Planet and star scales look a way too small in VR?

[CMDR FlashPan]

This isn't something I noticed until I bought Titans of Space 2.0 for the Vive which is in essence a scaled tour of the solar system.

In that app, they have shrunk the sizes down of the objects to 1 millionth of their real size - at least at the beginning of the tour, yet even in their massively shrunken state, they seem to appear much bigger than the objects in Elite Dangerous - especially the Stars and Giant Planets. I also think its stars (toward the end of the tour) look much more impressive too - but that's another story

Now when I warp into a new system in Elite Dangerous I can't help but thinking that the orange stars that I run into are Jupiter sized (at one millionth of scale). It's hard to shake, but everything appears to be much smaller - at least compared to the tour app above.

I have also noticed an issue with planetary bases (though this is pre 2.1 as I haven't visited one since the patch). Basically I could be 100km out and the structures look way too big for that distance. I do a lot of hiking, with daily distances of 20km - 44km and I know what objects at a distance look like. I'm guessing that this perceived issue is down to the fact that the planetary scales of the models are way too small as noted above. So although the software is reporting 100km of distance, in terms of model space it's probably 1/10th that.

Despite this, Elite Dangerous already looks pretty darn good, but I feel if the Devs fixed the scaling, peoples jaws will quite literally drop on the floor!

Anyone else notice this scaling issue? Or am I going mad?

RobP

 

[=AVG=Boomer]

I agree with you but I believe that it is an IPD(Interpupillary Distance) issue with the VR device and not on Frontiers end. The arms/legs of the pilot make me feel really small. In regards to planets/stations I think its hard to judge how far you are from said object. I was flying around my Eagle in Farseer and when I was by one of the buildings I thought that the windows and building were too small but I also realized I was pretty far away from them. So when I got closer to said object the size of it became apparent. Same with planets, when I approach them I think it looks pretty small until I go into orbital flight and get closer to the surface. I am currently using my DK2 which doesn't have an IPD setting anymore, but my CV1 is being delivered today. I hope that I can fix the scale issue with the IPD setting on the CV1. Will report back if there are any differences in scale tonight.

 

[Darkfyre99]

Personally, I haven't had that problem since Engineers Beta4... and even then, only when I loaded SteamVR first before playing Elite.

By sheer coincidence, my gaming room is just about the same size of a Cobra Mk 3 cockpit, so I can nearly walk around the whole cockpit with my Vive. And out of sheer whimsy, I've put a second chair about where the copilot's seat is, so I can sit down on it at look at the stars sometimes. (And try to ignore the headless pilot in the other chair ) When the scaling was off, it was quite unnerving to walk around that virtual cockpit.

 

[whaleboy]

This isn't something I noticed until I bought Titans of Space 2.0 for the Vive which is in essence a scaled tour of the solar system... Anyone else notice this scaling issue? Or am I going mad?

RobP

This has been brought up before, and I agree, flying by planets, they look awesomely huge, but far from planetary scale. Funny you linked to that game/app... I will need to grab it and have a look, but I noticed this in their notes on Steam...

"Please note that if you launch the Vive version while using the Rift, the app will still run, but it is not the intended experience. Scales are different..."

I find that note interesting. I'm pretty sure the scale thing is more of an issue on the Vive, but I'm basing that on thread comments that I might be imagining. Maybe ED isn't accounting for scale/in game IPD differences between the HMD's?

-David

 

[[HJ]-RedRaven]

I'm struggling to understand why such a small difference (error) in IPD would lead to the planets feeling small.

I thought FD was using correct scale for the planets, orbital distances etc?

Is it not just a case of the player exiting SC into normal space a lot further out from a planet than one would expect?
We're somewhat used to seeing photos from the ISS at 400km altitude - which is pretty low and far lower than you'd see in ED unless you enter high-altitude cruise.

Or is it a cockpit effect - ie the nearness of the cockpit structure, being much closer to you eliminates the sense of depth you might get of a planet outside the window (as compared to using the external camera for example where you could look away from your ship towards the planet).

Forgive my ignorance, still waiting on my CV1... but planets look just fine in 2D, very big. Even at 400km altitude, the two HMD images should appear identical, even for IPD's at human extremes. The focal length is essentially infinite.

If ED simply uses correct proportion, then its a whole different kettle of fish. Stuff could appear small pretty easily.

 

[CylonSurfer]

The scale is 100% off for me using my Rift - the pilot looks to have the body size of a thin teenager and not a full grown man. Luckily someone figured out a fix recently: https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/4epjud/dk2_ipd_adjustment_on_13_real_ugly_fix/

It says DK2 but also works with the CV1, sadly not the VIVE. Once the fix is applied Elite looks awesome! Having the correct scale certainly makes a huge difference (no pun intended)!!

These issues could be easily avoided in Elite if FDEV added a scale slider in the options, or allowed you to bind world scale to keys.... It's been mentioned countless times since the birth of VR in Elite.. I have seen FDEV outright deny there is a problem but clearly for some users there is.

Create a bug thread - I'd happily support it.

 

[rennarda]

Have you noticed though, that planets feel bigger the closer you get to them ? That's such an obvious truism that I feel silly writing it, but that's not what I mean. It's the sense of scale I'm talking about. I think the illusion of planets feeling small is because your usually viewing them in super cruise. Flying at ridiculous speeds isn't something our brains can handle, and I think we adapt by sensing the planets as smaller.

I know for sure that I recently dropped into a ring around a gas giant and that thing was HUGE. I mean, it dominated ½ the sky but I could really feel how massive it was. I think the foreground of the ring gave it scale that you otherwise wound't have.

As for viewing planetary bases from above, I think part of the illusion there is that there is no (or only trace) atmosphere on laudable worlds at the moment. Atmospherics are what gives you a sense of distance, and without them our sense of scale is confused.

I'm looking forward to seeing what atmospheric worlds look like...

 

[CylonSurfer]

Have you noticed though, that planets feel bigger the closer you get to them ? That's such an obvious truism that I feel silly writing it, but that's not what I mean. It's the sense of scale I'm talking about. I think the illusion of planets feeling small is because your usually viewing them in super cruise. Flying at ridiculous speeds isn't something our brains can handle, and I think we adapt by sensing the planets as smaller.

You are totally correct - slowing down in super cruise does indeed help your brain see the true scale of the planets as does flying in normal space.

That said, there is still a scale issue for some people, not only did the planets and stations look small, but the cockpit interiors - even the door at the back looked about 4 - 5 ft, and your avatars body. Applying the scale fix every looks "right" now and when it does your jaw just drops.

 

[Faster than Jesus [VR]]

Have you noticed though, that planets feel bigger the closer you get to them ? That's such an obvious truism that I feel silly writing it, but that's not what I mean. It's the sense of scale I'm talking about. I think the illusion of planets feeling small is because your usually viewing them in super cruise. Flying at ridiculous speeds isn't something our brains can handle, and I think we adapt by sensing the planets as smaller.

I know for sure that I recently dropped into a ring around a gas giant and that thing was HUGE. I mean, it dominated ½ the sky but I could really feel how massive it was. I think the foreground of the ring gave it scale that you otherwise wound't have.

As for viewing planetary bases from above, I think part of the illusion there is that there is no (or only trace) atmosphere on laudable worlds at the moment. Atmospherics are what gives you a sense of distance, and without them our sense of scale is confused.

I'm looking forward to seeing what atmospheric worlds look like...

All good points. Additionally, where the landable/procedural planets are concerned, the nature of the progressive detail for both textures and meshes can also exacerbate the problem. Where we have limited pixels to render a perforce limited resolution mesh/texture we lose another reference to point to the size of a planet.

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You are totally correct - slowing down in super cruise does indeed help your brain see the true scale of the planets as does flying in normal space.

That said, there is still a scale issue for some people, not only did the planets and stations look small, but the cockpit interiors - even the door at the back looked about 4 - 5 ft, and your avatars body. Applying the scale fix every looks "right" now and when it does your jaw just drops.

What is the scale fix? Is this something new?

As a slight aside, if you have the vive, have you tried walking around the cockpit? Walking through the chair and stuff is a bit weird, but I found it pretty breathtaking. I'm 5'8" and found my head worrying close to my FDL's cockpit ceiling but other than that, was mighty impressed - unfortunately, my 'play' area isn't too big and I was soon walking into physical real world objects.

 

[CylonSurfer]

Its a fix for the Rift CV1 I'm afraid. Details in my first post in this thread.

 

[=AVG=Boomer]

I got my CV1 yesterday and the scale issue I had with the DK2 is gone. I even messed around with the physical IPD scale on the device but that did not change the scale for me. So I am not sure what made the scale correct itself. But I am now more than happy with the scale of planets/stars/sturctures/pilot. As many noted though, the god rays are real but easily overlooked after a few min of playtime. I know this doesn't do anything for the OP but maybe it will bring some hope to people that were experiencing this on their DK2 and waiting for their CV1.

 

[Skafen]

I just joined specifically to reply to this thread so this is my first post. Apart from setting up HOTAS bindings I've only played in VR (Vive) and the pilot model does indeed look far too small. It's not the IPD - which I had measured by my optician - but is an ED issue. I also play Project Cars, which had the same problem until the devs implemented scaling.

 

[Kraven42]

You are totally correct - slowing down in super cruise does indeed help your brain see the true scale of the planets as does flying in normal space.

That said, there is still a scale issue for some people, not only did the planets and stations look small, but the cockpit interiors - even the door at the back looked about 4 - 5 ft, and your avatars body. Applying the scale fix every looks "right" now and when it does your jaw just drops.

Human perception at speed and at angles is pretty dodgy, someone did a survey once about how long people though the line dividing lines were on motorways / freeways and most people guess 5 times smaller than it actually was.

The cockpit does probably affect things as well because its a frame of reference if ED doesn't change things for your height.
If you have the vive and a large room scale area its good to actually get out of your seat and walk around the larger cockpits or even outside the ship on the smaller / med size ones.

 

[Zephyriel]

The first reply nailed it, it is indeed an IPD issue. Look carefully at your pilot body. Does it seem small, like a child's body? The hands look small and the feet look too close compared to your real ones? (Just lift the hmd and compare) Then the IPD setting isn't right.
Now I only tried the DK2 a year ago on my PC, so what I'm about to say was true then and I don't know if it still is. Here goes. The problem on FD's side is that the IPD setting in ED doesn't match the settings of other applications ; I needed to set much lower IPD than my actual one for the scale to be right in this game. Games like that mech game which I forgot the name had the scale right with the real IPD, but I needed to set it differently just for ED.
But within the game itself, all the scales are correct, the sizes of objects relative to each other are right.

It all comes down to the IPD setting, which will make everything feel small like looking inside a doolhouse, or huge like in Toy Story.

 

[Darkfyre99]

Have you noticed though, that planets feel bigger the closer you get to them ? That's such an obvious truism that I feel silly writing it, but that's not what I mean. It's the sense of scale I'm talking about. I think the illusion of planets feeling small is because your usually viewing them in super cruise. Flying at ridiculous speeds isn't something our brains can handle, and I think we adapt by sensing the planets as smaller.

I know for sure that I recently dropped into a ring around a gas giant and that thing was HUGE. I mean, it dominated ½ the sky but I could really feel how massive it was. I think the foreground of the ring gave it scale that you otherwise wound't have.

As for viewing planetary bases from above, I think part of the illusion there is that there is no (or only trace) atmosphere on laudable worlds at the moment. Atmospherics are what gives you a sense of distance, and without them our sense of scale is confused.

I'm looking forward to seeing what atmospheric worlds look like...

Thank you for mentioning this.

I've mentioned something similar when people have commented that the stars seem a couple of kilometers away to them. I personally don't get that impression, but some people might feel that way because our brains have evolved on a planet with a horizon and numerous objects with which to judge scale with. Notice how larger the moon and sun seem when near the horizon, as opposed to overhead. It's a real optical illusion. Without a horizon or nearby object to compare the sky to, some people's brains might judge distances closer than others do.

Needless to say, I think there remain some technical issues for Frontier to fix, but I think some of these problems are literally in our heads.

 

[CMDR FlashPan]

I terms of body scale, the first Engineers patch did seem to make the body smaller, but since the latest patch its gone back to looking the right size again.

I appreciate that judging the size of the stars and planets is quite difficult simply because it can be difficult to tell just how far they are, but for the stars, when I'm re-fuelling, I feel like they are around 25-50 mtrs away when in VR. This then has an impact on what I think their perceived size is. Like I have said, never really noticed until I tried Titans of Space 2.0 (note I have nothing to do with this software - I'm just a bit of an astronomy geek )

 

[FragMonkey]

If this really is down to some IPD setting then that is terribly disappointing. I say that because FDEV takes forever to fix anything, if they do at all. They also tend to be incredibly slow on Vive-related fixes. Looks like I'm stuck with a child's body and dollhouse planets until FDEV gets around to fixing this...

 

[jojon]

For what it's worth; In addition to how things look, I have found myself surprised with how fast you cover a kilometer in the SRV. I have not timed anything though, or even checked the speedometer - going to have to do that, but I certainly don't get any sense of the sort of breakneck velocity over ground that would explain the odometer ticking away like that.

 

[Tusken]

I dono how useful it will be, the effect disapeared a few updates who, but...

When I first used my DK2 I also had a child like body.
It turned out to be becouce my FOV was set to max.
When I set it to min. the body turned to normal.

I sed I dono how useful it would be as in later updates the FOV slider had no effect when you got the game setup for VR.
Anyway, thought it might be worth checking out.

 

[Whiteball]

When I got my CV1 the first thing I checked was my body size as it had always been far too thin on the DK2.

CV1 was perfect everything looked just right including arms and legs....until I don't know what, but something changed and it's never been right since.

Will check out some of the ideas in this thread and see if I can get it back to how it was when I first got it.