Some graphics settings questions for new VR guy

[Old Duck]

Huh... Okay, help me with some of these other settings. MilkywayInstancesBrightness and MilkywayInstancesSize - what do these do? I notice the numbers go down as the quality goes up.

 

[Morbad]

Huh... Okay, help me with some of these other settings. MilkywayInstancesBrightness and MilkywayInstancesSize - what do these do? I notice the numbers go down as the quality goes up.

The Milky Way itself is made up of a number of light blobs. The more of them there are the smaller and less bright they have to be to provide the same total illumination.

 

[jojon]

Those go together with MilkyWayInstancesCount. They determine how many sprites the galaxy is made of, how large they are, and how much additive light you get from each. Many large ones will produce a big white blob. Few small ones will fragment the the galaxy into discrete little separate cloud dots. A good balance should give you something that has lot of intricate and non-repetetive detail.

 

[Old Duck]

So if I turn down the Brightness, does that make the galaxy "smear" fade away into the background, or does it affect ambient lighting instead? I actually wouldn't mind if the "smear" was less perceivable than it currently is.

 

[jojon]

Smear? The milky way "cloud" you mean? It should end up darker, then, yes, both in map and in skybox, if I'm getting you right... Light sources are another thing. (EDIT: Actually; Thinking about it, the skybox absolutely at least used to determine ambient light, and I see no reason it wouldn't still - the brightly lit nightsides of planets used to be partly "blamed" on it... ;P )

Sufficiently many instances, with a well-balanced amount of overlap between them, will produce a less "smeary" milky way, where you can make out more "tendrils" of dust features in it (shapes produced by the blending overlapping "brushes"), as opposed to it looking like a softly blurry blob, but it is all too easy to go overboard, and absolutely tank performance -- I seem to recall seeing some people sharing good-looking parameter sets that do not make the game galaxy map (and skybox render time, during a jump) run at a frame a minute...