Nebulae Graphics are Bad

Cosmo

Cosmo
The in-game Nebulae graphics don't come close to the magnificence of their real-life counterparts. People have requested this years ago and it would make lots of explorers happy. So why hasn't Frontier updated it in the last 8 years? It shouldn't be hard to do.

Edit: please check this video of nebulae in Space Engine:

 
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Morbad

Morbad
Most of the images of real nebulae one will see are extremely long exposures with massive optics and are still enhanced. Most of the examples in that Reddit thread probably wouldn't look like that to an unaugmented human eye, no matter the viewing conditions.

It's also possible to significantly increase the visual detail of the in-game nebulae by increasing their resolution and sample counts via the GraphicsConfigurationOverride.xml.
 

Cosmo

Cosmo
Morbad said:
Most of the images of real nebulae one will see are extremely long exposures with massive optics and are still enhanced. Most of the examples in that Reddit thread probably wouldn't look like that to an unaugmented human eye, no matter the viewing conditions.
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That's true, but Space Engine's nebulae are 100 times better. It shouldn't require much resources to update it. Space Engine does a lot of things better with galaxy simulation.

 
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Riverside

Riverside
I recently visited the Bubble Nebula, thought it was amazing.
bMK269u.jpg


The Crab nebula is pretty special too, although more so as you approach it over the final hundred or so ly but even when you are inside you get some pretty wild colours. ETA Carina was one I remember being disappointed by up close, all indications of it's famous 'double bubble' shape were absent, it was just a generic reddish whispy blob.

I think the attempts to replicate the shape & colours of real nebulae are really well done, the artificial colours are added in a way that seems a reasonable compromise between realism and what viewers expect based on IRL colour enhanced images of them.

There could be a lot more done with the proc gen nebulae though, they mostly all look like the same voxel rotated in different ways and there are far fewer on the far side of the galaxy (where everything is proc gen) compared to the variety of real ones on the bubble side. Some planetary nebulae are amazing though, and there are many unique shapes & colours (all are emission nebulae of course).

Nebulae are extremely... well nebulous ;) They are also truly enormous. That space engine vid shows views that seem more akin to flying through atmospheric cloud structures. They do look pretty though, perhaps we will get something more like that if thicker atmospheres and weather are eventually added.
 

Kzak

Kzak
Most nebulae are too weak in light to be seen with the unaided human eye. For example, Barnard's Loop is three times the size of the full moon seen from Earth, but emits so little light it is pretty much invisible to us.
 

marx

marx
Rat Catcher said:
Best stick to Space Engine...

I imagine the resources needed to add such to ED are considerably greater than you consider.
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Maybe not, but instead it's likely just that there are so many more important things needing attention that adding variety to nebula models is at the bottom of priorities. Or not even there.
Consider the case of dark / absorption nebulae. As it turns out, most of them were being rendered incorrectly by the game, they didn't actually look dark: this was only noticed and fixed in Odyssey Update 9, nearly seven years after the game launched. I don't remember anyone ever bringing this up, mind: I'm not sure anyone ever realised the issue. (I certainly didn't.)

As for Space Engine: a simulator is of course going to have better recreations of its subject matter than a game is. No surprises there.
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
Morbad said:
Most of the images of real nebulae one will see are extremely long exposures with massive optics and are still enhanced. Most of the examples in that Reddit thread probably wouldn't look like that to an unaugmented human eye, no matter the viewing conditions.
Click to expand...
Our human eyes wouldn't appreciate staring at the sun from fuel scoop distances either. Even Vulcans have a tough go of it!
 
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