Color Tone Curve? [Archive]

Akakomuma

Dec 20, 2016, 04:13 AM

I notice this seemingly makes the image more clear, but it kinda reminds me of SweetFX where the color accuracy suffers a bit. Are the colors less accurate with this setting on?

Kondibon

Dec 20, 2016, 07:48 AM

Isn't color accuracy a hardware thing? If the colors being displayed by your monitor are the colors being sent by your computer then yes it's color accurate. All the setting does is increase the contrast and saturation as far as I know.

Shoterxx

Dec 20, 2016, 10:36 AM

Yep, it's far from accurate.

Imagine having 256 spaces (colors per channel), but you wish to spread its contents further from each other (contrast, in a nutshell). You'll end up with colors sharing the same space, and with gaps where colors were supposed to exist.

Also, if you had 9 as red value and 10 as blue, and decide to add 10% to each, you'll end up with 9 and 11 respectively shown. Why? Because there isn't enough precision in a byte to store that 0.9 value. And why not round it up? Because by default, the value is "floored" (aka, cut off the excess). Now, do that step 9 times more times (when there's a lot of post-processing). 9:11 -> 9:12 -> 9:13 -> ... -> 9:20. Suddenly, your color ratio is way off.

Sure, these examples are exaggerated, but it's to demonstrate some of the issues with post-processing. Most of the time, you won't even notice, and most games nowadays have other ways to work around it, such as having a more "color-detailed" image than the one displayed. That said, this is PSO2.

And on a side note, it also applies some specific area color filters. For example, IIRC, it's a purple-ish filter for Franca's cafe, blue-ish for Tokyo area, brown-ish in Desert areas, etc. Also changes with weather and other stuff.

Sara-hime

Dec 20, 2016, 11:47 AM

I noticed it also tends to make dark skinned characters even more dark when there's no light source reflecting on them...

Color Tone Curve off
[spoiler-box]http://i.imgur.com/EjolCDf.png
http://i.imgur.com/7oUgJeK.png
[/spoiler-box]

Color Tone Curve on
[spoiler-box]http://i.imgur.com/BiZmWdX.png
http://i.imgur.com/UHXQgej.png
[/spoiler-box]

Ultimately I leave it on since that's what I assume the majority have it on, especially PS4 players, so what they see is a bit consistent with what I see. And areas where there is plenty of light, I kind of do like the setting. But accurate it is not.

Flaoc

Dec 20, 2016, 12:00 PM

well speaking of color tone forest does look weird with it on

without tone

[SPOILER-BOX]http://i.grab.la/06c14-90221ffd-b856-4a5a-b43b-e630ef42e013.png[/SPOILER-BOX]

with tone

[SPOILER-BOX]http://i.grab.la/06c14-65eb99df-306f-4953-9035-b81f745a66e8.png[/SPOILER-BOX]

and a bonus: no tone with sweetfx and reshades ambient lighting active

[SPOILER-BOX]http://i.grab.la/06c14-90541032-e1b2-42f1-9402-9574d26f10a6.png[/SPOILER-BOX]

so yea why is dirt green with tone on? also tundra snow turns blue with tone on (yeeaaaaaa......)

Kondibon

Dec 20, 2016, 01:12 PM

Honestly, since you can't adjust any of the settings, I'm not sure what knowing would do.

I noticed it also tends to make dark skinned characters even more dark when there's no light source reflecting on them...
That's because of the increased contrast.

so yea why is dirt green with tone on? also tundra snow turns blue with tone on (yeeaaaaaa......)
Shoterxx explained why already.

And on a side note, it also applies some specific area color filters. For example, IIRC, it's a purple-ish filter for Franca's cafe, blue-ish for Tokyo area, brown-ish in Desert areas, etc. Also changes with weather and other stuff.

ralf542

Dec 20, 2016, 03:17 PM

It's too dark in places and too bright in other places. Gix weapons/Ranma burn my eyes out and my head/eyes hurt after 30min. Adjusting monitor settings doesn't help, dunno why people like it.

Kondibon

Dec 20, 2016, 04:08 PM

Gix weapons/Ranma burn my eyes out and my head/eyes hurt after 30min.This might actually be your monitor brightness and color temperature. I used to have the same issues until I made the monitor color temperature a bit warmer, and lowered the brightness.

jooozek

Dec 20, 2016, 07:53 PM

arks mod tool lets you fiddle around with the color tune curve
https://i.sli.mg/dyxgdf.png

pkemr4

Dec 21, 2016, 01:58 AM

HardLight620

Dec 22, 2016, 10:46 PM

arks mod tool lets you fiddle around with the color tune curve

Please be advised that while AMT does allow basic BCS / RGB adjustments, it does not affect the color toning curve discussed in this thread. That is controlled by a separate texture in the game resource files.

I have made a preliminary investigation pass on your request. It seems that the game is using a shader to apply the color toning and using a texture as input to that shader to specify the color curves. I can't do much about the shader itself, but the texture's name is sy_color_tone.dds and is packed inside the 02d7ff84cade5148892558c6d7fa824a file in your data folder. For reference, it looks like this:

http://i66.tinypic.com/2lixwgg.png

I haven't tried modifying this texture myself, but changing it should change the output of the color toning.

It should be possible to determine the exact nature of the color toning curve by splitting the above image into its separate RGB channels.

Shoterxx

Dec 23, 2016, 11:03 AM

Weird. Only a single tonemap? Also, no white... No wonder certain lights look so crappy with ReShade, color curve range only goes 0-251 (should be 255), let alone without it.

What does AMT change then?

HardLight620

Dec 23, 2016, 10:21 PM

AMT hooks into a basic post-process color filter that is applied uniformly to the game scene (but not the UI). It's just your basic brightness, contrast, saturation, and color balance adjustments like what you'd find in Photoshop. I'm not sure if it's actually used anywhere in the game normally, but it only seems to be available on graphics settings greater than 1.

Also, you may want to check the original .dds file if you haven't already. There might be something hidden in the alpha channel that wasn't exported into the image above.