A Long Post on Lighting Issues

Pigletslastand

Pigletslastand
Just spent an evening flying in Horizons back on Xbox and the lighting is soooooooo much better, everything is clean and crisp and smooth! It was such a pleasure to get back in the cockpit
 

FX2K

FX2K
A few images of broken lighting :) when leaving a hangar on a planetary surface


Exit Hangar
A6AA8cb.jpg


Wait 10+ seconds
7NlXv8l.jpg


Take Off and gain a little altitude:
qtFJTFb.png


A different pad...

Exit Hangar
sU0Omqr.jpg


Wait 10+ seconds
aeIW1Lr.jpg


Look down at your feet (looking back up returns to above)
xAoOxYH.jpg


Take Off and gain a little altitude:
kHGMOMQ.png
 
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nanite2000

nanite2000
Excellent post @Ninjitsu!

Here are some other forum threads on the lighting colour issue:
I really hope that FDev address some of these issues as part of their lighting optimisation in Update 8.

I like to think (hope!) that part of the reason the game performance is so poor is that the lighting pipeline was made so overly complicated that it is broken in several places, and 'optimisation' means 'massively simplifying it' to not only improve lighting quality, but also game performance too.

But then I also hope to own a Ferrari one day, and I'm starting to think that both of these hopes/dreams are equally unlikely...
 

CMDR Sheehy

CMDR Sheehy
Ninjitsu said:
So i didn't want to respond to this because i didn't think it was relevant to the post or the discussion, and the difference in gamma requirements was controlled for. But since other people engaged with you and you seem to think this is a made up issue / user issue, I will have to address some things.
  1. You're implying that the same gamma settings were used in both games. This is not the case, gamma was explicitly set and i have posted my gamma settings in the OP for both horizons and odyssey.
  2. You're suggesting that switching games causes the same gamma settings to be used or something, however this is not the case, both games maintain their settings configurations separately. Flip flopping has no cross-impact on the gamma settings [you are welcome to demonstrate and prove otherwise].
    1. In my case, i first noticed the issues after continuously playing odyssey only and was not switching, so your assumptions about flip-flopping do not hold anyway.
  3. You claim the cockpit blacked out can't be replicated when the gamma is adjusted to match odyssey requirements. However in practice it happens despite the gamma being set as per the gamma calibration tool provided in-game. Moreover, the base gamma setting is irrelevant to the auto-HDR effect, which happens regardless, and is the cause of the cockpit becoming black/very dark.
    1. You claim that it cannot be replicated - please provide evidence of the same, because i can replicate it consistently with the specified types of cockpits.
  4. If you feel that you do not experience these issues, then that's great but so far your experiences appear to be the exception to the rule. So i'm not sure what this claim adds to the discussion. If you can provide evidence of your settings and images or (ideally) videos to prove your claims then that would be helpful in figuring what is going wrong for everyone else, and where/why.
    1. However this is reliant on you replicating things in similar ways (e.g. looking at bright objects/planets in the scene and not just anywhere in space).
Click to expand...
A proper report to the developers includes all points of view and a negative report is as good as a positive. If you say it's all broken, but the dev looks at his screen and it's clearly not - and you only report that everyone sees it, you must be blind, blah blah - it's going to get put in the bin or at least on the back burner. If this occurs only in specific circumstances - that needs to be made clear. "It's broke - fix it!" is a IT nightmare.

If it appears to be broken to one portion of the community and not to the other, you are presenting a better argument for a fix if you say that is the case. So go ahead rubbish what I am saying. It will only be to your detriment. I did, in another thread, present a number of images showing the issue inside the starport 'not' happening and we started to have a reasoned conversation about it until someone got on their high horse and started making wild accusations...

This is the thing I don't get about all you lot who moan about things - People like me are valuable to you as a sounding board to get your complaint aimed right - but you like to treat such people as garbage because they won't "sign up to the manifesto!"

So fine! You don't want me to say anything while you rant - carry on!

I'm done and out of here. Carry on.
 

Rat Catcher

Rat Catcher
Although I agree that there are issues with lighting (which fortunately appears to be part of the optimisation from Update 9 - if anyone cared to read) I find the interpretation of "barely visible" curious (not that it makes much difference, overall, bar how 'contrasty' images are) as the leftmost image in the Odyssey is clearly visible on my monitor.
Below is mine - the leftmost image is certainly barely visible for me...
Screenshot_0250.jpg

There is a notable difference in where the slider is: The most curious part is that moving the slider appears to change lighting in steps, not linearly.
 

CaptainPugwash

CaptainPugwash
Ninjitsu said:
@sallymorganmoore @Arthur Tolmie @Zac Cocken i know you're all swamped with stuff but I'll try and make this worth your while. I really want to go back to Odyssey but fact of the matter is that Horizons just does lighting in space better at the moment. This post should hopefully end up pointing out where the issues are in a consolidated way, although much has already been said about this everywhere else.

So first, the issues from the feedback tracker:
  1. Illumination of background planets is tied to illumination of player ship by the illuminating star https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/41371[aka incorrect occlusion]
    1. Duplicate issue created: https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/43184
  2. Incorrect brightness/contrast adjustment depending on angle between camera, ship and star https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/41372[aka faux-HDR effect]
    1. Very similar and likely duplicate: https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/42565
    2. Exposure adjustment when standing in shadow at night time is over darkening the screen. https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/26848 [expired]
  3. Flickering shadows on planetary surfaces https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/41717 [also on and around ships, in hangars, etc.]
  4. Gamma balance is off which causes details in space to be lost https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/42493
  5. Outside lighting still shines inside FC https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/43147 [i have seen this in station hangars too, but from passing by ships]
  6. Station lighting is still too bright in places https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/42876 [seriously axe the faux-HDR effect, it will solve/reduce a lot of issues]
  7. Broken Atmospheric Lighting https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/42691
  8. Lighting: windows at a station flicker every second https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/42519 [lacking media evidence but i may have observed it at some point too]
There are scores of others, mostly expired. Just searching for "lighting", "gamma", "contrast", "brightness", "exposure" on the issue tracker will turn up results.

Next, some forum posts created at various points over the last 6 months:
  1. https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/edo-lighting-while-in-space.584867/
  2. https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...t-surfaces-post-patch-6-is-it-just-me.587916/
  3. https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/focused-feedback-thread-cockpit-brightness.588309/
  4. https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/more-fixes-to-lighting-needed.587128/
Probably dozens more.

And now some fresh media content. First, consider these two recordings of space CZs in the Thauts system. It's the same High CZ. One run is recorded in Horizons, then is in Odyssey. This is the complete run from the station, to the CZ, and back to the station.

Horizons:
Source: https://youtu.be/79xEqqtt_U8


Now Odyssey:
Source: https://youtu.be/cD3XndrSf5o


Gamma Settings:
View attachment 266078

View attachment 266079

Notable differences:
  1. Station hangar departure: brightness is more, colour tones are different.
  2. Cockpit brightness is more in odyssey, while in horizons it reacts more to ambient light
  3. Shadows flicker on the ship in odyssety
  4. Deep space objects like nebulae are much darker when viewed from teh cockpit in odyssey
  5. CZ is in general much less vibrant and well lit in odyssey
    1. Engine exhaust is more prominent and visibly clearer in horizons. in Odyssey they're just dark...
    2. Ships are more visible in horizons. In odyssey you can't see them properly unless the star is in or near the visible scene, or directly behind the player. When ships are in a dark region of the scene they're hard to see.
  6. Bloom of projectile colours is much more in odyssey, making the scene hard to read
  7. Colours and brightness of projectiles and lasers of other ships are easier to see in odyssey
  8. Brightness of background planets and stars in the scene varies a lot more in odyssey. In horizons they're pretty much constant.
    1. Stars and skybox are more well defined in horizons in general
  9. The halo around the star is much nicer in horizons, in odyssey there is no halo
  10. The colour and intensity of light incident on the ship is different in odyssey, where it looks more dull unless pointed directly at the star. In horizons it is consistent. While this is apparent all throughout while in the cockpit, set the horizons vid at 24:00 and odyssey vid at 31:00 to see this very clearly.
  11. Shadow flickering on the corvette's nose in odyssey while in cockpit. When in 3rd person view (e.g. 32 mins onward) you can see shadows load in and load out and generally behave badly and incorrectly.
  12. Aliasing is worse in odyssey
  13. Odyssey makes the hull bloomier/more reflective whereas in Horizons the paint is matte.
  14. Compare the approach to the station around 27 min (horizons) and 34 mins (odyssey. Look at the visible stars in the background and note the difference.
  15. Differences in the supercruise trails. In odyssey they are hardly visible (but there are a couple on approach, see if you can spot them). In horizons they are very visible and very pretty.
  16. The station looks considerably darker in odyssey when looking right at it, although the sun looks like it's starting to set.
  17. odyssey: Note that the milky way dims and brightness aggressively if the station is in view.
  18. odyssey: station interior is very bright, almost washed out.
  19. UI takes time to load in odyssey, because it takes too long trying to load the portrait thumbnails.
  20. Notice how shadows on the pad appear and disappear even when they shouldn't. (~39 mins)
  21. [edit]: Performance in odyssey was way worse, as might be apparent in either video. i was doing around 40-50 fps in the CZ and 40-55 fps in and around the station. This was with update 6, update 7 made the station performance better, haven't played a CZ since.
    1. Horizons meanwhile did a solid 60 throughout (nvidia adaptive vsync) with minor drops to 55-ish on a couple of occasions.
Images:
Re: incorrect occlusion

Horizons
20210901205625_1.jpg


20210901205041_1.jpg


And now Odyssey
20210901205429_1.jpg

20210901205350_1.jpg


Now these rings are in Horizons.
20210901205758_1.jpg


In odyssey, these rings would have been completely black.

A lot of these issues are caused by the auto-HDR effect. This makes the cockpit brightness increases extremely detrimental to the space lighting. For example:
20210825034037_1.jpg


Note how dark the planet is, and how dim the star is. The primary white star is slightly to the left of the right hand HUD bracket.

When you go to third person, you see more accurate lighting:

20210825034043_1.jpg


The older unmodified horizons cockpits suffer while in odyssey. Looking at bright objects makes them completely black.
20210923132936_1.jpg


Continuing the theme of HDR issues, the OG scene that made me realise what was going on:

When looking at the star, the ring is well lit, as it should be.
5BBCA9B22BED9A8A62535B619D168149D134604F


When looking away from the star, the game pretends there is a brown dwarf in the system instead...
20210801020948_1.jpg
Click to expand...
Great post!
 
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