Nebula graphics in galaxy map

[oddreal]

Hello fellow explorers,

Help me to clarify one thing as I'm pretty new to exploration.

I'm currently about 3000 ly from sol and about to make my way to the Seagull Nebula. Although I've been travelling a week or two couple of hours a day, I just now noticed the similarity of many nebulae in the galaxy map. For instance the Seagull Nebula, Rosetta Nebula and Soul Nebula share the same graphic object... I know that most of the nebulae doesn't compare exactly with the Hubble images but some at least resemble the real ones. Am I missing something?

I went through the Orion Nebula and took many beautiful screenshots and was a amazed, I could recognize many objects like Messier 78. I really fell in love with this game after these experiences. I have been trading and fighting from the release but exploring is now my favorite activity. I don't even care if I get back alive to cash in.

So my question is are the nebula graphics really unique when I'm close by and is the galaxy map just showing some generic nebula cloud to fill the space?

I really hope that this is the case since my motivation for exploring is experiencing something new and take some nice screenshots I didn't find anything about this in the forums so I apologize if my question has been answered before.

 

[Bacon Sarnie]

I have now been inside 5 nebulas, found all of them to be somewhat underwhelming, space goes darker and occasionally changes colour a little.
The journey to them and getting right to the edge is enjoyable, the view when say 10ly outside most nebulas is great, sadly when you get inside theres nothing much.

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

I have now been inside 5 nebulas, found all of them to be somewhat underwhelming, space goes darker and occasionally changes colour a little.
The journey to them and getting right to the edge is enjoyable, the view when say 10ly outside most nebulas is great, sadly when you get inside theres nothing much.

That's pretty much my view, too.

 

[ZephyrDark]

Yes, 95% of the nebulae in game are cookie-cutter copy paste of three different variants. There are, however, many very beautiful ones out there that you just need to find. Hopefully they update each nebula to look like their real life counterpart over time, but as of right now we'll just have to wait and see.

 

[CMDR Starschulz]

I have now been inside 5 nebulas, found all of them to be somewhat underwhelming, space goes darker and occasionally changes colour a little.
The journey to them and getting right to the edge is enjoyable, the view when say 10ly outside most nebulas is great, sadly when you get inside theres nothing much.

I assume you are flying away from the star in the system, right? i have seen screenshots of the sky completely blue

 

[xeeleeqax]

I wonder if it would be similar in real life. The features telescopes see are huge but have so much detail say for example "the pillars of creation" which are 10-20ly long i think. So I wonder if close up they just look like diffuse clouds of gas lighted by stars as they appear in the game.

 

[nexxo]

I have now been inside 5 nebulas, found all of them to be somewhat underwhelming, space goes darker and occasionally changes colour a little.
The journey to them and getting right to the edge is enjoyable, the view when say 10ly outside most nebulas is great, sadly when you get inside theres nothing much.

I think that at some point attempts at realism have to give way to artistic interpretation a bit. Eve Online does awesome nebulae. We need some similar eye candy here.

 

[hoppingdeth]

I have now been inside 5 nebulas, found all of them to be somewhat underwhelming, space goes darker and occasionally changes colour a little.
The journey to them and getting right to the edge is enjoyable, the view when say 10ly outside most nebulas is great, sadly when you get inside theres nothing much.

I disagree. I love being inside nebulas!

 

[Aussiedroid]

I've been to quite a few nebulas now, but most I find to be the same 'look'. Some seem to have different shapes but essentially look the same as others I have visited.

I still love visiting them though, but do wish they were more unique & more detailed.

I assumed they were all different from what limited knowledge I have of the galaxy, but doesn't seem to be in ED.

 

[oddreal]

So it's as I feared. I'm a little disappointed. I'll have to reconsider my route and find me some other nebulas to explore. Some that are unique. My original plan was to head to the Seagull Nebula from Cone Nebula and continue my journey through Rosette and Monkey Head. I can't see the Seagull Nebula so clearly where I'm currently located but now I'm assuming its the same as Rosette...

I have now been inside 5 nebulas, found all of them to be somewhat underwhelming, space goes darker and occasionally changes colour a little.
The journey to them and getting right to the edge is enjoyable, the view when say 10ly outside most nebulas is great, sadly when you get inside theres nothing much.

I think this is as it should be. Once you are inside, the matter should block part of the light from the other stars. So your sky should look more black.

I disagree. I love being inside nebulas!

Yeah, best view you get is from about a few ten light years away depending on the nebula size. My God, it's full of color!

 

[Nick Sticks]

Of course, in real life if we were actually there in a spaceship, we wouldn't even be seeing the nebulas as all the wonderful pictures show them as they are usually composites made up from many pictures of different channels over many hours exposure:
-
http://petapixel.com/2014/01/03/spe...a-photograph-almost-good-enough-rival-hubble/
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I still like looking at them and love the way they get bigger and bigger the closer you get.
-

 

[Hellhawk666]

Nebulae are pretty much as I expected (better in some ways). You get the most interesting view from 10-100LS away, and the inside view is usually colourful, but not spectacular. Probably it's fairly realistic.

I'm not sure about the shapes - how much they are individually sculpted. I've been to about 30 now and they all seemed to be individual, but with similarities. If they are genuinely cookie-cutter shapes then they've done a good job because it's not jarringly noticeable.

Some do seem to have been modelled to look like the real thing, others don't really match reality so well. I guess it's due to limitations with the engine.

The only real problem is the parallel barring effect I've noticed with several - it's definitely a graphics glitch.

 

[Mephane]

I have now been inside 5 nebulas, found all of them to be somewhat underwhelming, space goes darker and occasionally changes colour a little.
The journey to them and getting right to the edge is enjoyable, the view when say 10ly outside most nebulas is great, sadly when you get inside theres nothing much.

This has also been my experience, only in rare cases where the nebula has a very striking color(1) is the view from inside interesting, but they are wonderful to look at from right outside of them(2).


1.)

Spoiler

2.)

Spoiler

 

[oddreal]

Of course, in real life if we were actually there in a spaceship, we wouldn't even be seeing the nebulas as all the wonderful pictures show them as they are usually composites made up from many pictures of different channels over many hours exposure:
-
http://petapixel.com/2014/01/03/spe...a-photograph-almost-good-enough-rival-hubble/
-
I still like looking at them and love the way they get bigger and bigger the closer you get.
-

Very true. And of course in real life we see the nebulas like they were hundreds or thousands of years ago. For example the Cat's eye nebula is located about 3300 light years away so we see it as it was 3300 years ago. By the time we travelled there the whole thing would probably be dissolved and gone. For understandable reasons time isn't taken into account while traveling

 

[Tinman]

Nebulae are pretty much as I expected (better in some ways). You get the most interesting view from 10-100LS away, and the inside view is usually colourful, but not spectacular. Probably it's fairly realistic.

I'm not sure about the shapes - how much they are individually sculpted. I've been to about 30 now and they all seemed to be individual, but with similarities. If they are genuinely cookie-cutter shapes then they've done a good job because it's not jarringly noticeable.

Some do seem to have been modelled to look like the real thing, others don't really match reality so well. I guess it's due to limitations with the engine.

The only real problem is the parallel barring effect I've noticed with several - it's definitely a graphics glitch.

Nah, more likely lack of dev time. They obviously focused more on the more prominent (and well known) nebulas close by. The further away you get the more generic they become.

Here's some interesting tidbits from a while back:

Placement is procedural based on all the lovely maths the galaxy guys use however the assets are hand authored. We did look into procedurally generating them but we considered it a time sink for that point in the project. We also had to guarantee the local ones looked as close as possible to the real things so we went down this route. Certainly haven't ruled out changing things in future releases though! Think of it a bit like the planets, Earth etc we override to use very specific data, everything else uses procedural data.

I believe distance to the core is a good factor for how numerous they are. Too close and the dust is absorbed into stars and too far away there's not enough matter. They seem more prevalent above and below the galactic plane. Sorry I can't elaborate on the math's it's way beyond my comprehension but it is based on all the existing data available, as is all the galactic dust you see. Quite a lot of debates about the data sets we used and how they were visualised. It's strange to think a lot of this data is written down but rarely visualised! There's also the factor of "what people believe is real" vs what science says is real and we've tried to please both camps as best as possible while making the system work as a game in real time!

To answer a few questions then yes we have planetary nebulas in, you can go find the ring nebula etc and they're there (we scaled them up a little in the map so you can find them but they're "life size" in game) They just exist as part of the background for now due to how we generate and update the background currently. Black hole wise I think we have 1 of 3 types in, I don't believe we've added the types with jets and accretion discs yet! Somewhere on the todo list!

In gameplay terms I think the distance you're kicked out of SC prevents any nastiness occurring, your ship will look after you, treat her well!

 

[acg515]

I went to the Hind nebula and the Pleiades and honestly they were pretty sweet. I mean it is just basically colored space so nothing amazing.

IRL I don't think you would be able to see a nebula quite as well up close but in game it's kind of sweet. I just chart routes between them sometimes and it is cool but I haven't been really far out yet in comparison to some of these guys, so I'm not a hardcore veteran explorer or anything, but I enjoy nebulae.

 

[SCADVID]

I wonder if it would be similar in real life. The features telescopes see are huge but have so much detail say for example "the pillars of creation" which are 10-20ly long i think. So I wonder if close up they just look like diffuse clouds of gas lighted by stars as they appear in the game.

Nope.

What we see are the "false color" Photoshopped images. Humans can only see the white light spectrum, where most nebulae the "color" ranges will be outside what humans can see. What we see without the filters and recoloring are dull black and white objects (sometimes with yellows/reds/blues streaks mixed in if lucky), instead.

In astrophotography filters are used to bring out certain features (like those pillars) otherwise it's difficult to see at all. M16/NGC6111 Eagle Nebula, for example, is usually viewed with the hydrogen-alpha filter. Why, until that famous Hubble collage, it was seen as extreme red in color (the Apollo 13 astronauts group photo and the M16 backdrop shows what I mean). The Hubble collage shows higher details when using the oxygen III filter (colored blue), too. Amateurs now can make photos like Hubble (but never in that detail or resolution), but it's expensive!

Still prefer gas-hyped photos over CCD astrophotography, though.

 

[roryscarlett]

I love the nebulae in this game. For most they are just an attractive backdrop but for explorers they present tempting targets!!!! My trip out to the Hind Nebula (around T Tauri) was my first nebula. Loved it....

 

[Tinman]

I love the nebulae in this game. For most they are just an attractive backdrop but for explorers they present tempting targets!!!! My trip out to the Hind Nebula (around T Tauri) was my first nebula. Loved it....

They are also bound to have been mapped already for the very same reason, especially the ones close by. When I went to the Pleiades nebula a while back I even met several other people flying around there. They did point me towards the black holes though!

 

[Kveldulf]

To human eyes space is pretty colourless. You get orange stars, blueish stars, some faintly yellow stars and everything else is pretty much grey/white. Almost every nebula I've seen through a scope was grey to my eyes. The Orion Nebula (M42) was ever so slightly greenish and I seem to remember a few planetary nebulae that had noticeable colours, but they were very much the exception. You need electronic eyes to see anything else.