Should Counter Strike be so BRIGHT AND COLOURFUL?

CS2's levels are suspiciously bright and colourful. But does light REALLY bleed like this? I could have gone outside to take a look, but instead HACKED CS 1.6 to display raytracing. As for whether it should be... feel free to discuss whether it should be in the comments section :P
0:00 - BRIGHT
0:24 - CS 1.6 raytracing?!
1:31 - History of CS lighting
4:01 - Dust2 compared
5:29 - Italy compared
6:32 - Other maps
8:34 - Office

[lufetm]

Yes. We will finally see players in connector on Overpass

[spinoodii]

It adds more visual clarity and less depressing washed colors make me feel better playing even if I'm losing

[iWerli]

6:44 honestly, the "5:30am pre-sunrise" look is pretty sick. It would be cool to see that on a map, it would give a feeling of quiet cold sleepyness whereas the normal look feels energetic and loud in the warm afternoon lighting

[existentialselkath]

Old lighting gives a grungy look in dark corners. While the new look is more accurate, I wouldn't mind more dirt and grunge textures and decals to account for the new lighting.

Some wear and tear would do a lot to counter criticism 😏, but maybe it'd hurt visibility so idk

[Micha-Hil]

I don't think graphics matter as much as visual clarity and consistent art direction. I know a lot of people say this and it's kinda repetitive at this point, but you can have a game with low-poly visuals and 64x64 textures and still have it look good with readable enemies and objectives.

Tag: The Power of Paint is a game that I hold exceptionally close to me even after all these years. Almost all of the graphics are either black-and-white, chromatic, or flat red/green/blue. The game definitely looks flat and unrealistic, but with the three main paint colours each representing a different ability when you interact with them (red = more speed, green = more jump, blue = stick to walls), you're very easily able to figure out what everything is at a glance.

[Kevroa]

Seeing the different sun positions on the maps made me think that it would be pretty cool for maps to have a randomized time of day for that match.

[dinithewinny]

A hammer 2 editor video would be super sick hope its coming

[addiebuss]

One of my big takeaways from this is how lighting works in CS2. It very much looks raytraced, while still retaining the performance of being (mostly) pre-calculated. Valve really does have some clever tactics up their sleeve

[praries]

5:00
The reason that the outside is so dark when standing inside is likely due to automatic exposure. Sometimes games will automatically set a "longer" exposure when you are indoors to make it easier to see, the downside of this is that when there is something like an open door or window, it is noticably very bright. It does, however, feel more realistic since it emulates your eyes adjusting to light.

[bel_unoffical]

For CSGO's Lighting, its a mix of the dark and edgy lighting era of video games with today's modern colorful/realer lighting we usually see in maps now and in my opinion surprisingly looks great when done

[chost-]

Thx philip for the hammer editor tutorials, ive recently gotten interested in starting to make CS maps as a new hobby, ive been wanting to quickly learn the basics and get up to speed so im ready to join the hype when CS2 rolls around, your vids have greatly helped me to get started

[srylagg]

for me personally it doesnt have to be BUT you need to see your enemies clearly

[narrowgauge]

I really like the gritty aesthetic of css, and cs2 just looks too clean and nice.

[scharkonline]

The art style is still pretty faithful, so changing some saturation and brightness doesn't bother me. Would love to see future maps make use of updated lighting engines, taking place in the early morning or at night with additional light sources baked in

[MikeDawson]

don't forget, the original Half Life map editor had global illumination baking built into it! I remember in the late 90's baking GI into maps I made, and that's why over the past 20 years I'm constantly disappointed in games that come out without baked GI

[Denizn]

I feel like the CS 1.6 versions of maps actually are more realistic in terms of lighting in some ways (e.g. if you're in a shaded area, bright outside areas look much brighter). I feel like CS2 is going less for realistic lighting and more for lighting everything well enough to try and fix the existing problems with distinguishing players (plus a shift in artstyle that we've already been seeing in the non-default player models in CSGO)

[oancemr]

Finally new 3kliks video!!!
As a side note, I think CS2 uses a larger colorspace, that's why the maps don't look blown out. In order to simulate the sun, it needs to be really bright, so the colors need more bits to represent all the light values. It would be nice if you could get in touch with the developers and ask some technical questions about the new engine calculates light. IMO, CS1.6 and CS:GOs ray traced versions look so blown out because the color space is limited and the game can't represent both really high brightness AND deep shadows at the same time. It would be nice to have some more contrast in CS2 though as the colors look kinda flat, like what you would get by filming in a raw format with a dslr.
Also, would be a cool adition to have color profiles in video settings like "Flat", "Saturated", "Warm" etc

[noclick]

0:21 i was expecting a case opening montage

[Toothily]

CS2’s aesthetic is quite nice, but I wish it felt less “flat”. Give it just a dash more contrast, for depth.

[TRRDroid]

I don't mind the brightness too much but a lot of areas seem way too clean now in my opinion