Statement on planetary tech?

[VR] Merkir

[VR] Merkir
-VR- Max Factor said:
Yes, I know how they are created. But as I said, I have seen very little obvious tiling. I know it's there and some planets are really bad, some are very good. But the ones that are really bad, like the example above seem to be very rare, thankfully. As I said, nearly all the planets I've landed on, obvious tiling has been extremely rare.
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Yes, even though the repeating terrain is on every landable, apparently some people rarely notice, but to others it's quite obvious.
 

-VR- Max Factor

-VR- Max Factor
[VR] Merkir said:
Yes, even though the repeating terrain is on every landable, apparently some people rarely notice, but to others it's quite obvious.
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Hopefully they can fix it. But I imagine it is no easy job though. They may have to redo all the planets from scratch again. Not that that will bother me. May upset some others though.
 
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AkenBosch

AkenBosch
[VR] Merkir said:
But they haven't made any changes to the new terrain generation since Odyssey dropped? All they've said so far is that they're looking into it.
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They made several, included the one that was aimed at greatly reducing the blatant tiling issues at launch (and largely succeded at least for the orbital part, dare I say). Can't remember which update it was, can't be bothered to sift through old changelogs for that. Not one of the most recent anyway.
 

[VR] Merkir

[VR] Merkir
AkenBosch said:
They made several, included the one that was aimed at greatly reducing the blatant tiling issues at launch (and largely succeded at least for the orbital part, dare I say). Can't remember which update it was, can't be bothered to sift through old changelogs for that. Not one of the most recent anyway.
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I suspect you're thinking of different issues which they have indeed improved, those being terrain textures and dynamic loading issues. But repeating terrain tiling they've not changed at all, which is backed up by FDev's (very few) comments on the issue. Here's FDev's post on the matter from last month showing it #1 voted issue on their priority list, with their comment "Tiling Planetary Features - As before - would require a large overhaul so no short term plans":

Elite Dangerous Issue Report - 05/10/2021

Greetings Commanders! It's time for the latest of our Issue Reports. Below you'll find the latest Top 20 table, based on your most voted issues in the Issue Tracker. Note: the status and planned release of each issue is subject to change as various factors affect the ongoing development...
forums.frontier.co.uk forums.frontier.co.uk

Needless to say, if there had been any changes, however minor, myself and many others would necro-post the various terrain threads with some enthusiasm! Not to mention revisit many of the originally posted examples. Fingers crossed we get to see FDev change/improve repeating terrain some day, but that day hasn't arrived.
 

AkenBosch

AkenBosch
Guess that fell under the generic umbrella of:
  • Planets! Visual improvements to planet surfaces, colour and texture have been implemented.
of Update #6 then. Whatever the tweaks and tricks they applied, that was the one that greatly contributed to the disappearance or better blending of many instances of tiled assets, bringing it down from something ever present and largely annoying to something occurring from time to time, with far fewer cases of it being that noticeable and annoying. Honestly, I couldn't care less about how they tackle the tiling matter, if just a bit of texture and lod juggling is all it takes to make it less of an issue, than so be it, anything is better than what it was at launch.
 

Mogen Teras

M
AkenBosch said:
Have been slowly making my way back from Colonia these last couple months, stopping by at literally hundreds of planets, seeing them go through a few patches that improved their appearance from orbit, then worsened it, then improved it again (but not as good as way before), then noticeably improved performance at last. The tiling has not been a real issue for me since late summer at least, found an instance of a recognizable pattern just yesterday, and even that was hardly in your face. The issue is still around at varying degrees of severity (I can remember Kremavi being an embarassing example, and I guess it might still be, I'll pay a visit again when I'm back in the bubble), but it's surely far, far less of an issue compared to what it was once.

The ubiquitous large crater with the exaggerated and badly blended ejecta rays that marks each and every planet in the galaxy, on the other hand, is currently far of a bigger offender in my opinion, as far as planets appearance is concerned.

Regarding the "confirmation bias" thing, I can't see how one would expect to see around more bad looking images than good looking ones...like, you know, people who love to take photos do that mostly to capture the best view and the beauty of something...rather sure you'll find substantially more pics of sunsets on the sea and crisp mountain valleys, than overcast skies over suburban apartment blocks or coal factories in a foggy afternoon. There is clearly a confirmation bias at work, it's confirmed that people at large like to highlight good looking things more than bad ones.

In the very specific context of this game, highlighting a prominent issue with proper visual documentation is absolutely a good thing to do, and doesn't invalidate the other two millions pics purposely not showing it for the sake of taking a good looking pic. Different images taken for different purposes. Everyone is welcome to take as many pictures of bad tiling as possible to show developers the issue is still there, "confirmation bias" in relation to the thousands good looking images posted elsewhere is only in the minds of who wants to stir antagonistic arguing for the sake of it.
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I meant confirmation bias the same way you did; people tend to stop for screenshots when they see something pretty. I didn't mean confirmation bias in regards to the tiling problem.

Basically your post did a much better job explaining what I meant than what I could do.
 

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
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Phoenix_Dfire

Phoenix_Dfire
Well, in the last update, the tiling issue was still number one. However, I think arf said that there are other priorities for the moment. Although I do remember seeing some repeated patterns in the past but I'll agree with AkenBosch, since the graphically update 6, I haven't noticed any obvious patterns.

I have noticed some glitches, mostly on yellow desert like planets where the tiling glitches with some obviously darker squares appearing over the planetary surface, but the vast majority of planets I've been to have had no problems whatsoever.
 

Frop

Frop
Andro said:
I really thought we'd get something in the end of year statement. Maybe January.
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Alas, 'twas but the usual smoke and mirrors surrounding "details" they allegedly know about, but don't want to share with us yet because transparency and openness.
 
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