Starfield

[Wisdomlikesilence]

Graphical improvements in Guardians are great. But...The Stars still look like novas. They really have the starfield nailed in that other game that's still in Alpha after all these years. Feels like I'm in a blurry painting of space, rather than space.
would 1 pixel per star not do it? with a teeny-tiny variation in hue?

 

[Alex Brentnall]

For those that haven't had the liberty to play both is there any chance you can do a side by side. I'm not exactly sure what you are asking and typing Star Citizen Star into google doesn't help

 

[Ziljan]

He is saying that the stars have a surface area, when in reality they should be point sources (aka single pixels) of varying brightness and (slight variations in) color.

My suggestion is that you try changing the "sharpness" setting on your monitor/TV. That solved most of the issue for me. Though increasing sharpness does also amplify aliasing.

 

[Wisdomlikesilence]

ill do it at some point although, it's work Suffice to say what I would produce is a tryptich, with THE GIANT colourful stars of Elite on the left, the tiny white stars of Un certain Jeu on the right and "what real stars look like" in the middle. Since the hypothetical middle panel depends on a variety of imaging, location and magnification factors you could argue that Elite does not have it WRONG per se, but if you were really in a real spaceship with glass between you and space.....it would look less like Elite and a bit more like this note that the link is not a real starfield either and tends towards the other extreme. Or to make it very simple, Elite uses about 9-12 pixels per star. I've a feeling it would look more "real" with 1 pixel for every one of them.

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Doh! Ziljan said it far, far fewer words.

 

[askavir]

The starfield in Elite is not just a decoration, it shows the stars that should be visible from your current location, and they increase in size and luminosity according to each actual star luminosity and size. This also allows me to recognize famous real stars in the skybox many jumps before I get there (provided their big/bright enough and I know where I'm going and not just flying randomly). Also I have found some giants and supergiants and some very cool places by actually following stars in the starfield, or by noticing big bright blobs and looking for then in the galaxy map.

Also, in space there is a lot less light pollution than down here on earth, so stars are a lot more visible than looking at the night sky from down here.

I personally love ED's skybox, but of course its a matter of personal taste. I only think the space should be darker in all the spaces between the stars, its a bit too grayish. And the dark side of planets is far, far, far too bright, but this is a whole other discussion...

 

[IliteratSqirel]

You all may have a point.

But.

First world problems.

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Ah ok I'm with you now

Elite is more colourful and vibrant but yeah that is probably more realistic

 

[Bounder]

Hated the ED skybox since launch. If you play on a 4K rig it just looks terrible, none of the stars 'pop', it's dull, blobby, noisy and flat. Recently installed SpaceEngine's skybox into GTA V and that looks waay better than ED... and it's also realistic.

 

[Chris Simon]

Dunno. I think Elite pretty much nailed it:

Spoiler

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

Related to the starfield one thing that bugs me is when you hyperspace somewhere. Everything around you swirls about but in the center of the screen there is a point light source that represents the destination star ... seems to be the correct colour and intensity .. all good so far .. Upon exiting hyperspace though the zoom in effect doesn't begin at that light source and it looks odd.

Anyone else notice that ?

 

[Rørik Þrumsålr]

Not quite actually, the variation in sizes in these pictures actually has to do with the way film reacts to the light. IRL you'd see them all as identically sized pinpoints, with some being noticeably brighter.

As for how this would be in ED...I'm not sure, as what we see is displayed on screens. At least lore wise I think. (although it sure looks like glass to me)

 

[Tanith Low]

ED is odd in that it doesn't actually have a skybox. What you see is actually what the sky looks like from that point in space - at least in so far as the star positions go. It's basically like flying around in the galaxy map. It isn't a 3D object painted on the inside of a sphere. You can see this when you fly in super cruise as the stars change position very slightly. When you jump the positions of everything shift relative to your new reference point.

As for seeing all stars a uniformly sized pinpricks of light, this is demonstrably untrue. Look at the sky on a clear night in the countryside. The stars are different sizes. Brighter stars appear larger and dimmer ones smaller. In a city it is different, because the light pollution means you can only really see the brightest stars in the sky.

 

[Sapyx]

What you "see" of the night sky in ED is not what an ordinary human eye would see. Nebulas are, of course, the classic example: in "real life", all nebulas would be dim fuzzy grey blobs, not bright enough to resolve colours. The "colours" you see on astrophotos are either enhanced via long exposure times, or artificially correlated with various observed light wavelengths.

One can argue about why we see a digitally enhanced universe when looking out of our cockpits. Is it projections on the cockpit glass (this can be provable by a variation in what we see if the canopy blows out), or are they projected onto our flight suit visor, or are we all genetically engineered superhumans with amazingly dark-adaptable eyesight?