New Planet Tech is KILLER of Exploration (all terrain is tiling/repeating/not procedural/random)

[Franc Kaos]

I strongly suspect the render team underestimated just how good the human brain is at pattern matching.

I'm pretty low on the intelligence style* and even I know how good the human brain is at pattern matching.

but these issues can't just be swept under the carpet

Oh you just watch: CQC, Multicrew, Powerplay, Wings, good P2P, one SRV, Crime gameplay... Oh and beige planets which did get fixed after a huge outcry and many, many, months.
Things they seem to love focusing on: Engineering (and again and again and again), mining, mission payouts and Player Punishment...

* scale - dur!

Edit: Stupid things still in game: Proliferation of limpets without extra module slots, unloved Orrery, still have to target each individual mineral on planets to pick them up.

 

[EdzUp]

Looking at that reminds me of the StarCraft 1 map editor with terrain generation and huge pregenerated prefabs to place on it for rocks and buildings.

 

[Sunyavadin]

Looking at that reminds me of the StarCraft 1 map editor with terrain generation and huge pregenerated prefabs to place on it for rocks and buildings.

I spent SO LONG in that map editor XD

 

[Tikanderoga]

What's ridiculous, is that even during alpha we had better.
This was on reddit, a partially frozen world, during alpha.
Same planet, video vs reality :

The planet is HD 10329 , B 5, if anybody want to make an horizon screenshot (I don't want to lose my keybinds^^). Curious to see it compared to horizon.

I really wonder what happened between the 2 shots there.
I mean, it WAS already in game. So unless someone had a snooze on the delete button, it would have been pushed to us with the Alpha or the release.

 

[Erei]

I really wonder what happened between the 2 shots there.
I mean, it WAS already in game. So unless someone had a snooze on the delete button, it would have been pushed to us with the Alpha or the release.

Obviously, downgrade. What I'm curious about is because some planet actually look (kinda) like that. But they are very rare. Most of them look like that brown no detail/blurry/low res texture thing with no noise.

The atmo downgrade from volumetric to shader was most likely done for optimization reason. Probably because they were rushed and couldn't make it properly before release.
I think the rest was done for a similar reason.

 

[Prof Horatio Hafnaugels]

Hand made or not matters little if we had the original planet gen. It was generating so much noise, you couldn't see any repetition or apparent hand made stuff.
Remember, this is what planet were supposed to look like :

Can you spot any repetition or pattern ? No, you can't, unless you really, really look hard. There is simply too much noise and detail. The result is stunning.


This screenshot was taken today, same planet :
View attachment 249331
And now this. Little noise, plastic look... it sure is easier to spot repetition, since there is nothing else to see really.



I don't think there are any pattern on those 2 picture. But they were intended as comparison and examples. One have too much noise to see anything, the other is so poor quality, that's all there is to see.

I tought at least the plastic look should have been easy to fix...but after 5 patches it's still there.
What are they trying achieve anyway? Shiny ice?
Should it shine at all through atmosphere when viewed from orbit?

 

[CMDR Sheehy]

I tought at least the plastic look should have been easy to fix...but after 5 patches it's still there.
What are they trying achieve anyway? Shiny ice?
Should it shine at all through atmosphere when viewed from orbit?

Water does so why shouldn't other shiny things. If the ice is shiny on the ground, why shouldn't it be visible from orbit. it's not like it's got a snow cover. Snow only forms with water ice. If you look at other ices, they form needles, not snowflakes. You seriously would not want to be out there when it is precipitating other things. A lot of surface ice is likely formed by gas desublimating on solid surfaces in tenuous atmospheres anyway. There would not be enough dust to trigger the formation of droplets for precipitation to form... especially on ice worlds where there is little rock.

(Yeah - I know, you want me to sod off. Bye...)

 

[Mack Winston]

Should it shine at all through atmosphere when viewed from orbit?

Yes. Shiny stuff on Earth is clearly visible from orbit, despite Earth's much thicker atmosphere.

 

[Erei]

Water does so why shouldn't other shiny things. If the ice is shiny on the ground, why shouldn't it be visible from orbit. it's not like it's got a snow cover. Snow only forms with water ice. If you look at other ices, they form needles, not snowflakes. You seriously would not want to be out there when it is precipitating other things. A lot of surface ice is likely formed by gas desublimating on solid surfaces in tenuous atmospheres anyway. There would not be enough dust to trigger the formation of droplets for precipitation to form... especially on ice worlds where there is little rock.

(Yeah - I know, you want me to sod off. Bye...)

It's irrelevant IMO. I posted the screenshots because it's vastly different in quality. One is a very detailed surface, the other is a blurry mesh and texture with very little relief. Mountains vs cooked egg at best. We have 10years of gaming difference between the 2.

The shiny "plastic" effect doesn't help for sure. But to me it's very minor compared to the elephant in the room.

 

[hunvagy]

Water does so why shouldn't other shiny things. If the ice is shiny on the ground, why shouldn't it be visible from orbit. it's not like it's got a snow cover. Snow only forms with water ice. If you look at other ices, they form needles, not snowflakes. You seriously would not want to be out there when it is precipitating other things. A lot of surface ice is likely formed by gas desublimating on solid surfaces in tenuous atmospheres anyway. There would not be enough dust to trigger the formation of droplets for precipitation to form... especially on ice worlds where there is little rock.

(Yeah - I know, you want me to sod off. Bye...)

Honestly the only problem I see with this being posted is that again, the problem is not on on foot level. We know the textures are really good on ground. Most of the time, until the engine throws a hissy fit. But it has nothing to do with melting ice cream mountains, terrain pop-in and repeated tiling terrain features.

And honestly, with the footprints and other artifacts, this looks like a really nice icy terrain. Wish it would always look like this, even from high up. But in my experience, it not always does.

 

[Erei]

Honestly the only problem I see with this being posted is that again, the problem is not on on foot level. We know the textures are really good on ground. Most of the time, until the engine throws a hissy fit. But it has nothing to do with melting ice cream mountains, terrain pop-in and repeated tiling terrain features.

And honestly, with the footprints and other artifacts, this looks like a really nice icy terrain. Wish it would always look like this, even from high up. But in my experience, it not always does.

Ground terrain have it's issues though. Besides the obvious you mentioned. Since Odyssey, a lot of actual terrain "formation" like cracks and stuff was replaced by simple 2d textures. Which is, obviously, much lower in quality compared to 3d mesh and texture work.
Example :

This planet is supposedly frozen. In Alpha it looked better, but whatever.
The black "paint" is supposed to represent the stuff that happen in frozen field, when rocks get dragged by the ice when it melt/froze over and over again. I don't know the name of that kind of stuff.
From above ground it look OK. But this is from ground level. It's bad. Really bad.
For reference, this was the same planet in late alpha, using the "good" planet gen :

Note the ice effect on ground. I will not start on the volumetric effect which are gorgeous but not related.

On the far right (on the hill thing) you can see the current texture we have pretty much everywhere for hills. But note how much noise and scattering there is everywhere. That texture is basically all we have left now.

I feel like someone flipped a switch and removed all the noise, volumetric effect and rock scattering we had. Leaving only the poor quality texture that were used to enhance another effect, which is now gone.
Another shot from alpha :

Note how ridiculously good it was. We have snow/fine ice accumulation, as if it was pushed by the wind. Little gravel rock peaking through the ice. Snow and ice dotting the mountain.
It's freaking amazing.

 

[dannysquid]

Totally agree. Again I hate to harp on the point as the devs might be reading this, but these issues can't just be swept under the carpet. Just look at the examples I highlighted in the post above. There's been no attempt to hide them, no rotation, no additional fractal noise, no affine transforms, no proximity rules. In the Hello Games GDC vids we see the love and attention they put into their procgen. I see no such love in Odyssey. (Sorry devs, I love this game and it hurts to have to say this).

I don't mind them using pre-existing assets (because they'll look a lot more real, and this will be more the case if they do atmospheric worlds) but agree that something should be done to make them less obvious. Random rotations might get us 50% better.

It's worth keeping in mind that it's not just about adding more detail and thinking more cleverly about placement it's also about being able to generate this stuff pretty much instantaneously -- the rest of the game is happening at the same time. The real genius of what they've done isn't what it looks like, it's that it's generated pretty much on-the-fly in a computationally simple way.

Although to be honest, I'd barely have noticed if other people hadn't. Think there's only been one time where it's really stood out to me (standing next to two identical mountains). So I don't think the endgame is NO OBVIOUS REPETITIONS, it's LESS OBVIOUS REPETITIONS.

 

[Old Duck]

I saw repetition instantly on that pre-alpha ss, but I agree there is something about that image that gives the impression that it's better. Note it's more difficult to see repetition at such an acute angle. Easier when looking down almost perpendicular to the surface.

View attachment 249467

I'm beginning to think that this thread is bad for me. While some repetition in Odyssey is in-your-face obvious, I never noticed the repetition in the above example until someone posted this with the circles. Now everywhere I go I'm going to be seeing patterns! EVERYWHERE!!!

 

[Erei]

I'm beginning to think that this thread is bad for me. While some repetition in Odyssey is in-your-face obvious, I never noticed the repetition in the above example until someone posted this with the circles. Now everywhere I go I'm going to be seeing patterns! EVERYWHERE!!!

Don't worry, the above example is not in Odyssey. It was a pre alpha screenshot. The same planet today look like that :

No repetition that I can see !
I guess that's the positive aspect


I didn't notice the repetition either in the pre alpha one. And that's my point, with that kind of noise it was nearly impossible to see, even less when playing.

 

[Prof Horatio Hafnaugels]

Ground terrain have it's issues though. Besides the obvious you mentioned. Since Odyssey, a lot of actual terrain "formation" like cracks and stuff was replaced by simple 2d textures. Which is, obviously, much lower in quality compared to 3d mesh and texture work.
Example :

I think they're fake low res shadows used to make the ground look more rough when viewed from distance.
I tried to light them with my torch and they disappeared. When I turned the torch away they became visible again.
There could be other explanations though...

 

[Prof Horatio Hafnaugels]

Water does so why shouldn't other shiny things. If the ice is shiny on the ground, why shouldn't it be visible from orbit. it's not like it's got a snow cover. Snow only forms with water ice. If you look at other ices, they form needles, not snowflakes. You seriously would not want to be out there when it is precipitating other things. A lot of surface ice is likely formed by gas desublimating on solid surfaces in tenuous atmospheres anyway. There would not be enough dust to trigger the formation of droplets for precipitation to form... especially on ice worlds where there is little rock.

(Yeah - I know, you want me to sod off. Bye...)

Fascinating theory.
Can you provide some links to real photos taken from Earth's orbit that show shiny ice?
I'm sure they're not that common and maybe that's the reason some people think it looks fake when seen in videogames.

 

[CMDR Sheehy]

Fascinating theory.
Can you provide some links to real photos taken from Earth's orbit that show shiny ice?
I'm sure they're not that common and maybe that's the reason some people thinks it looks fake when seen in videogames.

You can find photos of reflective water ice, but typically it's small patches, like lakes. To catch that from orbit you would have to be very lucky or very calculated:

Most of Earth's ice is covered in snow which is bright, but not reflective. The pictures we have of other ice (Nitrogen) are from Pluto - but not at the angle to see the reflection. When you see Earth's ocean reflecting, it's only at the spot where the sun is opposite - so you have to catch it at the right angle.

 

[Prof Horatio Hafnaugels]

You can find photos of reflective water ice, but typically it's small patches, like lakes. To catch that from orbit you would have to be very lucky or very calculated:

Most of Earth's ice is covered in snow which is bright, but not reflective. The pictures we have of other ice (Nitrogen) are from Pluto - but not at the angle to see the reflection. When you see Earth's ocean reflecting, it's only at the spot where the sun is opposite - so you have to catch it at the right angle.

Then I suppose FDev should tone down the effect because in EDO it's far too easy to see it.
Thank you for the clarification.

 

[Old Duck]

Don't worry, the above example is not in Odyssey. It was a pre alpha screenshot. The same planet today look like that :

No repetition that I can see !
I guess that's the positive aspect


I didn't notice the repetition either in the pre alpha one. And that's my point, with that kind of noise it was nearly impossible to see, even less when playing.

Frontier should be selling us that pre-alpha rather than the beta

 

[hunvagy]

Frontier should be selling us that pre-alpha rather than the beta

They were.. until the alpha was over