Lighting in Elite Dangerous

[Taylorius]

Hi

As an old Elite / Frontier player, I'm avidly following the development of Elite Dangerous. It looks like the game I've been waiting for most of my adult life, so bravo Frontier!

I dohave a question / comment about the lighting however. In space, I would expect very stark lit and shadowed areas on objects, consistent with illumination from the sun(s), and any nearby planets. Areas of shadow will be really black and rather hard edged. In ED though, objects seem to be lit much more evenly. For example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgMo64-ASvc

In this video, the first view of the Coriolis station, I would expect the station to be almost black, with the bottom right lit from the star (the planet itself is illuminated from the bottom right, slightly behind). Yet the part of the station facing us is illuminated - indeed the whole thing seems to be under even lighting, with no highlight on the lower right side at all.

To me this looks unrealistic, and breaks the spell somewhat. So I was wondering if the lighting is a work in progress, and / or what decisions have been made about it. Space lends itself to such gorgeous, stark, glinting images, to me it seems a shame to use a flat lighting scheme, and not make the most of it.

Cheers

Matt Taylor

Edit: I just realised that the video I linked to was not the latest version (doh) - however from looking at recent vids I think what I described is still the case.

 

[Tonberry]

A while ago I had the amd fix enabled (no suns or planets rendered) by accident. After some travel, I found myself in an 'unlit' asteroid field. I couldnt see ANYTHING, which led to a great deal of confusion and anguish. Realistic? Maybe. Fun? No. No it wasnt.

There needs to be a balance between realism and fun - it is a game after all.

 

[Taylorius]

A while ago I had the amd fix enabled (no suns or planets rendered) by accident. After some travel, I found myself in an 'unlit' asteroid field. I couldnt see ANYTHING, which led to a great deal of confusion and anguish. Realistic? Maybe. Fun? No. No it wasnt.

There needs to be a balance between realism and fun - it is a game after all.

Fair enough I don't suppose it makes sense to be truly pitch black - but I definitely think a more directional lighting scheme (driven by stars / planets) would add drama, and show off the objects' beautiful geometries to greater effect.

Cheers

Matt Taylor

 

[EidLeWeise]

Fair enough I don't suppose it makes sense to be truly pitch black - but I definitely think a more directional lighting scheme (driven by stars / planets) would add drama, and show off the objects' beautiful geometries to greater effect.

Cheers

Matt Taylor

It's definitely there and you're right it does make things more 'moody'. You can see this best in asteroids since when they're in shadow they are like little mines that are black against the black of space until the last second. The number of times I've bounced into one is crazy. Usually my own fault for going to fast, but you really think the way ahead is clear. I've also seen it to some effect when looking at someone elses ship. If they are behind the station and in shadow vs in the light...

The amount of light a sun produces I think is exaggerated since I heard that someone manually travelling out of a system still had light from the sun that was by now too far away to produce light. However I am willing to accept that as the price of seeing stuff!

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

A while ago I had the amd fix enabled (no suns or planets rendered) by accident. After some travel, I found myself in an 'unlit' asteroid field. I couldnt see ANYTHING, which led to a great deal of confusion and anguish. Realistic? Maybe. Fun? No. No it wasnt.

There needs to be a balance between realism and fun - it is a game after all.

Most fun game is with one button in one properly light room. Nah. It's really not.

 

[Machival]

With the Coriolis stations, it's important to keep in mind that they have a lot of lights on their surface, and so they always look a bit on the well-lit side. If you go into a gas giant's shadow and fly into the rings, you can really see how dark things get in ED. Although nothing is so dark that you can't see, the illumination is poor enough that it's significantly more difficult to see the oversized components of the rings. It's not some elder scrollsian faux night on the dark side of a planetary body.

 

[Hootmon]

This sort of thread can easily devolve into astrophysical minutia.

Space is (mostly) empty, but it isnt 'black'. There is light literally everywhere. Its a matter of degree.

ETA: Dont forget your ship has lights.

 

[jamieboo]

Hi

As an old Elite / Frontier player, I'm avidly following the development of Elite Dangerous. It looks like the game I've been waiting for most of my adult life, so bravo Frontier!

I dohave a question / comment about the lighting however. In space, I would expect very stark lit and shadowed areas on objects, consistent with illumination from the sun(s), and any nearby planets. Areas of shadow will be really black and rather hard edged. In ED though, objects seem to be lit much more evenly. For example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgMo64-ASvc

In this video, the first view of the Coriolis station, I would expect the station to be almost black, with the bottom right lit from the star (the planet itself is illuminated from the bottom right, slightly behind). Yet the part of the station facing us is illuminated - indeed the whole thing seems to be under even lighting, with no highlight on the lower right side at all.

To me this looks unrealistic, and breaks the spell somewhat. So I was wondering if the lighting is a work in progress, and / or what decisions have been made about it. Space lends itself to such gorgeous, stark, glinting images, to me it seems a shame to use a flat lighting scheme, and not make the most of it.

Cheers

Matt Taylor

Edit: I just realised that the video I linked to was not the latest version (doh) - however from looking at recent vids I think what I described is still the case.

Reckon I agree. Starker contrast and harder edged shadows would be splendid.

 

[Alric]

The stations are too dark, from a distance. They're lit up like Christmas trees.

 

[Angus]

The stations are too dark, from a distance. They're lit up like Christmas trees.

But if you look at a Christmas tree in a dark room, you see the lights but how much detail do you see in the tree, the needles etc? Not much, I reckon, and unless a station has lights placed to illuminate it, as opposed to windows with lights on inside, you won't see very much detail in the shadows.

From what I can see, the lighting is stark enough for my taste, but what confuses me is some people wishing to display parts of a ship exterior or the spacestation surface etc insist on "filming" it in black hole conditions.

 

[zynaps]

Hopefully we'll see an HDR rendering option when the game is released. Looking at the sun, a planet, an asteroid or even a sunlit station (close up) should black out most of the stars.

 

[Memnoch]

This sort of thread can easily devolve into astrophysical minutia.

Space is (mostly) empty, but it isnt 'black'. There is light literally everywhere. Its a matter of degree.

It's also that this light isn't striking anything in empty space so you cannot see it.

 

[Hootmon]

It's also that this light isn't striking anything in empty space so you cannot see it.

Light should be striking everything, just maybe not enough?

 

[Taylorius]

Light should be striking everything, just maybe not enough?

Rather than the absolute quantity of light, I think it's the ratio of brightest (lit by a star) to darkest (away from a star) that I think ought to be a little more pronounced. Our eyes are highly adaptive, so will automatically find a suitable "exposure".

In the end, I suppose it's an aesthetic judgement, rather than any need to be 100% scientifically accurate. For example, this classic image:

http://201movies.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/2001_spaceship2.jpg

This looks awesome, and it has the stark, blue / white high-lit side - but the "dark" side is by no means pitch black. The contrast, though, really shows off the beauty of the ship's shape.

Cheers

Matt

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Hopefully we'll see an HDR rendering option when the game is released. Looking at the sun, a planet, an asteroid or even a sunlit station (close up) should black out most of the stars.

They have tried it, and it didn't work particularly well. Maybe they will revisit that idea somewhere in future.

 

[Karkarand]

I think the current lighting looks great, and I think harder, higher-contrast lighting would look great as well... just an idea, but I think what's possibly wrong at the moment is that everything looks exactly the same, regardless of how much light there is, i.e. how far from the nearest star.

So lets say you're flying through Saturn's rings, 10AU from the Sun so it's about as bright as a cloudy day on Earth. I think the current lighting is spot-on for this.

Now say you're in Earth orbit, sunlight is 100x brighter. We've all seen the pictures / videos from the ISS, everything looks bright and contrasty.

If we move in again to Mercury, 10x brighter again, and it'd be great to get a real impression of the intensity and harshness of the environment. Lots of max brightness and glare for anything exposed to the sun, and shadows would be almost completely black in comparison.

So I guess what I'm suggesting would be to vary the contrast to reflect the intensity of the light, at the moment it's a bit like the ambient light scales up with the brightness of the sunlight.

 

[Taylorius]

So I guess what I'm suggesting would be to vary the contrast to reflect the intensity of the light, at the moment it's a bit like the ambient light scales up with the brightness of the sunlight.

I agree with you completely - I think ships / stations seem too bright all over in some situations. For example on the excellent E3 trailer, at 1:37, as the Lakon cruises by us, it seems brighter than it ought to be, to my eyes.

Looking at footage, Frontier's engine seems to be using shadow mapping for dynamic shadows - I wonder if the resolution of these maps is a limiting factor that might prevent them from cranking up the shadow "starkness".

BTW I don't mean to sound moany, because I think it looks great! I'm a 3D graphics guy myself, so I can't help adding my twopenneth!

Cheers

Matt

 

[Tacheel]

Light should be striking everything, just maybe not enough?

True, but there's also less other surfaces for light to reflect off, so it's less diffuse. Side facing sun would be well lit, side away from it would be much darker than in a more cluttered environment. Granted asteroid belts would be an exception there would be more diffuse light there.

+1 to as much realism to the lighting as possible

 

[h4ndicapparking]

HDR Lighting

an easy compromise to achieve more dynamic lighting, and still maintain the details in shade would be to only adjust the flaring and starfield strength. The one thing that struck me immediately when in game was how dark the system stars were; the gigantic solar-flaring beauties didn't knock out the starfield when staring right into them.

The starfield should wax and wane as you view bright and brighter objects vs. looking off into deep space. in conjunction with this, bright object within your peripheral vision should flare/glow much more to give contrast to their relative brightness compared to relative dimness of the galactic backdrop.

In addition the nebulous clouds and distant mega-objects (not the disc of the galaxy, but the other extraneous shapes strewn about) are much too bright in relation to the starfield.

 

[Caylo]

But if you look at a Christmas tree in a dark room, you see the lights but how much detail do you see in the tree, the needles etc? Not much, I reckon, and unless a station has lights placed to illuminate it, as opposed to windows with lights on inside, you won't see very much detail in the shadows.

Wouldn't it make sense for a giant space station that sees starships approaching from all sides to have lights placed to light up its surface?

Personally, I'm satisfied with how things currently are. It strikes me as a nice compromise between realistic and playable, and I wouldn't want to miss out on the glorious detail of the ships and stations in favour of a black thing moving on a black background.

It would also make it ridiculously easy for ships to disappear by going silent after blasting past you. It isn't hard to do so already, but right now you at least have a chance of still spotting a stealthy ship with your bare eyes - even though those popular pseudo-cool black paintjobs have recently made it more difficult.