100% Proof Planets have lost their colour. [UPDATED with official Dev reason and plan to improve]

[CMDR Carbo]

If that's the case they went from more realistic to less realistic. And they should change it back. Metallic and rocky planets should be grey and splotchy. Not mate beige.

Can you provide a quote to that effect that the intention was to change it from grey to beige?

Ah no sorry, I missread that. Was just concerning the system map.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...trikes-Back)?p=4850055&viewfull=1#post4850055

The official response was "We will have a look."
Wonder what happened to that.

 

[Qohen Leth]

I don't have the quote at hand but that's what I saw as well, it's in an Ant's video.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Context matters.

In the context of the rest of my post you quoted (but edited out), I think the bulk of the forum would actually be thrilled.

Aww, don't be a spoilsport now, join me in demanding grey planets from the devs! You know you want it!

 

[Ziljan]

Ah no sorry, I missread that. Was just concerning the system map.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...trikes-Back)?p=4850055&viewfull=1#post4850055

The official response was "We will look into it."
Wonder what happened to that.

Yeah I remember the lighting change. Seems that the colors of the planets in question may have been initially balanced for realism according to the original lighting. Now they are more consistent with the system map lighting, but less realistic and more washed out and bland looking.

I sure hope they can readjust the planet color so that it reblends more accurately. I really miss the mottled grey moons in Obsidian's video.

- - - Updated - - -

Aww, don't be a spoilsport now, join me in demanding grey planets from the devs! You know you want it!

Mate beige to mate grey would be a lateral move aesthetically. A real fix would mean the planets might be grey but also textured and splotchy and even duo-chromed in complex and nuanced ways that looked stunning like images from a NASA probe. See malefant's posts for pics.

 

[ChrisT]

I'm a little torn on this. On the one hand, super vibrant planets are (maybe), not close to realism. But who knows, maybe they also are. Its hard to say. Our Solar system only provides a very very tiny overall sampling of the un-countable variety of actual planets and moons that lay out there. We are all used to seeing lava planets in-game, yet I don't think we have an actual example in our system. We know there are planets/moons out there that are near 100% water worlds, or near 100% desert, etc. But we have to rely on Frontiers planet forge, and how it expresses planets in game. But of course, it can all be tweaked...

Anyway...

Personally, I think the crux here, is for Frontier to have the freedom to CHANGE THINGS, without asking our permission (to a degree). If the planet team have a change of heart, and decide that planets should be closer to beige, then so be it. I really don't think 2.2 planets, or 2.0 or any other version should be held up as an image of perfection. What I mean more fully, is, they HAVE to have the ability to change the way planets look, as this entire game is a WIP.

The only difference is, to say SC, is that we are playing it whilst its being developed. So, I guess, we do tend to get attached to particular planet/moons look, and it can be jarring when it changes. I guess when its a "good" change, we shrug and accept it. When its "bad", we get a bit upset, and possibly vocal. But the problem is, its all a little subjective and THEY are the developers, they must make the decisions.

I really want to see the planet rendering system improve (a lot) over time. And those improvements will require change. Change to topology, change to variety, change to saturations, etc. So I think we just need to go along with those changes. Possibly point them out, and then let Frontier "do the right thing".

Obsidian Ant, I think by asking for "an official response" you are inviting an official re-buff, or possibly stunning silence. Your demand, well, its a challenge of sorts no? You are putting someone, possibly an entire team on the spot, and kind saying they are "wrong". Personally, I think a thread where you state a preference, and then try and get support, by other players agreeing, is probably about as much pressure as is needed. Frontier are reasonable, we know that, they listen, but I don't think they need to give "official" responses to every issue that players may feel is important to them. Not matter how passionate we may feel on an issue.

Who knows, 2.3 might ramp up the saturation a little more. Who knows what the mystery 2.4 release will bring? Only time will tell.

Besides, light and colour are a funny thing. Take star-light. If we are in a system with a yellow star, we will perceive its light as being "white". If we are in a blue-white star system, again, our vision adjusts to make that blue, appear as white. However, of course, blue light, on yellow planets, produces quite a different effect to yellow on yellow. Im not saying that the de-saturation you see is because of this. Its just that, changes to lighting can have major knock on effects, and so textures get tweaked to balance, and things "change"...

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Well, with my special mod powers, i note that at least 4 devs have read this thread, and that Brett responded and said he has passed OAs concerns onto the dev team. So, not sure what else there is to say here apart from people going round in circles.

 

[Martian Successor]

So 4 days and 34 pages later and we still have no idea if the beigification was intended or an accident or even the slightest inkling of what Frontier is actually seeking to achieve with the continued development of this area in the video game we payed them for and some even helped fund into existence.

I must ask: was communication with the developers we are all currently funding this hard back in the kickstarter, alpha and beta days?

- - - Updated - - -

Well, with my special mod powers, i note that at least 4 devs have read this thread, and that Brett responded and said he has passed OAs concerns onto the dev team. So, not sure what else there is to say here apart from people going round in circles.

That's great but remember that we don't all have the special mod powers to sense the mysterious lurking presence of 4 devs nor their thoughts on the matter. For all we know two of them could have come here to gain new info on the situation, one of them could have miss clicked while searching Ebay for [beige] Axe oil and the 4th could have come here just to laugh at that stupid Martian and his desperately continued 4 month long begging quest over the Federal Assualt Ship cockpit.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Well, with my special mod powers, i note that at least 4 devs have read this thread, and that Brett responded and said he has passed OAs concerns onto the dev team. So, not sure what else there is to say here apart from people going round in circles.

Well, you could say: "Hi Devs!". Maybe a wave? *waves*

Also, going around in circles, once in a while you bump into a mod who informs you 4 devs have opened this thread (read is an assumption ). So it does make sense!

 

[2plex]

Yeah I remember the lighting change. Seems that the colors of the planets in question may have been initially balanced for realism according to the original lighting. Now they are more consistent with the system map lighting, but less realistic and more washed out and bland looking.

I sure hope they can readjust the planet color so that it reblends more accurately. I really miss the mottled grey moons in Obsidian's video.

- - - Updated - - -


Mate beige to mate grey would be a lateral move aesthetically. A real fix would mean the planets might be grey but also textured and splotchy and even duo-chromed in complex and nuanced ways that looked stunning like images from a NASA probe. See malefant's posts for pics.

If I remember correctly, the lighting change was introduced to reflect a more realistic light emitting from stars.
Before the change the emitted starlight changed to white light after a certain distance from the star, no matter what type the star was.
This made most of the planets looks rather more grayish, as it was white light that got reflected from the surface.

After the lighting change the stars emitted a more appropriate light according to their type and as the main bulk of the stars in game (and IRL) are orange-red/yellow ones, the light now being reflect from these planets is mainly beige.

There is no easy way around this, unless Frontier introduces different color modes/zones for each different planet type in any given system.
But I really doubt that, so any 'solution' to this matter will still be wanting in other aspects.

 

[Lightspeed]

I'm a little torn on this. On the one hand, super vibrant planets are (maybe), not close to realism. But who knows, maybe they also are. Its hard to say. Our Solar system only provides a very very tiny overall sampling of the un-countable variety of actual planets and moons that lay out there. We are all used to seeing lava planets in-game, yet I don't think we have an actual example in our system. We know there are planets/moons out there that are near 100% water worlds, or near 100% desert, etc. But we have to rely on Frontiers planet forge, and how it expresses planets in game. But of course, it can all be tweaked...

Anyway...

Personally, I think the crux here, is for Frontier to have the freedom to CHANGE THINGS, without asking our permission (to a degree). If the planet team have a change of heart, and decide that planets should be closer to beige, then so be it. I really don't think 2.2 planets, or 2.0 or any other version should be held up as an image of perfection. What I mean more fully, is, they HAVE to have the ability to change the way planets look, as this entire game is a WIP.

The only difference is, to say SC, is that we are playing it whilst its being developed. So, I guess, we do tend to get attached to particular planet/moons look, and it can be jarring when it changes. I guess when its a "good" change, we shrug and accept it. When its "bad", we get a bit upset, and possibly vocal. But the problem is, its all a little subjective and THEY are the developers, they must make the decisions.

I really want to see the planet rendering system improve (a lot) over time. And those improvements will require change. Change to topology, change to variety, change to saturations, etc. So I think we just need to go along with those changes. Possibly point them out, and then let Frontier "do the right thing".

Obsidian Ant, I think by asking for "an official response" you are inviting an official re-buff, or possibly stunning silence. Your demand, well, its a challenge of sorts no? You are putting someone, possibly an entire team on the spot, and kind saying they are "wrong". Personally, I think a thread where you state a preference, and then try and get support, by other players agreeing, is probably about as much pressure as is needed. Frontier are reasonable, we know that, they listen, but I don't think they need to give "official" responses to every issue that players may feel is important to them. Not matter how passionate we may feel on an issue.

Who knows, 2.3 might ramp up the saturation a little more. Who knows what the mystery 2.4 release will bring? Only time will tell.

Besides, light and colour are a funny thing. Take star-light. If we are in a system with a yellow star, we will perceive its light as being "white". If we are in a blue-white star system, again, our vision adjusts to make that blue, appear as white. However, of course, blue light, on yellow planets, produces quite a different effect to yellow on yellow. Im not saying that the de-saturation you see is because of this. Its just that, changes to lighting can have major knock on effects, and so textures get tweaked to balance, and things "change"...

+rep for a very well considered response

 

[Eros]

Not sure if it was pointed out, but orbital images and landed gameplay are not the same thing when it came to version 2.0

In 2.0 planets had colour from orbit, but once you approached all hints of colours would fade until you was left with what ever the base colour is. Did you mention that at all ObsidianAnt? I know many of your videos you like to do flybys and I agree, planets seeming more bland doesn't make for nice flybys but I cant help but think the statements being made are somewhat dishonest, painting the texture colours of 2.0 as being amazingly varied, when really for those who played the game doing hundreds if not thousands of planet falls trying to find interesting places... none of the textures and colour differences as observed from orbit would be maintained down to the surface. I think the 'regression' if you want to call it that came between beta and 2.0 proper. I distinctly remember landing on blue tinted planets with white/yellow canyons... and when i got near the surface, the colour faided to all being blue.

2.1 gave us really nice surface textures, but somewhat low res orbital textures
2.2 picked up the texturing again, but the result was as pointed out that... things became mostly brown. BUT at least now if you have a brown area, with other colours, you will totally still see those down on the surface.

Please check through your old videos for 2.0, you will see exactly what I am talking about.

Overall... I agree that textures should be globally more varied with more colouring... BUT i absolutely disagree with the use of 2.0 textures as being in any shape or form better than now.

 

[shreddog]

Incorrect. Elite Dangerous still remains a priority project for us here at Frontier.

I've passed the feedback over to our dev team to check into the issue. It's possible some textures were tweaked inadvertently, causing colors to not be toned right.

You have no idea how much we appreciate this answer

 

[Obsidian Ant]

Not sure if it was pointed out, but orbital images and landed gameplay are not the same thing when it came to version 2.0

In 2.0 planets had colour from orbit, but once you approached all hints of colours would fade until you was left with what ever the base colour is. Did you mention that at all ObsidianAnt? I know many of your videos you like to do flybys and I agree, planets seeming more bland doesn't make for nice flybys but I cant help but think the statements being made are somewhat dishonest, painting the texture colours of 2.0 as being amazingly varied, when really for those who played the game doing hundreds if not thousands of planet falls trying to find interesting places... none of the textures and colour differences as observed from orbit would be maintained down to the surface. I think the 'regression' if you want to call it that came between beta and 2.0 proper. I distinctly remember landing on blue tinted planets with white/yellow canyons... and when i got near the surface, the colour faided to all being blue.

2.1 gave us really nice surface textures, but somewhat low res orbital textures
2.2 picked up the texturing again, but the result was as pointed out that... things became mostly brown. BUT at least now if you have a brown area, with other colours, you will totally still see those down on the surface.

Please check through your old videos for 2.0, you will see exactly what I am talking about.

Overall... I agree that textures should be globally more varied with more colouring... BUT i absolutely disagree with the use of 2.0 textures as being in any shape or form better than now.

Be assured I have checked through a lot of my old footage. The colour fading you pointed out, only affected some of the planets and certainly not all of them. Even in v2.0 there were hundreds of planets with strong colour variations that did not fade out once near the surface.

Here is just one example from v2.0 (Ironically the base colour of this planet could be considered beige, but notice how the other colours within the depressions / canyons do not fade at all no matter how close I get). I have dozens of examples like this from v2.0 - and I also have examples where the colour did fade. It was not a consistent issue on all planets. This is a metal content world by the way:

[video=youtube;6vE6dmeT_Zo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vE6dmeT_Zo[/video]


(P.S. I have never said that the textures in 2.0 were better than what we have now. Textures have indeed improved. What I am asking on information for here is to do with colour and geometry changes, not texture changes).

 

[Chpouky]

Raah, can't wait for my GTX1080 Ti and 2.3 release and see changes made to planets. Definitly gonna make videos as well !
I hope caves are a little surprise ^^

 

[rennarda]

A suggestion - and something to keep the explorers busy - can we create a catalogue of images and videos of worlds to use as a baseline for future changes?

I mean, if FD change something, we will need a set of images to compare the latest version to, to see exactly what has changed. I suggest a decent spread of different worlds types, in systems that are easily accessible so that they can readily be re-visited and imaged again. Also, different worlds types under a variety of star class lightings - so F, G, K and M class stars.

Would that be a worthwhile project for someone, or a group of someones?

 

[shreddog]

I hope caves are a little surprise ^^

Not gonna happen any time soon. The terrain is based on heightmaps Adding caves will be extremely difficult, if not impossible.

What I'm hoping for (as a start) is horizontal displacement on the heightmaps, so we can get proper cliffs and overhangs. And in general I want a much more complex terrain at surface level. Like sharp edges, drops, sink holes, cracks, etc. As it is now the terrain is kind of lacking when you get down to surface level.. You spot some promising features from 50 km height and when you land they are mostly faded away, revealing the same rounded mounds to drive on(very safe but not very exciting).

 

[Chpouky]

Not gonna happen any time soon. The terrain is based on heightmaps Adding caves will be extremely difficult, if not impossible.

But it's in the roadmap tho ^^

 

[Obsidian Ant]

Obsidian Ant, I think by asking for "an official response" you are inviting an official re-buff, or possibly stunning silence. Your demand, well, its a challenge of sorts no? You are putting someone, possibly an entire team on the spot, and kind saying they are "wrong". Personally, I think a thread where you state a preference, and then try and get support, by other players agreeing, is probably about as much pressure as is needed. Frontier are reasonable, we know that, they listen, but I don't think they need to give "official" responses to every issue that players may feel is important to them. Not matter how passionate we may feel on an issue.

I really appreciate the replies in this thread, but I do have to admit, I really don't know where this is coming from. I am not demanding anything from Frontier, I have never done that, and never would. I am making a simple request for information, and at this point Frontier know me well enough to know what angle I am coming from with this post.

Also, I am not challenging them. I haven't once said what colour the planets should be. I have neither said, nor implied that Frontier are "wrong", instead, I have posted facts showing that previously the planets were one colour, and now they are another. That isn't a challenge, it isn't a judgement call, and it certainly isn't an accusation. It is a provable fact.

After presenting this evidence, I went on to say that many people have stated a preference for the previous colours (and linked to examples where people speak of their preferences), and also stated I have a preference for the previous colours. I ended this with a request to Frontier to ask for some information on why the change happened, and whether or not future improvements to the game will bring a return to more colourful planets (notice I haven't asked them to return to the previous versions - this is a request for information only).

There's no malice or ill-intent here, and anyone reading the words in my post (as opposed to reading into my post) will certainly be well aware of that.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

A suggestion - and something to keep the explorers busy - can we create a catalogue of images and videos of worlds to use as a baseline for future changes?

I mean, if FD change something, we will need a set of images to compare the latest version to, to see exactly what has changed. I suggest a decent spread of different worlds types, in systems that are easily accessible so that they can readily be re-visited and imaged again. Also, different worlds types under a variety of star class lightings - so F, G, K and M class stars.

Would that be a worthwhile project for someone, or a group of someones?

I'd say Frontier Development would be such a group

How awesome would an addition of comparing screenshot to the changelog be whenever appearances of planets change?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Be assured I have checked through a lot of my old footage. The colour fading you pointed out, only affected some of the planets and certainly not all of them. Even in v2.0 there were hundreds of planets with strong colour variations that did not fade out once near the surface.

My posterboy planet is one of these, no to little fading.

Spoiler