Kubrick on 30/11/2021 at 21:12

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It's one that has eluded me since I started playing Thief with New Dark installed. Obviously I know how to increase and decrease gamma, but what I want I can't really get with gamma: I want a more contrasted look. I can achieve it by doing it "manually" on my monitor's brightness, but it's a chore to do it for reasons of playing the game and then having to revert it back to what it was because my PC is heavily contrasted now. Plus I'm sure it'd look way better if it was the game rendering it and not my monitor options forcing it. Does anyone know?

edit: Here's how you can get a more contrasted look on Thief if you have NewDark installed (why wouldn't you?). Thanks to vfig for the solution.

First off, you need to be able to access the console. That's done editing the file "user.bnd" in your thief folder. Then what we're gonna do is bind a key to open the console. I've set it to my P key, so that's the example I'll use: find the line that says

bind p <something>

and change it to

bind p edit_command

Now you can change the contrast on the fly, with the game open and the level loaded. As you can see down the thread, the contrast depends both on your monitor and the aesthetic style of the mission you're playing. But personally I've found that using 1.5 usually works great for me. Some missions need maybe 1.6 or, rarely, 1.7; some missions need 1.4. It's all down to preference and level design, and you'll need to change it mission to mission.

How do you do that? Well, opening the console (in my case, pressing P) when the level is loaded, and typing "set_contrast 1.5". You'll see if it's too much or too little. Don't forget to use gamma too: maybe you set it to 1.5 and the blacks are too black, but the contrast is good enough, and in that case it may be better to up the gamma by one or two keystrokes (I have gamma + set to my "+" key, same with gamma -).

Lastly, if you decide you want to start with a more contrasted look as a baseline, and don't wat to open the console and type the set_contrast command everytime (although it takes two seconds and you'll want to experiment mission to mission anyway), you can set you default contrast higher by default.

For that, edit the file "cam_ext.cfg" and first off, find the line

d3d_disp_sw_cc

and make sure it's enabled.

Then, you can edit or add (I had to type it down) the line

d3d_disp_sw_cc_contr

adding to that the value that you want. I like 1.5 as default, so mine reads "d3d_disp_sw_cc_contr 1.5". Save and close.

And as vfig mentions down the thread, you can also edit brightness and saturation values. Play around untill you find a baseline that looks good for you.

Again, thanks so much vfig!

Kubrick on 1/12/2021 at 14:08

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Damn, don't even know how to start doing that. Will check around. It'd be awesome if there was an in-game solution.

vfig on 1/12/2021 at 19:17

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if you enable d3d_disp_sw_cc in cam_ext.cfg, you can adjust contrast with the d3d_disp_sw_cc_contr 1.0 setting. 1.0 is the default; you can change the value to be anything above zero. (i havent used it, so i dont know which way to adjust it).

to try different values without restarting, you need to first (https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=147087&p=2332039&viewfull=1#post2332039) enable the console, then you can do set_contrast 1.0 in the console; you will still have to edit cam_ext.cfg to put your final chosen value in.

in addition to contrast, you can also adjust brightness (d3d_disp_sw_cc_bright 0.0 / set_brightness 0.0) and saturation (d3d_disp_sw_cc_sat 1.0 / set_saturation 1.0)

Kubrick on 2/12/2021 at 06:17

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Oh wow, thak you so much, this has been something I've wanted to fix on thief 2 for so long! Thanks!

PinkDot on 5/12/2021 at 08:34

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You can also install ReShade and play around with different settings. I apply a subtle contrast and a couple of other colour corrections, as I find native rendering in Dark engine quite dull.

And you can always toggle it on and off with a key, in case it looks wrong with a certain mission.