So who precisely of you fine folks had the vision of "improving" the graphics after 4 years?

[rhiz]

Ok... just to clarify so that I understand you correctly... you don't mind the new lighting and grading of what is going on _outside_ your cockpit... But, whatever FD did... it completely F your HUD? Is that a correct undertanding of your thoughts?

Well, not quite. To be clear, I'm only talking about the colour grading filters and there should be a clear distinction made between these and the lighting engine proper (in terms of the 3D scene, volumetric effects etc). Assuming that I'm correct, the former are just 2D filters working on pixels and as such they influence the entire image. They may be dynamic, but at the end of the day it's no different to colour grading in film. As I mentioned earlier, I work a lot with GLSL shaders and to me most of these problems are the result of over-zealous, exaggerated colour correction. You can do fairly sophisticated things like isolate and act on certain parts of the chroma/luma scale etc, as well as alter the filters in real-time with variables from the game (this is what is happening when you fly away from a star I imagine), but there's no way of isolating the skybox and HUD in a clean, infallible way when you apply these shaders at the final rendering stage, so it's a bit of a blunt instrument. Used subtly they can be very useful and computationally they're fairly cheap, but they've just ham-fisted it in my view. I like some of the results outside of the ship (although generally I think it's excessively used), but not enough to justify the ever changing HUD and the illogical colouring of the sky box.

 

[Old Duck]

Tyvm, but I have my own eyes, no need to simulate that.

What's next, will the screen go black for 0.2 s every 2-10 seconds to simulate blinking?

I said that about the simulated smears & scratches on both my windshield and I guess helmet glass (even though my holome isn't wearing a helmet). I told em, "My monitor is dirty, my glasses are dirty, and my eyes are old, so you don't need to simulate this effect in the game, I already got it covered!"

 

[rhiz]

and im seeing little change from before and playing on an asus ROG GL552VW gaming laptop with a 2gb gddr5 nvidia GTX 960m.

i have ambient occlusion, Bloom and Blur all off. everything else is custom ultra whatever.

its very strange, my hud is same brightness as before, i really cant see if the lighting is different - though im a long way from anyplace i can dock in. like 5000 ly away.

What kind/colour of star - that's the determining factor.

 

[rhiz]

and im seeing little change from before and playing on an asus ROG GL552VW gaming laptop with a 2gb gddr5 nvidia GTX 960m.

i have ambient occlusion, Bloom and Blur all off. everything else is custom ultra whatever.

its very strange, my hud is same brightness as before, i really cant see if the lighting is different - though im a long way from anyplace i can dock in. like 5000 ly away.

Check out my screens here:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/463835-So-who-precisely-of-you-fine-folks-had-the-vision-of-quot-improving-quot-the-graphics-after-4-years?p=7251276&viewfull=1#post7251276

The third image is more or less what I would have seen pre-update. The first two show how my HUD is rendered under the blue light of the Pleaides. I didn't change any settings in the interim.

 

[Lucifera Danzig]

...personally, i would have expected HDR support at one point...

How widespread is HDR hardware among the playerbase, though? How hard is it to implement? And personally I think it's a thing that, though nice in concept, might be better off waiting till they handle other issues with the game.

 

[DaveB]

So, for the folks blaming gamma (and muddying the waters with a non-issue)

Would you care to explain how gamma or contrast settings leads to displaying the wrong color? "Color" in this context being the H in HSV color-space....

 

[Guest193293]

Some people evidently have issues with the new system. Look at Stealthie's screens on page 7, the HUD clearly isn't supposed to look like that.

A shame that you choose to see the raised issues as bias. We're presumably on the side of the game, but people must feel able to speak up if things have changed. It doesn't mean necessarily that we are change averse. I have an expensive setup which looked great on Tuesday, and last night really didn't. Particularly as so many seem very happy with the new look, I thought I'd come in here today, read a few threads and see if others had experienced the same thing. 'Bias' implies that some wish to lobby for one cause over another. All I want is for us all to have the same standard of visual. I wonder whether my own issue is that I am on console/TV. That isn't bias, it is noticing an issue (the way my own setup now looks cannot be what the developers intended, and does not match various screenshots I have seen posted today) and coming in here to try to understand it. If it is permanent, then I will have to leave the game, as you so delicately suggested. If it is fixable, then I'll fix it.


It is in the developers' interests to know if there is one player group which is particularly affected by this, as presumably if one console becomes poor for Elite, many of those players won't simply migrate to a PC, they'd actually just stop playing, which is not good for anyone. So please let us discuss on a discussion group without being accused of being biased, talking nonsense, acting angry and being told to leave if we don't like it. That isn't a discussion, and marks you out as the one being confrontational.

o7

When I said 'biased' and 'nonsense' I was referring to well, to that, biased and nonsense. An example, that I saw; "Frontier ruined the game blablabla it look like No Man's Sky now, it is total bullsh*t and horrible work, but even No Man's Sky did it better, I'm not going to play Elite anymore blablabla".
With that said, well yes obviously, REAL issues should be reported and addressed.

 

[Termite Altair]

I too agree that the HUD and cockpit interiors could use another rework, but I have mixed opinions about the rest. All in all I think its an improvement, but it needs some adjusting.

 

[CMDR Zack Monroe]

I’m currently out in the Pleiades, looking for my HUD :

Take a close look at the first screenshot rhiz provided on page 17 by clicking on "source" above. It illustrates the problem perfectly.

If a graphics revamp in a game renders the main HUD (!), depending on where you currently are, barely visible and readable, something did go horribly wrong, obviously and naturally. Even if planets, nebulae, and station exteriors look more "engaging" now.

If the game, or any game at that, would have been released in this state, imagine the backlash.

The complete silence FDev displays on the matter is rather strange as well: this is not an issue of personal preference or taste, this is an issue of undecipherable HUDs in a multitude of locations in space.

 

[Enderby]

Hud looks weird

 

[Old Duck]

The complete silence FDev displays on the matter is rather strange as well:

Complete silence is FDev's specialty.

 

[CMDR Zack Monroe]

Complete silence is FDev's specialty.

That's rather disheartening to hear, of course.

 

[Morbad]

If the input and output are both set the same, there shouldn't be a perceptible difference between a limited range and full range set-up. You're just mapping 0-255 on to 16-235, then reversing the operation on the other side, . (Assuming the source and display are designed properly, at least; there's no accounting for bugs.)

I'm saying that there are situations where the effect used looks like the color range isn't being mapped correctly, or is switching the input range without adjusting the output range.

 

[Snarfbuckle]

Odd, on my computer it looks more crisp than before.

 

[Shir]

First impressions, the graphics look more detailed, but also more like other space games, more gamey, fake. I liked the style ED had, was very realistic. Messed with gamma, and now the HUD looks undertoned and difficult to read.

 

[[VR] optimal_909]

25% looks bloody awesome, 50% does look better than before, 25% looks pretty stupid. Overall it's better than before but those 25% are annoying. Colour effect of stars is too much in some cases. Bodies close to the star are sometimes too bright. Neither the HUD nor the galaxy background should be affected by starlight colour. Apart from that it's one of the best graphical enhancements the game has seen so far. Just my opinion though.

Only affected if you are close, halo effect. Fades out as you fly out.

I like the graphical changes. Overall it is a very good update.

 

[[VR] optimal_909]

First impressions, the graphics look more detailed, but also more like other space games, more gamey, fake. I liked the style ED had, was very realistic. Messed with gamma, and now the HUD looks undertoned and difficult to read.

HUD need brightness can be set at the right panel.

 

[encrypted]

Overall I really like graphical changes, especially stars. They look amazing.

However, overall it feels like a little too much. I would just make it 1 step down, overall, brightness/contrast wise. Combat is like fireworks flashes, and honestly speaking withing a couple of hours of playtime yesterday there were few times I kinda closed my eyes.

Too shiny.

Just tone it one step down please and everyone will be happy.

 

[weisenheimer]

I agree. Stations especially, for me, are unbearable.

 

[Burke]

First impressions, the graphics look more detailed, but also more like other space games, more gamey, fake. I liked the style ED had, was very realistic. Messed with gamma, and now the HUD looks undertoned and difficult to read.

Looks like a console now doesnt it? To my eyes anyway, those colour filters are definately a move towards NMS style.