Not an opinion but a physical fact. There are spots in OG Doom way darker than the darkest spots in Ashes.

Personally, I stand by my opinion that the maps should have more contrast and lower darkness levels where appropriate, so the lantern and night vision goggles get put to good use, because right now, I barely ever use them. The NV goggles are, in fact, more of a nuisance than help to me. And for those who want it to be brighter, it's them who should fiddle with their display settings and use lighting mods, not people who are using well-calibrated displays.

[RKD]

I think Ashes lighting is fine the way it is right now. It appeals enough to both sides (too bright vs too dark). In my case, the problem with maps/mods that go way too dark or barely visible for atmosphere, have the detrimental factor of hurting my eyes (and my vision is fine). When I can't barely see two steps ahead of me even with lantern/flashlight/whatever, I unconciously force my vision and get a sort of motion sickness that ends up in headache. That kills any interest I can have in keep playing any further.

Yes, it's true that some users are at fault for not calibrating properly their monitor but I do believe anyone should be able to play fine enough regardless with just the sector lighting setting. As far as I recall, either Dark or Doom were the recommended settings and I've set mine in Doom since the other was too dark for me. In all honesty, for those folks who want to further expand their game experience with a darker atmosphere, a third party mod (like DDZ) is likely to enhance way more said experience than anything that could come built-in with Ashes, because I'm pretty sure the author wants to appeal just enough to both "factions" in this lighting matter. And that is something that, imho, Ashes does very very right.

[Ihavequestions]

I don't know. I do not get any motion sickness from looking at a dark screen. But I do get tired from looking at a gray scene that really should be black. It's unnatural, it takes away detail, and there is no way to improve it other than by editing the map myself.

[ButtonBoy]

Going along with the more night time level encouragement, I reckon a fully dedicated stealth level would be awesome. So imagine you get abducted like you did in the blood sport level, but by a bandit camp instead. So all your stuff gets taken but you still have your boot knife. You have to escape, your purposely made to be low on supplies so you can't go in guns blazing, so you kill the occasional raider when the situation suits it. Really just a fully dedicated stealth level would be so cool.