Honestly you're missing the point - i'm well aware of atmospheric effects. Just look at the screenshots i'm posting, compared to the starfields seen from the ISS. Yeah it's a dark background with light dots. So was the background in classic Elite. It's the qualities of the dark background and light dots that you're overlooking. The subtleties, not the broad strokes.
Backdrop of stars looks flat?
- Thread starter DogTailRed2
- Start date
Honestly you're missing the point - i'm well aware of atmospheric effects. Just look at the screenshots i'm posting, compared to the starfields seen from the ISS. Yeah it's a dark background with light dots. So was the background in classic Elite. It's the qualities of the dark background and light dots that you're overlooking. The subtleties, not the broad strokes.
Oh please, stop playing semantics. The game does not draw the entire Milky Way in the distance. There's a geometric sphere where the inside surface has a star map texture applied to it. You can clearly see it in 3D. It's not nearly as visible in 2D. I can literally see the curve of the sky box in game in 3D. It does NOT appear "how it should be". It looks like a game sky box, not an undefined amount of distance.
LOL what? A realistic looking sky wouldn't be realistic? What, exactly, are you trying to object to?
Stars don't radiate light? Distant ones aren't smaller? The real sky lacks depth? Have you even looked at the screenshots i'm posting from my game?
It's actually a 2D bitmap, redrawn each time you hyperspace, which is also why we have the same hyperspace anim each time - otherwise they'd have the option of warp-driving the starfield upon hyperspacing, a la Star Trek or whatever. And you've gotta admit, that'd look so much cooler. But they can't, because it's a 2D wall.
Nevermind, this is a pointless argument, since you have simply decided that it is not enough, so nothing I say can make you think anything else. As for me, I like the way it is now in the game. But of course none of us (if we are not astronauts that have been in space) can claim to say what would really be realistic, since camera images cannot tell you how space from space would seem to your eyes!
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Of course not, and it is because of exactly two reasons:
1) You know this is only a game, and
2) You have decided that what you now see is not enough
Oh right yeah no, you've nailed it, i think. Sorry i wasted everyone's time, it's only a game, and i'm a big wet blanket - pev69 has sussed it, put me bang to rights there mate, cheers for that.
I stuck two Post-It notes on my monitors, one reads "this is only a game", and the other says "you are a MELT" and now everything looks great. How silly of me. False alarm everyone, i make a full retraction. My bad..
Having traveled the galaxy, not even far, i can appreciate how the star map changes with my position, how a nebula is a 3d physical object that you can move around, if you target a brown dwarf and it is close enough to your system you can squint and see it, Every object in the galaxy has a position in space(though you dont see them all, that would be insanely stupid) and is as such represented truthfully on the sky box, what more do you want? My head tracking does a good job or letting me enjoy the scenery, if you use a DK2 with virtual 3d then i would guess the game wouldnt look as good as it should because virtual 3d visions sucksballs in everything, movies or games and dk2 resolution and refresh rate isnt great either. It's a dumb gimmick.
Nothing you can say? Don't be so modest, you've completely cured me, it was fine all along, as good as it can possibly be, and i'm indebted to your thoughtful and considered replies. Thank you.
Are you a chocolate melt ? I like chocolate melts.
Please. My intention has not been to bash your opinion, only to show that mine is a different one. Sorry if I really hurt you though!
Isn't that a contradiction. An evocative landscape sounds to me like an X-3 style look whereas the feeling of drifting alone in space would be deep blacks (depending on where you are) with small stars.
If you want evocative landscapes, travel to a nebula. I've been seeing some pretty good landscapes in those
Heh, I was thinking the exact same thing.
That the stars are in the right place is impressive, however there don't seem to be many stars towards the edges, while there are plenty of bright stars in the galaxy map. And what I don't understand is why a lot of nebulae look far better in the galaxy map than pre-rendered while flying around. The backside of nebulae further out is downright ugly. For example:
There is something wrong with the way the skybox is rendered.
Looks beautiful on my screen.
As quoted in another thread about the skybox.
go into your graphicsconfiguration.xml and change GalaxyBackground Quality high Texturesize to 4096
Makes the milky way galaxy bitmap a tad sharper.
As for the starfield itself, no problem here, thankfully FD removed the "Christmas tree stars" in Beta. to the OP try fiddling about with your gamma settings, also a sweetfx preset is available on the forums, might help you out as well just run a search
go into your graphicsconfiguration.xml and change GalaxyBackground Quality high Texturesize to 4096
Makes the milky way galaxy bitmap a tad sharper.
As for the starfield itself, no problem here, thankfully FD removed the "Christmas tree stars" in Beta. to the OP try fiddling about with your gamma settings, also a sweetfx preset is available on the forums, might help you out as well just run a search
I've always thought that.
I'd expected more foreground depth like the nebulas in Freespace 2.
[video=youtube;wWHp0qtkCGw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWHp0qtkCGw[/video]
This is from 15 years ago - I had hoped for a better rendered version of this ghost-fog in areas of the galaxy in ED.
Its spooky to drive through, and gives a real sense of speed and vector during dogfights.
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I run on a 1080p projector and I notice a pretty big difference in definition when switching to my LED TV. I've done my best to mitigate the loss of black levels but would recommend you calibrate your monitors settings, possibly gamma in windows as well as gamma in the game to see if you can get the stars to pop a little more.