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

[Franc Kaos]

Thank you for such a deep analysis of the rendering system. I like the way you think, it’s very logical and makes it (relatively) easier to understand such a complex topic.

It sounds like the process really falls apart towards the end, but I didn’t quite understand the final sentence:



What’s an ‘untyped image’? And are you saying a gamma (contrast?) layer is effectively being applied twice because it’s untyped?

Also, FDev would have seen the final result prior to alpha. I can only assume they are ok with the dark output, or are things like this difficult to change?

'Save us Obi Wan Costanza, you're our only hope!' o7 and peace.
@ CMDR GB, I understood maybe 5% but it was a fascinating read - o7.

I get that the colour system is borked from the very beginning (locked in orange UI) but you'd think Fdev would take double extra care when messing with that entire subsystem to get it working correctly on public release for Odyssey. Like, I'm one of the few who don't hate the blackness of space but the overblown whiteness of planets and the black shadows in the cockpit is truly abysmal.

 

[Franc Kaos]

no 3d professional would argue like that. Nor post something like that.

Because you know every 3D professional in the world do you?

 

[FlorpyDorp]

Well if you’re right lack of communication sounds like a likely cause given COVID development ….

 

[CMDR Von Abrahart]

I very rarely partake in the forums - but this was a brilliant post. As someone who teaches visual effects and compositing I can see the issues here. Colour space etc is so important and thanks for delving in to this.

 

[Jack Schitt]

This is up there with that Reddit post in that I understand about 10% of it but have no problem believing its validity since it aligns so closely with mine and others' experiences.

There seem to be two fundamental problems with the current version of Odyssey: lack of "optimisation", and colour space issues.

The analysis on Reddit seems to point to inefficiencies that can only be offset in the short term by application of raw CPU power rather than GPU tweaks, which may go some way towards explaining why players with much better GPUs than mine, but less powerful CPUs, are seeing horrendous frame rates while mine are acceptable. My CPU, while seven years old, was blistering edge for its day and is significantly overclocked, and I suspect it's doing a lot of compensation for the inefficiencies in the code. It certainly gives its cooling fans a good workout.

And the investigation here by the OP seems to verify some of those inefficiencies while also neatly explaining the colour problem, and why no amount of newer GPUs or raw anything is going to correct it.

My gut feeling is that FD are aware of all of these issues and that the optimisations mentioned in a recent stream are real, and designed to address them. That they didn't make it into the Odyssey release may point to something as simple as an unavoidable deadline leaving no time to roll them in and test them, or something more complicated and unexpected that has pushed everything back again. Only FD will know that.

One thing FD almost certainly didn't count on is the speed with which some very knowledgeable players have forensically dissected the code and figured out the issues. Things are about to get interesting...

 

[Mogen Teras]

Too bad fdev doesn't read the forum. You should have posted this as a youtube video...that seems to get their attention.

What's sad is that their operation probably would have taken a month+ to identify this problem as directly as done in the OP. What's worse is that it wasn't identified in the months leading up to release.

It's widely rumored that many if not most of the FDev developers have no background in game dev when hired, and that most if not all of the original Elite Dangerous dev team that build the original game no longer work there.

So it wouldnt surprise me if the people making the game literally don't understand what they did wrong or why it isn't working.

 

[Just]

Regarding the original poster: no 3d professional would argue like that. Nor post something like that. Enjoy the game and wait until it gets ironed out. It's just a matter of time.

So, you just registered on this forum a few days ago and your first post is to someone who is also new here and posted some detailed breakdown of "what FD did wrong" that he acted unprofessionally?

I sense some "how could you do it to a brother in profession" vibe

 

[mrxtheta]

of the few who don't hate the blackness of space but the overblown whiteness of planets and the black shadows in the cockpit is truly abysmal.

the root of these is the same.

 

[Milkman76]

Ive worked with and for developers for decades. Hire this person.

Your analysis is much appreciated. Thanks.

 

[HRDiagram]

Very interesting, logical flow.

If I hadn't already given a thumbs up for the content, I would certainly do for that glorious:

"And this is where the digestive end product hits the rotary air impeller."

 

[Nomadski]

The 8th picture in the OP reminds me of the red and blue flashing I got occurring during gameplay in Alpha which I made a ticket for. I have seen this repeated with just blue so far in the actual release.

 

[thistle]

It's widely rumored that many if not most of the FDev developers have no background in game dev when hired

"widely rumoured", I'm sure.

It's also "widely rumoured" my postman likes to dress up as a pink elephant at the weekend.

 

[Darth Ender]

"widely rumoured", I'm sure.

It's also "widely rumoured" my postman likes to dress up as a pink elephant at the weekend.

does everyone see a pink elephant delivering mail?

we see a bunch of ameteur coding mistakes, very long periods to fix reported bugs and frequent releases full of bugs or design changes that seem disconnected from best practices such as wasting player time or creating additional steps to do an action that previously took less...etc

 

[gibbotronic]

It's widely rumored that many if not most of the FDev developers have no background in game dev when hired, and that most if not all of the original Elite Dangerous dev team that build the original game no longer work there.

So it wouldnt surprise me if the people making the game literally don't understand what they did wrong or why it isn't working.

I have no idea if it is widely rumoured or not, but I have worked on a colossal codebases after joining a company that I had close to zero/very little explanation of, and was expected to expand and add features to. Whilst I expended effort to extract information from the resident "architect"-status developers, some just didn't want to help newcomers and were hostile to them (or were really really busy fixing things that the juniors had broken), and then belittled the silly mistakes they made on the codebase, at the same time refusing to help the newcomers because they were so busy... a vicious circle.

And I made plenty of mistakes just out of trying to reach manager-mandated arbritrary deadlines with an overly complicated codebase that wasn't explained, modifying a small piece of a giant set of code with little visibility on what it was going to interact with. Kind of like being told to modify an engine in a car but not being able to see where it fits in the car, and expecting the car to somehow fly afterwards. I did enjoy working there for the code and some of the colleagues, just not the ridiculous expectations.

I can only imagine this has happened here. It'll get resolved eventually.

 

[Mrc_NorthEast]

Thanks OP for the detailed write up!

 

[Einar Donarsson]

What a delight to read and dive into. I hope SOMEONE will relay this to FDEV so they can fix this.

 

[Lone_star]

My 2 cents - this is not getting fixed anytime soon - if ever.

 

[Pigletslastand]

OP thank you so much for putting your time and effort and considerable expertise into this. The Elite community is amazing in how it rises to the challenge of taking care of this beloved game. I dearly hope someone who needs to see this does. God Speed good Sir/Madam!

 

[CMDR Astraea Astralis]

Have my bump, as this needs to be seen by everyone at FDev, and others who might just be especially interested such as myself. This was very educational, and fun to read.

 

[Mogen Teras]

Have my bump, as this needs to be seen by everyone at FDev, and others who might just be especially interested such as myself. This was very educational, and fun to read.

FDev doesn't read the forums.