Ingress Insights: Lighting Dynamics
NianticOfficial
Niantic › admin
Agents,
We recognize that Ingress Agents play during all times of day (or night) under all sorts of lighting conditions. Starting with Ingress Prime version 2.29.2, Ingress Prime's map, display, brightness, and contrast will be adjustable with our new Lighting Dynamics setting.
Originally, we focused on making the map readable on a sunny day, which inadvertently created a map that could be challenging to view at night and in other dark environments. After several attempts to make the map easier to see, including an option that took time of day into account, we decided that the best option is to determine Ingress Prime's display settings based on the Agent's surrounding environment. Most mobile devices already have this feature that we can tap into. However, dimming the entire map as the environment darkened and brightening the entire map when it got brighter made the map less readable.
Our current iteration is to make map elements, colors, animations, and contrast brighten and adjust accordingly as the screen darkens, and we’ll continue working to improve map readability.
Enabling Lighting Dynamics is an optional setting that you can adjust from low to high to better personalize your experience. You can find the Lighting Dynamics settings under Main Menu > Settings. Agents on iOS have an additional option to set Lighting Dynamics to automatic mode, which will adjust the lighting based on your device's current brightness level.
We look forward to your feedback, Agents.
Comments
How about just keeping redacted ?
easy fix
Doesn't make common map elements like XM or Neutral portals more visible.
Based on recent Aurora Glyph Challenge we really need the hack result cards and animations skippable and/or out of the way. Glyphing 4 or 5 portals and then being unable to tap or see anything useful around my avatar for 30 seconds while dismissing result cards and letting the item animations spin out of the way was a very frustrating.
is there a reason why its only iOS that gets auto brightness?
I'm tired of these nonsense redacted comments. Prime is the progression of Ingress.
The cards do indeed get in the way, especially when trying to defend and hack. Truthfully, I don't really care all that much about what I get from a hack.
How about to remove the black map background and replace it with a lighter one?
Having a toggle for this would be even better, like websites light/dark mode
Yeah, it's even better
Why don't you implement that on Android first, most of the player base is probably there.
I never really had an issue with the visibility of things, but it seems like the issue people were having is that the portal flame animation and the map background combined made it hard to see.
Making a slider to reduce the width of the portal doesn't really help, the animation itself should be simplified to a static object with some sparkle effects as it was in redacted. It's too big and there's no 'central' point to select it, so some of the tike you'll not even be able to select it.
I played with the slider and just left it where it was. Thus making the change useless as it didn't alleviate anything. Maybe it helped others, will have to await their feedback.
Prime is still pretty much unusable for proper gameplay. The portals are way too small specks on the screen when vision is zoomed out, it is mere luck to hit one. The result cards should appear way higher, not on top of the action circle. And why are everything appearing in same colour? Original scanner had much better visual clues. Prime is also preventing game play because it has a weird way of staying stuck in old locatio while phone's screen is shut making it jump to new location when phone is made active again resulting in false speedlock. It also crashes as much as the original scanner did back on February 2013...
No AUTO mode on Android. I have Samsung Galaxy S10+ but i know Iphone have AUTO mode. Still difficult to see fields and XM. We need more clean Prime UI.
Niantic-
Please go outside and play Prime on a sunny day. The slider fix 'isn't it'.
Change the background color or sharpen everything up or do whatever you did with the colors in redacted. I dunno if these would work but you didn't fix it with 2.29.2.
I wanna love Prime.....you make it so hard
P.S. Get rid of the hack outputs. THEY ARE AWFUL
Niantic, please consider lifting the XM graphics and behavior from Redacted, the way Redacted displays XM is perfect. Currently, in Prime, it's become even harder to see the XM and i don't think the Dull off white XM colour is helpful. For me, it's become even harder to see XM with the Slider cranked all the way up.
Edit: I just turned the Slider to the lowest setting and XM is popping through so perfectly, the rest of the map is really dark now. I think this is worth tweaking or fixing.
Redacted is the starting Point, improve it or redact to it...Get Real, Prime Sucks until it is better than Redacted....IT IS ALL ABOUT GAME PLAY....who gives a flying ...... about esthetics!!!!!
To my eyes, the most significant improvement to visibility on the map was the change to how portals are rendered: https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/3373/thoughts-on-the-main-map-view-in-v2-29-2.
Previously, I found portals to be far too wispy. I don't think tweaking their brightness or contrast would have produced a meaningful result. Now, portals have a well-defined "core," which can be affected by brightness and contrast tweaks. However, I don't think tweaks are necessary because that "core" is already sufficiently bright and contrast-y.
And so, that sums up my initial impression of Lighting Dynamics: It doesn't solve any problem I actually have because my problem was solved by something else — possibly many somethings else, since I feel like other aspects of the map, like links and fields, were quietly tweaked for the better.
———
After fiddling with Lighting Dynamics some more, I do see a use for it, or something like it. Right now, it feels like a single slider that affects the brightness of the map tiles (roads, paths, etc.), portals, links, and fields. The brightness of each element is affected to a different extent, hence the overall appearance of increasing and decreasing contrast.
I want to be able to affect the brightness of the map tiles independently of the brightness of the portals, links, and fields. Sometimes, I really want to see the map tiles (I'm exploring somewhere new); sometimes, I really don't (I already know the area like the back of my hand). On the other hand, portals, links and fields should always be vibrant; they are what gameplay revolves around. I don't like how cranking up Lighting Dynamics starts to give those elements a washed out look, and I don't like how cranking it down makes portals feel smaller and less significant.
That all said, I've found that setting Lighting Dynamics a little below the midway point on the slider works well for me, both indoors and outdoors. I'm a little dubious of why I might want Prime to adjust this setting in response to my environment given that my phone is already automatically adjusting the screen's overall brightness and given that no other app on my phone has similar behavior.
Prime is not like Redacted in anyway. Nowhere would such a change in a client app this drastic be acceptable.
The lighting dynamic slider is a very small step in the right direction. In order to do it properly a UI overhaul is needed. There is far too muy black to even use the app in a sunny day.
This new lighting dynamics doesn't improve visibility for me. I still have the same issues with contrast. I simply can't distinguish portals in sunlight which makes Prime unusable for me.
More sparkling XM doesn't help at all. Visible elements are still blurry. Shaping the outline of the portals like in redacted would be much better.
Do us a favour and remove the hack result cards. Whenever I finally manage to recognize portals one of those things pops up and disturbs everything.
Somehow this feels so 2013.
"Originally, we focused on making the map readable on a sunny day, which inadvertently created a map that could be challenging to view at night and in other dark environments."
I've been using Prime for a while now - and from my point of view, regarding this statement, you've achieved the complete opposite. Lightning Dynamics is definitely a step in the right direction. Thank you.
I just don't understand why this feature (circles on the base of a portal) keeps changing from a update to other on my devices. My old phone didn't show it at all. My new phone was showing it perfectly until this update and now they are extremely faded away, up to the point it's almost invisible. Everything else is fine.
And Dynamics lights don't change it, they keep invisible with low or high settings.
I hope Niantic fix it back to next uptade.
The lighting dynamics is effective in multiple indoor and dim outdoor environments, but still is too dark when outdoors in daylight. The underlying issue remains the overall darkness of the colour palette, that drowns L1 portals and makes inventory items difficult to distinguish. An in-game option that would "flip" colours as in android accessibility settings would be a step in the right direction, but an intentional game-specific light-background/darker overlays layout would be a super option to have.
Agreed. On a sunny day I still can't see the map, portals, XM. I mainly use Redacted but I try Prime with every update and so far I'm not impressed. I do know that when Redacted disappears, my gameplay will be drastically reduced. 90% of my gameplay is cargressing, with Prime it's almost impossible. At least I got onyx sojourner before Redacted dies.
Please get rid of the blurry map edges. My eyes are bad enough; why would I want intentional blurring to make things more fuzzy. Also brighten up the XM using WHITE.
thank for this new feature. If you turn the slider all the way down the some of the flashy effects become less intense. One suggestion. Does anyone remember the old themes in windows XP? Maybe you guys could add a feature to customize the scanner and add a redacted theme for those who prefer the old UI.
This is a translation in French. Hope this helps agents who have difficulties with English.
Agents,
Nous sommes conscients que les Agents Ingress jouent à toute heure de la journée (et de la nuit), dans toutes sortes de conditions d'éclairage. À compter de la version 2.29.2 de Ingress Prime (notes de mise à jour, traduites en français), les éléments suivants pourront être ajustés grâce à notre nouveau paramètre de "Lighting Dynamics" : la carte, l'affichage, la luminosité et le contraste.
Au départ nous avons porté nos efforts pour rentre la carte lisible en temps ensoleillé ; cela a rendu la carte difficile à lire la nuit et dans les environnements sombres. Après plusieurs tentatives pour améliorer la lisibilité de la carte (incluant une option qui prenait en compte l'heure du jour), nous avons décidé que la meilleure solution était d'utiliser l'environnement autour du terminal de l'Agent pour déterminer les réglages optimums.
La plupart des terminaux mobiles disposant déjà de cette fonctionnalité, il nous suffisait d'en tirer parti. Hélas, seulement assombrir l'ensemble de la carte en environnement sombre et l'éclaircir quand l'environnement était plus lumineux a eu pour effet de rendre la carte moins lisible.
Notre itération actuelle vise à rendre plus lumineux certains éléments, couleurs, animations et contrastes, et ajuster en conséquence quand l'écran s'assombrit. En parallèle, nous continueront nos travaux d'amélioration de la lisibilité de la carte.
Le "Lighting Dynamics" est une option ajustable qui permet à l'agent de personnaliser son expérience utilisateur. L'option est située dans Menu principal >> Paramètres. Les agents dont le terminal est sous iOS ont une option supplémentaire qui permet de passer le "Lighting Dynamics" en mode automatique ; dans ce cas la luminosité dépend directement du niveau de luminosité de l'écran.
Agents, nous espérons avoir de nombreux retours de votre part.
What about a custom palette/color chooser for ingame elements like map tiles or text, etc
I.e. settings / colors / map tiles = select color ...
Settings / colors / texts = select color...
And all this configuration saved locally, so this makes the app themed by the user and we can share different color schemes between agents based on our experiences in different ligth conditions