Broken Stellar Lighting

[thistle]

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.

I'm not arguing it shouldn't be in there, just trying to remember when it was actually added. My point is - the colours this thread is talking about, were they simply colour grading added in Beyond (which was toggelable in the settings xml), or an actual feature of the light itself pre Beyond?

I could test it actually, but cant be bothered, too busy. Play Horizons and switch off the "experimental" lighting in the xml and the colour grading and close-to-star colours were switched back off and the lighting went back to Horizons.

 

[Northpin]

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.

I like more the Horizons Skybox. Not sure how realistic was/is the skybox in Horizons, but from an artsie point of view - it was beautiful
The Red/Blue everything not so much.

 

[thistle]

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.

That seems like an extension of the same colour grading process (or whatever it was) that was introduced in Beyond. The colour grading would suddenly appear and disappear at times, when loading.

 

[thistle]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say .... I think it's all the added colour grading layer than was in Beyond, and has been removed. Rather than it being anything to do with the actual light.

 

[Deleted member 182079]

I like more the Horizons Skybox. Not sure how realistic was/is the skybox in Horizons, but from an artsie point of view - it was beautiful
The Red/Blue everything not so much.

I prefer either over the EDO skybox, but I guess it's not as bad as it was after launch. The skybox tinting kind of tapered off after a few dozen/hundred Ls iirc, and while it was a bit too much of a simplistic implementation (i.e. colouring the entire screen) I felt it made the game 'pop' a bit more. It's already a dark/colourless game to begin with. EDO in my view is definitely a step backwards - caveat being the atmos they can look nice but as I said above I don't 'trust' the accuracy/consistency any longer. But I wouldn't know how realistic it still is or not.

I miss places like Taygeta, sure the pink hues were a bit intense but that made it unique. As well as some of the Rayet star systems a few k LY's out (can't remember the name now).

 

[Ozric]

I find it interesting how the decision by the art department to move to adaptive lighting in 3.3 was initially met by great resistance. Quite a lot of people really didn't like the look of it because they thought that it destroyed the realism of the game, or that it juxtaposed against the skybox made it look overly "gamey". One of the biggest changes was the intensity of the starlight and the falloff in that intensity.

After 2 1/2 years of the adaptive lighting people have become so used to it, that now a change away from that is seen as a bad thing, even though it's more like it was originally it seems to me. This is a planet orbiting a few hundred Ls from a Class B star.
Pre 3.3

3.3

(I couldn't put the fully raised star in the picture because it's just too bright)

 

[nanite2000]

After 2 1/2 years of the adaptive lighting people have become so used to it, that now a change away from that is seen as a bad thing, even though it's more like it was originally it seems to me

It’s the fact that it is inconsistent is the problem. Right now it’s not even consistent within stars of the same class.

FDev should just pick a style and apply it consistently.

 

[nanite2000]

I prefer either over the EDO skybox, but I guess it's not as bad as it was after launch. The skybox tinting kind of tapered off after a few dozen/hundred Ls iirc, and while it was a bit too much of a simplistic implementation (i.e. colouring the entire screen) I felt it made the game 'pop' a bit more.

Both you and @Northpin will be pleased to hear that the skybox is not tinted in EDO’s implementation - even in systems where star colour is correctly applied (e.g. L Class Brown Dwarfs).

so it seems they have fixed that and now just need to finish the job with all the other star classes.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Voted, excellent work with explaining it all!

 

[Tormentor89]

Voted.

 

[varonica]

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.

B-type stars are very luminous and blue. Their spectra have neutral helium lines, which are most prominent at the B2 subclass, and moderate hydrogen lines.

There you go, pp measuring done!

 

[Kamiyoda]

There you go, pp measuring done!

I'm blue!

Aba de Aba di! Aba de! Aba di!

 

[Kestrel1]

Voted, excellent work with explaining it all!

Agree. Fantastic work.

Though it's disappointing that players are having to waste their time putting together such elaborate tests. Surely Frontier's engine team can create some tooling that makes it easy to evaluate stuff like this? It's just weird to me that the engine is behaving so strangely and they seemingly have no clue.

 

[Peter Mannion]

Agree. Fantastic work.

Though it's disappointing that players are having to waste their time putting together such elaborate tests. Surely Frontier's engine team can create some tooling that makes it easy to evaluate stuff like this? It's just weird to me that the engine is behaving so strangely and they seemingly have no clue.

I doubt they have no clue. The guys spending months working on the lighting engine would definitely notice something as obvious as this. I just think its more a case of this issue is probably pushed down the priority queue and they aren't going to go out of their way to announce bugs that might not be game-breaking and just visual.

 

[CaptainPugwash]

All I can do really is gives big thanks to those of you that tested and reported this, as I am now an armchair elite player, and have very little play time. I certainly think fdev should try and carve out a ‘realism niche’ among space sims if at all possible and these threads really help that.

 

[Peter Mannion]

I find it interesting how the decision by the art department to move to adaptive lighting in 3.3 was initially met by great resistance. Quite a lot of people really didn't like the look of it because they thought that it destroyed the realism of the game, or that it juxtaposed against the skybox made it look overly "gamey". One of the biggest changes was the intensity of the starlight and the falloff in that intensity.

After 2 1/2 years of the adaptive lighting people have become so used to it, that now a change away from that is seen as a bad thing, even though it's more like it was originally it seems to me. This is a planet orbiting a few hundred Ls from a Class B star.
Pre 3.3

3.3

(I couldn't put the fully raised star in the picture because it's just too bright)

The thing is, I don't think this was an intentional change. If it was intended, then it would've been mentioned by fdev. Also, if it was an intentional change then, imo, it was a poor one as it actively decreases variety of lighting in the game and downplays the importance of star class in the game. I guess some may disagree and prefer the current look in Odyssey but I'd place my money on the majority preferring the stellar lighting in Horizons over Odyssey, despite us having 7 months to get used to it.

 

[Ian Skippy]

I find it interesting how the decision by the art department to move to adaptive lighting in 3.3 was initially met by great resistance. Quite a lot of people really didn't like the look of it because they thought that it destroyed the realism of the game, or that it juxtaposed against the skybox made it look overly "gamey". One of the biggest changes was the intensity of the starlight and the falloff in that intensity.

After 2 1/2 years of the adaptive lighting people have become so used to it, that now a change away from that is seen as a bad thing, even though it's more like it was originally it seems to me. This is a planet orbiting a few hundred Ls from a Class B star.
Pre 3.3

3.3

(I couldn't put the fully raised star in the picture because it's just too bright)

Generally speaking this community has a large number of people that dislikes change in general.

 

[Factabulous]

this community has a large number of people that demands change and then dislikes change.

FTFY

 

[Deleted member 182079]

Generally speaking this community has a large number of people that dislikes change in general.

I can only speak for myself but I only really dislike change when it makes things worse.

 

[Bigmaec]

People generally dislike change. That's not something unique to this community.