skins too bright in game? TrainerGirl Felina

[legacy-nerdios]

Hello

I was wondering why some custom skins people make appear too bright and washed out while playing UT2004. As an example, you will notice this when you spectate someone using Trainer Girl or Felina. It's as if the skins have a high gamma setting all their own compared to the rest of the game.

How can this problem be fixed--or avoided when making new skins? Can I simply modify textures in the UTX file to change the alpha (?) or gamma (?) something?

Thanks

[legacy-Mr_Caravaggio]

By default the entire game comes brighter than your regular settings for some reason (open the editor and watch windows wash out).
Also I've been told the player pawns are given a 40% gamma increase so that they don't disappear into the shadows. Put these two things together and you get a lot of skins washing out that look okay in photoshop.

I guess you could export the skin, decrease brightness by 40% and then re-import, that might help. It'd be nice to have a mutator that kills that gamma setting though, so we could actually take advantage of dramatic shadows for once (even if it would cause a lot of camping).

[legacy-Poisonmonkey]

Originally posted by Mr_Caravaggio
... (open the editor and watch windows wash out)... Use the NoGamma switch to keep Ued from doing this. It seems to work with the game too.

[legacy-Mr_Caravaggio]

Originally posted by Poisonmonkey
Use the NoGamma switch to keep Ued from doing this. It seems to work with the game too.

Mmmmm, but then the textures that are already designed to take advantage of the gamma change will seem darker then they should.

Is there a way to assign that switch within a upl so it only affects a skin? Or is that switch also inside of a a texture properties window?

[legacy-nerdios]

@Poisonmonkey - where's the gamma switch? i cannot find it. i looked in the textures window and via main window > view > advanced options

@Mr_Caravaggio - I noticed the model Johnny Magnum doesn't have the gamma / wash-out problem in the game. I checked out the skin in UEd, but couldn't really find a difference...his skin didn't look like it had been particularly darkened. CAn you find anything?

So does anybody know a simple way to ensure your model's skins don't look too washed-out or gamma-y during game play?

[legacy-Mr_Caravaggio]

alpha test, beta test, zeta test. and repeat... ...I guess. I think high contrast also becomes noticable. The whole skin may be darkened but if light parts are still too close to the max brightness they'll be victims. Maybe you chould just try to darken certain areas and trust that the vertex lighting in the game will give the model proper highlights?

[legacy-Poisonmonkey]

If you have a shortcut on your desktop for Ued and the Game, Open shortcut properties and in the Target box add "-nogamma" (without quotes) after the path to make it look like G:\UT2004\System\UnrealEd.exe -nogamma (replace G: with your drive letter of course)

As far as texture set to take advantage of the gamma increase, it's no different than me using my monitor controls to tone down the gamma. This just starts the programs without the sudden increase.