What the hell is happening?
Its so dark, I can't see a damn thing!

darkfurniturewizard said:
Ok I know my monitor is brighter than average but at this point I'm starting to think either that all of my viewers are using a phone or just haven't calibrated their monitor properly. If you cant see the light from the larvae and the alarms, then I don't know what to say.

Or, y'know

Just make it brighter lmao

darkfurniturewizard said:
Ok I know my monitor is brighter than average but at this point I'm starting to think either that all of my viewers are using a phone or just haven't calibrated their monitor properly. If you cant see the light from the larvae and the alarms, then I don't know what to say.

I have AI enhanced brightness and still can barely see what's going on

pojeb said:
I have AI enhanced brightness and still can barely see what's going on

It's more useful to me if you tell me what parts of it look black to you. I'm still trying to gauge if it's just that all of you are used to really bright lighting or if your screens are not displaying it the same way as mine.

So I see a general idea of what the tentacle monster is supposed to be, albeit it is a bit dark, and I have to really glance close to my monitor to see.

lonewolf3515 said:
So I see a general idea of what the tentacle monster is supposed to be, albeit it is a bit dark, and I have to really glance close to my monitor to see.

Since the Celosan's skin is blue/green and the background lighting is red, the only way for it to not look dark is if I made the lights much much brighter. I tried to make it so that you could see the outline of it, but that it was still somewhat shrouded/ambiguous. Personally I like that kind of thing, but between all of the negative and my monitor being weird, I think I'll probably have to stick to brighter scenes in the future.

darkfurniturewizard said:
It's more useful to me if you tell me what parts of it look black to you. I'm still trying to gauge if it's just that all of you are used to really bright lighting or if your screens are not displaying it the same way as mine.

The background and the models are blending together. There’s not enough source of lighting to sufficiently see what’s really going on. Though the content is still really hot

you can fake darkness by using cold colors without shadows. My go to is a giant cyan light behind the camera.

sir_bob_bobbington said:
you can fake darkness by using cold colors without shadows. My go to is a giant cyan light behind the camera.

Good suggestion, I'll have to try that out next time.

darkfurniturewizard said:
Since the Celosan's skin is blue/green and the background lighting is red, the only way for it to not look dark is if I made the lights much much brighter. I tried to make it so that you could see the outline of it, but that it was still somewhat shrouded/ambiguous. Personally I like that kind of thing, but between all of the negative and my monitor being weird, I think I'll probably have to stick to brighter scenes in the future.

Honestly I think it doesn't really have anything to do with screen settings or stuff like that. I'm still using a pretty old screen (samsung syncmaster p2450) and I'm using dynamic contrast which makes the whole screen brighter when something bright is displayed but dims everything when the screen is showing mostly black (so very not-ideal for watching this type of video in fullscreen). At first I wasn't able to really see anything, but after watching for like maybe 30 - 60 seconds, things started to become more clear to the point of being able to see everything pretty much perfectly without any issues.

So I'm guessing the main problem does not come from the darkness itself or any screen settings or calibrations or whatever and is mostly psychological, like, it's related to how the brain does stuff. Like, when you see something new and still don't have any idea what you're looking at, the brain can sometimes require some time to piece stuff together and interpret the picture correctly to make it make sense. If the brain can't make sense of something it'll just fill in the information by approximation which, on a mostly somewhat dark video, is likely gonna be just some more indeterminable darkness. You as the creator have probably watched this exact scene in great detail and a lot of different variations many many times while you were working on it so your brain already knows where things should be and what to expect when you watch it and thus it becomes easier for you to see it clearly. Me as a new person who hasn't seen this before needed some time to get accustomed to stuff because initially I had absolutely no idea what this vid was even showing me beyond a few random small and very dimly colored shapes within mostly blackness and a dim red blinking in the background that did absolutely nothing to make anything more clearly visible at all. But after that initial time of my brain figuring out what I was even looking at, things eventually started to also become much clearer and pretty easily visible in exactly the way that you said it should be.

Hope this helps <3

luzilyo said:
Honestly I think it doesn't really have anything to do with screen settings or stuff like that. I'm still using a pretty old screen (samsung syncmaster p2450) and I'm using dynamic contrast which makes the whole screen brighter when something bright is displayed but dims everything when the screen is showing mostly black (so very not-ideal for watching this type of video in fullscreen). At first I wasn't able to really see anything, but after watching for like maybe 30 - 60 seconds, things started to become more clear to the point of being able to see everything pretty much perfectly without any issues.

So I'm guessing the main problem does not come from the darkness itself or any screen settings or calibrations or whatever and is mostly psychological, like, it's related to how the brain does stuff. Like, when you see something new and still don't have any idea what you're looking at, the brain can sometimes require some time to piece stuff together and interpret the picture correctly to make it make sense. If the brain can't make sense of something it'll just fill in the information by approximation which, on a mostly somewhat dark video, is likely gonna be just some more indeterminable darkness. You as the creator have probably watched this exact scene in great detail and a lot of different variations many many times while you were working on it so your brain already knows where things should be and what to expect when you watch it and thus it becomes easier for you to see it clearly. Me as a new person who hasn't seen this before needed some time to get accustomed to stuff because initially I had absolutely no idea what this vid was even showing me beyond a few random small and very dimly colored shapes within mostly blackness and a dim red blinking in the background that did absolutely nothing to make anything more clearly visible at all. But after that initial time of my brain figuring out what I was even looking at, things eventually started to also become much clearer and pretty easily visible in exactly the way that you said it should be.

Hope this helps <3

luzilyo said:
Honestly I think it doesn't really have anything to do with screen settings or stuff like that. I'm still using a pretty old screen (samsung syncmaster p2450) and I'm using dynamic contrast which makes the whole screen brighter when something bright is displayed but dims everything when the screen is showing mostly black (so very not-ideal for watching this type of video in fullscreen). At first I wasn't able to really see anything, but after watching for like maybe 30 - 60 seconds, things started to become more clear to the point of being able to see everything pretty much perfectly without any issues.

So I'm guessing the main problem does not come from the darkness itself or any screen settings or calibrations or whatever and is mostly psychological, like, it's related to how the brain does stuff. Like, when you see something new and still don't have any idea what you're looking at, the brain can sometimes require some time to piece stuff together and interpret the picture correctly to make it make sense. If the brain can't make sense of something it'll just fill in the information by approximation which, on a mostly somewhat dark video, is likely gonna be just some more indeterminable darkness. You as the creator have probably watched this exact scene in great detail and a lot of different variations many many times while you were working on it so your brain already knows where things should be and what to expect when you watch it and thus it becomes easier for you to see it clearly. Me as a new person who hasn't seen this before needed some time to get accustomed to stuff because initially I had absolutely no idea what this vid was even showing me beyond a few random small and very dimly colored shapes within mostly blackness and a dim red blinking in the background that did absolutely nothing to make anything more clearly visible at all. But after that initial time of my brain figuring out what I was even looking at, things eventually started to also become much clearer and pretty easily visible in exactly the way that you said it should be.

Hope this helps <3

I indeed can see everything very clearly because of how much time I've spent working on it. Unfortunately that also means I can see all of the things I messed up.

Why is there so many complaining about the brightness of the video, I can see everything going on just fine and I have my brightness at default on my 2nd WLED PC Monitor.... it's just a super short animation that's the only problem I have with it, but the fact it's here for free is still amazing.

I've never added something to my favorites list so fast in my life

darkfurniturewizard said:
It's more useful to me if you tell me what parts of it look black to you. I'm still trying to gauge if it's just that all of you are used to really bright lighting or if your screens are not displaying it the same way as mine.

It's less the overall dimness than the contrast between light sources and the surroundings. The lit up parts aren't casting much light on anything around them, so pretty much everything looks too dark to see except for right around them, and the contrast is way too high for the eyes to adjust to either one. Either you focus on the entire scene to try and make everything out and get flashbanged every time the red lights in the background flash on, or you focus on the glow and everything else is impossible to make out. I use a 55 inch 4k TV as a monitor and have abnormally clear low light vision compared to other people, and I'm still having difficulty seeing everything.

crowes said:
It's less the overall dimness than the contrast between light sources and the surroundings. The lit up parts aren't casting much light on anything around them, so pretty much everything looks too dark to see except for right around them, and the contrast is way too high for the eyes to adjust to either one. Either you focus on the entire scene to try and make everything out and get flashbanged every time the red lights in the background flash on, or you focus on the glow and everything else is impossible to make out. I use a 55 inch 4k TV as a monitor and have abnormally clear low light vision compared to other people, and I'm still having difficulty seeing everything.

That makes more sense, I'll keep that in mind next time.

darkfurniturewizard said:
That makes more sense, I'll keep that in mind next time.

From a story telling view, there is nothing wrong with the lighting. you see just enough to know things are going badly for that guy and other clues fill in the blanks somewhat.

From a cinematic view, People watch things to see what is going on, not to squint or decode the scene in cinema. except in scenes where viewers already have more context or will get more context. cinematic lighting is almost always optimized for the viewer for ease of watching.
Star trek Enterprise, and Star trek Voyager both have scenes or episodes that are overwhelmingly dark. but the lighting is almost always optimized for the viewers watching as that's more fun to watch rather than a near black screen with flashing zones.

Recommended fix for future edits or projects.
Added low power lighting such as strip flood lighting throughout the room would allow for an overall brighter scene without overwhelming the spooky aspect that was attempted.
Why? judging off the scene. its a starship or space station or some other area that has action or alert lights. but such buildings or builds would be hard to work or navigate without a load of localized low powered room lights to for power failures. Better scene planning for real world emergencies can make the room brighter, functionable for the scene, and visually pleasing to look at.

Power issues, Dimming or short slow flashing can still add a lot to the scene without cutting all the detail and add to the story. just as adding sparks falling from lights can also increase brightness for short periods of time without taking away from the scene.

I hope some of this helps your efforts and understandings. I wish you the best of luck in your cinematic efforts.

sounds really hot. i wish i could see anything