Map colour contrast and an idea about what to do about it

[meltingSnowdrift]

Background
I was inspired by this[1] recent post which showed that I was not the only person with this concern.
The colour of certain parts of certain map layers has very little contrast with the colours of certain unit symbols. As shown by figure 1 below, this is especially true between the colour of the sea in relatively shallow water in the relief and bathymetry layer and the colour of friendly units. As shown by that forum post, this also appears to be true regarding the colour of the sea in the OpenTopoMap layer.

Proposed solution
While playing scenarios made by other people in which "day + night lighting" was enabled, I noticed that the usability of these map layers was significantly improved by the "night" shading applied by that setting. As shown by figures 2 and 3 below, this improvement is very apparent both for shallow water in the relief and bathymetry layer and for the sea in OpenTopoMap.
Considering this, I propose that some degree of shading, perhaps at least a level corresponding to twilight by the standards of day and night shading as it currently exists, be permanently applied to the entirety of those layers and to any other layers which prove to be affected by this problem. If this is objectionable for some reason which I have not foreseen, perhaps make such global shading an option which can be turned off when needed.

Figures

Screenshot 2023-11-03 071833.png (2.02 MiB) Viewed 167 times

Figure 1: It is difficult to see friendly units in shallow water over the relief and bathymetry layer without shading.

Screenshot 2023-11-03 071910.png (1.46 MiB) Viewed 167 times

Figure 2: Visibility of friendly units is greatly improved when the relief and bathymetry layer is darkened by night shading.

Screenshot 2023-11-03 072300.png (1.64 MiB) Viewed 167 times

Figure 3: Similar improvements occur for the OpenTopoMap layer under the same condition.

[1] https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 0&t=399478

[thewood1]

Since its now DX11, you use nVidia to control shading also. You can do it by game. You have to be a little careful because playing with shaders can impact performance a little. But I'll try that and see if it works.

Nevermind...CMO doesn't support the nVidia shader config app. There are 3rd party shader apps that are used a lot in the flight sim community I'll try.