Cockpit HUD unreadable on icy planets

[TonyFlury]

@sallymorganmoore
Does anyone else worry that the cockpit HUD (including things like your location and altitude are almost entirely unreadable on an icy planet.

This was reported during Odyssey Alpha (although it existed in Horizons too) but the issue report was expired without being resolved https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/29634 - surely a clear image showing the problem should be confirmation enough ?
This does seem like a simple fix - the cockpit does already sections where the text is 'above' a shaded box to aid readability - but the actual flight information HUD seems to have been ignored.

 

[Frop]

No, I'm not particularly worried, the Top 20 Issues said that illumination and lighting have been fixed.

 

[sallymorganmoore]

@sallymorganmoore
Does anyone else worry that the cockpit HUD (including things like your location and altitude are almost entirely unreadable on an icy planet.

View attachment 256840

This was reported during Odyssey Alpha (although it existed in Horizons too) but the issue report was expired without being resolved https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/29634 - surely a clear image showing the problem should be confirmation enough ?
This does seem like a simple fix - the cockpit does already sections where the text is 'above' a shaded box to aid readability - but the actual flight information HUD seems to have been ignored.

Hey! Thanks so much. I do have some conversations regarding further lighting improvements so this in conjunction with those will meld quite nicely. I do see your point.
Again (and I've said this a LOT today because suddenly so many posts to me have been "should be an easy fix") - I would never dare assume how easy something is to fix if I don't know how it all works under the hood, hehe Especially with how complex Elite is, EVEN if it looks like it could have the same treatment applied from somewhere else.
I can certainly have the conversations though, so thanks lots!

 

[Frop]

Hey! Thanks so much. I do have some conversations regarding further lighting improvements so this in conjunction with those will meld quite nicely. I do see your point.
Again (and I've said this a LOT today because suddenly so many posts to me have been "should be an easy fix") - I would never dare assume how easy something is to fix if I don't know how it all works under the hood, hehe Especially with how complex Elite is, EVEN if it looks like it could have the same treatment applied from somewhere else.
I can certainly have the conversations though, so thanks lots!

Miss, sorry for bringing this to your attention again, but the OP's detailed analysis exposes a significant flaw which might explain the majority of the gamma, contrast and lightning issues.

Odyssey space has "too much contrast" - breaking down the rendering of a frame

I, as some many other people got appalled by the hideous luminance distribution and color saturation issues exhibited by the Odyssey renderer. Since I'm a computer graphics developer myself and do consulting work for critical graphics systems (think medical imaging, CT, MRI, and such) I took a...

forums.frontier.co.uk

Could you please be so kind as to verify if this has been brought to the dev's attention (as you can see it's from May 23rd already) and if it's possibly on a to-do list? It seems like such a waste of time to add band-aid fixes each update when the cause of the issues seems to lie somewhere else.

 

[sallymorganmoore]

Miss, sorry for bringing this to your attention again, but the OP's detailed analysis exposes a significant flaw which might explain the majority of the gamma, contrast and lightning issues.

Odyssey space has "too much contrast" - breaking down the rendering of a frame

I, as some many other people got appalled by the hideous luminance distribution and color saturation issues exhibited by the Odyssey renderer. Since I'm a computer graphics developer myself and do consulting work for critical graphics systems (think medical imaging, CT, MRI, and such) I took a...

forums.frontier.co.uk

Could you please be so kind as to verify if this has been brought to the dev's attention (as you can see it's from May 23rd already) and if it's possibly on a to-do list? It seems like such a waste of time to add band-aid fixes each update when the cause of the issues seems to lie somewhere else.

Heya I've replied to a few comments on lighting today so there's a theme here for sure! I do have a list of notes to have conversations on regarding further lighting issues and so on and this does already sit within them. As usual, I can't make specific promises to things yet until I have further discussions BUT it's on the list

 

[Dack Janiels]

Hey! Thanks so much. I do have some conversations regarding further lighting improvements so this in conjunction with those will meld quite nicely. I do see your point.
Again (and I've said this a LOT today because suddenly so many posts to me have been "should be an easy fix") - I would never dare assume how easy something is to fix if I don't know how it all works under the hood, hehe Especially with how complex Elite is,

i mean its easy fix, let us choose hud color in game like we do outside the game

 

[Frop]

Heya I've replied to a few comments on lighting today so there's a theme here for sure! I do have a list of notes to have conversations on regarding further lighting issues and so on and this does already sit within them. As usual, I can't make specific promises to things yet until I have further discussions BUT it's on the list

Thank you, the most important thing is that they're aware.

 

[Valorin]

@sallymorganmoore
Does anyone else worry that the cockpit HUD (including things like your location and altitude are almost entirely unreadable on an icy planet.

View attachment 256840

This was reported during Odyssey Alpha (although it existed in Horizons too) but the issue report was expired without being resolved https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/29634 - surely a clear image showing the problem should be confirmation enough ?
This does seem like a simple fix - the cockpit does already sections where the text is 'above' a shaded box to aid readability - but the actual flight information HUD seems to have been ignored.

I... like that I can't see the HUD on a bright icy planet. It's just the way it is in real life when looking at a brightly lit plain of snow.
It's kind of a natural environmental hazard the same way stars are hot and Neutron Stars throw you around when caught in the tails.
No problem at all with that.

 

[sallymorganmoore]

i mean its easy fix, let us choose hud color in game like we do outside the game

View attachment 256872

I can honestly appreciate you think it's easy...but to actually do a proper job of it you need the support of different disciplines and teams, not just one guy changing numbers in notepad sadly.
With how proper development would work on this, you'd need the UI team to design specific UI for this and further implement to allow you to change colour (like, where in the game do people change their HUD colour? A menu? Which menu? Which colours? How would they change the colours?) to get a good looking and user friendly experience, then of course the code support to "make it happen". Then of course the testing. That's a fair few teams involved already, right? So many moving parts to game development, nothing should be considered an 'easy fix'.

 

[Gutser]

I can honestly appreciate you think it's easy...but to actually do a proper job of it you need the support of different disciplines and teams, not just one guy changing numbers in notepad sadly.
With how proper development would work on this, you'd need the UI team to design specific UI for this and further implement to allow you to change colour (like, where in the game do people change their HUD colour? A menu? Which menu? Which colours? How would they change the colours?) to get a good looking and user friendly experience, then of course the code support to "make it happen". Then of course the testing. That's a fair few teams involved already, right? So many moving parts to game development, nothing should be considered an 'easy fix'.

Nah, it would be a feature. And as we all know, there will be complains and it must be fixed after release. Much work, yes. Is it worth? Therefore someone must consider how much it will be used, how many people will be use it, how often do you see this feature? I would say, more often then, cqc as example. So, where to put the work into

Edit: Better performance in CZ on foot.
Edit 2: Nothing against cqc, I like it. But not much players around in that

 

[TonyFlury]

When I said easy, I meant in terms of replication of what already exists else where on the UI in the cockpit, and I do appreicate the work involved in getting this right I was a developer for 30 years.

Sadly any change to any aspect of ED does seem to bring out the haters and professional whingers, but it does seem silly where we have critical bits of the UI that are entirely unreadable in some circumstances.
When I was a developer, having unreadable information was considered a bug to be fixed: it is definitely not a feature (although I acknowledge it might not be a simply fix depending on the code base).

I didn't suggest a new HUD changing system, however nice that might be.

 

[FX2K]

Hey! Thanks so much. I do have some conversations regarding further lighting improvements so this in conjunction with those will meld quite nicely. I do see your point.
<snip>

I've never been one to tag people in a message, but knowing you are compiling info and having conversations, could I gently nudge you towards this post, with some more lighting issues and screenshots/video showing them, it's a fairly compact little thread, not hundreds of pages

More fixes to lighting needed

In many circumstances, lighting changes such as around a star can suddenly change from being bright, to somewhat dulled. Flying to planets can be complete darkness, all the way to the surface, then suddenly change to being dark but all terrain visible, the changes can be somewhat janky and...

forums.frontier.co.uk

You do stellar work around here, its very refreshing

 

[Dack Janiels]

I can honestly appreciate you think it's easy...but to actually do a proper job of it you need the support of different disciplines and teams, not just one guy changing numbers in notepad sadly.
With how proper development would work on this, you'd need the UI team to design specific UI for this and further implement to allow you to change colour (like, where in the game do people change their HUD colour? A menu? Which menu? Which colours? How would they change the colours?) to get a good looking and user friendly experience, then of course the code support to "make it happen". Then of course the testing. That's a fair few teams involved already, right? So many moving parts to game development, nothing should be considered an 'easy fix'.

if i could make a suggestion, we already have Interface Brightnes, just add R/G/B sliders below that or make space for keyboard input.
maybe add 2-3 presets, and everyone should be happy.

 

[sallymorganmoore]

I've never been one to tag people in a message, but knowing you are compiling info and having conversations, could I gently nudge you towards this post, with some more lighting issues and screenshots/video showing them, it's a fairly compact little thread, not hundreds of pages

More fixes to lighting needed

In many circumstances, lighting changes such as around a star can suddenly change from being bright, to somewhat dulled. Flying to planets can be complete darkness, all the way to the surface, then suddenly change to being dark but all terrain visible, the changes can be somewhat janky and...

forums.frontier.co.uk

You do stellar work around here, its very refreshing

YESNOYES AH!! I know this thread well. It's helping a lot with pinpointing player perspectives on these things for sure. We'll keep talking as always - it's great to have such engagement here! Thank you!

 

[Frop]

YESNOYES AH!! I know this thread well. It's helping a lot with pinpointing player perspectives on these things for sure. We'll keep talking as always - it's great to have such engagement here! Thank you!

Well, here's another one from the early release days. Well worth a read.

https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/nj1f5x

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/nj1f5x/odyssey_renderer_is_broken_details/

 

[GJ51]

I know there are bigger fish frying in the pan, but I always thought it a bit of an oversight to not have the HUD auto change colors to provide contrast against different backgrounds.

Almost as irritating as the glare on the Dolphin dashboard that obfuscates the docking port on the Coriolis station hologram...

 

[Frop]

I know there are bigger fish frying in the pan, but I always thought it a bit of an oversight to not have the HUD auto change colors to provide contrast against different backgrounds.

Almost as irritating as the glare on the Dolphin dashboard that obfuscates the docking port on the Coriolis station hologram...

I'm not even sure it would need to switch colours, a more pronounced drop shadow or a solid (black) outline should work against any background.

 

[Para Handy]

I'm not even sure it would need to switch colours, a more pronounced drop shadow or a solid (black) outline should work against any background.

That's what they do with the yellow(?) text in your HUD - so you can read it against a star (that was their reasoning for having it when I complained about eye-strain back in 2015).

 

[Angus]

Hey! Thanks so much. I do have some conversations regarding further lighting improvements so this in conjunction with those will meld quite nicely. I do see your point.
Again (and I've said this a LOT today because suddenly so many posts to me have been "should be an easy fix") - I would never dare assume how easy something is to fix if I don't know how it all works under the hood, hehe Especially with how complex Elite is, EVEN if it looks like it could have the same treatment applied from somewhere else.
I can certainly have the conversations though, so thanks lots!

On a related note, the target reticule(?!) of the Manticore Executioner sniper rifle sight is sometimes virtually impossible to see in various lighting conditions, being a very low-key grey. Any chance of a mention?