Why are black horses PURPLE?

[ReptilePZ]

*sigh*

It's your monitor settings. Like I said, colour saturation in the game is too high by default. Very easy to notice on red clothes (like redanian soldiers), wood and horses. Depending on your own monitor settings, you have to readjust accordingly.

To illustrate this, default monitor settings and "purple" horse:

Adjusted monitor settings:

You will notice the effect on most objects is minimal, but it really shows on the horse, giving it better colouring. Other "side effects" of properly adjusted monitors: nights are actually dark, you actually need cat in caves and unlit areas, character lighting in interiors no longer looks like vomit etc.

 

[RedFire01]

*sigh*

It's your monitor settings. Like I said, colour saturation in the game is too high by default. Very easy to notice on red clothes (like redanian soldiers), wood and horses. Depending on your own monitor settings, you have to readjust accordingly.

To illustrate this, default monitor settings and "purple" horse:


Adjusted monitor settings:


You will notice the effect on most objects is minimal, but it really shows on the horse, giving it better colouring. Other "side effects" of properly adjusted monitors: nights are actually dark, you actually need cat in caves and unlit areas, character lighting in interiors no longer looks like vomit etc.

The second picture still looks kinda purple, just less so than the first one.

 

[GuyNwah]

The second picture still looks kinda purple, just less so than the first one.

Must be something to do with your monitor calibration, then. The second shot has RGB values of 13/13/18 or less, which is about as black as you can get without hitting saturated black, which would be inartistic.

 

[Dex_LV]

Must be something to do with your monitor calibration, then. The second shot has RGB values of 13/13/18 or less, which is about as black as you can get without hitting saturated black, which would be inartistic.

Sadly, it looks like game problem. Your second image looks almost black on my monitor, while ingame black horses are completely purple, no matter what gamma settings I use.

Also I noticed, that saddles of those purple horses almost always have purple tones somewhere too. And as @eineingarp showed with pictures - saddle changed horse color. Maybe there is some bug with saddles?

Also... If that would be monitor calibration problem, than why other black colors are black in game? Why other games doesn't suffer this problem?

 

[ReptilePZ]

The second picture still looks kinda purple, just less so than the first one.

Open the second picture in a new tab, there could be an eye illusion when looking at it side by side with the other one. Or your monitor is really not calibrated very well.

You are, just by definition, correct, however - it is a very dark shade of purple, but that's what black always is, some colour with very low saturation.

For anyone looking for horses "blacker" than the one in the second image, nothing (short of mods that overhaul the lighting) can ever "fix" that for you. You could try tweaking your monitor settings even further, but then the game will just become too dark as a result.

 

[Mezziaz]

*sigh*

It's your monitor settings. Like I said, colour saturation in the game is too high by default.

Then it's the color settings in the game that are at fault, not the monitor. Sure I can "fix" this by altering the monitor settings but then everything outside the game will look wrong.

 

[chrispowers1010]

No offense, but this has nothing to do with monitor settings.. and my gamma did not get reset. The color of the horses did indeed change, though.

 

[ReptilePZ]

Then it's the color settings in the game that are at fault, not the monitor. Sure I can "fix" this by altering the monitor settings but then everything outside the game will look wrong.

... No? Readjusting the monitor settings works just fine, it doesn't only "fix" the horse's colour, the rest of the colours are off, too - it's just most noticeable on the horse (as well as some other objects that I gave as examples). So, it's not the game's colouring/lighting that is at fault, it's just that the game seems to be calibrated for darker displays by default. Which is easily solved by recalibrating that yourself to account for this. Long story short, it's not a bug.

and my gamma did not get reset

The gamma slider remains at the same position, but it the actual value does get reset back to default. Key bindings also get reset after patches. I haven't noticed any horse colour changes, but I have recalibrated after the patch reset my settings, which would explain it.

Either way, I've given my advice to people wondering about the horse colour - take it or leave it, but I wouldn't expect any official "fix" to be released, as it's just a matter of adjusting settings.

What settings should I tweak to get that blackish fur? Just gamma?
Do you mean that the mane is blackpurple also, just that it doesnt show? Geralts clothes black parts are black in both pics. Wonder why they didnt use the same base color on the horses.

Depends on your own monitor settings. Lowering gamma and upping contrast is what does it for me - you'll have to play around with it until it looks right to you.

As for why the horse's hair goes "purple" and Geralt's clothes do not - I imagine it has something to do with how different materials are rendered.

 

[ReDD7]

*sigh*

It's your monitor settings. Like I said, colour saturation in the game is too high by default. Very easy to notice on red clothes (like redanian soldiers), wood and horses. Depending on your own monitor settings, you have to readjust accordingly.

To illustrate this, default monitor settings and "purple" horse:

Adjusted monitor settings:

You will notice the effect on most objects is minimal, but it really shows on the horse, giving it better colouring. Other "side effects" of properly adjusted monitors: nights are actually dark, you actually need cat in caves and unlit areas, character lighting in interiors no longer looks like vomit etc.

What settings should I tweak to get that blackish fur? Just gamma?
Do you mean that the mane is blackpurple also, just that it doesnt show? Geralts clothes black parts are black in both pics. Wonder why they didnt use the same base color on the horses.

 

[Mezziaz]

... No? Readjusting the monitor settings works just fine, it doesn't only "fix" the horse's colour, the rest of the colours are off, too - it's just most noticeable on the horse (as well as some other objects that I gave as examples). So, it's not the game's colouring/lighting that is at fault, it's just that the game seems to be calibrated for darker monitors by default. Which is easily solved by recalibrating yourself to account for that. Long story short, it's not a bug.

I never said it was a bug, the colours are just weird to me and I play with borderless window so the gamma in-game is the same as I use on desktop which is set up correctly both in my Nvidia settings and on my monitor.

This is a big reason why I created a sweetfx/reshade preset, so that I could apply color changes to only TW3 and nothing else. Since pretty much everything else when it comes to colors on my PC are correct. If the color settings were incorrectly set up on my monitor I wouldn't be able to do the photo editing that I do properly which would then become evident when I print something

 

[ReptilePZ]

I never said it was a bug, the colours are just weird to me and I play with borderless window so the gamma in-game is the same as I use on desktop which is set up correctly both in my Nvidia settings and on my monitor.

This is a big reason why I created a sweetfx/reshade preset, so that I could apply color changes to only TW3 and nothing else. Since pretty much everything else when it comes to colors on my PC are correct. If the color settings were incorrectly set up on my monitor I wouldn't be able to do the photo editing that I do properly which would then become evident when I print something

Yes, like I said, you need to readjust for the game specifically. I don't use my default monitor settings when playing TW3, either. Reshade is a good solution, wouldn't work for console users, however, which is why I talk about display settings instead.

 

[Mezziaz]

Yes, like I said, you need to readjust for the game specifically. I don't use my default monitor settings when playing TW3, either. Reshade is a good solution, wouldn't work for console users, however, which is why I talk about display settings instead.

If you play on console and prioritize how TW3 looks over everything else, then yes in that case display calibration is the way to go about this.

 

[chrispowers1010]

Key bindings do indeed get reset every patch, but the color of the horses changing I'm quite sure is a bug.. I don't think everyone should have to re-adjust their monitor settings in any way to make the horse color normal.. especially when all other colors in the game remained the same. It's.. not really logical is it?

 

[ReptilePZ]

If you play on console and prioritize how TW3 looks over everything else, then yes in that case display calibration is the way to go about this.

You don't need to prioritise, you can easily go back to your default display settings after you're done playing.

Something that would actually be useful is in-game sliders for more than just gamma. That way switching back and forth manually between display settings wouldn't be necessary.

but the color of the horses changing I'm quite sure is a bug

It's not, the colours for horses haven't changed, from what I've noticed.

 

[Mezziaz]

Something that would actually be useful is in-game sliders for more than just gamma. That way switching back and forth manually between display settings wouldn't be necessary.

YES! Too few games offer this feature and I don't understand why more devs aren't doing this. Starbreeze for example are excellent when it comes to offering these type of settings in the game menu.

 

[SilverFox07]

Yeah, it's something I noticed from the start. Black horses weren't truly 'black'. But I've also seen this is other games. So it leads me to think that maybe it's got something to do with that black is a hard 'colour' to get right the subtle different tones and shadows that you see in real life.
In real life, on a horse, you see shapes due to where the light falls and how the hair lies. In a game, it's easier to do that lighter colours, as you can never recreate real life in a game.
Anything black is hard to get texture, shadows and lighting effects on, simply because it's such a subtle change. You have to put the brightness up a lot to see differences. Putting brightness down just results in a big black shape.
A black horse at night would be particularly difficult. It would appear like your riding nothing in that middle of some dark forest.

I don't know, this is just what I think. Makes sense to me.

 

[nolankotulan]

I don't know what you changed between your screens @ReptilePZ but it can't be the monitor settings.

Maybe you used Reshade or made a Photoshop simulation, but monitor settings do not change the intrinsic raw values of what is displayed on your screen, only the way they are displayed on your screen, and so taking a screenshot with different monitor settings gives the exact same images in which other people won't be able to see any difference.

Anyway, the horse in your second screenshot is still bluish and my monitor is perfectly calibrated (working in the image editing, color management is my main area of expertise).

And if the color of the horse is around 13/13/18, as @GuyNwah said, then unlike what he said, we're far from a chromatically well balanced realistic black.

For a perfect black or any grey, digitally speaking, the RGB values have to be X/X/X. But this is a bit too much artificial. For a more chromatically correct "realistic" "shining" black, if we consider the daylight, the RGB values should be something like this: X/X/X+1 or 2 (and not X/X/X+5 which is way too much).

Open Photoshop and fill a background with these RGB values (13/13/18) and notice by yourself that this is nothing like black (or if it looks black, then your monitor is displaying slightly (at minimum) too dark).

Good values could be 13/13/15 or 11/11/13 or even 8/8/9 but clearly and definitely not 13/13/18.

 

[cyberpunkforever]

they are not black, they are purple

 

[ReptilePZ]

I don't know what you changed between your screens @ReptilePZ but it can't be the monitor settings.

Lowered the gamma and upped the contrast, that is all.

Good values could be 13/13/15 or 11/11/13 or even 8/8/9 but clearly and definitely not 13/13/18.

You can achieve those by tweaking your settings until the colours are the way you'd like them to be. Point being, you can play around with your display settings and get a good result, which means chances of CDPR releasing a "fix", which is what some people in this thread seem to want, seems highly unlikely, as there's nothing to really fix. Other than enabling more custom display settings from the in-game options, I don't see what else could be done.

 

[nolankotulan]

Well, your point is a bit (not to say totally) nonsensical.

It is totally absurd to "play around" with your monitor settings to get one and only one texture looking right as it will affect everything else (which is displaying correctly without any tweak by default) in a wrong way in the same time. If the texture is bluish (and it is), rawly, digitally speaking, there is something to fix, and that's the said texture, nothing else.

And this could be fixed in a really easy way; open the texture in Photoshop, open the Hue and Saturation panel, select the blue channel and set the saturation around -60% or -80%. Problem is fixed and there's nothing left to talk about.

Sure, the in-game saturation is globally set a bit too high (that's subjective, but it looks like a lot of people share this opinion), but if you apply 200% (for exemple) saturation to something that is almost totally desaturated, the said applied post-processing saturation effect will be almost nullified.

Perfect black at 200% saturation remain perfectly black, and an almost black color at 200% remain an almost black color. And 13/13/18 isn't an almost black color. It's a dark color, but it's still too much saturated, rawly speaking, for something that is supposed to be black and over it subject to post-processing (shaders and lighting).

So they could (and should) either fix the texture, or tone down the global saturation of the whole game. The first solution would be better, as this texture hue is clearly out of place. That being done, an in-game saturation slider wouldn't be a bad idea, so every player could then set the global saturation of the game to his liking.