Arma 3 How to Make It Pitch Black

When it gets dark and no night vision turned on, screen is black

• Edit Task
• Edit Related Tasks...
• Create Subtask
• Edit Parent Tasks
• Edit Subtasks
• Merge Duplicates In
• Close As Duplicate
• Mute Notifications

When it gets dark and no night vision turned on, screen is black. Happens on all day - night server. Also happens when looking through the scope. {F17587} {F17588} {F17589} {F17590} {F17591} {F17592}

Legacy ID

3397707864

Severity

Major

Resolution

Duplicate

Reproducibility

Always

Category

Visual-Environment

Steps To Reproduce

Take off night vision at night or look through the scope.

Event Timeline

aso777 set Category to Visual-Environment.

aso777 set Reproducibility to Always.

aso777 set Severity to Major.

aso777 set Resolution to Duplicate.

Comment Actions

Your eyes have to adjust to the change in brightness, not a bug.

Comment Actions

Well I should of been more descriptive, you can not see street lights, or gun fire it is still the same!

Comment Actions

i have this same bug. no lights in the city/airfield, no light from the light house.

Comment Actions

Get a new monitor? I can clearly make our your gun and nearby surroundings from the ss you provided.

Comment Actions

anyways there is some kind of issue of night time lighting, so please do not down vote, let it get addressed by developers so it will get resolved, we are here to make arma 3 better experience, instead of sharing your expertise!

Comment Actions

these screenshots clearly show light, and not a pitch black screen. who says it cant get so dark out, that there isnt much light. you are on a island with a small population

Comment Actions

This is a problem with dynamic lights. Lightsources like streetlights or the lighthouse loose intensity as soon as the sky starts to light up only a little bit but it's still pitch black outside. It shouldn't be a problem to fix this since headlights of cars aren't affected by this.
Video that shows the problem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBSqL0vNz2s

Comment Actions

Have this bug as well spontaneously. Everything is unnaturally dark. Sometimes everything is normal though, no idea why.

Comment Actions

i can clearly see the rain, the tree and parts of your gun as well on the "all black" screenshot, get a monitor with good contrast

Comment Actions

Dosen't look like an engine problem so much as possibly a mission one.

A) The TOD/Year is probably set to a point where there are no stars
B) The mission maker likely don't use any of the lighting modules

Update your video card drivers, adjust your brightness ingame.

Comment Actions

I don't think it is because of the set date. I can even see the full moon in the sky but it is very faint and doesn't throw any light.

Even in the villages it is almost completely dark. There should be street lights visible, shouldn't there?

Gamma/Brightness doesn't help either, even if set to 100% all it does is create a washed out blackness.

Weirdest thing is that the issue isn't persistent, sometimes I start a game and everything is fine.

Comment Actions

@ ghostdoc

1)stare into a light bulb for a good 4 minutes (actually dont, but maybe you get my point this way)

2)go outside and try to see the moon or street lights far away

maybe it's a bit exaggerated for the nighvision to blind you this much, but i don't think it's a bug

Comment Actions

I still don't think it is because the eyes have to adjust. I waited quite a while and nothing changed. I will try again tomorrow.

Comment Actions

Adjust your ingame brightness and gamma.
I can clearly see at night without NVG unless in shadowed areas

Comment Actions

I have the same problem, and ,my eyes are adjusted to the change in brightness

Simple fact it is to dark even you are below a street lights i can barely see anything

My game setting brightness are adjuste in the way i can READ de CORRECT word and barely read de WRONG word.

Comment Actions

Check the date of the mission.
ARMA uses accurate moon phases so when there is no moon it will be very dark.
Another mission may have a full moon which will light quite a lot

Comment Actions

Again: The moon is clearly visible but doesn't throw any light.

Comment Actions

The night time lighting realy needs to be improved.
Night scenes are way too dark and streetlamps, flashlights and so on, ain't as bright as they should be. I can't see shit without NVG.

For now, i deal with it by adjusting the gamma value every time it gets night or day. This can't be the solution and i'm sick of it.

Suggestion:
I Suggest to brighten up the ambient lighting in night times (if that is even possible) and then go over to adjust other light sources, like flashlights and so on.

And also...
Implement the possibility to adjust the contrast value in game.

Btw.
In real live, cloudy nights are a lot brighter than non cloudy nights (exception: fool moon and so on).
In Arma it's the other way around!
With exception of nights with visible moon, clear sky nights are the darkest.
Clouds reflect not only the lights coming from the ground, but scatter these and all the other incoming lights, just as painted light bulbs or lamp shades do.

Because it brakes my imersion, i would love to see a change in this.

Thx in advance.
Much Love and Light
Von_Emmy

Comment Actions

Thanks, Von_Emmy for your contribution! We will hope this issue gets addressed.

Comment Actions

I haven't had any problems at night. And TBH sometimes at night it's really dark, and other times, not so dark. Dynamic lights may well not be working 100%, but it should be dark at night, otherwise why bother with NV at all? A2 was exactly the same, having a rifle with acog scope at night was pointless.

Comment Actions

This is a dynamic lightning bug.
It occurs on Dusk-Night and Night-Dawn changes. The video by Derbysieger shows it pretty well for the Night-Dawn change.

Main problem:
-ambient lights, such as the moon and star lights get triggered on/off by the same time the streetlights are.
-streetlights intensity fading is bugged. Streetlights in RL are triggered on/off with fading within minutes (not within half an hour) and then shine with the highest intensity.
-near instant change between lights (day) and lights (night) preset, after long fading period

Result: during the cycle, you get a more or less half an hour of darkness.
Check Moon cycle dates and Sunsets times for different dates.

Steps to reproduce:
-start up editor and place the player in town /airfield base etc.
-set date to 6.july 2035 (default date) and time to 20:55
-Preview and set time acceleration and watch the cycle and the lights
-between 21:19 and 21:22 the lights behaviour changes drastically, everything is turned on to max
-try again with a new moon date like the 11.3.2013, see how the ambient light of stars gets switched on
-add vehicles and see how their lights get affected as well in their intensity. see the screenshots below.

Screenshots:
Change in Town
http://i.cubeupload.com/tXoIDA.jpg
http://i.cubeupload.com/AaGGv6.jpg
http://i.cubeupload.com/Ghp4YH.jpg
Moon change:
http://i.cubeupload.com/h2dsmm.jpg
http://i.cubeupload.com/nB5FAx.jpg
http://i.cubeupload.com/WaWxkq.jpg

Also, dont downvote feedback posts you cant be absolutely sure its not a bug.
If its hard to reproduce at first, doesnt mean that it doesnt happen.
Its either a bug or due to placeholders, as this is still an alpha. You'd better let the developers decide.

Please confirm if your were able to reproduce the effect.

Comment Actions

Great Work DisorderedMind. I can reproduce that.
Some time after 21:00 all lights in the game start to get dimmer and dimmer, by 21:20 it is almost completely dark.
Afterwards the lighting returns to normal.

Definitely a bug.
Maybe we should change the issue description or create a new one?

Comment Actions

I would rather not add a new feedback report.
This will just add duplicates and further work for the mods.

As per moderator statement, every vote, even those of ppl clearly not understanding the meaning behind a bug tracker and downvoting everything at first glance, is counted and thus helping this report staying alive.

I would monitor it and in case it gets merged or closed eventually approach the mods. :)

Comment Actions

This is correct, I'm having the same issues, it only happened around 2100 - 2130 if i'm correct.

Comment Actions

Also, even the flashlight touched. Not yours - from units. So, you put the light on, but no one see it, because is global paramater say "LowLight" now. And this is one of the main reasons why we trying to avoid "moonlight" games.
But direct spotlights, lights on the water, in the air, from burning cars all doing amazing work, thats why we all want to see it corrected, i think.

Raz added a comment.Mar 16 2013, 7:48 PM

Comment Actions

He has a point don't vote him down if you don't understand. There are periods of time when the lights in the game are messed up and do not iluminate properly,they are too dimm.It's like the light sources do not cast any light on the surroundings or it has low intensity it has something to do with the period of time you set in the editor and dinamic lights, you can see it for yourselves. DisorderedMind couldn't had explained it better !

Comment Actions

This issue is in a dire of having its title and description edited. The reason why it received so many down-votes is because its current description is far from accurate.

Comment Actions

I had this bug playing the scenario "Escape from Hell". Couldn't see a damned thing without NVG. As we approached a town, we cold see the lights on through our night vision, but not when we took them off (which really makes no sense, as the lights should surely be easier to see), and lighting seemed to be fixed on certain points. Ie, outside of the direct beam of a light, no further light was diffused into the environment.

Doesn't happen all of the time, but it definitely happens.

Comment Actions

Might just be a shader problem if nothing else, update your drivers.

Comment Actions

I do feel it is too dark. Just a little brithening it up would help.
Also enemies can see you in the pitch black and u cant see them? Explain?

Comment Actions

I see the exact same faint lighting as in the screenshots. For me the lights are just not shining very bright in a radius and faint. Loooking at a streetlight I can see a faint light on the ground and in a 5 meter radius (the light itself looks like a bright twinkling star in the sky), but it is not distinctive, (theoretically) I can not read a newspaper under an ArmA steetlight (just seeing some faint lighting and shapes) and in real life I can do that easily, because a real streetlight give of a strong light and definitely direct below the streetlight. It is the same old pitch black arma night as in arma2 and only playable with NVG, only now with twinkling light bolbs.

Comment Actions

As people said, yes the lights dim when it gets darker, they need to illuminate the environment around them much more.
Looking at the lights should also darken the dark areas, while if looking away from lights, the eyes should adapt and you could see slightly better in the dark.

@liquidgreg:
AI uses Night Vision Goggles at night, but the AI can see you through grass and trees also, so this is also an AI vision problem as it was reported already.

Comment Actions

I played it now later at night and the lighting is indeed much better. It is the time between 20:30 and 22:00 where the lighting does not do anything (including chemlights).

Comment Actions

You should also note that it is raining in the first picture. A test server I been playing on turned the weather effects up to max so it was essentially a tsunami. even during the early morning or early night, the rain effect was so dense you couldn't see more then a foot infront of you, combined with the dark yeah it would be just black. The issue is with the rain effect.

Comment Actions

@Raz, the mod won't fix the issue (Tested) ... Theres a problem with Artificial light sources. Basically everything goes super dim at some point at night.

Raz added a comment.Mar 21 2013, 4:09 PM

Comment Actions

Copy that, didn't have time to test it myself. Thanks for clearing that up. I guess it's back to BIS's hands to provide a fix for it.

Comment Actions

I've seen this problem with a spawned fireplace, it was midnight, so pitch black outside but the fireplace wasn't visable from a short distance away.

Comment Actions

Change the weather / date. Full moon to me is too bright at night, and no mood and cloudy sky is practically pitch black.

Comment Actions

You need to eat more carrots.

Seriously, it is very dark. I am thinking this will be addressed by Beta

Dale added a comment.Apr 9 2013, 10:15 PM

Comment Actions

Even if it is dark ingame its because its dark in real life, if there's full cloud and no moonlight coming through you can't see anything just like in game, try playing at night with no cloud and youll find it much easier to see.

Voting down.

Comment Actions

voting down, everything it´s correct:

full moon - Mar/05/2013 0:00 - clearest view
waning quarter - Mar/28/2013 0:00 - clear view
new moon - Mar/12/2013 0:00 - absolutely dark

Comment Actions

It is a bug, have a look at issue #0002929. I had clear skies, full moon and still pitch black night, during certain hours at dusk and dawn. Not even flashlight or street lamps could have lit it up.

© Bohemia Interactive a.s. Bohemia Interactive® is a registered trademark of Bohemia Interactive a.s. All rights reserved. · Privacy Policy · Terms and Conditions

Arma 3 How to Make It Pitch Black

Source: https://feedback.bistudio.com/T61486

Share this post