Does 'Supporting 4K, 8K and 16K' Imply Assets Too?

[VR Golgot]

It seems it might...

Braben has often mentioned this bit of future proofing. And I've often wondered if that meant the assets are prepared to 16k standards (at least in terms of textures), but only downsampled / 4k etc versions are currently used?

I just stumbled onto this early vid where he seems to suggest assets are part of the process:

If we don't build it into the assets early, it's very very hard to retrofit, because then you have to improve the resolution of everything.

Any tech heads want to pitch in on this? Does it seem feasible that the 16K prep involves assets in this sense?

(And would that make LOD / close up inspection of assets, for any potential Legs DLC, a touch easier to implement? Would be my sneaky second question )

 

[Morbad]

Maximum 3D texture size in D3D11 is 16k and many parts of the game can already be set to this level and see at least some improvement to textures all the way up. Galaxy backgrounds are probably the most obvious example of this as it fills the entire skybox, but planet textures, the environment map (reflections and the like), as well as shadow slice sizes scale to 16k.

However, many asset textures are still very poor quality...look through nearly any window of a ship, station, or outpost from the outside and 1994's Doomguy will be right at home.

 

[Riverside]

However, many asset textures are still very poor quality...look through nearly any window of a ship, station, or outpost from the outside and 1994's Doomguy will be right at home.

Presumably higher res textures (up to the limit you describe) can be added when the technology to make it worthwhile becomes more commonplace.

 

[VR Golgot]

Maximum 3D texture size in D3D11 is 16k and many parts of the game can already be set to this level and see at least some improvement to textures all the way up. Galaxy backgrounds are probably the most obvious example of this as it fills the entire skybox, but planet textures, the environment map (reflections and the like), as well as shadow slice sizes scale to 16k.

However, many asset textures are still very poor quality...look through nearly any window of a ship, station, or outpost from the outside and 1994's Doomguy will be right at home.

Oo that's interesting, I didn't realise some of the sliders went to 16 already

But yeah, station interiors and the like certainly have a Doomed quality to them

I guess I'm just wondering if they've got a back catalogue of fancy dan textures that'll slot right in for closer inspection.

(Not that fancy drapes would make a simple poly shape look great, but might help for interim LOD stages perhaps? And I wonder if ships have got enough greeble and detail that fancy textures would make them passable at EVA distances... Perhaps...)

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

From watching the clip, especially the part in whcih he elaborates on using the in game assets to make new background for the expo stands and other such art from the games assets rather than requiring an artist to make each and every such item, I interpret David as meaning that they have already build the assets in game with high polygon counts to support higher resolutions in future. By that I mean it is my interperation that today we are in the transition from mainstream screens being Full HD 1080p with 2 megapixels transitioning to 4k UHD with 8 megapixels, and top end screens now being 8k with ~32 megapixels. Continuing this trend and transition, were Elite's assets not made in high polygon count the game would quickly end up looking dated, akin to playing quake 2 on a modern screen. To prevent this they have done all the assets in a polygon count that supports future generations of screens all the way upto 16k resolution, 128 megapixels, natively, without upsampling. I'd presume that the software client for such a game with all those assets would be about a terrabyte, and thus we are currently playing with downsampled low polygon count version of those assets.

 

[Patrick_68000]

A 16K display must require a powerful computer, a race beast ?

 

[VR Golgot]

From watching the clip, especially the part in whcih he elaborates on using the in game assets to make new background for the expo stands and other such art from the games assets rather than requiring an artist to make each and every such item, I interpret David as meaning that they have already build the assets in game with high polygon counts to support higher resolutions in future. By that I mean it is my interperation that today we are in the transition from mainstream screens being Full HD 1080p with 2 megapixels transitioning to 4k UHD with 8 megapixels, and top end screens now being 8k with ~32 megapixels. Continuing this trend and transition, were Elite's assets not made in high polygon count the game would quickly end up looking dated, akin to playing quake 2 on a modern screen. To prevent this they have done all the assets in a polygon count that supports future generations of screens all the way upto 16k resolution, 128 megapixels, natively, without upsampling. I'd presume that the software client for such a game with all those assets would be about a terrabyte, and thus we are currently playing with downsampled low polygon count version of those assets.

Yeah I was wondering about that, but it seems such an insane amount of work put down now to only to be used many years down the line (beyond some expo bling). Downsampled textures I could see as being kinda win-win along the way (artist gets to work on a grand, detailed scale etc, and the scaling down may be relatively painless).

But hell I’d love it to be true in many ways . Would speak to a real commitment to the long game etc (and possibly explain some the dev output questions that sometimes seem to hang over the game)

I’m kinda setting my expectations/hopes at longevity, but possibly with lumpy dated models in the mix though

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

Listen to it again, it is literally what he is saying they did. He even cites the transition from 1080 to 4k and explains that they were already ahead of that jump because they made their assets suitable for upto 16k

 

[Marklar_]

Listen to it again, it is literally what he is saying they did. He even cites the transition from 1080 to 4k and explains that they were already ahead of that jump because they made their assets suitable for upto 16k

That fits in with the 10-year plan, but it doesn't fit with the fact that we've had one real new season so far. We'll see, what they planned for and what they'll do may be very different things.

 

[VR Golgot]

Listen to it again, it is literally what he is saying they did. He even cites the transition from 1080 to 4k and explains that they were already ahead of that jump because they made their assets suitable for upto 16k

Yeah the word assets is why I started the thread

I’m no pro, but I thought that assets was still a nebulous enough word that he could be just thinking of certain key, feasible ones.

That and the idea of building models which take advantage of roughly 8x the pixel real estate of the current norm seems... just an immense amount of work, for a speculative end.

I recognise I’m repeating myself here, and this thread is totally a request for insight! Can you go into more detail as to why you think his wording nails on model prep etc? (And/or why it might not be as much work as I’m assuming?)

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

My avatar on this forum is created as a vector graphic for a (mothballed) playergroup, its done as a vector, we can scale that logo up to billboard size, or down to avatar sized. It didnt take much more effort to make it thus than it would have to have drawn it as a conventional "raster" image. I'd imagine the FDev graphics tools ar similarly versatile in their output as this would be consistent with some other apps I've used elsewhere.

More specifically, part of the reason for that is based on my experiences IRL whereby I do some work with cad. When I am making curved shapes in solidworks, those shapes are stored as vectors so scale up and down. Were I to seport those designs to 3DStudio MAX, or a program for a 3d printer, the larger size of the cad models would result in more complex and thus larger file sized models in 3DStudio as there would be more polygons required to describe those curves. I'd imagine that FDev's tools work in a similar manner, whereby the graphics artist make the models in one tool, then export them to a format for the COBRA game engine to use. Then those "assets" can be integrated to the games engine. Smaller less detailed assets would thus require more detailed descriptions in their files and as such have less informaiton, data --> filesize, and processing power requirements to render them.

 

[VR Golgot]

My avatar on this forum is created as a vector graphic for a (mothballed) playergroup, its done as a vector, we can scale that logo up to billboard size, or down to avatar sized. It didnt take much more effort to make it thus than it would have to have drawn it as a conventional "raster" image. I'd imagine the FDev graphics tools ar similarly versatile in their output as this would be consistent with some other apps I've used elsewhere.

More specifically, part of the reason for that is based on my experiences IRL whereby I do some work with cad. When I am making curved shapes in solidworks, those shapes are stored as vectors so scale up and down. Were I to seport those designs to 3DStudio MAX, or a program for a 3d printer, the larger size of the cad models would result in more complex and thus larger file sized models in 3DStudio as there would be more polygons required to describe those curves. I'd imagine that FDev's tools work in a similar manner, whereby the graphics artist make the models in one tool, then export them to a format for the COBRA game engine to use. Then those "assets" can be integrated to the games engine. Smaller less detailed assets would thus require more detailed descriptions in their files and as such have less informaiton, data --> filesize, and processing power requirements to render them.

Haha cool . I was wondering whether 3D models etc could be scaled with a relative level of 'ease' to textures etc.

It still leaves an impression of greater man hours / 'lost work' to me than the purely 2D disciplines though. Not in terms of the big sweeps of the ship, but in terms of the 'greeble' etc, the finer detail fill ins required to make those spaces look believable at those greater scales.

Although I guess now I think about it, they could always just build the ship at those larger scales, ignore the 'greeble' etc for now, and just work to what looks good at the reduced / current scale.

So it would still leave work to do (and possible legacy missteps), but it'd be a functional-enough way to create the current ships (?), while also leaving the bones of the ship prepped for the future. (IE working this way they round they know they can 'expand' the ship back up, and it doesn't suddenly reveal some gaping stylistic flaw that'll be a nightmare to make look decent etc).

Hmm, intriguing. Cheers for the post

 

[VR Golgot]

Interesting post

Some of you clearly need to do some dumpster data diving in the Elite folders.. Have a look at the data files for some of the models, have a look at the skins for those models - some in various resolutions..

There are textures up to 16k-type resolutions, hints that models do or will contain LOD's for high detail stuff. Stop whining about a graphics update, it's clearly coming and has been for a while.. Say, in time for the next gen consoles?