Update 6 Terrain Comparison Thread

[Drelthar]

There is no escape from this .
I tried to explain this to people so many times.

The strategy of handcrafted anything planet-related in this game will always lead to this result.

I did not participate in the alpha, nor did I follow the dev blogs - have I done that and I would know that they are going with handcrafted geology - I would most likely not buy Odyssey.

The math just does not add up. At all.
That's why I think they should give us a deep dive into everything planet-related but also step back and reevaluate the strategy of planet generation.

Some planets look good - I never denied that. but the above is just unacceptable in a game like this.

It would actually be a perfect use of some of that built in AI tech on modern graphics cards, generating new assets based on a huge library of hand made/found/bought assets, and then blending them into each other and such.

FD seem to have lost a bit of their old flair though.

They seem to be so focussed on selling a game, they forgot about the artistry of making the game.

 

[MacIntoc]

I landed on the first planet with atmosphere that i came across :




There is some improvement but in my opinion there are still 4 major problems:
1°)Performance. Even if the game is in Ultra+ and run in 1440p downscaled in 1080p (what is formely called super sampling, not the down sampling known as DLSS or FSR, despite the misleading trade names), 30fps is far too low for this kind of complexity.
2°)Still no atmosphere. And no, changing the color of the sky is not enought to create an atmosphere. The atmosphere is not the sky. The atmosphere is between the sky and the ground (more like the 3rd screen in SRV).
3°)Not enough detail in the foreground, particularly noticeable in the 2nd SRV screen.
4°)Contraste is still irrelevant. The image should be brigther, especially when looking at the main star like in the 2nd on foot. The SRV cockpit is too dark.

We can also notice that the colour temperature is still a bit warmer in SRV and ship than on foot. I don't know if this is a choice from FDev or if it's a consequence of the HDR/SDR rendering ratatouille (as for the irrelevance of the contrast).

 

[Sic Mundus]

Frontier really really loves that star-shaped impact crater. Multiple planets with them in varying sizes. Not a huge deal, but it does get old quick.

Also, can you guys see that planet in the last screenshot? It's practically hidden .

As to the planet side screenshots. Weird mix. I'm not sure if it's a problem with myself or just Frontier's LOD - as you look at the hills in the distance that are a tannish yellow - as I get closer, they turn more brown as the color of the ground closer to the bottom of the screenshots. It's weird watching things popping in and out as I move around. And the green hills turn a darker-shade of grey as opposed to the olive-ish green witnessed. I keep playing with my settings and I'm just a bit tired of all the finagling. I would love to buy a new graphics card, I'm due for it at this point, but it's just a GTX 1080 which is still pretty solid for this game. But with the shortage as it is....

 

[Mogen Teras]

1°)Performance. Even if the game is in Ultra+ and run in 1440p downscaled in 1080p (what is formely called super sampling, not the down sampling known as DLSS or FSR, despite the misleading trade names), 30fps is far too low for this kind of complexity.

Now, I'm not saying people are wrong for being okay with this kind of performance (some people legit don't care if fps is 20), but I really wish your point here was more widely held in this community. Given the rather inconsistent and somewhat middling visual fidelity we get even at Ultra+, the framerates on average for all hardware levels is not REMOTELY acceptable (again, even if you specifically are ok with 20-30fps).

A 1060 for example can get 30-60fps in Cyberpunk at 1080p, an objectively FAR more visually complex game using much more modern rendering methods. A 1060 getting 20fps in this game even in a basic settlement at Low settings is not "good enough." And considering even 3090s are struggling, that point should be even more salient.

Idk maybe I'm getting tired of people replying to my performance woes with "stop whining and just play the game."

 

[Sybine]

My god... left since OD launch, and back for Update 6... Uninstalling OD. This "visual improvements" are a complete disaster, at least the few planets I´ve visited.

At least thanks to FD now I have more time to spend on another games

 

[The Roofus]

My god... left since OD launch, and back for Update 6... Uninstalling OD. This "visual improvements" are a complete disaster, at least the few planets I´ve visited.

At least thanks to FD now I have more time to spend on another games

Stuphs!?!

 

[MacIntoc]

Now, I'm not saying people are wrong for being okay with this kind of performance

You can say it. They are wrong

View attachment 253681

Hills look like tardigrades seen through a micropscope

 

[Valorin]

I'm back

Update 6 sees updates to the terrain textures and colours while the terrain features, shapes and tiling remains the same as before. I'm curious to see if people are finding improvements to what was seen in previous updates.

Personally I find the planets in Odyssey to look like they are made up off a bunch of layers with shapes and colours and this update feels like more layers were added. To me it they don't really look like real planets anymore. They look more like a sphere made up of too many overlaying terrain colour layers, making little islands of illogical terrain colours without a logic flow to them.

I haven't had a lot of time to look at many planets though so I'm really curious, if we all add our comparisons here (perhaps you have screenshots of locations that you could revisit) what we can collect.

First look I did was of planet Rebuy HQ. Originally, while suffering from the "camouflage spotting", the colours were of a desert planet. Mainly two different colours that were already quite constrasting but "acceptable". In Update 6 it feels like they simply added a ton of layers of different colours. In some places the sand still pokes through but in general there are more incoherent green/grey areas.

Going up close sees the terrain having lost a lot of its desert look and exotic brightness. I'm noticing that there appears to be a lot more of that ugly dark black contrasting problem again as well. Not sure if this is just as a result to the darker terrain colour but it doesn't bode well.

I also notice on a side note that the atmosphere sees a lot less stars poking through. Did they change the look of how dense the atmospheres look? If they did then it reflects poorly in the "ambient atmosphere" and is only visible in the back ground atmosphere effect so I'm not sure...

Here is another example of the darkness having returned. The cockpit and surrounding area looks very dark for a planet in bright sunlight.

I've also noticed that she shield ring is blinking when 0% which is quite annoying; especially when you don't have a shield generator installed. They did change the font though so that it is in-line now with the rest of the HUD. Now they just need to put the text up right.

Completely disagree on your view of the planets and terrain. I think the Odyssey planets look pretty much like planets and like them a lot more than before in general, including other games actually.

 

[S. Belmont]

It's just that people tend to compare best from Horizons to worst from EDO.

Overall, especially now after update 6, there is no comparison between Horizons and Odyssey planets in my honest opinion. Odyssey planets are better in general.

 

[hunvagy]

1°)Performance. Even if the game is in Ultra+ and run in 1440p downscaled in 1080p (what is formely called super sampling, not the down sampling known as DLSS or FSR, despite the misleading trade names), 30fps is far too low for this kind of complexity.

Just one small thing, please don't bring DLSS into this FSR just wishes to be DLSS 2.0. FSR only works for people running WQHD and 4k, while as CP2077 has proven to me, DLSS 2.0 works wonderfully on fullHD as well, without the visual artifacts you get if you try FSR and fullHD in Elite. Yes, it only works on nVidia cards, and it requires DX12 (which is why it can't be in ED), but at least it works equally on all resolutions.

FSR at best is a bandaid fix for people playing in 4k with older GPUs. Nothing more.

 

[InDigital]

Farseer inc. was one of my favorite place to visit in Horizons.
Seeing what happens to Odyssey now it feels like Frontier will loose their game soon....

 

[shevek]

The repeating tiles are still waiting to be fixed, the game needs more performance improvements so that I can start to turn up the settings.

On the plus side the patch improved the LODs when you descend to the planet.

 

[Flimley]

io

Io the crazy multi coloured moon.

Flimley

 

[Prof Horatio Hafnaugels]

Hey, stop insulting No Man's Sky, I happen to like that game!

I literally love NMS, but the main reason I come to ED from time to time is the fact everything feels more realistic and somehow harsh.
So I think some things that fit perfectly with NMS won't do any good for ED.
Going overboard with planet colours is an example of this.

 

[Old Duck]

I literally love NMS, but the main reason I come to ED from time to time is the fact everything feels more realistic and somehow harsh.
So I think some things that fit perfectly with NMS won't do any good for ED.
Going overboard with planet colours is an example of this.

Don't worry, if I ever switch to Odyssey, I can desaturate those colors for you.

Though the odds of me buying Odyssey anytime soon are incredibly low... And unfortunately I have no mod for rubber stamp terrain. In the meantime, you can mod NMS to make it look more realistic

 

[Erei]

io
View attachment 253773Io the crazy multi coloured moon.

Flimley

And they say No man sky is cartoonish :

I say it's very realistic, according to your picture.


/s

 

[Prof Horatio Hafnaugels]

Don't worry, if I ever switch to Odyssey, I can desaturate those colors for you.

Though the odds of me buying Odyssey anytime soon are incredibly low... And unfortunately I have no mod for rubber stamp terrain. In the meantime, you can mod NMS to make it look more realistic

Making NMS more realistic will ruin it, but I already made some fixes here and there to smooth out the experience.

 

[Old Duck]

And they say No man sky is cartoonish :

I say it's very realistic, according to your picture.

Careful! It looks like I've been shadow banned AGAIN for making posts like these. You are not allowed to mention any other space games in the Elite forum. Well, at least I'm not.

 

[Wendake]

And they say No man sky is cartoonish :

I say it's very realistic, according to your picture.


/s

Come on, you just can't compare this planet from NMS with the one Flimley shared. It's day & night. Way more fine details and realistic look in ED even though they both have a yellow shade.

Horizon's planetary tech still have some aspects that are better than Odyssey's but it was far from perfect. Horizon also had repeating patterns as you can see here :

I've been exploring since early 2018 in ED and spent hundred of hours in the black and for me the 6.0 Odyssey's planetary tech offer way more diversity and exciting discoveries than Horizon. The single fact that we have rocks / ice rock of different sizes scattered across the surface add a lot of realism (even more when they gather at the bottom of a canyon which feel very natural and give kind of an "history" to the planet).

I won't argue that the state in which the planetary tech came in Odyssey was horrible but with 6.0 we have something with a solid foundation that will only get better.

 

[AkenBosch]

It's just that people tend to compare best from Horizons to worst from EDO.

Mostly, this.

Doesn't detract from the fact that the worst in Odyssey doesn't come from a bad roll of the procedural dice as it may happen in Horizon, but from a fundamentally broken implementation of a different technique for planetary generation. We can just hope it's only the implementation that is broken, and as such eventually mended in the future, and not the whole concept work behind it.

Come on, you just can't compare this planet from NMS with the one Flimley shared. It's day & night. Way more fine details and realistic look in ED even though they both have a yellow shade.

Don't know how to break it to you but...that's not ED, that's Io. Like, the actual Io. Not that is any much different in Elite, since they replicated its appearance for obvious reasons. I can bet that a real moon may look rather realistic!

Just one small thing, please don't bring DLSS into this FSR just wishes to be DLSS 2.0. FSR only works for people running WQHD and 4k, while as CP2077 has proven to me, DLSS 2.0 works wonderfully on fullHD as well, without the visual artifacts you get if you try FSR and fullHD in Elite. Yes, it only works on nVidia cards, and it requires DX12 (which is why it can't be in ED), but at least it works equally on all resolutions.

FSR at best is a bandaid fix for people playing in 4k with older GPUs. Nothing more.

It only works on RTX cards, not even all Nvidia. I agree that FSR is a solution mostly aimed at 4K, it doesn't work near as good at 1080p for sheer lack of data to reconstruct from (withouth some neural net trained right for that purpose). Mostly a glorified downsampler.



(Curious to know how a "shadow ban" that lets you post anyway works like)