Brightness Comparison - Elite vs. Real (class O)

[drkaii]

I finally found a planet close to a class O that is landable, which was an immensely satisfying find for me Sorry, it's on the other side of the galaxy so unless you are with DWE, might take a while.

Anyway, I just wanted to use it as a chance to demonstrate just how much the game filters the luminosity of stars. I personally wish that was optional, and we had a chance to see stars rendered with the right amount of "brightness", at least using all the tricks we have to make things look bright on a mono-luminous LCD screen. Space Engine does it well so I've made a comparison.

Bare in mind this: I couldn't, not matter how hard I tried, find an equivalent planet and star in Space Engine. I think a 6.5 solar radius class O with a planet only 115 light seconds away doesn't exist, and certainly doesn't seem to in Space Engine. The best I could do was a 3.5 solar radius class O with a planet 5 times further out.

This is approx 100x LESS bright than the Elite star (if L is proportional to square of distance and square of radius - we will assume they are roughly the same temperature) So yes, the Space Engine planet receives MUCH less light from its star than my Elite: Dangerous version, and yet look how overwhelmingly burningly brighter it is.

This just goes to show how much Elite filters. Maybe this thread can help people realise what level of realism they are missing out on and we can maybe make it a more hotly requested feature for a future update

What do you think?

Elite:

Spoiler

Planet Distance: 0.25AU
Star radius: 6.5 solar radii
Star class: O

Space Engine (real*):

Spoiler

Planet Distance: 1AU
Star radius: 3 solar radii
Star class: O
View attachment 109097

Planet Distance: 1.1AU
Star radius: 3.5 solar radii
Star class: O

*I obviously had to select graphics settings and so take this as a guide to how much brighter things really are. If it were your eyes and you were on these planets IRL, they would be burnt out their sockets so how bright it is "really" is hard to illustrate.

 

[Kneejo]

Remember in Elite you have a visor in your helmet.. I assume like the visors astronauts use these days, they are to prevent blindness. Probably in the future these visors can dynamically adjust to the light.. a technology that exists today already.

But i'm not sure on the lore part.. This is my interpretation that keeps the disbelief suspended.

Edit.. if there was a visor it should turn the dimming effect off in the outside camera.. but then.. the outside camera is not a realistic pilot experience.. hence why it's impossible to fly the ship while taking outside screenies

 

[drkaii]

Remember in Elite you have a visor in your helmet.. I assume like the visors astronauts use these days, they are to prevent blindness. Probably in the future these visors can dynamically adjust to the light.. a technology that exists today already.

But i'm not sure on the lore part.. This is my interpretation that keeps the disbelief suspended.

Of course, not challenging or discussing that. I know why its filtered, but I would just like there to be an option to "turn the visor off"...or see the stars true brightness when your canopy breaks, or in debug cam or something. I just want ​the option

 

[Kneejo]

You make a point there.. but it should only turn off when your visor breaks, in which case you probably die.. and it should be off in the outside view camera

As it is I think they did a great job, with the shadowpart of planets actually being lit up by the stars more when the distance to the main star increases. The flooding effect of the main star's light decreases with distance from the star.. this is also very neat. How the starry sky becomes more and more detailed when you supercruise away from the main star.

Lots of details to nitpick in this game.. I'm sure the developers take some ideas here and there from what players suggest, but personally I think other matters are more pressing.. like the ridiculous instancing problems.

 

[drkaii]

You make a point there.. but it should only turn off when your visor breaks, in which case you probably die.. and it should be off in the outside view camera

As it is I think they did a great job, with the shadowpart of planets actually being lit up by the stars more when the distance to the main star increases. The flooding effect of the main star's light decreases with distance from the star.. this is also very neat. How the starry sky becomes more and more detailed when you supercruise away from the main star.

Lots of details to nitpick in this game.. I'm sure the developers take some ideas here and there from what players suggest, but personally I think other matters are more pressing.. like the ridiculous instancing problems.

In theory any level of filtering won't be able to create an image like the elite one I shared. The contrast would be too great.

 

[Silvershadow]

In theory any level of filtering won't be able to create an image like the elite one I shared. The contrast would be too great.

This is a real-time computerized filtering method of the highly developed technology of the year 3302.

But I do support your idea of an additional "Real View"-option. It looks really amazing in Space Engine!

 

[Asp Explorer]

Of course, not challenging or discussing that. I know why its filtered, but I would just like there to be an option to "turn the visor off"...or see the stars true brightness when your canopy breaks, or in debug cam or something. I just want ​the option

Reminds me of that Sunshine movie where he asks to see the sun at 4%

Pity it all went a bit rubbish after that

 

[askavir]

Reminds me of that Sunshine movie where he asks to see the sun at 4%

Pity it all went a bit rubbish after that

True!

Its a pity, as the first two thirds of the movie are some of my favorite scifi from the last 10/15 years or more.

Also the scene when the crew gathers to see passing mercury is great.

video is low quality, unfortunately could not find a better one:

[video=youtube;Qb01U5aKEDQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb01U5aKEDQ[/video]

 

[SpaceMonkeyz]

True!

Its a pity, as the first two thirds of the movie are some of my favorite scifi from the last 10/15 years or more.

Also the scene when the crew gathers to see passing mercury is great.

video is low quality, unfortunately could not find a better one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb01U5aKEDQ

This is so strange and ironic that Sunshine is being discussed in a thread about light from O type stars. One of the things lurking on my computer that I have not posted yet is a video flyby of the Eta Carinae(binary type Os) system and the song I chose for the video is from Sunshine.

And man, can you believe what Eta Carinae A would look like with no filters @ 5,000,000L? I think it would blind us all right out of the game! I know I always talk about this star, but it IS my favorite star

 

[Hell Razor5543]

You make a point there.. but it should only turn off when your visor breaks, in which case you probably die.. and it should be off in the outside view camera

As it is I think they did a great job, with the shadowpart of planets actually being lit up by the stars more when the distance to the main star increases. The flooding effect of the main star's light decreases with distance from the star.. this is also very neat. How the starry sky becomes more and more detailed when you supercruise away from the main star.

Lots of details to nitpick in this game.. I'm sure the developers take some ideas here and there from what players suggest, but personally I think other matters are more pressing.. like the ridiculous instancing problems.

If I were to build a visor that had to handle extremes of light, I would use a material that started off almost completely opaque (when unpowered), and then could be adjusted electronically. That way, if power failed while you were in a very high light level, you would not have your sight permanently damaged. The Visor would normally be powered from the ship systems, but could also run from a solar cell mounted in the nose bridge. It can be adjusted, but only within safe levels. It also has a very simple control circuit, so that the more light the solar cell receives (and, therefore, the more power it generates) the less power gets sent to the lenses (so the darker they remain), while the remaining power goes into a storage system (so that personal equipment built into the suit such as the communication unit and temperature control units have a backup power supply).

 

[drkaii]

This is so strange and ironic that Sunshine is being discussed in a thread about light from O type stars. One of the things lurking on my computer that I have not posted yet is a video flyby of the Eta Carinae(binary type Os) system and the song I chose for the video is from Sunshine.

And man, can you believe what Eta Carinae A would look like with no filters @ 5,000,000L? I think it would blind us all right out of the game! I know I always talk about this star, but it IS my favorite star

View attachment 109105

Eta Carinae at 5,000,000ls (very dim)

EDIT: Oh you mean 5,000,000L (which is what you typed - sorry!)

What distance?

 

[SpaceMonkeyz]

View attachment 109105

Eta Carinae at 5,000,000ls (very dim)

EDIT: Oh you mean 5,000,000L (which is what you typed - sorry!)

What distance?

Crap I can't remember what distance this is. Eta B is foreground though, A is background, that I remember. I want to say this is 10k to 12k ls but not 100% on that. Which makes distance to Eta A about 14 to 16k ls

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OMG Drkaii I had not idea about Space Engine and that it was free.


Downloading on the right now!

 

[iain666]

If it were your eyes, they would be burnt out their sockets so how bright it is "really" is hard to illustrate.

I'm not sure my monitor's up to producing that level of brightness...

An option on closer-to-real would be nice, if they're going to do anything with that though I'd rather see an option to change the wavelengths being rendered on what I'm looking at so I can see false colour representations of things in non-visible parts of the spectrum.

Give me nebulae like the fantastic pictures we're used to that are actually a view of some other part(s) of the spectrum transposed onto visible light.

 

[WR3ND]

...

Give me nebulae like the fantastic pictures we're used to that are actually a view of some other part(s) of the spectrum transposed onto visible light.

They pretty much already do. The "nebulae" in this game aren't exactly accurate anyway. The Pleiades isn't even a nebula but a bit of interstellar dust near the cluster that you can't see with the naked eye.

If anything, I'd personally like it if nebulae and space in general were more realistic, but I understand this is a game that has limited resolution and resources to work with, and I can appreciate it for what it is.

 

[xondk]

I finally found a planet close to a class O that is landable, which was an immensely satisfying find for me Sorry, it's on the other side of the galaxy so unless you are with DWE, might take a while.

Anyway, I just wanted to use it as a chance to demonstrate just how much the game filters the luminosity of stars. I personally wish that was optional, and we had a chance to see stars rendered with the right amount of "brightness", at least using all the tricks we have to make things look bright on a mono-luminous LCD screen. Space Engine does it well so I've made a comparison.

Bare in mind this: I couldn't, not matter how hard I tried, find an equivalent planet and star in Space Engine. I think a 6.5 solar radius class O with a planet only 115 light seconds away doesn't exist, and certainly doesn't seem to in Space Engine. The best I could do was a 3.5 solar radius class O with a planet 5 times further out. So yes, the Space Engine planet receives MUCH less light from its star than my Elite: Dangerous version, and yet look how overwhelmingly burningly brighter it is.

This just goes to show how much Elite filters. Maybe this thread can help people realise what level of realism they are missing out on and we can maybe make it a more hotly requested feature for a future update

What do you think?

Elite:

Spoiler

Planet Distance: 115ls
Star radius: 6.5 solar radii
Star class: O
View attachment 109096

Space Engine (real*):

Spoiler

Planet Distance: 1ls
Star radius: 3 solar radii
Star class: O
View attachment 109097

Planet Distance: 1.1ls
Star radius: 3.5 solar radii
Star class: O
View attachment 109098

*I obviously had to select graphics settings and so take this as a guide to how much brighter things really are. If it were your eyes, they would be burnt out their sockets so how bright it is "really" is hard to illustrate.

would be quite interesting with the ability to modify your 'filter' and maybe have a "real" vision or similar.

That said, I think it is more a gameplay compromise, to avoid constant blinding then anything else, but a mode to get around that would be cool.

 

[Cmdr Frawd Digger]

I always thought our cockpit canopies must have a special tinting function, because there was no way I could look directly at a sun from 1AU but in ED I can look at it directly from 0.1LS.

I guess if FD modelled it at 100% it would blow out our monitors pretty quick

Frawd

 

[WR3ND]

...

OMG Drkaii I had not idea about Space Engine and that it was free.


Downloading on the right now!

It's a bit dated now, graphically speaking, but you might want to also check out Celestia if you'd like a "real" astronomy space sim. It's also free, of course.

Several years before Elite: Dangerous, I was getting myself lost in it and tryed to find my way home to Sol just for kicks, no joke.

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I always thought our cockpit canopies must have a special tinting function, because there was no way I could look directly at a sun from 1AU but in ED I can look at it directly from 0.1LS.

I guess if FD modelled it at 100% it would blow out our monitors pretty quick

Frawd

Yeah, canopy and/or suit, and you can even see the transition when you approach a star and everything gets darker. It wouldn't be practical if the pilots of ships are vaporized every time they go to refuel.

I'm glad that it is the way it is as it makes a lot more sense than the alternative which would be much less immersive, unless you're wanting to get immersed in radiation, of course.

 

[SpaceMonkeyz]

It's a bit dated now, graphically speaking, but you might want to also check out Celestia if you'd like a "real" astronomy space sim. It's also free, of course.

Several years before Elite: Dangerous, I was getting myself lost in it and tryed to find my way home to Sol just for kicks, no joke.

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Yeah, canopy and/or suit, and you can even see the transition when you approach a star and everything gets darker. It wouldn't be practical if the pilots of ships are vaporized every time they go to refuel.

I'm glad that it is the way it is as it makes a lot more sense than the alternative which would be much less immersive, unless you're wanting to get immersed in radiation, of course.

Thanks. I will check that out too.

 

[WR3ND]

Thanks. I will check that out too.

It is still pretty cool, as you can set the date and time and get accurate daylight on the Earth, see eclipses, find where to look in the night sky for various planets, or even to tell which moons of Jupiter you're looking at through a telescope based on their relative positions – just keep in mind that things are often inverted in a telescope.

You can also download more objects for it such as satellites, stars, higher res surfaces images, and so on.

I have it installed on my Linux (Debian/KDE) laptop as well so that I can use it "in the field."

Just keep in mind that it's more of an astronomy tool than a game (even though I've used it as a game of sorts – yeah, I'm really that nerdy).

Cheers.

 

[xondk]

That said, just saw a picture from a planet that is 25ls from the star and it is REALLY bright there so maybe it is better to find two exact same distance examples? shouldn't be that hard to find in space engine?