Amazingly Realistic Immersion Mod

[Old Duck]

Just as an experiment, is there any way to get to true to lore depth of field from 3gmoto?

I don't think so. Geometry is created on the CPU side, 3DMitogo only deals with the GPU. I might be able to apply some sort of multiplier on the vertex shaders, but it would be a lot of work and I doubt it would have the desired effect.

Also, part of the problem is ED itself is not properly scaled. Even in VR, there are some assets that are too small, other assets that are too big, etc. I've "explored" in VR, and I have no doubt of this. The only way to fix this is for these assets to be remodeled at the proper scale. This is actually why I prefer flying smaller ships even in VR, as it comes the closest to feeling "right" when it comes to scale.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

I don't think so. Geometry is created on the CPU side, 3DMitogo only deals with the GPU. I might be able to apply some sort of multiplier on the vertex shaders, but it would be a lot of work and I doubt it would have the desired effect.

Also, part of the problem is ED itself is not properly scaled. Even in VR, there are some assets that are too small, other assets that are too big, etc. I've "explored" in VR, and I have no doubt of this. The only way to fix this is for these assets to be remodeled at the proper scale. This is actually why I prefer flying smaller ships even in VR, as it comes the closest to feeling "right" when it comes to scale.

Ahhh fair enough. Well it was worth a daydream at least. If they added depth of field it might actually dampen the gameplay not realism fov that non vr elite is stuck with. Thanks for considering it anyway.

 

[Old Duck]

Ahhh fair enough. Well it was worth a daydream at least. If they added depth of field it might actually dampen the gameplay not realism fov that non vr elite is stuck with. Thanks for considering it anyway.

IIRC, you can manually set DOF to anything you want in the graphics config file. I tried a high DOF once, but I didn't like the "fisheye" effect. Having played in VR a lot, I actually prefer a small DOF in pancake, as that feels more "natural" to me, despite restricting my view. Of course YMMV depending on monitor size.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

IIRC, you can manually set DOF to anything you want in the graphics config file. I tried a high DOF once, but I didn't like the "fisheye" effect. Having played in VR a lot, I actually prefer a small DOF in pancake, as that feels more "natural" to me, despite restricting my view. Of course YMMV depending on monitor size.

Problem is the lower value is clamped, so you're hardcoded out of achieving realistic views in non vr. From experiments, its quite specifically at the point where the station services hud is completely on the screen.

I need a white knight exasperation image for this one. It was years ago but i was so dismayed when discovering that.

 

[Old Duck]

Problem is the lower value is clamped, so you're hardcoded out of achieving realistic views in non vr. From experiments, its quite specifically at the point where the station services hud is completely on the screen.

Hmmm.... If merely adjusting DOF past the limit is your goal, that might be achievable by manually setting it in a vertex shader. I still suspect it would be a serious undertaking even if possible, one I can't take on at the moment.

 

[Old Duck]

@CMDR Karrde Sun

Out of curiosity, are you able to achieve the desired DOF / FOV using the external "debug" camera?

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Hmmm.... If merely adjusting DOF past the limit is your goal, that might be achievable by manually setting it in a vertex shader. I still suspect it would be a serious undertaking even if possible, one I can't take on at the moment.

Oooh really? Yeah so just to confirm, i found that xml you were talking about, and lowered the fov to what typically is done in fps. Course knowing that the xml takes vertical fov as the value etc. What happens is next time the game loads, its basically replaced by the lowest allowable value, jump out and jump in again and your change is overwritten even. Not sure if i was using an override.xml or the game copy, i think i was editing the game copy (when using linux i used to log in as root too, sue me).

Would be interesting...

Also i haven't been following this thread, but im currently running reshade (which would probably have to be replaced?). The only thing it does is pretty much the exact same really minor desaturation to cross it over into not cartoon (topic for another day). Did you get that desaturation feature into your config as well? Looking at the one on the front page i don't remember seeing a thing for it.

 

[Spaceman Si]

IIRC, you can manually set DOF to anything you want in the graphics config file. I tried a high DOF once, but I didn't like the "fisheye" effect. Having played in VR a lot, I actually prefer a small DOF in pancake, as that feels more "natural" to me, despite restricting my view. Of course YMMV depending on monitor size.

That sounds like you’re describing FOV (field of view), rather than DOF (Depth of Field).

At the risk of sounding patronising (which is absolutely not my intent!) DOF is what determines how much in focus something is. A shallow DOF means that most things outside of the plane of the object focussed on looks blurry. So in this case, the front of an Orbis would look sharp and crisp, but would look progressively more blurry as it receeds into the distance. In Elite, we have an infinite DOF during normal play, so everything looks pin-sharp, no matter how close or far away it is to you.

The FOV determines the angle over which you can see; a higher FOV would lead to seeing more around you, but at high levels will result in the fish-eye effect. I amended my FOV to 80, but don’t get a noticeable barrel distortion at that level, so I left it there, but YMMV of course

Outside of the camera view, I’ve not seen a way of altering the DOF, but the FOV is alterable from the config file.

 

[Old Duck]

That sounds like you’re describing FOV (field of view), rather than DOF (Depth of Field).

At the risk of sounding patronising (which is absolutely not my intent!) DOF is what determines how much in focus something is. A shallow DOF means that most things outside of the plane of the object focussed on looks blurry. So in this case, the front of an Orbis would look sharp and crisp, but would look progressively more blurry as it receeds into the distance. In Elite, we have an infinite DOF during normal play, so everything looks pin-sharp, no matter how close or far away it is to you.

The FOV determines the angle over which you can see; a higher FOV would lead to seeing more around you, but at high levels will result in the fish-eye effect. I amended my FOV to 80, but don’t get a noticeable barrel distortion at that level, so I left it there, but YMMV of course

Outside of the camera view, I’ve not seen a way of altering the DOF, but the FOV is alterable from the config file.

You are absolutely correct, my bad! I know this, really I do, but my coffee just hit my stomach LOL.

 

[Retropolitan]

The FOV determines the angle over which you can see; a higher FOV would lead to seeing more around you, but at high levels will result in the fish-eye effect. I amended my FOV to 80, but don’t get a noticeable barrel distortion at that level, so I left it there, but YMMV of course

This is really apparent in a ship that has a cockpit camera right behind the seat (like the DBX). If you toggle between the normal cockpit view and that cockpit camera you see the difference between the wide-angle camera and the telephoto cockpit view. The normal cockpit view is the culprit when we see serious problems with scale: distances are compressed and distant things look larger, just as they do when a picture is taken through a telephoto lens.

All I can figure is that this lens setting makes combat much easier. How big would an Eagle look when it was four kilometers away? It would be a speck.

 

[Florenus]

Just as an experiment, is there any way to get to true to lore depth of field from 3gmoto? I didn't have any luck with this with a years of version of reshade.

Ie, the end of a cutter should look like it really is 200meters away, not as crisp as if the thing was 5-10 in total length and sitting immediately infront of you.

I'm not sure what you mean by "true to the lore", but in vacuum of space there's nothing to make things in the distance blurry. They would actually look crisp like this and having difficulties in judging scale of things and distances is major problem for humans in space. On the Moon f.ex. astronauts have no idea how big or deep a crater is, or how far away and how big a mountain they see is.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

I'm not sure what you mean by "true to the lore", but in vacuum of space there's nothing to make things in the distance blurry. They would actually look crisp like this and having difficulties in judging scale of things and distances is major problem for humans in space. On the Moon f.ex. astronauts have no idea how big or deep a crater is, or how far away and how big a mountain they see is.

I was thinking focus range of human eyes? Short sightedness? Good point atmosphere might play a part too.

 

[Old Duck]

Also i haven't been following this thread, but im currently running reshade (which would probably have to be replaced?). The only thing it does is pretty much the exact same really minor desaturation to cross it over into not cartoon (topic for another day). Did you get that desaturation feature into your config as well? Looking at the one on the front page i don't remember seeing a thing for it.

The mod as presented in OP currently does not desaturate, but what I've been working on since does per-element desaturation and so much more. For example, here's what my Milky Way looks like:

I hope to someday offer these latest modifications to everyone, but it requires more work.

 

[Old Duck]

I was thinking focus range of human eyes? Short sightedness? Good point atmosphere might play a part too.

Problem there is that eyes focus on what eyes focus on, so how can this be achieved on a 2D display without some form of eye tracking?

 

[Florenus]

I was thinking focus range of human eyes? Short sightedness? Good point atmosphere might play a part too.

If you want to simulate nearsightedness then allright

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Problem there is that eyes focus on what eyes focus on, so how can this be achieved on a 2D display without some form of eye tracking?

Assume a standard focal range around the center of the screen? How do other games do it? If at all? Or what the center of the screen is pointing at is in focus.

 

[MishaTX]

For example, here's what my Milky Way looks like:

Gimme!!!

 

[Spaceman Si]

I'm not sure what you mean by "true to the lore", but in vacuum of space there's nothing to make things in the distance blurry. They would actually look crisp like this and having difficulties in judging scale of things and distances is major problem for humans in space. On the Moon f.ex. astronauts have no idea how big or deep a crater is, or how far away and how big a mountain they see is.

Yes and No

There is no diffusion or scattering due to atmospheric particles in space, so yes, something many miles away will look sharp and crisp when you focus on it. But depth of field still exists. DOF is a physical property of lenses (human eye included) which don’t alter.

If you were on the Moon, and took a photo at a low f-stop, like 1.8, the object you focussed on would look pin-sharp, but it would soon fall off into blur beyond it. The photos that came back from the Moon were taken with medium-format cameras with large lenses that allowed a very high f-stop, f-64, for example. At which point, almost everything out to infinity will be in focus. I’m grossly simplifying that, there are formulae which will determine the DOF for a given lens and f-stop that show just what distance things will be in focus for.

You almost never really notice DOF with the human eye lens, because it is constantly shifting focus to be on whatever you are looking at And it‘s that property of the eye, along with the clarity of vacuum, that causes problems of judging scale and distance in space.

Problem there is that eyes focus on what eyes focus on, so how can this be achieved on a 2D display without some form of eye tracking?

... and this is why it isn’t really going to be able to be implemented It would look even more jarring to see a fixed DOF all the time, than one which altered depending on where your eye was focussing. So given the fact that we know everything in a vacuum will look crisp when you focus on it, it’s just easier to keep the idea of adjusting DOF out of rendering it, except in a camera view, Which is more realistic anyway, I think

 

[Old Duck]

Assume a standard focal range around the center of the screen? How do other games do it? If at all? Or what the center of the screen is pointing at is in focus.

This kinda works for FPS where you focus down the barrel of your gun, but in other games I've found it to be "unnatural".

Just get VR and it'll solve all your problems

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

This kinda works for FPS where you focus down the barrel of your gun, but in other games I've found it to be "unnatural".

Just get VR and it'll solve all your problems

Actually, just docking now.. it would be probably more correct if most things in the scene were rendered with some sort of haze from being far away. Its not really about specific focus, just a distant focus range.

I have no idea what the technical effect is, but next time you get the chance, look at things at varying real distances away. From 50m to as long as you want. At the very least there is some loss of detail even with perfect eyes. Coriolis station interiors are the perfect example.. look the full distance of the insides of that.. its hundreds of meters away yet you can make out detail like its next to you.

Its probably an additive defect to the gameplay (not realistic) field of view.