NASA's Flyover Video of Pluto Suggests Planets in Horizons may be too Conservative !

Lightspeed

Lightspeed
NASA released this detailed photo-composite video of a flyover of Pluto as seen from the New Horizons spacecraft.

https://youtu.be/g1fPhhTT2Oo

Some of you may have seen it before, but it is new to me. I believe it was released yesterday.

The fly-over looks spectacular, and suggests that FD have possibly been too conservative in their planet generation. The sharpness of features contrasting very deep canyons and very high mountains is amazing. I know it is "only" one planet, but it pushes the boundaries of what we might hitherto have imagined as acceptable in planetary simulation.

For the tin-foil specialists, there is even a 'pyramid' that appears (bottom right), and a mystery rectangular shape appears (on the left), so the Guardians got there first !

Aside from the beige issue, do you think that FD should now be prepared to dial up the structural features in the planetary engine, using this data as justification ?

PS. There is also a flyover of Charon here
https://youtu.be/f0Q7O7TZ7Ks

But this has been identified by Darkfyre99 in NASA's description:

"The topographic relief is exaggerated by a factor of two to three times in these movies to emphasize topography; the surface colors of Pluto and Charon also have been enhanced to bring out detail."
 
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Mohrgan

Mohrgan
Pluto is not a planet....

If more images, of other real planets, support what we see on this planet-like body, I can't see why FD wouldn't want to match up with reality.
 

777Driver

777Driver
Looks like a tame version of what we already have in ED. If you head to the smaller planets and moons you will find some extreme terrain. There is also a huge planet that I used to visit on a regular basis, very high g planet, the whole surface is a massive mountain range scattered with canyons, impossible to get anywhere via SRV. Very strange but beautiful place, most large high g planets are almost completely flat.

Here's a vid from Isokix.

[video=youtube;Uf-v8IJ29s0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uf-v8IJ29s0[/video]
 

GG7

G
I've been saying this for ages.

The planetary surface models inside ED are far from realistic based on just our own system's diversity.

This circles right back to the whole Beige Planet syndrome.
 
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Ziljan

Ziljan
Lightspeed said:
The fly-over looks spectacular, and suggests that FD have possibly been too conservative in their planet generation.
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While Pluto is big enough to have a spherical shape, it is not a planet. But yeah dwarf planets and small moons have low enough gravity to have extreme features, and guess what? These objects in Elite have extreme features.

However what they don't have yet are atmosphere or rich and varied terrain textures and colors. Nor do they yet have any remotely interesting or unique geological formations.
 
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Mengy

Mengy
I saw this video last night, very awesome. Pluto is a far more interesting planet(oid) than I ever thought it would be.

777Driver said:
Looks like a tame version of what we already have in ED. If you head to the smaller planets and moons you will find some extreme terrain. There is also a huge planet that I used to visit on a regular basis, very high g planet, the whole surface is a massive mountain range scattered with canyons, impossible to get anywhere via SRV. Very strange but beautiful place, most large high g planets are almost completely flat.

Here's a vid from Isokix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uf-v8IJ29s0
Click to expand...

Hardly! That's a great video though. Unfortunately it showcases exactly what was lost with the beigeification in 2.2 as Isokix recorded this in Elite 2.1. You'd be very hard pressed to find a planet with colors like that today in that much variety (I'm not even sure it's possible anymore), nor a canyon with that much detail to it's terrain.
 

777Driver

777Driver
Mengy said:
You'd be very hard pressed to find a planet with colors like that today in that much variety (I'm not even sure it's possible anymore), nor a canyon with that much detail to it's terrain.
Click to expand...

How does changing the planet colour cause the terrain to change? Has anyone been to Ariel recently? Would like to see some pictures. I haven't been able to fly for a while, but I was around when the whole beige issue hit, I didn't see any changes to the Icy planets or small rocky planets. This issue seemed to affect the larger high metal content worlds.

Just did a quick search - This canyon run was from two weeks ago

[video=youtube;JL4LHcc8ZR0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL4LHcc8ZR0[/video]
 
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Mengy

Mengy
777Driver said:
How does changing the planet colour cause the terrain to change?
Click to expand...

Okay, the term "beigeification"is really an all encompassing term to include two things which 2.2 changed in the game:


  1. 98% of all HMC &MR worlds were changed to be almost completely beige, a rare few might have slight off shade colored spots, but it's extremely rare as of 2.2. Some still have canyon bottoms that are differing shades of beige.
  2. Planet terrain was "normalized" to reduce mesh errors which could get SRV's stuck or even make them fall through the planet. This effectively rounded most height changes in the terrain and reduced terrain variety, especially on (but not limited to) HMC & MR worlds. Craters, canyons, mountains, plateaus, all of them are now less extreme and "flatter" and rounded.

Now, take the two videos you posted, one by Isokix in 2.1 and the other by Citrus6745 in 2.2. Note how detailed the terrain looks in 2.1, with sharp edges and craggy looking terrain features. In the 2.2 video you'll notice that terrain edges are softer, more rounded, and possess none of the alien looking crags or "sharp" terrain like the 2.1 video has. While these may be two different planets so a direct comparison isn't truly accurate, it still is indicative of what changed after 2.2 in planet terrain generation. This is the terrain difference that the term "beigeification" refers to.


The terrain in the Pluto video by NASA is awesomely detailed, and nothing in Elite Dangerous comes close to it. Not even Space Engine is that detailed (yet!). Of course, getting a PC game that realistic might not be feasible with today's tech yet either, but a closer approximation should certainly be.
 
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777Driver

777Driver
Mengy said:
Okay, the term "beigeification"is really an all encompassing term to include two things which 2.2 changed in the game:


  1. 98% of all HMC &MR worlds were changed to be almost completely beige, a rare few might have slight off shade colored spots, but it's extremely rare as of 2.2. Some still have canyon bottoms that are differing shades of beige.
  2. Planet terrain was "normalized" to reduce mesh errors which could get SRV's stuck or even make them fall through the planet. This effectively rounded most height changes in the terrain and reduced terrain variety, especially on (but not limited to) HMC & MR worlds. Craters, canyons, mountains, plateaus, all of them are now less extreme and "flatter" and rounded.

Now, take the two videos you posted, one by Isokix in 2.1 and the other by Citrus6745 in 2.2. Note how detailed the terrain looks in 2.1, with sharp edges and craggy looking terrain features. In the 2.2 video you'll notice that terrain edges are softer, more rounded, and possess none of the alien looking crags or "sharp" terrain like the 2.1 video has. While these may be two different planets so a direct comparison isn't truly accurate, it still is indicative of what changed after 2.2 in planet terrain generation. This is the terrain difference that the term "beigeification" refers to.
Click to expand...

Cheers mate, I'll be back in the game in a few weeks. Sounds very disappointing, I thought the second video I posted was just lower graphics settings.

This pic was taken in Robigo, are you saying stuff like this doesn't exist anymore?

2rmxg94.jpg
 
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Lightspeed

Lightspeed
Mengy said:
Okay, the term "beigeification"is really an all encompassing term to include two things which 2.2 changed in the game:


  1. 98% of all HMC &MR worlds were changed to be almost completely beige, a rare few might have slight off shade colored spots, but it's extremely rare as of 2.2. Some still have canyon bottoms that are differing shades of beige.
  2. Planet terrain was "normalized" to reduce mesh errors which could get SRV's stuck or even make them fall through the planet. This effectively rounded most height changes in the terrain and reduced terrain variety, especially on (but not limited to) HMC & MR worlds. Craters, canyons, mountains, plateaus, all of them are now less extreme and "flatter" and rounded.

Now, take the two videos you posted, one by Isokix in 2.1 and the other by Citrus6745 in 2.2. Note how detailed the terrain looks in 2.1, with sharp edges and craggy looking terrain features. In the 2.2 video you'll notice that terrain edges are softer, more rounded, and possess none of the alien looking crags or "sharp" terrain like the 2.1 video has. While these may be two different planets so a direct comparison isn't truly accurate, it still is indicative of what changed after 2.2 in planet terrain generation. This is the terrain difference that the term "beigeification" refers to.


The terrain in the Pluto video by NASA is awesomely detailed, and nothing in Elite Dangerous comes close to it. Not even Space Engine is that detailed (yet!). Of course, getting a PC game that realistic might not be feasible with today's tech yet either, but a closer approximation should certainly be.
Click to expand...

Virtual rep ... have two ;)
 

Rustnsawdust

R
Sorry... so 'beigeification' is an all-encompassing term that means everything in ED about planets that you don't like? Got it.

As to the OP, not only is this not "flyover video" (as per the thread title), it's not video of any kind - it's CGI. Yes, it's based on height-map data, but you can use that data to exaggerate any or all of the x, y and z axes.

And let it be noted that just about every photograph or video you've ever seen of planets, space, the galaxy, nebulae, or whatever, is a false-colour image, or highly-Photoshopped, or otherwise manipulated. Because the natural colours of the universe are just not that dramatic.
 

Lightspeed

Lightspeed
NW3 said:
Something else to keep in mind: Most flyovers of this type exaggerate the vertical height, so that surface features stand out. The typical value is 10x, so it's likely the "true" Pluto terrain is much flatter.

Sources, or it isn't true... :D

http://www.terrainmodels.com/exaggeration.html

http://geokov.com/education/elevation-profile.aspx
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Good quotes.

The whole thing could be a lot smaller .... there's what looks like a crashed Cobra bottom right at this point (about 41 to 43 secs)
https://youtu.be/g1fPhhTT2Oo?t=42

That's really weird ... I thought I left it at Jacques :O
 
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