One of the things that has bothered me about this game since the beginning has been the fact that when you are further than 1000 ls out (on average), stars become very dim and nearly indistinguishable from the background star field. This looks very weird when you see planets/asteroid belts farther away from the star still appear to be brightly lit, with no apparent light source.
I believe a simple lens flare effect would make these more distant areas look much better. Here is an example of what that would look like.
I did a quick google search to see if this request has any basis in reality, and as I expected, it does.
This article claims that "Although sunlight is about 100 times dimmer on Saturn than on Earth, the sun would still be far too bright to look at without eye protection". It also claims that sunlight from Pluto "is 1,600 times dimmer than on Earth. Still, that’s 250 times brighter than a full moon here on Earth — bright enough to outshine every other object in the sky and hard to look at directly".
Some people may not like lens flares, and that is fine. There are an abundance of them in the game currently though, so maybe in addition to this new effect, a Lens Flares option could be added into the graphics menu.
It's also worth mentioning that this would not mean that stars would be blindingly bright up close. As I'm sure most are aware, the skybox darkens when near a star to simulate lowering the camera's exposure so the details of the star's surface are visible. I see no reason why, in addition to the skybox, the lens flare would also become less intense if you are close to a star.
Hopefully someone from the render team sees this thread, and takes my suggestion into consideration.
I believe a simple lens flare effect would make these more distant areas look much better. Here is an example of what that would look like.
I did a quick google search to see if this request has any basis in reality, and as I expected, it does.
This article claims that "Although sunlight is about 100 times dimmer on Saturn than on Earth, the sun would still be far too bright to look at without eye protection". It also claims that sunlight from Pluto "is 1,600 times dimmer than on Earth. Still, that’s 250 times brighter than a full moon here on Earth — bright enough to outshine every other object in the sky and hard to look at directly".
Some people may not like lens flares, and that is fine. There are an abundance of them in the game currently though, so maybe in addition to this new effect, a Lens Flares option could be added into the graphics menu.
It's also worth mentioning that this would not mean that stars would be blindingly bright up close. As I'm sure most are aware, the skybox darkens when near a star to simulate lowering the camera's exposure so the details of the star's surface are visible. I see no reason why, in addition to the skybox, the lens flare would also become less intense if you are close to a star.
Hopefully someone from the render team sees this thread, and takes my suggestion into consideration.
