Focused Feedback Thread - Cockpit Brightness

[Zac Cocken]

Greetings Commanders!

Thank you for your feedback on the first Issue Report table that we released last week. We've heard your thoughts relating to lighting in Odyssey and would like to gather some more information so we can look into this further.

We've made note of multiple lighting-related queries that you have raised and the development team are now investigating. One piece of feedback that we'd like Commanders to expand upon is the cockpit brightness issue.

We're looking for information to answer the following questions:

• Is this affecting all ships or just specific ships?
• What is the exact issue you're experiencing?
• Is this happening in all lighting, or just certain situations (certain star types, extremely dark locations)?
  • If so, please provide locations / screenshots.

Any other information you can provide around cockpit brightness will also be appreciated, but the above questions are our primary concern. The information will be useful to help us narrow down the specifics of this issue, and a potential cause.

As always with a focused feedback thread, any replies to other comments or off topic/non-constructive posts may be removed to keep the thread as practical and useful as possible. This thread is not the place to discuss other lighting issues. For unrelated discussion, please find or create other threads over in Dangerous Discussion.

o7

 

[Drelthar]

The shadows flicker a lot in my Krait mk2 on the cockpit.

Maximum settings for everything.

Especially noticeable when launching and leaving a station, but it happens everywhere that shadows are cast on the dashboard of the cockpit.

 

[cmdr chequers]

Cockpits are very bright here, the Python and FDL are the worst offenders in my fleet.
Sitting in the station is really bright.
I would like to add that the FDL's cockpit textures have been ruined in Odyssey.
FDL in Odyssey

FDL in Horizons

 

[sgurr]

After update 6 I've seen rapid lighting changes in a Keelback cockpit above Ross 1047 B 1 A, video below.
I've experienced the same rapid change in the SRV and Asp Explorer on/close to other worlds, no video.

I've also seen slower but similarly extreme lighting changes when flying close to the dark side of worlds. Horizons does a similar slower change but not through as extreme a lighting range.

AMD 6800XT, drivers are up to date.
Most settings are high/max with Directional and Spot shadow quality at Ultra.

Video evidence:

Source: https://youtu.be/dLfGshIApv8

 

[Terry Daniels]

In space and in dock... (Krait II) in VR in case that makes a difference.

 

[Arioch]

The Cobra Mk3’s dash is very bright when in hangars that feature strip lighting - mainly because there are a pair of strip lights sat directly above the cockpit:

Source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gOkNfmcrtbs&feature=emb_imp_woyt

The Krait also suffers from over brightness - the sponsons are glowing, possibly due to a pair of side hangar lights that look to be lined up with our point-of-view.

There is also a VR bug relating to excessive cockpit brightness (https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/41282) when using the Squadron or Codex displays, though I’m not sure if it’s related to the feedback you’re after here.

 

[SlickPBW]

The Dolphin has a console light right behind the graphic indicator used for scooping cargo/materials. This makes it very hard to see the scoop alignment indicator.

 

[Terry Bruge-Hiplo]

Glad to see you're tackling this.

Two main points:

1. Cockpit brightness cannot be controlled. A slider in the ship panel that lets you set the lighting brightness would be absolutely perfect. Min: dark ship interiors, like the previous patches, Max: Full brightness like we have now. Boom.

2. HUD is dim and washed out, and has gotten worse since alpha. During late alpha, it was bright, vibrant, and had the bloom pass applied to it. Now it's just not looking like an emissive/illuminated surface at all. While I use a HUD config, the default orange, as you'll see in pretty much everyone's screenshots, looks drab. Here's an example I've already posted in other threads to illustrate the point.

Top: Late alpha
Middle: Odyssey launch
Bottom: Update 5

This seems to be (speculating, of course) related to all the other issues that are occurring with gamma during frame rendering, but as yet still haven't been fully acknowledged. Please make the HUD bright and glorious like it was in the alpha.

Cheers.

 

[SlickPBW]

The Anaconda has a “light” that is behind the planet gravity indicator, making it very difficult to read a planet’s gravity.

 

[Lyamecron]

o7 Zac

My only problem with the cockpit brightness in it's current form is it's inconsistency.

Some ships got the right amount of brightness now, but a lot of them are too bright / over-exposed.

For example, this is the cockpit of my anaconda in Odyssey update 4: (which looked freaking amazing back then)

And this is the cockpit in update 5/6:

In update 4 the cockpit as a whole was too dark, but the brightness of the dashboard was spot on. All the HUD elements in the dark made for a nice atmosphere. In Update 5/6 the bridge was lit up and thats fine, but the dashboard should've been kept as dark as they were before.

Same issue in the Federal corvette and in the Krait Phantom / Mk II as far as I can tell. Thats all I've flown recently, but I am sure that other ships could need some adjustments too.

Some more comparison shots, this time from the krait(s).

Update 4:

Update 5/6:

Again, the dashboard is too exposed, which leads to the HUD elements not standing out as much and therefore a loss in atmosphere and appearance.
Maybe a reduction of light sources near the dashboards could help.

Thanks for reading

~Lyamecron

 

[Drelthar]

Essentially, load up horizons, then load up odyssey on a separate machine, with the same exact ship on both, in the same exact spot.

I suggest.

Deep space far from a star
Deep space close to (each type) of star
Station interior (every single type including outposts and ground bases)
Various planet surfaces and watch the entire sunset by finding a super fast sunset location
Carrier interiors...
Guardian locations
Combat situations (explosions and stuff)

Now tweak the lighting until it is as close as possible on both in all those situations.

Or, develop cockpit lighting that allows a commander to tweak the light source(s) in the cockpit (without being tempted to create ARX versions with coloured lighting, please)

 

[Lyamecron]

Nope, the Cobra Cockpit is anything but right. Read post #6

Focused Feedback Thread - Cockpit Brightness

Greetings Commanders! Thank you for your feedback on the first Issue Report table that we released last week. We've heard your thoughts relating to lighting in Odyssey and would like to gather some more information so we can look into this further. We've made note of multiple lighting-related...

forums.frontier.co.uk

But I agree about the inconsistencies. Except that they exist even within the same ships. And they are not static. Looks like an issue with excessive contrast/reflection values to me.

Adjusted my post accordingly

 

[UberMeg]

Yeah I must admit the lighting in the Python cockpit is a lot brighter now in Odyssey. I do prefer the cosier warm ambient lighting in the Horizons version of the Python.

 

[Elfener]

The Krait Mk2 has an issue where the "fake" screens which are in the interior flicker between normal lighting and being extremely white/bright. The severity of this is influenced by the lighting outside the ship. The easiest way to see this is to use the camera suite's interior presets, and move both the angle of the camera and the ship around.

 

[skyfish321]

all ambient lighting inside the cockpit is too high.

when away from any star, the ship interior lighting and reflections from the dash and other surfaces compete with the HUD for brightness, forcing you to increase the HUD brightness to gain back contrast... this all escalation becomes an overwhelming glow to the point of making it difficult to see out of the canopy.

being able to control the ambient lighting inside the cockpit as well as the HUD (colors?) would be major improvement... and especially so when it comes to those lights shining right into our eyes on the krait ships!

it would also be an immersion enhancement to be able to turn off all interior lighting and the HUD for when you want to just enjoy the light show outside the canopy.

 

[Mark Zero]

Chiming in to support that cockpit brightness was generally over-corrected to be too bright in update 5. It was an improvement, but it went a bit too far. The Krait II in particular became incredibly bright to the point that the metal cockpit frame became a touch obstructive to the pilot's view (but that's my daily driver, so I've noticed it more than other ships).

I'd also like to push the suggestion of making cockpit lighting something that pilots can control. Everyone is going to have a subjective preference for what the "correct" degree of brightness in the cockpit is. Some people want it completely dark like a car interior, lit only by the holographic hud readouts. Other people are gonna want everything bright and super visible. Giving us some kind of dimmer switch control over the interior cockpit lighting would let everyone dial in their preferred "perfect" setting and eliminate this issue as a complaint entirely.

If that's not feasible, even just giving us an interior "cockpit lights" option similar to exterior ship lights would also be helpful. Let us toggle between having a fully lit ship interior, and a "dark mode" where the lights inside the cockpit are off or very dark. Having that static toggle wouldn't be perfect but it'd let us make choices and have agency over our preferred experience.

 

[-Crasher-]

Cockpit lighting can be so bright at times that it can mess with the auto exposure and make previously dark environments even darker, potentially negatively affecting gameplay.

 

[Retropolitan]

Although it's nice to get everyone involved it's pretty simple to investigate cockpit lighting without us.

For each type of ship in the game:

1. Get into the ship in Horizons.
2. Go to a place that's more or less neutral in lighting. (Deep space would work well.)
3. Take a screenshot.
4. Reboot in Odyssey.
5. Take a screenshot.

Now you have all the investigative reporting you need, as well as a standard format for reference. I don't understand why this wasn't done when Odyssey turned down the lighting in every cockpit - instead, cockpit lighting was globally turned up to 11 without any attempt to match what the cockpits looked like previously.

 

[Soupbot]

Hello Zac and thank you! for this thread.

1. Krait mk2 cockpit is too bright overall. The side, top and bottom lights in the cockpit have been amped up since odyssey launch.
   
   
2. Dashboards on all ships seem to be too bright which is washing out the glorious glowing bloom of the hud.
3. A slider or some form of commander cockpit lighting control would be so welcome.
4. Thanks again for looking into this.

 

[NETbreed]

I don't have much of an issue with cockpit lighting in space, though like others above I'd really value some control over the light levels even if it's just a switch between full and mood lighting. This would be especially great for exploration where I'm far more interested in what's outside than anything inside.

However, when in a station I find myself wishing the in-game sunglasses actually had the effect of darkening the screen. This is especially the case when playing VR since there's nowhere to avert my eyes to I've noticed this in my main ships - Python, Krait Mk II and the Dolphin - but it could well be affecting others too.

I would say that overall the new lighting model in Odyssey is much better where it works well, so I wouldn't suggest aiming for a 1-1 replication of Horizons' cockpit lighting; that had its own issues, as suggested by the existence of cockpit lighting controls/tweaks in tools like EDHM targeted specifically at Horizons.