Cutter dashboard in VR too bright, makes HUD unreadable

[risa2000]

I have been searching the forum for the answer, but apart from several threads which led nowhere, I did not find any. My problem is that I just got Cutter and I basically cannot read the bottom half of the right panel, the pips and the info in that area, etc. because the internal painting on the dashboard is so bright it basically washes the HUD out into oblivion.

I have to add that I am running ED in VR and I am using a custom color scheme called "NO2O Turquoise-Deep Sky Blue_Khaki-Gold by archeolog 108" (this is the name in EDProfiler and I have been using it because it uses pure green for the HUD which helped when I was using HTC Vive). I have not had such a problem in any previous ship (including Courier, Clipper, Krait MK2, T-6, T-9). Courier and Clipper are also white inside, but either because of different positions of the panels, or the different "light reflection" everything was perfectly readable.

I do not know what should I do? Should I report is as a bug (the threads from previous years suggested it was successfully ignored by FDev until now)? Can I change some game setttings to make the interior less light flooded?

Is anyone here who also plays with Cutter in VR, who already solved it?

 

[Rock Hunter]

All I can do is agree, rather than offer any suitable advice (sorry.) I run ED with fully vanilla graphics, other than having increased some values in the config files for the galaxy background and planets etc as well as turning my gamma down a bit....none of that has had any positive effect on the incredibly bright Cutter surfaces. I use an Odyssey and whilst it’s stupidly bright it isn’t quite bright enough to burn detail out, it’s just an irritation.

In the end all I could do was get my Cmdr the free sunglasses in the store

 

[rhiz]

Yeah, it's one of the reasons that I don't really enjoy the Cutter. The HUD is just about readable for me (Rift, deep red color scheme), but it isn't very comfortable. I'm not a fan of the Cutter anyway and just live with it whenever I choose to fly one, but perhaps you could play around with tone maps in EDprofiler?

 

[777Driver]

Doesn't Dr Kaii's graphics tool alter the colors in VR? Pretty sure I played around with it last year on my CV1, it was like a reshade tool.

Prior to that, we could use any reshade tool to adjust brightness etc, that died with the DK1 unfortunately.

 

[risa2000]

Doesn't Dr Kaii's graphics tool alter the colours in VR?

It does. But I guess it did not occur to me to change it, because it was supposed to change the HUD colors only. I could try other color schemes, if there is some with a better color contrast though I am a bit skeptical since my problem was that due the the semi-transparency of the HUD panels, the information on them is washed out by the bright backlight to the point it is no longer readable and I am afraid it is more related to the bright light "intensity" and the HUD panel opacity than to the actual color.

 

[rhiz]

It does. But I guess it did not occur to me to change it, because it was supposed to change the HUD colors only. I could try other color schemes, if there is some with a better color contrast though I am a bit skeptical since my problem was that due the the semi-transparency of the HUD panels, the information on them is washed out by the bright backlight to the point it is no longer readable and I am afraid it is more related to the bright light "intensity" and the HUD panel opacity than to the actual color.

Worth a try. It should allow you to adjust the brightness and contrast curves, which might help.

 

[Hooplah]

As Bruce Willis once said in a movie,"Welcome to the party Pal!". Too bright has always been there since Frontier introduced the Cutter. Rotating away from the sun getting into the dark is the solution. After years introducing the Cutter I don't see that Frontier is ever going to change it. I don't like it either but that is the game. I wonder if some Cutter pilots wear sunglasses.

 

[VR StarLightPL]

You're supposed to bask! Seriously though, it has ever been that way. Previous version of the interface contained the totally unreadable cargo capacity indicator, that was really annoying. I guess you could lock the panel in place by opening it using the button, and then try looking at it at different angle... It's bad.

Also a bug? In VR? Chances of fixing it are less than operating a fleet carrier soon(tm) ;-)

 

[Rick6549]

Another reason to use the beluga instead...

 

[FrogsFriend]

I wonder if some Cutter pilots wear sunglasses

For a friend who liked his Cutter but hated suffering from the resulting 'Cutter Eye', I attached two rectangles of green acetate to the bottom corners of his screen to mask out the worst of it

I've bug reported this a long time ago and got the response that they were 'aware of this issue'. Not holding out much hope of a cockpit redesign though, so I just don't fly the Cutter.

And while we're on the subject... do the constant, bright red, in-your-face cockpit strobe lights caused by Limpets near your ship annoy anyone else into avoiding mining?

 

[Vandaahl]

Aren't you supposed to bask in that brightness?

 

[Dagwit]

The two potential solutions I've thought of:

cockpit paintjobs in the store - Frontier should like that one, they get money for paintjobs, and we get a less glary Cutter cockpit;

have an option to set the side panels to be opaque rather than semi-transparent - that wouldn't help much with sunglare, but the external panel especially can be rendered unreadable just by the lights in the hangar. Fixing that alone would be worth doing.

Edit: I can confirm, as the OP says, that the problem is especially bad in VR.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

Clipper was like that for a while, but not as bad, then around 2.3/2.4 they introduced black carbon fibre trim elements to the dashboard on the clipper. The Cutters luminous dashboard is the main reason I suggested/requested interior/cockpit paintjobs become a thing on the frontier store. On another note, in one of the Beta's cannot remember which one, there was a transparent black box placed behind the holograms, this made things way more legible in VR in any lighting circumstances, I wish they'd bring that back, but since it was removed I'm guessing some folk complained about it, but can we at least have it as an optional thing that can be turned on or off using the right hand panel's ship tab?

 

[risa2000]

I've bug reported this a long time ago and got the response that they were 'aware of this issue'. Not holding out much hope of a cockpit redesign though, so I just don't fly the Cutter.

Do you, by any chance, still have this bug open and have a reference? I would definitely try to stir it up again.

cockpit paintjobs in the store - Frontier should like that one, they get money for paintjobs, and we get a less glary Cutter cockpit;

This was my first thought when I saw this - l am going to buy a black paintjob . Unfortunately, it turned out it does not work this way.

Clipper was like that for a while, but not as bad, then around 2.3/2.4 they introduced black carbon fibre trim elements to the dashboard on the clipper.

I guess then I had to get Clipper after the update, because I spent quite some time in it (in the same VR gear, which BTW is Pimax 5k+) and did not feel uncomfortable, apart from just considering the interior "too shiny".

 

[CMDR X]

Have you tried messing with the Gamma settings? Small adjustments can make a big difference. Turn it down until the skybox starts to loose detail, then back a bit.
Keep your eye on the small stars.