Defunct graphics settings

[WeDoStuffUncorp]

While testing Terasology's graphics settings recently, I found a few settings that didn't seem to work as intended or at all.

The following is a list of all of these settings, as well as notes on each one:

• Clamp Lighting - no notes
• Extra Lighting - as far as I can tell, it doesn't seem to actually add any extra lighting... may require further testing
• ✔️ Vignette - makes the screen slightly darker at the edges, but the effect isn't noticeable enough to bring any value
• ✔️ Eye-Adaptation - like vignette, the effect of the setting isn't noticeable enough, but I believe that if it can be upscaled then it could be useful
• ✔️ Bloom - doesn't seem to work, and strangely disables the Light Shafts setting while it's activated

[AuroraBorealish]

Additional graphical issue: Torches all flicker in unison with "Flickering lights" on, which is the default setting.
Personally, this is quite jarring, and makes it so that no matter how many torches, it will be completely dark every 2 seconds or so, when inside a house with indoor lighting.

[Imitater967]

About Vignette, we need to change the texture mannually at org/terasology/engine/assets/textures/vignette.png
About the eye adaption, I already fixed it at https://github.com/Terasology/CoreRendering/pull/77
About the Bloom, exactly what you said.
ExtraLightning is normalMapping, but we don't see any normalmap related document in the tutorial.
ClampLightning is just a empy property and just usless,
so I suggest remove clamplightning in both ui and Rendering Confing,
bloom, extralightning just remove them in UI, because they are likely needed in the future.

[Imitater967]

Additional graphical issue: Torches all flicker in unison with "Flickering lights" on, which is the default setting. Personally, this is quite jarring, and makes it so that no matter how many torches, it will be completely dark every 2 seconds or so, when inside a house with indoor lighting.

You can find related code at globalFunctionsFragIncl.glsl, the flickeringLightOffset seems separated perchunk, instead of perblock.

I think, we may add some parameter like waving the water .

forexample

[Imitater967]

2 quest remain.
remove clamp lightning from UI, rendering config and any related code you can find.
investigate how to separate the flickering light offset per block instead of per chunk (we need to be considerate of the performance impact here, though - if it impacts performance noticably we probably don't want to merge that until we improved performance a bunch first)

[jdrueckert]

Eye-adaptation fixed by Terasology/CoreRendering#77
Bloom fixed by Terasology/CoreRendering#78
Vignette improved by Terasology/CoreRendering#80

Thank you for the great work @Imitater967 💚

[soloturn]

Clamp Lighting: closing the loop on the remaining TODO

Picking up the last open item from this thread - @Imitater967's three fixes (eye-adaptation #77, bloom #78, vignette #80) are already merged into CoreRendering's develop, confirmed by checking this workspace's checkout. That leaves the "2 quest remain" from the April 2024 comment:

1. Remove Clamp Lighting from UI, RenderingConfig, and any related code - still unimplemented, still present, unchanged. Opened PRs for it (below).
2. Separate the flickering-light offset per block instead of per chunk - explicitly flagged as performance-sensitive by the maintainer thread ("we probably don't want to merge that until we improved performance a bunch first"). Not touching this one - it needs real profiling on a running client, which I don't have here, and the maintainer's own caution against merging it prematurely stands.

On removal, not fixing

Traced what Clamp Lighting actually does: it clamps the deferred lighting pass's output color to [0.0, 1.0] before later HDR-aware post-processing (bloom, eye adaptation, tone mapping) runs on it. Most framebuffer formats already clamp on write regardless, so the setting only has a visible effect in specific HDR configurations - consistent with the original report ("no notes" / doesn't seem to do anything). Not a bug to fix; a setting whose effect never showed up where a player toggling it would look. Matches @Imitater967's original assessment and the explicit ask to remove it outright.

PRs

• Config/UI removal: chore(rendering): remove the Clamp Lighting setting #5370
• Shader-side removal: chore(rendering): remove the Clamp Lighting effect Terasology/CoreRendering#85

Closing this once those are up, since the remaining item (per-block flickering) needs a profiling session this environment can't do and shouldn't block on a stale tracking issue - worth its own focused issue if someone picks it up.

[soloturn]

Fix opened: #5370 (engine) / Terasology/CoreRendering#85 (shader). Remaining per-block flicker item split out to its own issue: #5371, since it's performance-sensitive and out of scope for what was fixable by reading alone.