Ive been making a horror game for a very long time, and one thing that’s been plaguing me is an issue with Specular Scale. It is non-negotiable that my game must be pitch black indoors. The answer to this, as Im sure you likely already know, is to make the ambient black, and set the diffuse scale and the specular scale to 0. I dont care about setting the diffuse scale to 0, however, specular is the thing that makes the metals in my game actually look… metal, instead of just ugly plastic. I really don’t want to have to choose between having a dark environment and having metal look normal. Ive tried multiple things, including but not limited to changing the exposure compensation, color correction brightness, atmosphere/sky settings, etc, however I cannot make anything work. I considered reporting this as a bug to roblox, as having specular maps enabled obviously should not allow you to see in the dark, however they seem very gate-keepy with the @AllowBugReporting role, and although I made my application for it almost 4 months ago, they have yet to respond in any way shape or form, despite me being certainly qualified with 6 years of engine experience and 8 years of programming experience. Id love it if someone could report this for me however I do not expect this.
Sorry for the bit of a side tangent about bug reporting, however I would really like to know if anyone knows a good workaround for this. Here are some pictures of my issue in action:
Specular Scale 1: (visibility may vary based on your monitor’s contrast)
this may seem like an odd question… but… if the inside is going to be pitch black… and you can’t see… what does it matter what the metal looks like… if you cant even see it???
ok then, do the one that makes the metal look great. I don’t know what you are playing this on but, the experience for every player will be slightly different because their brightness and contrast are different. I had to turn mine all the way up to even see the screenshots.
You will have a dark environment, perhaps even too dark for some devices. On my screen, the difference between having a specular scale of 1 versus 0 is only visible in the fan. The darkness basically looks the same.
The reason I expressed that it was non-negotiable is because of the skill expression that removes. I want the player to have to have to memorize maps in order to be able to do away with their flashlight and get an extra free inventory slot, and if all someone has to do is mess with their brightness settings, it becomes more of a hardware thing than a skill thing. I dont know what it is about my monitor but I did not set my monitor up for the purpose of seeing this and yet I can see well enough to navigate.
To express what I can see, I moved it over to one of my other, differently configured, monitors, and messed with the exposure until it looked the same as on my other monitor. This is what I see:
ok so… you want your players to be able to play the game with their eyes closed? I suppose this works in theory but if the player literally cannot see without their flashlight and has no other indicator that they have gone anywhere. It is basically asking someone to play a purely visual game, without their sight
Blindfolded gaming is possible only when your other senses can be accurately relied on. Since Im assuming you don’t have like grade A sound design, the game is 100% visual (no motion haptics, no taste, no smell, and sounds that don’t really tell you where you are). Taking away the only sense needed to play the game doesn’t really make it much of a game, does it?
unless you are expecting your players to memorize like motion sequences like walk forward 3 seconds turn 15 degrees left, walk forward 2 steps, jump forward etc. From what you have described so far, makes it seem like your game is no better than a roboxian wandering in an endless void.
Then again, not my game, my options probably don’t matter that much. (I am not trying to be mean I’m just curious, sorry if my tone sounds harsh)
To fix the problem of your players being able to see, maybe use a GUI element that appears when there is no light sources. A vignette would be cool to have even with light sources but you could add a semi-transparent dark overlay that makes everything darker.
Dw, your tone doesnt sound harsh. I get what you’re saying, but the skill expression of being able to navigate phasmophobia maps in the dark is incredibly satisfying, speaking from experience. Its not something thats required, you DO have a flashlight, and you CAN use it whenever you want, It just takes up an inventory slot that you can free up by memorizing maps. Also, our brains are a lot more fascinating than youd think with this stuff. As before mentioned, I have played a lot of phasmophobia and have learned how to navigate multiple maps completely in the dark, without counting steps in my head or anything. Phasmophobia does however have a very faint short range light at all times that is just strong enough to tell if you are actively walking into a wall which I have also replicated.
I could do something like that however it comes with some technical issues. For example, you can see an object that is lit by a point light without seeing the point light itself, possibly causing things that look like lighting bugs. I could mimic eye adjustment by having things darken with a color correction then have it interpolate to regular or darker based on if you can directly see a light source. This could work but its still a shame that Im having to go through all of this stuff instead of roblox just fixing this issue
