How Many Assets need to be Updated for Space Legs?

[Cosmo]

Check this channel and view the roomscale ship videos. Then you'll know just how much work there is to be done just for the ships alone. Beyond the things we can see, either in the cockpit or externally, nothing exists yet, simple as that.

I think only specific areas of the ship will be accessible by foot. Such as the Normandy of Mass Effect. That reduces the amount of required work, because the developers only focus on a couple of accessible areas. The other areas are sealed off and could be added later. The ED ships need better textures and higher polygons so it's up to par with modern games and can compete with other scifi/space sims that do the same.

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

Well, that's logical. No need to model what noone ever needs to see. Still a lot of work. As you will see in the roomscale videos, some landing gears currently would block the path inside the ship, some even clip into the cockpit on older ships. Comparing the roomscale tour of the AspE with a new ship like the Mamba or Krait already shows the difference in detail a lot. It's particularly funny when he flies right into the hardpoint of the Cutter in his fighter.

 

[M00ka]

I have the feeling that unless a player can wander everywhere in their ship especially places like the cargo hold, hangars (both SRV and SLF) any domestic areas and even engineering areas the forums will erupt. And that is the problem that confronts FD, players will expect to see what they have installed in their ship. If they see a generic Power Plant but they have installed one two sizes smaller you can bet there will be some angry words here and everywhere else.

On the other hand I am glad some here are realising that there will just be some places we will never place a cyber foot and the landing pads are one of them. Consider this, do you really want someone running out and jumping underneath your ship just as you are about to land? To be changed with murder and immediately destroyed by the station? Because that is what will happen, no doubt about that what so ever

 

[milligna]

Eh, forums will erupt regardless. If it's absolutely fantastic there will still be huge threads complaining about how these systems are "locked behind a paywall."

For years.

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

The ship interior textures and the polygon count looks nice when viewed from a distance in the cockpit chair. However, when we can walk around we'll see every nook and cranny. So Frontier must make high quality textures and high polygon objects to ensure that the game has current gen graphics.

The landing pads are okay when inside the ship, but if you do a close up with the camera then it looks like a 6 year old game. So I doubt Frontier will let players walk on landing pads.

The planet surface is the easiest environment to increase details by improving the procedural graphics. The base building assets should be custom made for first person view.

Floating in space and around ships in first person requires relatively few graphics upgrades, because space is very dark. Only the ship hull textures need to be updated.

Implementing RTX with real-time ray tracing would make ED a lot prettier.

I expect there will be transitions between the various places. In this case it will be horrible...

 

[Viajero]

The ship interior textures and the polygon count looks nice when viewed from a distance in the cockpit chair. However, when we can walk around we'll see every nook and cranny. So Frontier must make high quality textures and high polygon objects to ensure that the game has current gen graphics.

The landing pads are okay when inside the ship, but if you do a close up with the camera then it looks like a 6 year old game. So I doubt Frontier will let players walk on landing pads.

The planet surface is the easiest environment to increase details by improving the procedural graphics. The base building assets should be custom made for first person view.

Floating in space and around ships in first person requires relatively few graphics upgrades, because space is very dark. Only the ship hull textures need to be updated.

Implementing RTX with real-time ray tracing would make ED a lot prettier.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKdaRNf8D1g

 

[GoryDamnPixie]

I expect there will be transitions between the various places. In this case it will be horrible...

I highly doubt that would be the case. Fdev won't go half measure for such a big update (2020 New Era). If games like star citizen and no mans sky can have seemless traversal, theres no reason why Fdev wouldn't do the same. Next gen is around the corner for consoles too, hardware limitations won't be a problem.

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

I have the feeling that unless a player can wander everywhere in their ship especially places like the cargo hold, hangars (both SRV and SLF) any domestic areas and even engineering areas the forums will erupt. And that is the problem that confronts FD, players will expect to see what they have installed in their ship. If they see a generic Power Plant but they have installed one two sizes smaller you can bet there will be some angry words here and everywhere else.

On the other hand I am glad some here are realising that there will just be some places we will never place a cyber foot and the landing pads are one of them. Consider this, do you really want someone running out and jumping underneath your ship just as you are about to land? To be changed with murder and immediately destroyed by the station? Because that is what will happen, no doubt about that what so ever

What? Landing pads not accessible with legs? Prepare for a revolution then! One of the key of walking around is getting proper ships scale. If you can't walk around your ship legs is already broken!

 

[M00ka]

What? Landing pads not accessible with legs? Prepare for a revolution then! One of the key of walking around is getting proper ships scale. If you can't walk around your ship legs is already broken!

You forget about hangars, there you can walk around your ships to your heart's content. I personally think if players are allowed to roam around the landing pads then you can guarantee some will find a way to grief others (like I suggested, running under a landing ship to cause the Commander to be charged with murder).

 

[Robert Maynard]

RTX is mostly just NVIDIA's proprietary implementation of DXR.

The crux is the word "mostly" - as I expect that, being the early provider, NVidia offer a suite of tools different enough from a vanilla DXR implementation to get developers to develop around Team Green's methods, again.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I expect there will be transitions between the various places. In this case it will be horrible...

I don't expect many transitions at all. Maybe in stations for certainly things but I doubt there will be any in ship.

 

[ZeroAi]

The ship interior textures and the polygon count looks nice when viewed from a distance in the cockpit chair. However, when we can walk around we'll see every nook and cranny. So Frontier must make high quality textures and high polygon objects to ensure that the game has current gen graphics.

The landing pads are okay when inside the ship, but if you do a close up with the camera then it looks like a 6 year old game. So I doubt Frontier will let players walk on landing pads.

The planet surface is the easiest environment to increase details by improving the procedural graphics. The base building assets should be custom made for first person view.

Floating in space and around ships in first person requires relatively few graphics upgrades, because space is very dark. Only the ship hull textures need to be updated.

Implementing RTX with real-time ray tracing would make ED a lot prettier.

In VR you can get up close to objects in the cockpit and many do have high resolution images, but some will need to be updated...

 

[B1rdy]

The ship interior textures and the polygon count looks nice when viewed from a distance in the cockpit chair. However, when we can walk around we'll see every nook and cranny. So Frontier must make high quality textures and high polygon objects to ensure that the game has current gen graphics.

It is not only some textures, the most likely big part of the effort creating an authentic interior. Looking at racing sims like Assetto Corsa or flight sims like IL-2, you will see how much effort it will take to create highly detailed models. A big studio like Polyphony Digital took 3 months per car for Gran Turismo 5. Now imagine the effort to create the interior of an Anaconda.

RTX is mostly just NVIDIA's proprietary implementation of DXR. Current RTX cards support hardware accelerated DXR, which is almost certain to become the de facto standard RT API, and what AMD and Intel GPUs will eventually provide hardware support for. So, support wouldn't have to be targeted at NVIDIA, it could simply be targeted at DXR.

DXR doesn't even require special hardware to work. Any DX12 part can use it in a fallback mode, running ray tracing on conventional shaders...though this is very slow on current hardware, in most cases.

That said, I do not think there is any way it makes financial sense to implement ray tracing in ED unless a native version of ED is released on future consoles...and this it self is highly uncertain as those consoles will be backwards compatible and could just run the current version of the engine.

The World of Tanks team is currently implementing a ray tracing system to render shadows on tanks. It runs on DX11 and does not need special hardware. Also Crytek showed some footage of Cryengine using ray tracing on a Vega 56. From that perspective and huge and expensive dies nVdidia needs to add their special "rt cores", I would not write "software" raytracing off.

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

I don't expect many transitions at all. Maybe in stations for certainly things but I doubt there will be any in ship.

That's unfortunately what we'll see if Cobra Engine is really critical on polygon numbers.

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

You forget about hangars, there you can walk around your ships to your heart's content. I personally think if players are allowed to roam around the landing pads then you can guarantee some will find a way to grief others (like I suggested, running under a landing ship to cause the Commander to be charged with murder).

The CMDR would be fined for blocking the landing pad in that case. This already happens when you get too close to a landing pad with the SRV.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

That's unfortunately what we'll see if Cobra Engine is really critical on polygon numbers.

I see no reason to believe that at the moment.

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

I see no reason to believe that at the moment.

You're also right, it's just speculation as usual.

 

[Cosmo]

It is not only some textures, the most likely big part of the effort creating an authentic interior. Looking at racing sims like Assetto Corsa or flight sims like IL-2, you will see how much effort it will take to create highly detailed models. A big studio like Polyphony Digital took 3 months per car for Gran Turismo 5. Now imagine the effort to create the interior of an Anaconda.

You shouldn't compare ED with racing sims which try to be as accurate as possible to real life cars. The best comparison is the Normandy in Mass Effect. I think it'll be like that with more details and polygons.

The World of Tanks team is currently implementing a ray tracing system to render shadows on tanks. It runs on DX11 and does not need special hardware. Also Crytek showed some footage of Cryengine using ray tracing on a Vega 56. From that perspective and huge and expensive dies nVdidia needs to add their special "rt cores", I would not write "software" raytracing off.

Yes that could be an alternative solution to RTX.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

Is it weird that I like the non-RT graphics better for the most part?

they mostly simulate lens/camera effects that look like a ss in VR.

 

[babelfisch]

You forget about hangars, there you can walk around your ships to your heart's content. I personally think if players are allowed to roam around the landing pads then you can guarantee some will find a way to grief others (like I suggested, running under a landing ship to cause the Commander to be charged with murder).

Loitering on the landing pad is punishable by death.