Will the Cobra Engine ever reach DirectX 8? (multiple Light souces)

Deleted member 38366

D
Just leaving this awkward shot here :

ELITE-Lighting.jpg

("nothing to see here" - a Geological Site on a Planet in total darkness - despite two (!) Suns being only 56-60Ls away. The main star that's giving the Planet light & shadow btw. is 549Ls distant at this point. Notably, only the Ship Paint correctly reacts to the presence of the Binary Suns. A "visual present" from Hypoe Graae WG-J d10-0 BC 1)
 

-VR- Max Factor

-VR- Max Factor
FalconFly said:
Just leaving this awkward shot here :

ELITE-Lighting.jpg

("nothing to see here" - a Geological Site on a Planet in total darkness - despite two (!) Suns being only 56-60Ls away. The main star that's giving the Planet light & shadow btw. is 549Ls distant at this point. Notably, only the Ship Paint correctly reacts to the presence of the Binary Suns. A "visual present" from Hypoe Graae WG-J d10-0 BC 1)
Click to expand...
It already has multiple light sources.
 

Deleted member 38366

D
Obviously I didn't state it was a sub-DX8 engine. I was just wondering when it learns to render DX8 content - such as multiple Light Sources ;)
 

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FalconFly said:
Obviously I didn't state it was a sub-DX8 engine. I was just wondering when it learns to render DX8 content - such as multiple Light Sources ;)
Click to expand...
As I stated. It already does render multiple light sources.

Go to a planetary base with lights and look at the multiple shadows. It already supports that. But when you add another major light source (stars) you need to add multiple shadows to whole planetary surfaces. I don't Know of a single game engine that can render all of that.

It would be a massive performance hog and would likely bring all machines out there to a grinding halt.

ED already has it in the game, just not at the massive scale that no other game does either.

I would love them to add a graphics option though (they have said there is no engine limitation in that, it's just a performance limitation) and see how our computers manage.
 
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Rat Catcher

Rat Catcher
Max Factor said:
As I stated. It already does render multiple light sources.

Go to a planetary base with lights and look at the multiple shadows. It already supports that. But when you add another major light source (stars) you need to add multiple shadows to whole planetary surfaces. I don't Know of a single game engine that can render all of that.

It would be a massive performance hog and would likely bring all machines out there to a grinding halt.

ED already has it in the game, just not at the massive scale that no other game does either.

I would love thethemn to add a graphics option though (they have said there is no engine limitation in that, it's just a performance limiation) and see how our computers manage.
Click to expand...
With the 3080ti due out early next year, and pairing it with the 3900X, we may even be able to have multiple light sources with frame rates in double figures... Although I do 'get' the reference that the nearer light source(s) should illuminate, particularly when a further one is occluded :)
 

Drelthar

Drelthar
Be sweet if they could fake it somehow, by doing something funky like making "one light source" that's a combination of the actual one, and some additive fake stuff based on the other suns.

I'm... aware it doesn't work like that.
 

MPL3D

MPL3D
Max Factor said:
It already has multiple light sources.
Click to expand...
To be fair, this is not completely true.
I must agree with OP.

Maybe objects have multiple light sources, but astronomical bodies do not.

Many planets should have only a very small portion of night-side, or none all. But they always have a full 50% of surface in the night-side.

Also there should be different day-sides for the same planet, with different light colours, depending on the light source star.

Finally, it is quite obvious in some scenarios that spaceships should have at least two shadows, but they always have only one.
 

MPL3D

MPL3D
Stars like Deneb throw the same light output than our Sun, at 100 light years of distance...

The look of Elite Dangerous would change dramatically if it ever casts more than one light on celestial bodies.

Not to say along with their shadows of course.
 

-VR- Max Factor

-VR- Max Factor
MPL3D said:
To be fair, this is not completely true.
I must agree with OP.

Maybe objects have multiple light sources, but astronomical bodies do not.

Many planets should have only a very small portion of night-side, or none all. But they always have a full 50% of surface in the night-side.

Also there should be different day-sides for the same planet, with different light colours, depending on the light source star.

Finally, it is quite obvious in some scenarios that spaceships should have at least two shadows, but they always have only one.
Click to expand...
I shall refer you to my other reply:

Max Factor said:
As I stated. It already does render multiple light sources.

Go to a planetary base with lights and look at the multiple shadows. It already supports that. But when you add another major light source (stars) you need to add multiple shadows to whole planetary surfaces. I don't Know of a single game engine that can render all of that.

It would be a massive performance hog and would likely bring all machines out there to a grinding halt.

ED already has it in the game, just not at the massive scale that no other game does either.

I would love them to add a graphics option though (they have said there is no engine limitation in that, it's just a performance limitation) and see how our computers manage.
Click to expand...
 

Deleted member 38366

D
Without going into any Detail really, IMHO the Game shouldn't render such bizarre scenarios like that.

Especially since it has to run on low-budget Platforms like Consoles as well, noone expects wonders at this point anymore (although a dedicated PC render path would still make it possible).
So be it by tossing additional Shader resources at it - or some good old Rendering tricks from old times... Any improvement from here would be better.

(oh, and add the odd and awkward "lighting by view direction" to the bucket list, causing entire Planets to go eclipse/dark and bright again, just by changing the view angle)
 

Burke

B
MPL3D said:
To be fair, this is not completely true.
I must agree with OP.
Click to expand...

I seem to remember the offical line was that they were thinking about multiple light sources, they wanted to put them in but it was too difficult so we got that laughable colour saturation instead.
 

Fost

Fost
Top of my graphics improvements would be:
  • Multiple star shadows.
  • Ring shadows (imagine how great this would look from the surface!)
  • Fix that texture popping you get when you fuel scoop and look left at the sun. I think this is caused by the tesselation of the star. Since we look at stars a lot int his game it would be nice to fix it.

 

Mengy

Mengy
Max Factor said:
I would love them to add a graphics option though (they have said there is no engine limitation in that, it's just a performance limitation) and see how our computers manage.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'd like to have the option to turn multiple light sources on too if we have the hardware to use it. There are times in deep space where the lack of light from multiple star systems is incredibly immersion breaking.

Ring shadows would also be fantastic.
 

Iron Body

Iron Body
Silly question, but can ray tracing cards, like the RTX series, take account of multiple light sources ?
The few demos I've seen just seem to concentrate on reflective surfaces, not shadows.
 
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