FDev did weirdly good with visuals

[Rakk Jackham]

People are always complaining, but I think FDev did a weirdly good job. There’s some jank in there, especially with lights and shadows, but aside from that...

The helmet: I can’t describe it, but I’ve worn gas masks before and the visual effects of the helmet feel very true to life. The humidity that shows up looks very good and isn’t afraid of inconveniencing the player.

This is the big one. I do not understand how SO many games get this wrong, but FDev really nailed the light/night transition effects.

This might just be revolutionary to me because I’ve spent hundreds of hours of my life trying to get true-to-life darkness in games like New Vegas and Cyberpunk with little to no success. It is maddening because WE ALL HAVE EYES, you hace the solution literally in your head - but FDev is the only game I’ve ever seen do it! You just drop contrast and color saturation in the dark. It’s still dark but you can generally orient yourself with ambient light.

I don’t know how FDev got the curve so perfect but it’s amazing. Whoever worked on this should be in charge of more stuff.

Elite Dangerous is the ONLY game I’ve ever played where I turned OFF a flashlight to generally see better. Turning it on only if there’s something really specific in the center of my vision I need to see. It’s just so wonderfully unexpected in a game that isn’t really even focused on ground missions

 

[DjVortex]

There are tons of minor details in ED that go underappreciated. Many of them are things that wouldn't need to be there, and nobody would even notice if they didn't, but which are, and which add to the experience.

I can't think of many other games where the windshield/canopy of your vehicle is affected by the internal temperature of said vehicle (some will show eg. if it's raining, but not the internal conditions of the vehicle). SRV tires leave trails that are kilometers in length, something that nobody would even notice if it was missing, yet it's there. Heck, when you walk on a sandy surface, you leave footprints behind. Condensed steam and sweat drops on the inside your helmet? Check.

 

[robbyp]

The initial SRV code did not leave tire tracks, they were added in an update. And yes, it makes a difference all these little things.

 

[Alec Turner]

The visuals really are terrific in general - although I agree, the problem with lighting and shadows flickering and turning on and off in Odyssey (especially since one of the recent updates made it far worse) is such a shame, spoils the output of even the best cinematagraphers and is probably my single biggest outstanding gripe with this otherwise undeniably glorious visual feast.

Oh, and yes - I adore the long tire tracks, although ... they were actually longer in Horizons! I still dream of one day being able to draw a whole honkydonk for Cmdr @Rheeney!

Source: https://youtu.be/g-1COul13kc

 

[metatheurgist]

You need a collaborator.

 

[Rubbernuke]

You sure about that?

 

[Alec Turner]

You need a collaborator.

I can't actually remember if I tried that. I know I tried using two of my own SRVs, drawing half the outline with each, but the limit on tire track length seemed to be instance based rather than SRV based. Would actually be kinda interesting to get two people in SRVs to draw tracks to the max length and then see if one of them continuing to drive starts to erase both of their tracks of just their own. #sciencerequired

 

[Morbad]

FDev really nailed the light/night transition effects.

Vehemently disagree:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SjX43NlYtQ

I revered back to default graphics configuration files before recording this video, so that's the game itself.

We can manipulate the HDRNode exposure parameters, and I usually do, but it never really looks good, to me.

the visual effects of the helmet feel very true to life. The humidity that shows up looks very good and isn’t afraid of inconveniencing the player.

Well, except that part where the condensation somehow amplifies the light it's occluding...

This might just be revolutionary to me because I’ve spent hundreds of hours of my life trying to get true-to-life darkness in games like New Vegas and Cyberpunk with little to no success. It is maddening because WE ALL HAVE EYES, you hace the solution literally in your head - but FDev is the only game I’ve ever seen do it! You just drop contrast and color saturation in the dark. It’s still dark but you can generally orient yourself with ambient light.

Odyssey still has almost nothing in the way of global illumination and the eye adaptation works backwards. You get several seconds of enhanced vision after being exposed to outdoor conditions and then running into a darkened structure, after which it's nearly pitch black, even with low-level ambient light sources around.

 

[jojon]

Most certainly dreaming of some day getting to see the game fully pathtraced, in high resolution -- both spatially and temporally... in VR. :7

Some wavelengths desaturate more than others, of course... When it gets so dark our cone cells hand over to the rods, the resulting monochromatic vision spikes at a blueish green hue, falling off above and below (although out minds present it to us as silvey white-ish)... :7

 

[metatheurgist]

Fun Fact: people can actually see UV but our lenses block it out probably as a safety adaptation. I'd much rather just have actual NV, then we wouldn't need this discussion.

 

[Planewalker]

Odyssey still has almost nothing in the way of global illumination and the eye adaptation works backwards.

Yea it's due to how PBR lighting does it's calculations; there is no way to change it.
Imo they should remove it completely or turn it down to the barest minimum.

It's also why nearby planets light up when player/camera is in light: it is a global calculation done from the player position.
-which again is also why there won't be multiple global light sources.

 

[Suni]

It's also why nearby planets light up when player/camera is in light: it is a global calculation done from the player position.
-which again is also why there won't be multiple global light sources.

I usually don't really notice graphics and lighting issues much at all (I just like Elite graphics in general), but perhaps this is related to or the exact reason also for the one oddity I noticed driving around a planet at night. The system was a close binary, so there were two stars reasonably near to the planet I was on, and at times the primary star was below the horizon (i.e. night), but the secondary was hanging clear in the sky above my head, but still the planet surface was pitch black, instead of being illuminated by the secondary. No big deal really for me, just an observed curiosity, but of course it would be even better if there could be light from multiple sources.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

While i do appreciate some of the graphics, the lighting for me is the worst, especially on foot and in buildings or on the fleet carrier. Its just so unnatural. Why such huge contrast between light and dark in corridors and rooms? That's not generally how lighting works unless all your surfaces are made from light absorbing materials.

 

[Woakes]

People are always complaining, but I think FDev did a weirdly good job. There’s some jank in there, especially with lights and shadows, but aside from that...

The helmet: I can’t describe it, but I’ve worn gas masks before and the visual effects of the helmet feel very true to life. The humidity that shows up looks very good and isn’t afraid of inconveniencing the player.

This is the big one. I do not understand how SO many games get this wrong, but FDev really nailed the light/night transition effects.

This might just be revolutionary to me because I’ve spent hundreds of hours of my life trying to get true-to-life darkness in games like New Vegas and Cyberpunk with little to no success. It is maddening because WE ALL HAVE EYES, you hace the solution literally in your head - but FDev is the only game I’ve ever seen do it! You just drop contrast and color saturation in the dark. It’s still dark but you can generally orient yourself with ambient light.

I don’t know how FDev got the curve so perfect but it’s amazing. Whoever worked on this should be in charge of more stuff.

Elite Dangerous is the ONLY game I’ve ever played where I turned OFF a flashlight to generally see better. Turning it on only if there’s something really specific in the center of my vision I need to see. It’s just so wonderfully unexpected in a game that isn’t really even focused on ground missions

I know a lot of people decide to complain about the issues with the lighting.
But I know what you mean.
It's like with all the flashlights on, then you just see that.
But when the lights are off, then it goes dark, never black.
It's like this dark beige grey that everything fades into and not a true black.
all the specular highlights show off. So on a nice icy-surface, you see the reflection of the milky way and stars in the ice.
If you turn on your flashlight, you just get the glaring albedo normal map blinding you back in the face.
Sure there are a ton of inconsistency issues,
but I also appreciated the desire to do the darkened environment on the surface of the planets.

 

[Riverside]

I see too many weird, glitchy shadows to call the lighting perfect. Ship headlights used to be a useful tool for searching (still are in Legacy) but now the illuminated area is way too bright and the non-illuminated areas become too dark. Looks great in screenshots (unlike night vision which looks awful & makes finding anything other than bacteria samples trivial to spot in the shadows).

Looks great in screenshots though, and comparing recent screenies with older ones I clearly (subjectively) prefer the aesthetic of Odyssey in the overwhelming majority of situations.

I hope they keep working at it, it does look very pretty.

 

[Jmanis]

People are always complaining, but I think FDev did a weirdly good job. There’s some jank in there, especially with lights and shadows, but aside from that...

The helmet: I can’t describe it, but I’ve worn gas masks before and the visual effects of the helmet feel very true to life. The humidity that shows up looks very good and isn’t afraid of inconveniencing the player.

This is the big one. I do not understand how SO many games get this wrong, but FDev really nailed the light/night transition effects.

This might just be revolutionary to me because I’ve spent hundreds of hours of my life trying to get true-to-life darkness in games like New Vegas and Cyberpunk with little to no success. It is maddening because WE ALL HAVE EYES, you hace the solution literally in your head - but FDev is the only game I’ve ever seen do it! You just drop contrast and color saturation in the dark. It’s still dark but you can generally orient yourself with ambient light.

I don’t know how FDev got the curve so perfect but it’s amazing. Whoever worked on this should be in charge of more stuff.

Elite Dangerous is the ONLY game I’ve ever played where I turned OFF a flashlight to generally see better. Turning it on only if there’s something really specific in the center of my vision I need to see. It’s just so wonderfully unexpected in a game that isn’t really even focused on ground missions

TBH, I miss the bug that let me get my current avatar.