How to fix Madden 16 lighting

[jackrubay]

I agree with what others are saying regarding lighting and colors being off. Here I took a few of their newly released screenshots and edited the levels of the background and the players separately. As you can see their lighting is very muted and muddy. The players don't pop from the backgrounds. Overall the players are very dark. On the Gronk image I corrected colors because it seems like the daylight warm color was overpowering the greys and blues. I think the stadium lights would naturally correct this issue. The last thing I did was to edit the ball. EA's ball was just looking terrible. It should be much darker and have a sheen to it. What do you all think?

[SeattleSeahavvks]

Re: How to fix Madden 16 lighting

Great post!

I agree with everything 100% except for the ball. I think the ball is a little too shiny in the new images, but that's just a minor detail.

didn't realize the importance of lighting

[Pokes404]

Re: How to fix Madden 16 lighting

I like the darker backgrounds and darker ball. The sheen is probably a little too pronounced, but it works.

I think your brights are a little hot though. You can especially see it on Sherman's numbers. They're practically glowing. Also, I think you went a little heavy on the green RGB channel on the Gronk picture. Warm that up just a bit with some red.

Overall though, looks pretty good.

[JRT2006]

Re: How to fix Madden 16 lighting

100% improvement.

EA - take notice

[cthurt]

Re: How to fix Madden 16 lighting

I guess the lighting cant help the cartoony look of madden, but its an improvement over the original pics.

[Hooe]

Re: How to fix Madden 16 lighting

It doesn't look better to me

The orange on the Manning image now looks washed out (admittedly the original image is a bit dark, but I think this is an overcorrection).

The Gronk image now has an unnatural greenness to it which shouldn't be present given the original context of the image (an afternoon scene). If the aim was to shift the scene from an afternoon to a noon scene, mission accomplished, but that's not how an outdoor scene should look in the middle of the 2nd quarter of a 4 PM game. In addition, the NFL ball simply is not the dark unsaturated color it has been adjusted to, that's simply wrong.

The Sherman image adjustment is the most problematic of the three. It is incredibly oversaturated to the point of losing detail in the uniform textures. White light simply doesn't overpower the source color in that manner illustrated in the adjusted image. Further, the light source in this case is above Sherman, so his back should be darker and shadowed relative to the bright lights above him.

Admittedly I'm not a computer graphics expert, I only took a course on the subject in college and it's been a little while since I've done anything with 3D graphics extensively, but these adjustments don't make the game look better in my opinion.

[JetLife6]

Re: How to fix Madden 16 lighting

It doesn't look better to me

The orange on the Manning image now looks washed out (admittedly the original image is a bit dark, but I think this is an overcorrection).

The Gronk image now has an unnatural greenness to it which shouldn't be present given the original context of the image (an afternoon scene). If the aim was to shift the scene from an afternoon to a noon scene, mission accomplished, but that's not how an outdoor scene should look in the middle of the 2nd quarter of a 4 PM game. In addition, the NFL ball simply is not the dark unsaturated color it has been adjusted to, that's simply wrong.

The Sherman image adjustment is the most problematic of the three. It is incredibly oversaturated to the point of losing detail in the uniform textures. White light simply doesn't overpower the source color in that manner illustrated in the adjusted image. Further, the light source in this case is above Sherman, so his back should be darker and shadowed relative to the bright lights above him.

Admittedly I'm not a computer graphics expert, I only took a course on the subject in college and it's been a little while since I've done anything with 3D graphics extensively, but these adjustments don't make the game look better in my opinion.

the ball may not look better... but the ball in madden now looks terrible. like shiny plastic. should be darker with much less shine. More of a leather grain

[jackrubay]

Re: How to fix Madden 16 lighting

Admittedly, the whites are blown out and should be perfected. The point of the post is to show how off the current screenshots are and how they could look if adjusted. If I were a paid artist on the project, I'd take the direction I spend 20 minutes on and then spend a lot more time dialing it in.

The Gronk image is a bit too green. Ideally there would be green bounce light from the grass. Green would be more on downward facing polygons and increasing in green intensity closer to the ground. Here I did a green shift to the shadow color balance in PS. This is dependent upon the time of day and lighting conditions. I think astro-turf bounce more light, as well. I'd fix that if I were on the project.

The NFL balls change in color and in shininess depending on the amount of moister in the air and ground. Realistically, I would direct the artists to make 3 or 4 different ball looks in the game.

[jackrubay]

Re: How to fix Madden 16 lighting

Here is a quick fix to the Gronk image to remove the greenish tint. I hacked in a football image too. I am suprised that the Madden images had such a lame looking ball. It didn't have the black stitching round the threads nor did it have the black signature part.

[illiterateoption]

Re: How to fix Madden 16 lighting

This is really an outstanding thread. The lighting in M15 is jacked up and needs to be fixed. This game doesn't look next gen and here we are coming up on the 3rd iteration.

Bad lighting, bad animations, no living worlds, wonky 'physics', sliding, morphing, the sack issue, terrible play call screen, owner mode $$$ issues...I could go on.

EA - please just fix this game.

[TexasFan2005]

Re: How to fix Madden 16 lighting

I guess the lighting cant help the cartoony look of madden, but its an improvement over the original pics.

I agree with this. It's just my opinion, and it's not just a problem with Madden but with other sports games as well. They're trying to replicate what's seen on TV for the most part, and I think the newer consoles and high-end PC's give too much detail in HD (if that makes any sense). If you watch a FOX or CBS HD broadcast, there's going to be some grainy images, especially when the camera is further away from the action. Take a replay, for example. In real life, the slow motion replay is going to have a blurry/grainy look to it.

Again it's just my opinion, but back then, I'd hook up my PS3 to my old CRT tv and play Madden and 2k in 480p. It sounds crazy, but the experience was much smoother because you wouldn't notice the herky-jerky animations as much. Those cut scenes in Madden after a tackle looked pretty real. I really wish the PS4/One had the ability to connect to an old tv.

I think the HD/Widescreen era is a double-edged sword for a lot of these sports games. Graphically, there's just too much detail that shows.

[bringbacksimfootball]

Re: How to fix Madden 16 lighting

This is really an outstanding thread. The lighting in M15 is jacked up and needs to be fixed. This game doesn't look next gen and here we are coming up on the 3rd iteration.

Bad lighting, bad animations, no living worlds, wonky 'physics', sliding, morphing, the sack issue, terrible play call screen, owner mode $$$ issues...I could go on.

EA - please just fix this game.

The color and lighting in this game are a total mess. They decided to go in a certain art direction and this is the result. Nevermind that fans complained about it often enough last season to take notice and do something about it.

I get that there are development priorities that can overtake something like this, but the problem with that is, whatever they're considering a priority isn't resulting in a better game, i.e. the things they claim to have been worked on every year remain poorly operating or broken altogether. Besides, graphics have ALWAYS been a top priority in Madden, so to me that excuse wouldn't jive with their normal development focus. Bottom line, either they think it's fine (and it's not. It looks like a filter of dullness is covering the screen), or they just don't give a damn, that's why this wasn't addressed.

They ask questions and take suggestions, and the very things being spent all offseason communicating with them about never get addressed in the actual game that season. I have no choice but to consider the online presence of all Tiburon developers to be nothing more than mere vanity. It's been a long time since I've seen any real impact from it.

[JRT2006]

Re: How to fix Madden 16 lighting

I agree with this. It's just my opinion, and it's not just a problem with Madden but with other sports games as well. They're trying to replicate what's seen on TV for the most part, and I think the newer consoles and high-end PC's give too much detail in HD (if that makes any sense). If you watch a FOX or CBS HD broadcast, there's going to be some grainy images, especially when the camera is further away from the action. Take a replay, for example. In real life, the slow motion replay is going to have a blurry/grainy look to it.

Again it's just my opinion, but back then, I'd hook up my PS3 to my old CRT tv and play Madden and 2k in 480p. It sounds crazy, but the experience was much smoother because you wouldn't notice the herky-jerky animations as much. Those cut scenes in Madden after a tackle looked pretty real. I really wish the PS4/One had the ability to connect to an old tv.

I think the HD/Widescreen era is a double-edged sword for a lot of these sports games. Graphically, there's just too much detail that shows.

One thing I've learned from my calibration studies (which has been purely from Google and forums albeit most of the people there are trained) is for the most natural HD veiwing, turn down your sharpness. On my set, with a 30 point scale I have my sharpness at 5. It doesn't give you the precise edge as everybody believes HD is supposed to give you, but it gives you a slightly blended edge.

May not fix the cartoon look, but could possible help.

What has always bothered me, even though I like the idea, is the distance blur. Yes it should be there, but I think it should be on a greater radiant. Look smoother. The front pic you can really tell, but some of them you can see a precise point where the image goes from focus to out of focus and i just wish it was a gradual change

[4thQtrStre5S]

Re: How to fix Madden 16 lighting

I fixed the color issues my calibrating my LCD TV.