Battlefield 3 will NOT include a console command to disable colour-grading, artistic integrity cited
By Tim Colwill on October 24, 2012 at 3:51 pm
First there was a mod that let you get rid of colour grading, but DICE said it was a hack and could get you banned. Then, they said that they’d include a console command to disable it in the next patch, because people clearly wanted it. And now, they’ve changed their mind again: there will NOT be a console command. Why? To preserve the “unique identity” of Battlefield 3.
A follow-up post from DICE senior programmer Mikael Kalms reads as follows:
“After discussing this further with my colleagues, we have decided to not implement this feature. This is the studio’s take on this matter, and I support this decision:
“As a studio, it is extremely important for us at DICE to have a unique identity in our games, not only from a gameplay perspective, but visually as well. While we appreciate that some players might want a slightly different look to the game, we are proud of the visual identity of Battlefield 3 and do not wish to change it.”
I apologize for getting anybody’s hopes up, and if you have any further questions on this subject, I will refer back to the above statement.”
That’s that, then.
Source: Blue’s News
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Am I the only person that likes the colour grading in BF3? I really dislike 90% of graphics mods that try to change the lighting in games – they usually clamp it way too tight and blow out the whites, or over saturate because they think that more colours = better.
I’d personally take artistically considered colour grading over blue skies any day. My favourite traditional artworks usually have one dominant colour that unifies the picture, whereas the worst, most amateur deviantart paintings try to cram every saturated colour in there.
Perhaps so,
personally though the color grading washes out so much of the color it’s like the whole world is bleached under it.
It’s the same problem we had before except with different filter and post effect…
First it was Bloom, and retarded Developers LOVE overblowing bloom so much that it feels like they are trying to burn your retina out.
Then it’s BROWN mania, apparently gritty and realistic equals brown… seriously…
Now this…
Sigh, frankly i think it’s time for me to give up on DICE, i was somewhat entertained with BF3… for some time at least, got enough of my money on it, but when they make statements as dumb as this?
Yeah, forget about it… you know what? Plenty of games to fill in the FPS hole, now that i realized there are many options available now and coming in the future, so they can keep their color grading in their BF3 till the end of time if they want.
Glad I play planetside 2 instead ;)
Argh, over it. DICE are just annoying the shit out of me now. I think it’s time to bury the BF3 hatchet and get back to games I enjoy and seem to have give a toss about the community. Civ 5, CSGO and LoL here I come!!
I don’t have a problem with colour grading in BF3, it looks fantastic and feels unique. Also realistic.
I do however hate studies citing “artistic integrity”. If it makes your customers who paid money happier with your product, why the hell not? Obviously this doesn’t mean you can add a weapon which kills everything on the map when you simply click, just because a lot of people want it. But for something like this I think it’s silly.
Awesome, it shows DICE really listens to the community, and…
…then proceed to troll the living daylights out of it for no reason! Awesome DICE! Developers of the century! YAY!
Wow, I’m glad I put BF3 in the CoD pile a few months ago. This just proves my reasoning really. Such a pity.
*Secretly weeps as he plays a map of El Alamein by himself.*
Most likely Dice was going to do what they said but then marketing at EA heard about it and told them not to “dilute the brand” or something similar…
Eh i like the look of BF3, however.. providing there is no gameplay benefit to changing it via mods, who gives a shit? I have no idea why they felt the need to get involved at all.
Gave up on this probably over 6 months ago now, interesting to see DICE just as deeply retarded as ever. I don’t know the details about the latest colour grading mod, but ages ago someone released a legit FXAA injector (I think) which (AFAIK) didn’t modify any files. It made everything extremely vibrant and it also allowed for sharpening or different AA methods as well. I just used it to give the game normal colour.
I like having options but colour-grading is a pretty insignificant aspect of games to me.
A lot of the screenshots from that mod looked quite off anyway, with some things overly saturated and others washed out. Probably because the developers designed the look of everything for a particular visual style.
Basically if they let people use third-party ‘graphics hacks’ which can turn off colour-grading then they’re also allowing others to cheat by highlighting player models for instance.
It’s more trouble to them than it’s worth.
I think the only island that benefits from such a thing is wake island which is a tropical island and needs more colour but other than that I don’t see much of a reason. It is however quite stupid that they have changed their decision several times.
i highly doubt that…its a game they made, they have their look and feel, they don’t want to change it. I don’t see the issue? it’s not even that bad, the color of the game never bothered me or most people, i can’t believe how fussy a few people are lol
korbain,
Yes, I see what you mean. All of this saying they’d change it and then reversing that announcement really does show true commitment to a single strong vision of their product. I don’t know how I missed that.
Wow…. talk about the gen Y sense of entitlement.
DICE is terrible and their game is terrible because they’re happy with how it looks? Do you guys read what you post?
ROFL…
it’s fine, let them do whatever their ‘vision’ is for BF3,
but at least with this precedent we now know what to expect from BF4 so that’s one title i can safely take off the list, spent a bit more on BF3 than i expected but at least i think most of us got our money worth out of it.
now to look forward to other games to fill in the gap.
ooshp,
What’s entitlement got to do with anything? I think people are more annoyed about how DICE have approached the whole situation rather than a high demand to remove the filter to be honest.
Artistic integrity is great we can all respect that, it’s just harder to swallow when they flipflop on the issue.
Time to coin a new term: Devflip – when a developer cites artistic integrity as a reason to not do something previously promised/promoted. Not to be compared with the variation of devflip known as Biodevflip- which is citing artistic integrity as a cornerstone of your work and then flipping anyway.
How they handled it? Yes they originally wanted to allow to enable/disable the color filter…but as they said “After discussing this further with my colleagues” they decided against it.
Once again, the people in the team that designed/spent time to give the game the look/feel wanted it to remain untouched…good on him for backing what his fellow works wanted…
Sure he could have asked first but for the love of god, to say the way this was handled is annoying people is so embarrassingly pathetic lol Gamers whinging for the sake of whinging…plenty of worse things to be annoyed about at this world lol
korbain,
This is a gaming forum, presumably people were talking about this issue on other gaming forums. That’s what they’re for – discussion about gaming. You can be annoyed about something in a game as well as real issues with the world – they’re not mutually exclusive unless you can’t separate the two for some reason.
This whole decision flipping feels highly corporate motivated – a decision made not because it would benefit the players, but because EA/DICE have a particular branding they want for this game and don’t like it when people mod things to be different to it. He should never have promised the ability would come to disable the filter in the first place if there wasn’t a firm consensus.
Shame to see how dice has come over the years.
BF1942 and Desert Combat mod were awesome fun.
Never really god into BF2 or BF2142 , but at least they were like 1942
BC2 changed direction a lot , interface changed, LAN mode removed, DRM added
Now BF3 comes out with horrid colors, removed LAN still , removed server browser, removed free dedicated server software
I never got why people love BF3 so much , its changed quite a bit and I didnt find it for the better.
Since 2004-2005 game colors and graphics are getting worst, like someone else mentioned.
Bloom made games in my view terriable
Then we had shades of brown and green.
Now its the movie blue tint that is the latest craze.
I really hate that games have to remove the large color range available , its like going back to CGA graphics with 4 colors .
Whats so wrong with having medium blue water, light blue sky , green grass , etc
You know the colors in REAL LIFE not the movies
charliebrownau,
I think BF3 is the most visually impressive realistic game that I’ve seen. The graphics are incredible, and a big part of that realism is the lens lighting effects, like bloom and the desaturated colours, like browns and greys.
I see modders bring out these colour saturation mods, where the grass becomes acid green and the sky becomes electric blue and the shadows are pitch black, and all the comments are saying “wow, looks so much better!”… and all I can think is: thank goodness these people don’t make games, because they have no idea.
Was bloom overused by some developers? Definitely, but only because it looked so awesome that everybody wanted to use it, which led to it being overdone. The same things happened with lens flares and overly brown pallets as you mention. But I don’t think BF3 is guilty of that – I think the artistic directors on that game worked hard to achieve a certain cinematic look, and I think they nailed it.
Everybody has opinions, and the vast majority of people that are being vocal about this seem to agree with you, but I think you’re all completely wrong… in the same way that kids who love Justin Bieber or Twilight are wrong, because they don’t have an understanding or appreciation of real artistic goodness :D
Lame move DICE…. Wake Island is wrist slitting’ly depressive as is most of the rest of the game with the dull and depressing colour tones.
Seriously, it makes NO difference to the gameplay, give no advantage to anyone… but will at least make playing some maps more tolerable!
Am I the only one that feels like any of the back to karkand maps makes you feel miserable when playing them? Does anyone even play the Karkand expansion and have they ever thought why they are the least enjoyable maps to play when as history has proven them to be the most popular maps in previous BF titles?
ramjetr,
Really? You get depressed from the colour palette of a map and that’s why you don’t enjoy the game? Strike at Karkand was actually way more dominated by one colour in Battlefield 2 – nothing but brown.
Check out this comparison screenshot (BF2 vs BF3 vs BF3 happy version):
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5478701/bf3/karkand-bf3-happyversion.jpg
OOOoooo Look at the Rainbow! And that sky is soooo deep blue. it speaks to my soul.
Yeah I get where you’re coming from eggheart. While the artistic direction of the game was nailed as you said. I’m glad they didn’t do reality though. Their colour scheme sucks balls and I wouldn’t be able to look at lighting reflected off buildings and other objects because it’d burn my retinas.
Like you said, on an artistic level they nailed what they went for. Good on ‘em. But I prefer the rainbows. They’re pretty.
What, you don’t like the rainbow? Geez, you’re clearly too good for us :P
if you want to play in a hyper-color-paradise then you will have to wait for far cry 3 :)
stfu, you think modders brought these shitty features to bf3? the pitch black shadows have always been a problem with the game and a reason why i dont play it and its also one of the reasons why so many people complain about the games lack of contrast and colours just wake up and stop defending it when it is obvious, And since when do eyes have lens flairs???? How is that realistic at all. Maybe if you were looking through a camera. hence the term LENS FLAIR
Having a bit of lens flair looks good, but bf3 is just over the top and starts obstructing vision. and wake island i have the exact same feeling as someone mentioned before….where’s the colour!!
1544hrs bf2/2142
24hrs bf3
If you understand that everybody has opinions then good
the bigger question is that since all ppl asked is the OPTIONS to choose otherwise then why is that being denied?
why is that a bad thing?
Ppl weren’t expecting that BF3 changes it’s look PERMANENTLY for everyone… they just appreciate the OPTION to choose what they think is better for themselves.
I frankly cannot take you seriously for that analogy with Justin, since while i do not like him or any of his music, i am not going to start demanding them to listen to better music yet, that’s their choice and if they decide to pick that even after listening to better music (imho) then let them.
Can you imagine if a game has 200% bloom enough to burn your retina and you CANNOT ALTER it? you can’t turn it off, tone it down or anything else BECAUSE THE DEV INSISTS THAT’S for the game’s artistic integrity?
Or if a game has motion blur in EVERYTHING everytime you move and no way to tone it down because they also insist for the same reason?
seriously…
this is so moronic i cannot fathom it.
And technically, yeah we do have another option i suppose.. ie: NOT PLAYING THE GAME.
hence the steady drop in online players playing on the server browser list.
shlaimon,
Their called Lens FLARES by the way, and my eyes have lens flares because my eyes have lenses. I’m looking at a light in my ceiling right now and there is a flare around it, try it. They are not as strong as the lens flares that a camera lens picks up, but they are there.
Yes BF3′s lens flares do obstruct vision, just like the real world. Have you ever driven home from work at 5.30pm and been blinded by the sun?
Are you really arguing that BF3 doesn’t have good graphics? It is one of very few games out now that you could quickly show a person a screenshot of and they would be forgiven for thinking it was a photograph,
I know, I know, some people want more colour, I get it. It’s down to opinion and everybody’s got one. But you didn’t make the game, DICE did, and they are sticking to their guns. So calm down, wipe away the spittle, make one of those firm commitments to “never buy a DICE game ever again!!! (until the next one comes out)” and lets agree to disagree.
bronzed,
Yeah the Beiber analogy was silly and over the top, sorry. Probably a better analogy would be people who love Thomas Kinkade paintings.
Yes, DICE handled it badly by saying they’d give the option and then changing their mind, they should have just stuck to their guns from the beginning.
And I think the steady drop in players would have more to do with gameplay issues that the lighting that a small minority of vocal players are complaining about.
That response was brilliant, I loved every word of it.
I do like the look, I just figure the blindingness and the blurriness of it is part of the gameplay. Everyone has it.
So at this point it really comes down to how many complaints will make the developers think twice when it comes to the sequel. It seems they’ve made their choice. That means now the few who feel it is a major issue won’t be playing the game any longer or will pay it less.
I will admit though that I do have a funny uncertain feeling that somehow in a very subtle way it does make the game a little depressing. And it really can’t be that much of a bad thing for players to have a slider bar or something that changes the color-grading.
But meh. It was their choice to make. I don’t really mind it.
Now I remember why I created this account for downloading and not for commenting. As if people can be civil on a gaming forum…
^^ Think you might be lost there, bud.
Looks like you’ve accidentally clicked on the ‘post comment’ button, when what you really wanted is the ‘files’ button up the top.
I agree whole heartedly with your earlier comment, I also find it funny how people complain about others expressing their opinions about games in a gaming forum.
This isn’t a solve world hunger forum. Every keystroke spent here is spent because of games.
I love games.
Oh that’s true…
but it just serves to highlight one of the key principle that contributed to that problem that detracts ppl from the game..
options.. choice…
Like it or not, ppl don’t fall into the same general category in every aspect…
some things you do not change indeed due to game design principle… ie: GAMEPLAY balance etc…
But other things that do not affect the core aspect of the game should be made as diverse in option as possible… for obvious reason as long as they are within reasonable capability.
it’s especially EXTRA DUMB in this particular case because toggling the color grading is incredibly straightforward and does not touch the gameplay itself…
And for that matter, color grading is TECHNICALLY SKEWING the color off the natural color assigned to the objects in the first place. When ppl turn color grading off, they are not making the color more UNNATURAL somehow, it’s the opposite in that the color are shifted back to what it was originally assigned as before everything was washed by the alteration. The color grading IS THE UNNATURAL part in the first place.