Add Global Illumination to Elite Dangerous
- Thread starter Cosmo
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Sorry to join, U mean planets illumination etc? yea.. I wish there was also water, and tides well maybe too much but at least water
and a module that in hangar allows or update to SRV that allows it or indeed a specific vehicle that can go under water.
Will open another topic on something that requires it indeed. Underwater stuff.
and a module that in hangar allows or update to SRV that allows it or indeed a specific vehicle that can go under water.
Will open another topic on something that requires it indeed. Underwater stuff.
I think what would be needed is something like the new MegaLights in Unreal 5.5:
I don't know how they got it to work so that their claim of practically unlimited light sources without performance impact is possible, but I was watching this last night wistfully wondering to myself if something like this could be the solution to the multiple starlight sources problem. It was an impressive demo, running realtime on a PS5. Though I've seen them claim similar for Lumen & Nanite but then heard that a lot of Unreal 5 games are super resource heavy in reality, so who knows?
MegaLights looks amazing, but we should lower the expectations for ED. If Fdev had MegaLights they would've implemented it for Planet Coaster 2.
Can't global illumination fix multiple starlight sources?
Honestly, and as a lay person, I wouldn't be able to tell you.
I think first of all they should fix the lighting of planets etc... those lights are not often ok.. some are extremely enlightened but for no reason.
Some are perfectly realistic lightened.. I don't understand.
Some are perfectly realistic lightened.. I don't understand.
How about they fix shadows first? They worked just fine for the longest time, then update 18 broke them, and while they have changed a bit in each subsequent update, they have been broken ever since. I have never seen an explanation of why they changed it or why they seemingly can't fix them.
Still need to port ED over to a significantly different branch of Cobra (which almost certainly isn't as simple as just loading up the old assets in the new tools and clicking 'build'), add whatever missing parameters are required for the updated lighting (GI needs to know how light will interact with surfaces and most assets made without taking physically-based illumination into account won't have that info), then do a lot of testing (ED's scope, scale, and variety of environments probably exceeds that of PC2).
Planet Coaster 2 was developed a decade after Elite: Dangerous and likely too GI potential into account all along. I don't see them putting the time, effort, and expense into a massive overhaul for so dated a title.
Global illumination - Wikipedia
Being able to handle multiple light sources is implicit with any modern global illumination method, yes.
A decent global illumination implementation would remove the need for traditional shadow maps entirely...at least on those systems fast enough to run it.
The game still needs to be able to run with raytracing turned off, on slightly lower-end systems.
Sure you aren't getting you atmospheric and non-atmospheric planets mixed up, the lighting conditions on each would be different. Also you have different densities of atmosphere, different gas makeup and etc. So not sure what you are referring to here, maybe you could post some screenshots of what you think is good and bad?
I doubt it requires a full port to that branch. They could probably add tech of different Cobra branches to ED and vice versa. Dunno how difficult this would be though.
Sure it will be challenging to add it, but Fdev did more impressive feats such as the huge upgrades of the planet tech for Odyssey.
The early showcases of PC2 didn't have global illumination afaik.
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Indeed, I would wonder if this part in general would be best suited to AI?
Yes what I mean is that some planets have no atmosphere quite clearly and their surface appears really simplicistically enlightened like it was a lower quality effect, while other really look damn realistic. (usually with atmosphere)...
I guess the texture could be made a bit more realistic.
(sorry but I can't touch files as I don't wanna work more on files with legal modding in order to make graphics look even more sexy... I read about the devs allowed method. Anyway vanilla, it's a bit underwhelming the non atmospheric view of celestial bodies.
Anyway this is sort of 1st world problem when there are other important things...
Sorry.,. not searching for some of the pics I took in answer to a request and curiosity felt a bit like contradicting : how come I write and talk and ask for improvement or suggest potential stuff to be improved and then I don't find even a second to post something ... that would take like 2 seconds... So I did.
First one is acceptable
Second one is beautiful ok.. but a bit too blunt... I don't know. But there is much worse than these. Much much worse. I of course did not take pics to those I criticize since I don't likle them
See the last one maybe I found one that nears what I mean.
also good
amazing
THIS ONE... this one is the kind of illumination that I mean feels FAKE.
First one is acceptable
Second one is beautiful ok.. but a bit too blunt... I don't know. But there is much worse than these. Much much worse. I of course did not take pics to those I criticize since I don't likle them
See the last one maybe I found one that nears what I mean.
also good
amazing
THIS ONE... this one is the kind of illumination that I mean feels FAKE.
It's not illumination only.. it's also texture with Illumination that creates this fake feeling compared to good else in the game.
Uhh, atmosphere affects how stuff looks. Frontier if nothing, do try and make the physical universe as accurate as possible. I'm confident the lighting on airless worlds is as accurate as they know how to make it.
Planets with no atmosphere will look that way, have a look at photos and videos taken on the moon, there is no light scattering from gases so of course they are going to look simplistically lighted because there is nothing to create complex light interactions like diffusion and other effects, except maybe reflections on ice worlds. On rocky worlds it will look exceptionally bland with no atmosphere, just like the moon. The texture is exactly realistic, it's exactly what those atmospheric planets you are are saying are realistic would look with no atmosphere. I don't see the problem, you want them to make planets with no atmosphere look like planets with atmosphere? Now that would be unrealistic!
This is an atmospheric planet which we cannot land on yet. The clouds are flat textures which makes it worse.
Sorry.,. not searching for some of the pics I took in answer to a request and curiosity felt a bit like contradicting : how come I write and talk and ask for improvement or suggest potential stuff to be improved and then I don't find even a second to post something ... that would take like 2 seconds... So I did.
First one is acceptable
Second one is beautiful ok.. but a bit too blunt... I don't know. But there is much worse than these. Much much worse. I of course did not take pics to those I criticize since I don't likle them
See the last one maybe I found one that nears what I mean.
View attachment 404423
View attachment 404424
also good
View attachment 404425
amazing
View attachment 404426
THIS ONE... this one is the kind of illumination that I mean feels FAKE.
View attachment 404427
The last planet you are featuring is a non-landable planet as already mentioned by Cosmo, they don't have proceduraly generated surfaces or atmosphere so they don't actually respond to light effects except for being dark and/or light, the surface is a low res 2d wraparound bitmap, it only looks detailed because we are so far away from it, up close it would be all blocky. It's a "picture" of a planet surface, not an actual planet surface as we get from landable planets, all non-landable planets are generated this way, even WW and ELW are generated this way, they are pictures, there are no light effects because there is nothing for the light effect to work with.