Distant stations

[jamieboo]

Loving the alpha 3 vids with gleeful fervour!

Just wondering, has anyone tried travelling away from the station and seeing if there's a certain distance at which the model just disappears?
One thing I enjoyed from the original Elite was arriving in a system, heading towards the planet, then watching as the station grew from a distant dot to a screen filling edifice.
I do hope we'll still get to enjoy an approach unsullied by pop-in.

 

[Tinman]

Loving the alpha 3 vids with gleeful fervour!

Just wondering, has anyone tried travelling away from the station and seeing if there's a certain distance at which the model just disappears?
One thing I enjoyed from the original Elite was arriving in a system, heading towards the planet, then watching as the station grew from a distant dot to a screen filling edifice.
I do hope we'll still get to enjoy an approach unsullied by pop-in.

In the current build objects suddenly disappear when they are far away since the LOD (level of detail) system hasn't been implemented yet. I haven't tested the station but I assume the same thing would happen here right now. When asked if this would be implemented down the line one of the devs said this a couple of days ago:

Short version: yes

Longer:
LOD's tend to pop in and out, it's the simplest way of doing it (any kind of blend requires that at least on some level you're rendering both levels at once, or special tricks - which is doable but can be expensive). The key is crafting them so that the pops aren't visible .

An artist would be able to give a better explanation, but I believe many of the lower-LOD visuals are first pass for now. As the highest level of detail gets more and more polished and close to final, effort will go into making the LOD chain better, it's often delayed so that we know there's not going to be fundamental changes to the look of a thing before doing work that would have to be repeated if that look changes.

Aaaand, that's my compile done, back to work!

I fully expect the final game to be seamless from the players perspective in regards to your OP. :smilie:

 

[jamieboo]

Splendourgood! Thanks Tinman.

 

[Kemo]

I tried it yesterday, reversed away from the station to see what happens, most of it disappeared at around 6km, leaving the docking ring and entrance hanging there, they then disappeared at the 7km mark.

Sometimes the station disappears when you're in it to

 

[CMDR Texas Stu]

When the station disappeared while I was in it I flew away (9Km or so - didn't really keep track) and flew back and it reappeared as if it had never left.