Planets grapihics quality leaves a lot to be desired

[Ydiss]

Yep. The engine's going through growing pains and getting these compute shaders and other things to behave is a big job. Recent sneak peaks have demonstrated numbers of issues that are being and have been addressed. It's entirely reasonable for progress on the terrain graphics to be where they are. I think most people get this.

What I personally don't get is the idea that it's an artistic decision, rather than a technical or resources (time/money) issue for things to look the way they are currently. People say that rocky planets probably shouldn't look rocky because there's no weathering on atmosphere-less worlds to make things interesting. Or that we don't know what an ice world might look like. That gets to me because it goes somewhat against the excitement of the current time when we're getting all these great images from the planets and moons in our own system. These worlds are complex and awe inspiring. The moons of Jupitor alone look totally unique and interesting...

https://moonipulations.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/moons.png

I'm not going to judge horizons graphics but I'm also not going to defend blandness. The current state of things is the current state of things. That's all you need to say. These other arguments floating around are just weird.

Agreed. But Europa in the game looks really close to those images. So it's likely that we can ignore people who claim otherwise.

As pretty as it looks from space, it's just not going to have such a cool palette when you're 100m from it. It's going to look bland compared. Just like the ground you and I stand on looks bland compared to the amazing views of Earth from space.

Lighting is also important.

 

[cjjacobs97]

This is, in my honest opinion, what Europa and planets should look like in ED:
All pics are taken from the Wanderers short film so I apologise for the crappy cropping lol.

https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5709/23369407265_a2ae95292c_b.jpg

https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/697/23073637740_cd57e3cc73_b.jpg

Planets with atmospheres - probably impossible to achieve in the nearest future.
https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5638/23261038352_bb76fa6d09_b.jpg





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This looks quite unimpressing imo.
https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5752/23261210682_85eb808d26_b.jpg
No indicators that people actually lives there. No tracks, no giant parabole dish, tunnels should connect the different buildings, hangars look EXACTLY as the ones in the space stations, they should have domes or something where they could produce oxygen or something lol.
It just looks rushed and empty.

I think the planet from in orbital cruise looks amazing, and the sides of the little cove hes in are textured really nicely, but your right the ground lacks, hopefully in time it will improve with the station, and subsurface scattering should fix the surface. It doesnt seem rushed other than that, the way they create these planets is very interesting and looks like there will be variety.

 

[Ekar]

As pretty as it looks from space, it's just not going to have such a cool palette when you're 100m from it. It's going to look bland compared. Just like the ground you and I stand on looks bland compared to the amazing views of Earth from space.

This is defending blandness and untrue. There's just as much detail in my current position as any other.

 

[Ydiss]

This is defending blandness and untrue. There's just as much detail in my current position as any other.

Are you saying dirt or rock looks equally spectacular close up as it does when looking at a planet from space?

 

[stripealipe]

I'll be all over the Beta tomorrow and i'm happy to take suggestions for interesting planets to go land on and video for all to see.

 

[Ekar]

Are you saying dirt or rock looks equally spectacular close up as it does when looking at a planet from space?

If you'd just been given the gift of sight, you'd probably think a pile of rocks and dirt was pretty spectacular. We don't see planets from space often so that to us is more interesting than looking at cracks in concrete. But details are there.

 

[shreddog]

As pretty as it looks from space, it's just not going to have such a cool palette when you're 100m from it. It's going to look bland compared. Just like the ground you and I stand on looks bland compared to the amazing views of Earth from space.

Err.. Earth is more varied than anything we could create on a computer. So not the best example

 

[Soliluna]

If you'd just been given the gift of sight, you'd probably think a pile of rocks and dirt was pretty spectacular. We don't see planets from space often so that to us is more interesting than looking at cracks in concrete. But details are there.

http://static4.depositphotos.com/10...10121-Concrete-with-heavy-cracks-and-moth.jpg

WOA! How did you get that picture man? That's amazing! Look at the detail and variation in colour!!!!

I don't think it is just the fact that we see them all the time, because I don't see the things on Earth all the time. I think when you see the planet as a whole it is awe inspiring, it is both scary, poignant and beautiful in equal measures. Concrete would never do that, no matter how much detail it had.

 

[Ydiss]

If you'd just been given the gift of sight, you'd probably think a pile of rocks and dirt was pretty spectacular. We don't see planets from space often so that to us is more interesting than looking at cracks in concrete. But details are there.

http://static4.depositphotos.com/10...10121-Concrete-with-heavy-cracks-and-moth.jpg

We've not seen a high definition screen shot yet. It might look decent up close. But thousands of kilometres of that wouldn't look spectacular, no.

I won't defend it if low resolution, either. I'm just making a point that a planet scale view offers much more variation than 1km up. I'm not really wrong, either. You can see what I mean in the video. Canyons, cracks and craters are visible from space. But there is no way you can see that sort of feature when close to the ground unless you're actually in one.

And, these are barren rocky planets.

So long as the resolution is good, that's as good as you can realistically get. There won't be many features everywhere because there's no atmosphere to form them.

Err.. Earth is more varied than anything we could create on a computer. So not the best example

I just meant dirt, concrete, grass, water etc

 

[Kris]

I think we will get enough variation. Planet reveal videos and sneak peek videos have shown that.

 

[Varrag]

Are you saying dirt or rock looks equally spectacular close up as it does when looking at a planet from space?

Often they do, mate. Seriously, your example wasn't that good. Earth from the ground is spectacular same as from the orbit, or even more. Anyway, I thought we were talking about view reaching few kilometers around, not the dirt below our feet

 

[Ekar]

WOA! How did you get that picture man? That's amazing! Look at the detail and variation in colour!!!!

I don't think it is just the fact that we see them all the time, because I don't see the things on Earth all the time. I think when you see the planet as a whole it is awe inspiring, it is both scary, poignant and beautiful in equal measures. Concrete would never do that, no matter how much detail it had.

I agree.. the emotional effect is obviously going to be different. I was just talking details. But there's a whole bunch of intellectual stuff that we project when seeing planets... like 'woah, that thing must be gigantic'. Or, 'isn't it amazing that we're able to take such great pictures of this?' or 'No-one's ever seen this before. This is pretty special'. You could flatten all that and say 'It's just a big ball of rock and ice. They're everywhere.. no big deal'. But these are all fingers pointing to the moon as it were. Not the moon itself.

 

[Jigsaw]

From the most recent vide where David is flying down on Europa.

Planet detail compared to Commanche game from the 90s

Lets just say I hope it will improve!

View attachment 77984

View attachment 77985

View attachment 77986

Are you really comparing handcrafted mission areas of perhaps 10x10 kilometers with millions (!) of procedurally generated planets that each have thousands upon thousand square kilometers?

 

[Ydiss]

Often they do, mate. Seriously, your example wasn't that good. Earth from the ground is spectacular same as from the orbit, or even more. Anyway, I thought we were talking about view reaching few kilometers around, not the dirt below our feet

I'm talking about dirt. Or sand. Or rock.

These planets we're going to access in 2.0 are barren rocky planets. They'll look nice from space but up close they will look barren. They'll look like miles and miles of rock. And mostly featureless rock. Because that's how it actually is.

OK, a different example. The moon looks beautiful from space. Get right down to the surface, though, and it's just grey rock. All around. Unless you happen to be on the edge of a crater, it looks lifeless, barren and very, very grey.

That's how it'll be in ED.

Believe it or not, we will have to explore to find interesting features. And it might mean we have to wait until the light source is just right to make the features look wow.

But randomly landing on a rocky planet and expecting anything but bland is ignoring what this game is about. 1:1 scale, procedurally generated worlds that are as close to reality as data allows.

So barren rocks = barren rocks. It's not going to look amazing most of the time. So long as the textures are high quality and varied, it'll be as good as can be expected.

Each type of planet will be varied compared to another, in terms of colour pallete, but there isn't much variation on the planet itself. And we should all just get used to that idea.

 

[W4rSkuLL]

Yep. The engine's going through growing pains and getting these compute shaders and other things to behave is a big job. Recent sneak peaks have demonstrated numbers of issues that are being and have been addressed. It's entirely reasonable for progress on the terrain graphics to be where they are. I think most people get this.

What I personally don't get is the idea that it's an artistic decision, rather than a technical or resources (time/money) issue for things to look the way they are currently. People say that rocky planets probably shouldn't look rocky because there's no weathering on atmosphere-less worlds to make things interesting. Or that we don't know what an ice world might look like. That gets to me because it goes somewhat against the excitement of the current time when we're getting all these great images from the planets and moons in our own system. These worlds are complex and awe inspiring. The moons of Jupitor alone look totally unique and interesting...

https://moonipulations.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/moons.png

I'm not going to judge horizons graphics but I'm also not going to defend blandness. The current state of things is the current state of things. That's all you need to say. These other arguments floating around are just weird.

Many fine examples of moons here. The variation is amazing even in our own solar system. The current state is the current state. No doubt about that. Though I am curious if E.D ever will be able to bring my 2 year old Geforce 780 Gtx SLI setup to its knees. If I had a 4k monitor I think maybe frame rates would have been low in some scenarios, but hey I am just speculating. I bought myself an Acer xb270h with G-Sync and I can run the game in 120 hertz. But if E.D support G-Sync I dont know. I suppose so. What I am really looking forward to next is to join the VR familly. I had my eyes set on a Rift first but now I am looking the HTC Vive. HTC seems to have a better set than Rift right now.

 

[Ekar]

It's not going to look amazing most of the time. So long as the textures are high quality and varied, it'll be as good as can be expected.

Each type of planet will be varied compared to another, in terms of colour pallete, but there isn't much variation on the planet itself. And we should all just get used to that idea.

If the moon graphics looked like this..

I'd be really happy. The problem is that currently (as shown in previews) the game renders a relatively unstimulating landscape even more so by having a single repeating texture run through everything and very little variation in the few things that you would expect to see on rocky planets, ie- rocks.


This is the Outtera engine for comparison..





It's still just rocks and dirt (minus a bit of grass, ignore that)... it just looks way cooler.

 

[dannysquid]

I'm going to have to wait to see it in action before I criticise it! Certainly a little sub-surface scattering will help. And wouldn't smooth ice/snow have specular highlights/(or more ambitiously, reflections)? Perhaps the cleverness of one part of the engine stops them doing this. I don't think their oceans have specular highlights when seen from space. Or perhaps I'm just not looking carefully enough.

All of this is offset by the wonderfulness of the actual landscapes, which look pretty great to me.

 

[Cynaqq]

If the moon graphics looked like this..

http://sservi.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/drupal/Apollo-17-Shorty-Crater.jpg

I'd be really happy. The problem is that currently (as shown in previews) the game renders a relatively unstimulating landscape even more so by having a single repeating texture run through everything and very little variation in the few things that you would expect to see on rocky planets, ie- rocks.


This is the Outtera engine for comparison..

View attachment 78103

It's still just rocks and dirt... it just looks way cooler.

I'm not even going into the 'Outerra generates one single planet' argument.

That picture is taken from an Earth Like planet surface. In order to get that variation in ground formation, you need different minerals, you need the chemistry to separate those minerals aka water, an atmosphere for that varied lighting, and life.

What you see there is rocks either embedded or partially covered by dirt. Sorry but dirt is decomposed living things. This kind of formation does not only require an atmosphere but life on top of that.

I agree this is more interesting. I don't see how Horizons can bring this about and still be scientifically accurate.

Edit: Upon closer inspection, that surface even looks to have current primitive plant life on it but can't be sure.

 

[Ekar]

[/I]What you see there is rocks either embedded or partially covered by dirt. Sorry but dirt is decomposed living things. This kind of formation does not only require an atmosphere but life on top of that.

I agree this is more interesting. I don't see how Horizons can bring this about and still be scientifically accurate.

Edit: Upon closer inspection, that surface even looks to have current primitive plant life on it but can't be sure.

You didn't see the moon picture I posted above? Rocks embedded in dirt... I wish people would actually look at the things I post.

 

[Ydiss]

If the moon graphics looked like this..

http://sservi.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/drupal/Apollo-17-Shorty-Crater.jpg

I'd be really happy. The problem is that currently (as shown in previews) the game renders a relatively unstimulating landscape even more so by having a single repeating texture run through everything and very little variation in the few things that you would expect to see on rocky planets, ie- rocks.


This is the Outtera engine for comparison..

View attachment 78103

View attachment 78104

It's still just rocks and dirt (minus a bit of grass, ignore that)... it just looks way cooler.

I've seen several scattered rocks in the videos we've seen. Now, I think they look a little "tacked on" and they don't look embedded. So I'll reserve judgement until I actually see more. But you've suggested you think the surface is 100% without features and I'm not sure that's right at all.

And I can find a featureless image of the moon:

Flat and very grey. I'm certain there are many places on the moon that are even more featureless. But the thing is, most images you'll see are nice ones. With great lighting. Of nice features.

To further drive my point home (in a post where I was actually agreeing with you):

Sahara desert from space:

Sahara desert close up.

Yup, again, you can find loads of beautiful pictures of the Sahara desert. But there will be hundreds of square miles of boring sand, all the same texture. All the same colour.

I know you won't accept featureless blandness and I get you want rocks. But my point is these planets are still mostly barren, you haven't yet seen all of them, you've only seen a tiny fraction of a couple planets, and you've yet to see high resolution imagery.

I'll bet that, within a day or two of beta release, we'll get to see loads of beautiful images of features.