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

[Valorin]

As an artist (fine & graphic art) I am pointing out that NOW the horrible use of cut'n'paste as an ACCEPTABLE 'in-use-procedure' (acceptable to FDev) has filtered down from the elite/creme de la creme artists (i.e THE concept artists) employed by Frontier...... In the past; concept artists use ANY cut'n'paste?....NEVER!!!!

The frontier employees tasked with splattering Odyssey planets with cut'n'paste garbage repetitions of barely changed 'graphics' are not 'artists'...just render applicators following artistic direction from their betters.... THEY know no better. It is just the dumbing down of the entire broad spectrum of development of ED/EDH/EDO, as time has progressed. It is a blatant symptom (to an artist) of the malignant lack of 'interest' within Frontier, in just what Elite means to dedicated commanders with their preconceived ideas built up over the years and their consequent expectations!

Does THAT compute? o7

Well, it's not too hard to see your point.
I just think it's nonsense. Anger and assumptions.

If you want an example for really bad art coming from frontier, there was a background picture used in some of the streams a few years back. Classic planet/ship/space motive, just that space was littered with copies of Elite's background skybox. Galaxies and nebulas were all over the picture. If you didn't know those shapes it was easily overlooked, but knowing that this or that is actually a galaxy, it looked ridiculous and wrong.

So now you can of course make point about that being a general tendency of carelessness within Frontier, but I completely disagree.
Elite still is the most astronomical correct space game there ever was, galaxy simulation and everything. Scientific detail and accuracy still miles ahead of anything else in games. Including the new planetary tech. Just maybe look at all the other details they put into it instead of pointing to the issues over and over again.

Especially as an artist you should appreciate that wonderful beast the new planetary tech is.

 

[[VR] Merkir]

Especially as an artist you should appreciate that wonderful beast the new planetary tech is.

I think some of the atmospheric landable planet tech is very good indeed, and can produce some of the most gorgeous vistas we've ever seen.

But not so with non-atmospherics. IMO replacing PG terrain with pre-generated tiles is a huge downgrade. ED is retrograding into old tech many other companies use. ED is losing some of its claim to fame, its mojo. Others have said it's losing its soul. I agree.

 

[Valorin]

I think some of the atmospheric landable planet tech is very good indeed, and can produce some of the most gorgeous vistas we've ever seen.

But not so with non-atmospherics. IMO replacing PG terrain with pre-generated tiles is a huge downgrade. ED is retrograding into old tech many other companies use. ED is losing some of its claim to fame, its mojo. Others have said it's losing its soul. I agree.

I absolutely disagree here.
There's so much detail in the new tech. It takes into account a lot of data and scientific stuff that wasn't in Horizons.
I also disagree on the non-atmospherics. There's tons of great non-atmospherics in Odyssey.
I acknowledge the tiles and reoccurring patterns and I don't like them, but I think it's not right to reduce the new tech to its issues.

If anything I see more soul in Odyssey's planets. More complex soul, with more movable parts that can produce issues.

 

[[VR] Merkir]

I absolutely disagree here.
There's so much detail in the new tech. It takes into account a lot of data and scientific stuff that wasn't in Horizons.
I also disagree on the non-atmospherics. There's tons of great non-atmospherics in Odyssey.
I acknowledge the tiles and reoccurring patterns and I don't like them, but I think it's not right to reduce the new tech to its issues.

If anything I see more soul in Odyssey's planets. More complex soul, with more movable parts that can produce issues.

We'll have to agree to disagree. My first impressions of Odyssey, for probably the first day, was that the planet variations were new, refreshing. They looked great. But now after seeing over a hundred, all I see are the same formations, slightly rearranged (and repeated of course). The same mozaic regions, the same hills, the same "scratched" regions, and ofc the same big crater. And on the many Rocky and HMC planets I've been to, no deep canyons, no mountains. That's what you get from pre-generated, very height-limited tiles.

Importantly, no more pleasant surprises that procgen used to provide. So IMO far less soul. A lot of sameness.

 

[Valorin]

We'll have to agree to disagree. My first impressions of Odyssey, for probably the first day, was that the planet variations were new, refreshing. They looked great. But now after seeing over a hundred, all I see are the same formations, slightly rearranged (and repeated of course). The same mozaic regions, the same hills, the same "scratched" regions, and ofc the same big crater. And on the many Rocky and HMC planets I've been to, no deep canyons, no mountains. That's what you get from pre-generated, very height-limited tiles.

Importantly, no more pleasant surprises that procgen used to provide. So IMO far less soul. A lot of sameness.

I actually see more sameness on other levels in Horizons to be honest, but yeah, let's agree to disagree.

 

[thistle]

They sure look great and I have multiple examples as well, but the problem is that in all the promotional videos you could see and additive layer of fog that in EDO is only currently visible drawn on top of the terrain only. For example in your last screenshot you can see how in the far distance the moutains are picking a desaturated fog that is not corresponding with what is behind.

See how it would look if the additive fog that is drawn only on top of the terrain geometry was properly rendered:

View attachment 237626

It's a typical problem in games when an atmospheric shader is applied only on geometry and not on the environment background. Mountains shouldn't have more fog that the sky behind as I've illustrated previously on this examples:

View attachment 237623

View attachment 237624

This is very good, I agree.

 

[thistle]

I do think something is broken on the fogging/distance and isn't what fdev intended.

To be honest it may ALL be related to the same lighting problems people have been raising re in ship, space, etc. It feels like something broke or was changed during or after alpha and the atmospheres were accidentally hit.

And I say this as someone who does NOT want to go back to Horizons at all, I love the new planets but there's clearly problems.

 

[CMDR Fnool]

I suppose the real test will be the reaction of those who have spent many years exploring in Horizons, and 'knowing their stuff' when it comes to identifying strange and interesting phenomena, whether it be unique landscapes on planets or the positioning and type of planetary bodies, as to whether Odyssey is still unique, or whether it is too copy/paste to bother with. What some people don't seem to understand, is that even if Odyssey managed to offer 70-80% unique landscapes with 20% cut and paste, that's still not good enough compared to the unique 'noise' based randomness of Horizons, if you see the same mountain range 30k light years from the bubble as you did when on a planet near home, the whole experience is ruined and immersion shattered.

 

[Tee Mcgee]

In about 1000 hours I've spent 99% of that out in the black, and I can say that Odyssey has made me so disgusted with exploration that I've quit uninstalled entirely and started playing other games. The planets look less realistic, the crash sites and buildings randomly appearing make no sense, the biosigns are simply randomly thrown about across a planet, nothing is generated with a reason behind it, all the atmospheres quickly begin to look identical (even same colorations with vastly different stars and atmospheric compositions). Odyssey was such a step backwards that it's ruined Elite for me, congrats Frontier.

Edit: and this doesn't even begin to mention the Galaxy and System UI changes, which are so badly designed they give me a headache just thinking about it
Second Edit: Neutron Stars

 

[Deleted member 115407]

There really is some janky looking out there....
Planet Emo here is on the verge of cutting itself.

 

[MASA]

I just remembered this was one of the images promoting the new planetary tech. Even if it's not a real screenshot, it promotes things that are not even in the game at all. Proper surface textures, different surface features and objects, huge crevices, etc. Just look at it. (Not to mention the lighting - there IS light in this image.) What happened to this concept? Why isn't it even remotely realized?

Also, notice that this artist's impression of what Odyssey might look like features overhangs! That does not occur in game anywhere. I'm not pretending that Horizons could do overhangs either, but this image is a bit disingenuous and promises things the game cannot deliver.

 

[Slowfiddler]

There really is some janky looking out there....
Planet Emo here is on the verge of cutting itself.

View attachment 237839

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trypophobia

 

[Deleted member 115407]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trypophobia

Triggered and reported.

 

[Sunyavadin]

There really is some janky looking out there....
Planet Emo here is on the verge of cutting itself.

View attachment 237839

Somebody please get that planet some decent skincare products!

 

[MASA]

What's the problem with any of that? Give me the realism any day over impressive anywhere - then impressive anywhere just becomes mundane and dull. The problems aren't that lots are fairly flat, it's the copy-paste features and the lack of even occasionaly really impressive landscapes (no Himalayan mountain ranges or cracks formed as a planet cools of is tidally stressed giving good racing territory). That shouldn't be the norm wherever you drop down - it just gets silly then. But we map planets, so the map is how we should find those features (once they actually exist to be found). Mapping needs to produce maps!

Whatever method you've got you'll always get better views near the terminator. The shadows will always add to any scene.

On your texture issues, the patterns of squares, I've not seen anything quite that bad - either you're on very low settings or something's genuinely completely borked there.

That was everything on ULTRA for that screenshot. Something definitely wasn't working right because when I landed the physical surface was a couple of metres higher than the visuals. Myself, my ship, my SRV and all the rocks were floating above what looked like it was the surface.

 

[TiberiusDuval]

That was everything on ULTRA for that screenshot. Something definitely wasn't working right because when I landed the physical surface was a couple of metres higher than the visuals. Myself, my ship, my SRV and all the rocks were floating above what looked like it was the surface.

Hmm something like that happens to me occasionally. Not always but I have noticed.

 

[hunvagy]

Hmm something like that happens to me occasionally. Not always but I have noticed.

I mean we got the roadmap and the silent treatment, all we can hope for is fixes now Also I sometimes notice on footage from other people, that even your commander hovers over the terrain. There's just something.. weird at times with the shadows we cast, and it looks like levitation.

 

[MASA]

you cannot possibly know that u filthy hater, this is next gen tech dx11 ray tracing
also you should have used ultraforcapture, game is gud, space is black and 10 fps is okay

 

[Just]

Also, notice that this artist's impression of what Odyssey might look like features overhangs! That does not occur in game anywhere. I'm not pretending that Horizons could do overhangs either, but this image is a bit disingenuous and promises things the game cannot deliver.

Overhang is not mine, it's from screenshots thread.
It looks a bit "accidental" though of course.

Two conclusions:
- watching ALL of screenshots thread should be mandatory before commenting on what features the new tech CAN and CAN'T include

- absurdly low number/chance of SOME interesting terrain features/assets suggests that FD has technology which they just can't use/tune properly.
I mean : i have visited about 100 planets and only a handful had interesting and diversified height map / terrain (like an example on my screenshot below).
This negates the claim EDO planets are flat because of limitations of new tech, but what is the point of having the most attractive options in "planet generator" generally turned off in 99% of planets?

 

[Just]

This is 50 km over ground level - this should help realize, that those terrain features are not barely a" thin overlay on flat surface".
This is some proper terrain topography.
You can also estimate the size of them by taking planet curvature into account.
EDIT: OK, it's a moon, so a bit smaller then I just assumed. Anyway, this looks good even with no atmosphere.
But such bodies are just way to hard to find.