Broken Stellar Lighting

Peter Mannion

P
From what I have seen so far, atmospheric planetary lighting has been fixed as of update 9. More on that bug thread here.

Many of the responses from that bug thread reported issues with star lighting being broken in Odyssey and as of Update 9 this issue is still ongoing. I've decided to start a new thread and Issue report to track this bug.

Star Lighting appears to be broken in Elite Dangerous Odyssey. The light hue the star should produce is not being accurately represented. Stars of all types (that I have seen) only appear to cast white light instead of light of a particular hue. For example, B class stars should be emitting light that should appear blue, however the star appears to be emitting white light. This is causing issues with planets and ring systems looking bland. The issue is shown in Figures 1 and 2

Odyssey.jpg

Figure 1 - Odyssey Lighting, B class star (Broken)
Horizons.jpg

Figure 2 - Horizons lighting B class star (Working)

As you can see in Figure 2, the lighting is working correctly. Blue star is bathing the planet's surface with light of the correct hue. Figure 1 shows the lighting working incorrectly, with a clear disconnect between the star type and the light being emitted.

Many have found out that the light colour disappears or fades after traveling more than a few ls away from the star. My own observations in Figure 3 also support this.

Star Chart.jpg

Figure 3 - Observation of light hue fade over short distances from star.


This fade of the hue does seem un-natural and seems to be the cause of these issues appearing in the game.


Issue Tracker Link
 
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Deleted member 182079

D
Visited Taygeta earlier. Still as drab-beige/grey as before. Shame.

Assume the fix applies only to atmos then?

Edit: tried another planet, and landed nearer the terminator. I can see the effect now, even on a non-atmo planet. I'm not really sure whether I like it though, and I don't know how realistic it is... am not a physics nerd... below image is from Maia A7.

Screenshot_0050.jpg
Screenshot_0049.jpg

Same location, first image is looking away from the sun, second is looking at it (and yes, those are Ultra+ settings, SMAA @ 2k and no FSR/CAS...).

You can see that when looking into the direction of the sun there's a white 'halo' area on the ground, this is more visible the higher up you go (as in, the area it applies to is around a certain radius, which on the ground looks bigger obviously).

Edit 2: here's a shot from higher altitude. I roughly marked the area that's affected by the star so you can see what I mean (hopefully)
Screenshot_0051.jpg


Edit 3: and yes, I noticed just white light when in SC, even in Taygeta which should give at least a little bit of a purple glow. I wouldn't mind if they toned it down a little compared to Horizons but it's just gone.
 
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nanite2000

nanite2000
Thanks for posting this thread, and for creating the new issue @Peter Mannion.

it’s disappointing but not surprising that this wasn’t fixed. As I’ve said before- the removal of coloured star lighting still constitutes the removal/absence of a feature from the base game and therefore needs fixing.

I wish FDev would stop taking this piecemeal approach to bug fixing and just get someone to sit down and fix it properly. 🙄

anyway - I’ll add my vote and comments to the issue later.

Cheers!
 

thistle

T
I don't remember, but was the colour of the light casting on planet surfaces and ships something that was in Horizons, or was it added by Beyond colour grading? Genuinely don't remember.

If it was only added with Beyond then that's the answer ( and presumably we wont be getting it back).

If it was in Horizons pre Beyond then I agree it's broken.
 

nanite2000

nanite2000
I've been doing some testing and it seems the colour drop-off at distance is intentional, but the star colour is only being applied correctly sometimes.

For example, L-Class Brown Dwarf stars behave correctly:
  • (✔) Star colour is intense close to the star:
  • (✔) Star colour intensity drops off as you move away, but the red/pink hue is retained:
  • (✔) The red/pink hue is reflected in the system map:
  • (✔) Star colour is applied to the planet details within the system map (albeit with less intensity):
  • (✔) And the star colour is retained and applied when you actually visit the planet:
  • (✔) And when you land on, it all looks correct:

However, B-Class stars are broken in parts:
  • (✔) Star colour is applied correctly close to the star:
  • (❌) Star colour is NOT applied at distance (100Ls):
  • (✔) Star colour is applied correctly in the System Map:
  • (✔) Star colour is applied to the planet details within the system map (albeit with less intensity):
  • (❌) But the star colour is NOT applied when you actually visit the planet:

And M-Class stars are even worse:

  • (✔) Star colour is applied correctly close to the star:
  • (❌) Star colour is NOT applied at distance (20Ls):
  • (✔) Star colour is applied correctly in the System Map for some systems:
  • (❌) But not others (seems to be dependent on planet type?):
  • (✔) Star colour is sometimes applied to the planet details within the system map (albeit with less intensity):
  • (❌) But not always:
  • (❌) The star colour is NEVER applied when you actually visit the planet:


In summary - it's an inconsistent mess, and this is just with a sample of 3 star types. I don't have time to investigate all star types, and (frankly) I don't think I should have to.

Without knowing the real reason for this issue, I would say it look like it's an unfinished feature (they started it, but never completed it). FDev need to find out what's going on and fix it properly for all star types.

I'll try and update my findings in the ticket later today, when I get some free time.
 

nanite2000

nanite2000
alexzk said:
No it shouldn't. This just means your eye sitiing into EARTH's atmo sees it as blue.
How it really should be seen only Math can tell.
Click to expand...
we don’t need Math(s) to tell us what colour it should look - we already know from actual observation both within our atmosphere (colour temperature) and in space.

even if you were correct, it’s still applied inconsistently in-game and should be fixed one way or the other (see my post above).
 

Peter Mannion

P
alexzk said:
No it shouldn't. This just means your eye sitiing into EARTH's atmo sees it as blue.
How it really should be seen only Math can tell.
Click to expand...
there's no need to start a pp measuring contest on who is the most knowledgeable about star classifications, as my knowledge on the subject is limited at best. Elite is a video game. B class stars appear as blueish white in-game. There are inconsistencies with that observation. It's as simple as that. This is a bug report for a video game, not a scientific journal. Lets try to keep this thread on topic.
 

alexzk

A
Peter Mannion said:
for a video game,
Click to expand...
1st of all it is simulator. So it should show results close to reality (calculated by current knowledge) and not what u think should look like.

Btw, Sun is mostly green in fact. Most energy is in green. That's why all plants are green - to reflect it otherwise it would burn. And for the same reason you can't see it as green, because eye has lowest sensitivity for it to avoid burn, and that's why you never see "green stars".
So what you think is not always correct.
 

Peter Mannion

P
nanite2000 said:
I've been doing some testing and it seems the colour drop-off at distance is intentional, but the star colour is only being applied correctly sometimes.

For example, L-Class Brown Dwarf stars behave correctly:
  • (✔) Star colour is intense close to the star:
  • (✔) Star colour intensity drops off as you move away, but the red/pink hue is retained:
  • (✔) The red/pink hue is reflected in the system map:
  • (✔) Star colour is applied to the planet details within the system map (albeit with less intensity):
  • (✔) And the star colour is retained and applied when you actually visit the planet:
  • (✔) And when you land on, it all looks correct:

However, B-Class stars are broken in parts:
  • (✔) Star colour is applied correctly close to the star:
  • (❌) Star colour is NOT applied at distance (100Ls):
  • (✔) Star colour is applied correctly in the System Map:
  • (✔) Star colour is applied to the planet details within the system map (albeit with less intensity):
  • (❌) But the star colour is NOT applied when you actually visit the planet:

And M-Class stars are even worse:

  • (✔) Star colour is applied correctly close to the star:
  • (❌) Star colour is NOT applied at distance (20Ls):
  • (✔) Star colour is applied correctly in the System Map for some systems:
  • (❌) But not others (seems to be dependent on planet type?):
  • (✔) Star colour is sometimes applied to the planet details within the system map (albeit with less intensity):
  • (❌) But not always:
  • (❌) The star colour is NEVER applied when you actually visit the planet:


In summary - it's an inconsistent mess, and this is just with a sample of 3 star types. I don't have time to investigate all star types, and (frankly) I don't think I should have to.

Without knowing the real reason for this issue, I would say it look like it's an unfinished feature (they started it, but never completed it). FDev need to find out what's going on and fix it properly for all star types.

I'll try and update my findings in the ticket later today, when I get some free time.
Click to expand...
This is good stuff, keep it coming.
 

Peter Mannion

P
Peter Mannion said:
Lets try to keep this thread on topic.
Click to expand...
6 Minutes later ...
alexzk said:
1st of all it is simulator. So it should show results close to reality (calculated by current knowledge) and not what u think should look like.

Btw, Sun is mostly green in fact. Most energy is in green. That's why all plants are green - to reflect it otherwise it would burn. And for the same reason you can't see it as green, because eye has lowest sensitivity for it to avoid burn, and that's why you never see "green stars".
So what you think is not always correct
Click to expand...
 

FutronBob

FutronBob
Huge thank you to everyone who's contributing to this, and especially to all the highly detailed analyses of the issue and exact distances. This is one of the primary bugs that's truly bugging me in Odyssey (along with the anti-aliasing issues and missing volumetric fog), and I too was greatly disappointed that it wasn't fixed with Update 9.

I'll upvote it on the bug tracker and spread the word. Here's hoping we can bring enough attention to this for it to be properly addressed in Update 10.
 

FutronBob

FutronBob
thistle said:
I don't remember, but was the colour of the light casting on planet surfaces and ships something that was in Horizons, or was it added by Beyond colour grading? Genuinely don't remember.

If it was only added with Beyond then that's the answer ( and presumably we wont be getting it back).

If it was in Horizons pre Beyond then I agree it's broken.
Click to expand...
I don't really see how when it was added makes any difference. Even if it was added in the final update of Beyond, that would still make it a feature of Elite Dangerous for at least 2.5 years. I seem to recall fighting in some orange-tinted RES sites as early as May 2015 in my humble Viper Mk III, but I could be mis-remembering that. I'll have to dig through my screenshots on my old PC to confirm.


It's also worth noting that, whenever you jump to a new system in Odyssey, the colored lighting is being applied to your ship during the hyperspace/witchspace animation, even when jumping from dozens of lightyears away. I think this was a feature listed in Odyssey's initial launch patch notes. If you watch closely as you exit hyperspace, you can even see the lighting briefly change from orange to white during the initial exit, and then back to orange again as you approach the star and come to a stop. Very inconsistent.
 

Northpin

Northpin
The range should be increased.
But not too much.

Star color tinting the environment should not be happening at too much ranges (however that should depend on the size of the star and intensity of the light emitted by the star)

The Star color tinting should be unchanged for non-atmo planets.
But for atmospheric planets, the tint should be changed accordingly to the composition of the atmosphere


All in all - it seems a bit too much of an effort
For example: i really like the tinting from the blue star in the last picture from post #2
That some nice local tinting. However, i would hate to see the entire scenery blue.

Pretty much like i hated the all blue/red/whatever color we had in Horizons. Tinting absolutely everything.
 

Deleted member 182079

D
Not sure if this is the right thing to bring up, but since it's frequented by (mostly) the kind of people who would notice this sort of detail...

When approaching a body with atmosphere that's near a brown dwarf, I noticed that the colour of the star always changes from pink/purple to the same bright orange as soon as I enter the atmosphere. Is this right as it doesn't seem to me? I wonder if this also as a result affects the ground colouring.

I've come to a point where I no longer trust the game to show a consistent (and relatively realistic... within reason) representation of lighting in general. With EDO I often get the impression that the primary mission was to make things pretty on atmos first and foremost.

I've tried a few systems now but have not come across yet one that looks like in the OP (especially the blue example). They're all mostly orange hues now, even in systems with a blue star. Or is it the atmosphere that drives this?
 

Deleted member 182079

D
Northpin said:
Pretty much like i hated the all blue/red/whatever color we had in Horizons. Tinting absolutely everything.
Click to expand...
I preferred it over what we have now, even though it was a bit OTT in some places, and I didn't like the skybox colouring - but it made for unique and colourful locations, even on airless worlds. Now everything looks really drab and colourless more often than not.
 
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