How to modify the lighting values of the court itself?

[TNeckDME]

Hey, folks. I've been wondering if there's a way to increase the lighting value of the court, or the light that's casting underneath the players? Usually when a player is wearing a white/home jersey and moves into the paint, you can see a bit of the paint color casting light on their uniform. I'd like to know if there's a similar value for the rest of the court (a.k.a. the hardwood) as well.

In terms of photorealism, the bright stadium lights from above cause quite a bit of beige light from the court to bounce back onto the players. You can see the light casting on Deng's uniform and arms, Joe Johnson's skin and the basketball.



Or in this case, the beige light from the court and the red paint of the United Center are bouncing back onto Derrick Rose. You don't see it as much in the 2K13 comparison shot:



I think it might add a little more realism if there were more of a beige light casting on the players. If someone told me how or what values to edit, I'd be glad to give it a try myself.

[JaoSming]

it can be done with the uniform and possibly the skin values

for 2k12 - viewtopic.php?f=144&t=83690

hasn't really been researched for 2k13 yet.

[TNeckDME]

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, JaoSming.

As far as the jerseys go, it looks like the AmbientIntensity is what I'm looking for. I might have to reduce the MainLightIntensity so that the court lighting is more noticeable. Rose and Deng's jerseys aren't 100% white in the photographs, so maybe I can find a good balance without the jerseys being too dark.

I still have 2K12 installed, so I can run some tests with it to see how it goes and (hopefully) carry those values over to 2K13. With hex editing, is it possible to change values while in-game with a trainer or tool? Or would I have to keep opening and closing the game to check my modifications to the jersey values?

[JaoSming]

well, more minimizing, editing, then loading up practice mode to check the changes

the problem is that these values dont exist, at least in the same place, for 2k13 uniforms. so, basically we are at square one for the new game.

a trainer might? do it, but I think you would still need to quit/reload a gamemode.

[TNeckDME]

I tried changing the values for Skin 01 as a test. In the Create A Player mode, it's the second skin tone.

I thought increasing Ambient Intensity to 1 (default: .3) and Main Light Intensity to 0.25 (default: 1.9) would use the court colors to light the players (like Rajon Rondo's jersey in the topic you linked to), but it just made the player brighter. Moving around the court didn't change his lighting at all. It looked more like a "fullbright" mode.

I didn't try changing the intensity for Ambient Intensity V, so maybe I'll give that a go later. The Vegas Light and Bounce Intensity/Light settings didn't seem to have any effect on the player. I guess 2K Sports only programmed the environment lighting shaders for the jerseys.

One thing I did notice was that by darkening the player (Ambient and Main Light Intensity set to 0.1), the sweaty falloff texture is even more visible. If there was a way to change the color of the sweat from the white color it is to a darker beige color, I could get something closer to the effect I want. I tried changing the Ambient and Main Light Color RGB values to a darker beige color, but that only affects the skin tone, and not the sweat.

[JaoSming]

you could try editing the sweat textures themselves, that might be a workaround

[TNeckDME]

That was actually a good idea, JaoSming, so thanks. There's an environment map the game uses to fake a sweaty reflection on the players (texture 484). I changed it to look like a beige floor was reflecting back onto the players. With a few skin tone adjustments, this is where I'm at:



My version of Skin 01 is a little on the dark side, so I'll need to brighten it a bit. Both screenshots use the default NBA 2K12 global as a base. I only used my new reflection texture in my modified global. The 2K screenshot is using the default reflection texture.



The effect isn't perfect, but I think it looks pretty cool. I guess we'll see how it looks in 2K13 when I actually get the game.