Odyssey space has "too much contrast" - breaking down the rendering of a frame

I think the "haze" effect was made to hide the lack of stars. If I'm not mistaken, Elite use a "real" skybox, IE the stars you see are actual star you can go to. And there are possible limits to what they can do without burning your computer.
I think we went from an extreme to another. From "foggy skybox" to "black with tiny dots". As usual, I think the best would have been something in between.
Despite my constant arguing with you, yes. Lots of faint tiny dots, without descending into dark grey fog - what's the best compromise there? We'll probably still differ when it comes to having anything else in the scene though :)
 
Particularly annoying are the torn edges on the ship's hull when night vision is on, which are constantly moving. But without night vision, it is impossible to see enemy ships even from 500 meters.
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Despite my constant arguing with you, yes. Lots of faint tiny dots, without descending into dark grey fog - what's the best compromise there? We'll probably still differ when it comes to having anything else in the scene though :)
I think stars should overall be made a bit bigger in the skybox, possibly brighter to. And more celestial object like nebulae. Might not be super realistic, but it would look good and varied.
OFC, I'm no design artist, so I'm sure they can think of something better. They are professionals after all.
 
I've sometimes wondered if this might explain some ghost sightings, seeing something out of the corner of your eye that's not there when you turn to look (gone way OT there!)

When the nearest half-decent dark sky is 30 km away and your only tools are a 10x50 and a tiny 4" catadioptric, you become a professional at averted vision. I think I could solve crosswords like that at this point. 😅

Also worth mentioning that averted vision also works for spotting slight movements and rapid light changes that you wouldn't notice otherwise. Pay attention to it and sometimes you can notice flickering lights and displays refreshing, but only when you don't look at them. Maybe ghosts float around at 50 Hz.

As why we work like that, chances are the couple who could spot the saber-tooth trying to jump them ended up having kids, while their friends who became a dinner didn't.

Getting partially back on topic (sorry OP!), I just checked in game this evening, and I couldn't see any twinkling, so that must be definitely movement (aliasing) related.
 
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Also worth mentioning that averted vision also works for spotting slight movements and rapid light changes that you wouldn't notice otherwise. Pay attention to it and sometimes you can notice flickering lights and displays refreshing, but only when you don't look at them. Maybe ghosts float around at 50 Hz.
Heading really, really off topic now, but the recently-added scrolling text screens to tell you what the next station is (despite the names being visible on the signs outside the window when you get there) on Northern trains do that - flicker like mad when you're not looking right at them. Drives me up the wall to the point of going more out of the way to avoid using the train.
 
I'm not sure it is the same everywhere between stations and outposts but there is a light source just on top of the cockpit hence the lighting in Odyssey:

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I am in the same ship, in the same hangar, in the same station. If you by "lightsource just on top of the cockpit" refer to the in-world overhead lamps, yes they are in both horizons and odyssey. What it does look like though is that someone added a big bright lightsource right in the middle above the cockpit for odyssey and it completely destroys the mood and atmossphere of the interiors. Just look at the steam. Also, interior feels fake bright. And lightsource or not, this is definitely NOT an improvement. Unless bright office illumination are what you like for late night space travel. Whats going on in the game code and where light sources are placed I don't really know or should be caring about. It just should look like before, that was carefully designed over many iterations.

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Oh and this is ten times worse in VR since you are IN THE WORLD and no other light than the game world reach your eyes.
 
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View attachment 235892

So I quickly flew to Neptune just to make the two screenshots.

Top: Horizons (of course)
Bottom: Odyssey (also of course)

Notice how in Odyssey Neptune is basically black, the beautiful faint rings are totally gone and all stars have about the same brightness and only differ in size. I'm not saying that Horizons is 100% realistic, but for sure Odyssey is not one iota closer to realism. It is just darker and uglier.

I preordered Odyssey out of pure fandom. I couldn't care less about shoehorning a bad and underdeveloped shooter into a spaceship game. If I want to play a shooter there are lots of options infinitely better than what Odyssey has to offer. But there is basically only one spaceship game. And they broke it.

Like a lot of other people I continue to play Horizons till they port all the bugs and "features" from Odyssey over and then I say goodbye.
Notice how your cockpit disappears in the Odyssey screenshot as well. The objects that should emit light like the HUD elements don't light up the surfaces below them at all. This is a general lighting problem, that's why the whole game has become too dark. Light just doesn't have enough effect on objects.
 
I am in the same ship, in the same hangar, in the same station. If you by "lightsource just on top of the cockpit" refer to the in-world overhead lamps, yes they are in both horizons and odyssey. What it does look like though is that someone added a big bright lightsource right in the middle above the cockpit for odyssey and it completely destroys the mood and atmossphere of the interiors. Just look at the steam. Also, interior feels fake bright. And lightsource or not, this is definitely NOT an improvement. Unless bright office illumination are what you like for late night space travel. Whats going on in the game code and where light sources are placed I don't really know or should be caring about. It just should look like before, that was carefully designed over many iterations.

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Oh and this is ten times worse in VR since you are IN THE WORLD and no other light than the game world reach your eyes.
It's ironic because stations are way darker than they used to be in horizon. But that smoke thing in the hangar bay is brighter than most suns.
 
It's ironic because stations are way darker than they used to be in horizon. But that smoke thing in the hangar bay is brighter than most suns.
I don't know how that happened, but at one point the loading screen placed a large stationary steam puff right next to me, in the hangar, and I could swear that thing had a strong specular quality to it -- it had this "glazed" appearence, with an "oily" shine fleeting across it as I looked around (VR headlook), which looked kind of wierd.

Could maybe go a-ways to explain how the dust clouds on planets often exhibit these unnatural subtractive, or additive effects on the imagery behind them, as if they were floating flatly darkening brush in a drawing program, without the lighing/material conditions that could cause similar effects in an actual dust cloud.
 
tbh at this point I'm exhausted from trying to figure out what specific issue it is. It should never have to be the job of the consumers to fix the issues of the product they bought. I'd just like FDev and Braben to stop corporate-speaking their way out of responsibility and just fix the bloody thing.
 
tbh at this point I'm exhausted from trying to figure out what specific issue it is. It should never have to be the job of the consumers to fix the issues of the product they bought. I'd just like FDev and Braben to stop corporate-speaking their way out of responsibility and just fix the bloody thing.

I think I know what they've changed. Let me try to explain.

First, for the cockpit gameplay: they made everyning darker, like shadows, glowing effects etc.
Second, to make skybox and current system stars and planets visible after step 1, they applied a huge value of contrast and a bit lighted up everything except cockpit itself.
Third, they almost (or even completely) removed a "magic glass effect" which was dimming a cockpit glass while you're looking at the near star. So the effect was disappearing while you fly from that star, allowing the skybox become lighter. Pay attention that the effect was not affecting the cockpit panels etc., only the things that were behind the cockpit glass.

Fifth, they took that "magic glass effect" which was used during flying, and applied it to on foot gameplay but in an opposite way, while you're in a shadow, this effect is dimming pretty much everything you see. Looks like this was made only to make us use the flashlight inside the buildings, which applies a huuuge value of contrast. You can see how this dimming effect works even without actually entering a building, just if you're in a shadow under some canopy* (not sure this is the right word in english) while on foot.
So previously the "magic glass" was dimming if it's too bright while you're in ship. Now it's dimming if it's dark enough while on foot.
 
I'm flying around in Horizons (console) and I'm just in awe looking at space, all the stars and the relatively colourful background (Barnard's Loop, Witchhead, etc). I simply can't believe that they're going to take all this away from us because of the broken new lighting system.
 
Nice analysis. Perhaps Horizons mode (while it still exists) need an analysis too, and then you should search for correlations. This can point out what has changed in the process that makes new renderer less effective.
 
Here's another example. Why do the string lights actually not emit light in the cockpit? They're just coloured drawings now essentially and this makes them completely obsolete.

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I do think this is the same problem that explains why the whole Odyssey is so dark. Nothing emits proper light, it's terrible. As a reminder, this is how this particular item should look (and how it looks in Horizons):

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So disappointing. Cockpit customization lost its point.
 
This is where forums really shine - there are some very clever people with a bucket-load of experience who love this game enough to devote free spare time to unpicking what seems to be a terrible piece of coding... huge kudos to the OP 👍
 
This is where forums really shine - there are some very clever people with a bucket-load of experience who love this game enough to devote free spare time to unpicking what seems to be a terrible piece of coding... huge kudos to the OP 👍
No, it's posts like this where the forum really shines.

Not sure shine is the right word.
 
View attachment 235892

So I quickly flew to Neptune just to make the two screenshots.

Top: Horizons (of course)
Bottom: Odyssey (also of course)

Notice how in Odyssey Neptune is basically black, the beautiful faint rings are totally gone and all stars have about the same brightness and only differ in size. I'm not saying that Horizons is 100% realistic, but for sure Odyssey is not one iota closer to realism. It is just darker and uglier.

I preordered Odyssey out of pure fandom. I couldn't care less about shoehorning a bad and underdeveloped shooter into a spaceship game. If I want to play a shooter there are lots of options infinitely better than what Odyssey has to offer. But there is basically only one spaceship game. And they broke it.

Like a lot of other people I continue to play Horizons till they port all the bugs and "features" from Odyssey over and then I say goodbye.
I pre-ordered Odyssey out of fandom too and to support Frontier in the hope that they'd see the game is still profitable. If they know the fans will spend money on updates they'll be much more motivated to continue adding content.

At least that was my theory. Sadly it is looking like they are instead currently choosing to break things we love which means that they will also lose further time fixing those problems.

I'm sure the lighting can be fixed but I doubt it'll happen quickly or easily.
 
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