Not liking the new lighting at all.

Guys, it is not dynamic lighting. They have just did the lazy way to increase the light from a single source. That is all.

And btw, lighting in station is too bright yes and even more in VR.

But like said above, it was said also during beta.
 
Has somebody else experienced sudden lighting changes when entering a station?
Like from one second to the next everything in the station gets brighter after passing the mail slot.
I've just experienced something similar when docked in a hanger and using VR.
Look down and the image darkens, look slightly up and the image brightens. Very off putting when navigating around starport services and other things when docked due to the screen constantly changing from light to dark to light to dark to light. It's like an itch you can't reach.
 
A very good way of putting it :) I was thinking "Somewhat vexed" would fit the bill as well ;)

I am vexed to find this thread (I've started another one myself on the same subject), and to find out that this was pointed out during beta. How many people work on ED anyway? I have the impression that minimal effort is put into it, and a great deal of effort goes into lowering our expectations, so that minimal/ necessary/ common sense updates ultimately give a feeling of great achievement.
 
This was all commented on in the beta too, to no avail. The Devs like it in their test systems/situations, the "special guests" ooh'd and aah'd, so that's what we got.
I'm shocked! (no, not really)

I'd like to comment further, but I'm still trying to download the damn thing!
 

sollisb

Banned
That's a shame Stelthie, it really is looking stunning on my rig in VR. I have Gamma around 75%

I seriously had a headache and had to take the HMD off when I finally got on last night. After 30 mins my head was pounding, the light is crazy.

Anyways, Q: Are you using the EDProfiler to change the Gamma? Or something else ?
 
If there was enough of it for that to be a factor, space wouldn't be black. We get that in ED to a limited extent in nebulae of course but even that's a significant "enhancement" over reality -albeit a good one for a space game.

But that's just reflected light. Distant stars EMIT light, which is a whole different ball of wax. Suppose a dusty system illuminated by a red giant. Enough dust that there's a noticeable "red haze" everywhere. A distant blue-white star would be harder to see over the red haze but it would still be blue/white. The blanket color gradient now applied in ED actually tints the distant stars as well as other emissive sources. Like your thruster plumes, for example. The smoke trails are lit by reflected light alone and the local star would definitely tint them but the hot plumes themselves, from your main drives and attitude thrusters are ALSO tinted by these filters just like your HUD and interior lights are.

If the filters were only applied where they should be and weren't implemented as a post-processing color gradient to the entire frame, they'd look great. As it is, literally EVERYWHERE you look in ED now there is so much that just looks stupidly wrong on your screen.

Yep.

I'm just struggling to find a real-world scenario to give me a comparison.

I guess it'd be a bit like going into a smokey nightclub that was illuminated by, say, red lights.
If somebody switches on a blue LED torch, I guess the result would either be that the blue light is overwhelmed and you simply wouldn't see it or it'd still appear blue.
As you say, the light emitted isn't going to change from blue to red and still be visible.

I guess I don't really mind these colour tints in the game (as long as they're not too extreme) but it shows that they're fundamentally "doing it wrong".

Also, I have to say that I don't mean to be overly critical of the new lighting.
It looks amazing in a lot of places but the problems with the HUD are a complete show-stopper.

It's like giving me a Ferrari 458 with square wheels.
99% of the car can be incredible but the square wheels make it entirely useless.

The HUD lighting is, for me, square wheels.
 
I think I've figured out what the problem is.

The ambient lighting seems to have an effect on how things like text, orbit lines and the HUDs look.

When I first started playing I thought the lighting had been improved.
Everything looked pretty and all the lines were smooth and the text was, erm, legible.

Then, as I travelled around, I realised the cockpit HUDs looked awful.

The problem is, if I go to a system where there's a red giant, producing a lot of red light, the orbit lines, text and HUDs also become very red.
They look massively oversaturated and blurred to the point where most of the text is just a bright red "blob".
So, I increase the gamma setting and reduce the HUD intensity and it all looks nice again.


Then, if I go to a system where there's a bright yellow or white star, the orbit lines, text and HUDs become very white.
They look massively washed-out, colourless and (again) blurred to the point where they're unreadable. Again.
So, I dial back the gamma and increase the HUD intensity to restore some contrast and colour again.

And then I end up back in a system with a red star again....

A lot of people seem to think the new lighting works well so I guess it's something that I'm just going to have to get used to, unless FDev can implement an option to disable the new lighting.

Yes, I’m with you Stealthie and moaned about it during the beta :) (it clearly fell on deaf ears). I write GLSL shaders as part of my work, so I’m pretty sure that this is a simple post processing shader applied to the final 2D output (colour grading effects in games generally are, so it’s comparable to techniques used in film). It’s fairly cheap computationally and can be altered dynamically according to variables in the game , but it isn’t acting on the 3D space or the general lighting engine per se. That’s why it tints everything – it’s basically just an image filter. It can be a powerful tool but needs to be used subtly – to me it looks too exaggerated like a novice overexcited with their new toys. As I said in another thread, it’s as though someone has let David Fincher loose on Kubrick’s 2001. Elite has lost it’s crispness and clarity for me.

https://www.diyphotography.net/5-color-grading-mistakes-filmmakers-avoid/
 
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Yes, I’m with you Stealthie and moaned about it during the beta (it clearly fell on deaf ears). I write GLSL shaders as part of my work, so I’m pretty sure that this is a simple post processing shader applied to the final 2D output (colour grading effects in games generally are, so it’s comparable to techniques used in film). It’s fairly cheap computationally and can be altered dynamically according to variables in the game , but it isn’t acting on the 3D space or the general lighting engine per se. That’s why it tints everything – it’s basically just an image filter. It can be powerful tool but needs to be used subtly – to me it looks too exaggerated like a novice overexcited with their new toys. As I said in another thread, it’s as though someone has let David Fincher loose on Kubrick’s 2001. Elite has lost it’s crispness and clarity for me.

https://www.diyphotography.net/5-color-grading-mistakes-filmmakers-avoid/

+1 - I feel the same way. Max hype, min effort. I wonder if more than 5 people work at this game at any given time.
 
Yes, I’m with you Stealthie and moaned about it during the beta (it clearly fell on deaf ears). I write GLSL shaders as part of my work, so I’m pretty sure that this is a simple post processing shader applied to the final 2D output (colour grading effects in games generally are, so it’s comparable to techniques used in film). It’s fairly cheap computationally and can be altered dynamically according to variables in the game , but it isn’t acting on the 3D space or the general lighting engine per se. That’s why it tints everything – it’s basically just an image filter. It can be powerful tool but needs to be used subtly – to me it looks too exaggerated like a novice overexcited with their new toys. As I said in another thread, it’s as though someone has let David Fincher loose on Kubrick’s 2001. Elite has lost it’s crispness and clarity for me.

https://www.diyphotography.net/5-color-grading-mistakes-filmmakers-avoid/

Yep,

By way of analogy, it's a bit like when you're trying to "enhance" a photograph in photoshop and you increase the sharpness a little bit and that helps make the image clearer, and then you adjust the contrast a bit and that makes the colours better and then you adjust the brightness and that seems to improve the image a bit more, and then you tweak the levels and that seems to be an improvement too... and then you compare it to the original image and realise you've made a complete pig's ear of it.

As a rule, with this stuff, if it's noticeable, it's probably too much.

As for the computing part, I don't really understand why they can't simply divide the display into two "layers" and have everything outside your ship lit by the ambient stuff and everything inside your ship lit separetely, according to your ship's internal lights.

I get that there'd need to be some overlap, to provide shadows and obvious colour-casts but surely it couldn't be that difficult?
 
Yep,

By way of analogy, it's a bit like when you're trying to "enhance" a photograph in photoshop and you increase the sharpness a little bit and that helps make the image clearer, and then you adjust the contrast a bit and that makes the colours better and then you adjust the brightness and that seems to improve the image a bit more, and then you tweak the levels and that seems to be an improvement too... and then you compare it to the original image and realise you've made a complete pig's ear of it.

As a rule, with this stuff, if it's noticeable, it's probably too much.

As for the computing part, I don't really understand why they can't simply divide the display into two "layers" and have everything outside your ship lit by the ambient stuff and everything inside your ship lit separetely, according to your ship's internal lights.

I get that there'd need to be some overlap, to provide shadows and obvious colour-casts but surely it couldn't be that difficult?

Yeah, that's exactly what it's like :D - it's essentially the same thing. It's a lot more flexible with glsl shaders because you can control it dynamically (as you fly away from a star for example) and isolate and apply effects to certain parts of the luma/chroma range - but it's still just a filter acting on pixels. My cockpit looks like a dingy pre-smoking ban boozer under yellow stars - all bleak and tobacco stained. :( Some old lush keeps breaking wind in my co-pilot seat.

One tell-tale sign is when the whites begin to take on a dull, pinkish/orange quality. Once you get to the point where the hud is rendered so muddy and dull as to be difficult to read, it's pretty clear that you've over done it. It shouldn't be difficult to add a global magnitude setting or the ability to disable the shader altogether - this was suggested during the Beta and would keep everyone happy.

The thing is, it's quite subjective so some people will love it for the dramatic effects that it yields. Personally, overall I much preferred the crispness and vibrancy of the old palette.
 
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Yep,

By way of analogy, it's a bit like when you're trying to "enhance" a photograph in photoshop and you increase the sharpness a little bit and that helps make the image clearer, and then you adjust the contrast a bit and that makes the colours better and then you adjust the brightness and that seems to improve the image a bit more, and then you tweak the levels and that seems to be an improvement too... and then you compare it to the original image and realise you've made a complete pig's ear of it.

As a rule, with this stuff, if it's noticeable, it's probably too much.

As for the computing part, I don't really understand why they can't simply divide the display into two "layers" and have everything outside your ship lit by the ambient stuff and everything inside your ship lit separetely, according to your ship's internal lights.

I get that there'd need to be some overlap, to provide shadows and obvious colour-casts but surely it couldn't be that difficult?

I am about to log in for the first time since Beta. You saying I also need to fire up photoshop ? :D
 
Im also having problems . I have a dual 980ti setup in SLI on driver 417.01 (so not the buggy new driver)

I have had to turn the gamma up so much that all other lights have too much flare/contrast
My framerate is all over the place with microstutters at the res making flying / aiming / not feeling gippish hard
Planets have lost their colour (current CG planet 4) was blue, now its black
The rocks at the res site in daylight are black lumps compared to a few days ago
In supercruise i also have have a frame lag and anti-aliasing doesnt work well many jagged lines and I have supersampling x 1.0 and MLA4 set
Other ships look blocky as if at a lower resolution (im running in 4k), especially engine flare. I feel like they are in CGA :)
There is input lag when the res gets busy , for me this is something FD fixed a year ago, but it's back.

It looks and feels like a console game now.
 
It was clear from the first livestream demonstration of the 'new lighting' with before/after demonstrations that the lighting was also affecting the HUD. I commented on this, but I think nobody else realized its significance at the time.

It is, as you say, a filter effect applied to everything displayed, not selectively to the illuminated planetary and stellar elements of the game. And it was touted as 'new lighting.' Some of us commented that it looked very much like the post-image effects we applied to our screenshots.

New filtering would be a more appropriate description, although technically it is 'dynamic' in that it varies according to the system portrayed. But I have 'dynamic' filters available in photo processing which do very much the same thing.

It's not the new lighting system that was touted and we had hoped for ....... again [blah]

Remember the Beige Planet Issue? It took FD at least two years of ignoring posts, denial and eventually a correction ..... maybe longer :rolleyes:
 
oh lordy yes the b-ification period. dark days, well, beige days, losing just losing, the worst, I hear the clintons are behind hit, lock her up, build a space wall. I have ordered 200,000 MEGA hats (make elite gorgous again).
 
I've always had my HUD brightness down, and I've also now turned down the bloom in my graphic setting, and that seems to help a lot.

HUD elements have always seemed kind of poorly handled in this game - from lighting interference, to layout, to data presented, to contrast - so maybe I'm just used to it now.
 
I think the problem is they are applying the new gradients to everything on the screen rather than selectively applying it. For example, star color should not be tinting the Milky Way itself in the background, but it does in 3.3. Similarly it's tinting our ship's interior and HUD too, even when the star isn't shining on it.

Fundamentally sounds like the same issue that leaves CMDRs with an orange HUD, maybe just as difficult to fix.
 
Too bad there isn't a switch. Thing is, it seems to "switch off" right before going to the Galaxy map, for the briefest of seconds. Give us that "switch" in our settings and then each CMDR can decide to keep it or not.
 
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