The scale (bigness) of planets and stars in VR

[BlackSpaceCowboy]

One cool thing in VR is you get a better sense of the scale of things. Your ship feels big. But I find that often planets and stars don't. It's like a planet is a big boulder a few feet away from me.

But yesterday I went near a large brown gas giant planet. It looked like Jupiter does. But this time it felt HUGE. It had rings and I went into a HazRes to battle and the planet in the background of the asteroids loomed so large and awe inspiring. I kept saying to myself, "I can't believe I'm actually here."

Any idea what effects the sense of scale of the planets? Is it the detail of the texture mapping on the planet?

 

[Neo-ST]

One cool thing in VR is you get a better sense of the scale of things. Your ship feels big. But I find that often planets and stars don't. It's like a planet is a big boulder a few feet away from me.

But yesterday I went near a large brown gas giant planet. It looked like Jupiter does. But this time it felt HUGE. It had rings and I went into a HazRes to battle and the planet in the background of the asteroids loomed so large and awe inspiring. I kept saying to myself, "I can't believe I'm actually here."

Any idea what effects the sense of scale of the planets? Is it the detail of the texture mapping on the planet?

Drop from supercruise while passing near a planet, or at least put your throttle to minimum.
Going fast in supercruise makes things look small and insignificant.
Also drop gamma to minimum, it'll make space look darker and less "artificial".

 

[Rhaedas]

Texture detail helps, but I think what was the big factor in that situation were the belt rocks. They gave a reference of size, and extending back smaller and smaller with the planet in the very background gave depth that may not be there in a planet-only setting.

That's why some of the new screenshots where we can pull way back and have our ship a small speck look really good, they give more size reference than if it was just out the window. I do wonder if there might be some VR tricks to fool the eyes into seeing the background farther than it actually is, without messing up any of the view.

 

[BlackSpaceCowboy]

Texture detail helps, but I think what was the big factor in that situation were the belt rocks. They gave a reference of size, and extending back smaller and smaller with the planet in the very background gave depth that may not be there in a planet-only setting.

That's why some of the new screenshots where we can pull way back and have our ship a small speck look really good, they give more size reference than if it was just out the window. I do wonder if there might be some VR tricks to fool the eyes into seeing the background farther than it actually is, without messing up any of the view.

It looked massive before I went into the belt. Maybe some planet models are just bigger than others?

I thought maybe they updated something. It was very noticeable I wish I took note of the planet

 

[Rhaedas]

Biggest differences between gas giants are the number and sizes of the storms. Was it one that has a lot of smaller ones, maybe that factored in?

 

[VR_Yata_PL]

I noticed that scale in VR is better in patch 2.3 than 2.2 . I would like to get also scale slider for Holo-me , interriors and celesital bodys.
BTW AeroFlight FS 2 has implmented scale slider and that makes this game very immesrive.

 

[BlackSpaceCowboy]

Biggest differences between gas giants are the number and sizes of the storms. Was it one that has a lot of smaller ones, maybe that factored in?

I think that might be it. It had a lot of storms like Jupiter..

Overall, I'm really happy about the increased variety in planet textures. It would be nice nice to see binary stars where they share material and seem to merge. And also systems with accretion disks

 

[[HJ]-RedRaven]

There's actually very little in ED that can go wrong with regards to the perception of overall size. If you have your IPD set properly, and ED is showing a stereo image at reasonable frame rates, then everything should 'look and feel right'.

The reason it doesn't sometimes look right is because we have no real frame of reference by which to judge the size of the object.

Part of the problem is rendering sufficient tiny details on the planet surface - the more tiny details, the larger the object. Some of this visible detail we use to judge size is missing in ED.
When you do see a brown dwarf etc, with rings, moons etc, it helps a bit and the planet feel larger.

Once we get 'landable' gas planets, we might see tall clouds that are tens of km high, and flying about in those will make us feel small... but when you head out into space, those large features will seem very small, and add to the overall feeling of size for the planet. Then gas giants will truly feel awesome.

 

[popuptoaster]

Your eyes don't judge the size of planets very well, your brain just isn't programmed to work it out without added frames of reference, it's the same effect that makes the moon look bigger when its near the horizon than it does when its high in the sky.

 

[Red River]

Your eyes don't judge the size of planets very well, your brain just isn't programmed to work it out without added frames of reference, it's the same effect that makes the moon look bigger when its near the horizon than it does when its high in the sky.

the moon looks bigger near horizon because of the atmosphere lens effect that magnifies it...

 

[BigDuke6ixx]

the moon looks bigger near horizon because of the atmosphere lens effect that magnifies it...

No such thing, my old beauty.

 

[Darkfyre99]

One cool thing in VR is you get a better sense of the scale of things. Your ship feels big. But I find that often planets and stars don't. It's like a planet is a big boulder a few feet away from me.

But yesterday I went near a large brown gas giant planet. It looked like Jupiter does. But this time it felt HUGE. It had rings and I went into a HazRes to battle and the planet in the background of the asteroids loomed so large and awe inspiring. I kept saying to myself, "I can't believe I'm actually here."

Any idea what effects the sense of scale of the planets? Is it the detail of the texture mapping on the planet?

It's called the moon illusion. Our brains take short cuts to determine the size of things. Depending upon the frame of reference, things can appear smaller or larger than they really are. A prime example is the moon. It looks tiny when it's high in the sky, thanks to not having something to compare it too. When it's close to the horizon, on the other hand, our brains take the horizon, trees, buildings, and other things we know the size of, and says, "Hey! The moon's behind those things, and they're really far away. So it MUST be huge!" If you have Horizons, go to a planet with a moon, or a double planet, and set down in a location where it's companion is low on the horizon. The scale looks very different.

You get a similar effect when you're in a planetary ring. You're near something you have a good feeling for the size of, you can see similar sized objects stretching out into the distance, until they look like bands of dust, and behind it all looms the planet. The frame of reference is what gives you a better sense of scale.

The reverse happens in Supercruise. Because our brains can't fathom how fast we're really travelling, it assumes we're travelling at speeds that it considers reasonable, and then compares the planet's or star's movement to that. We're moving past it at a fairly good clip, so it must be small. Because it can't comprehend that it's traveling at a fraction of the speed of light.

 

[space pilot]

Cruising up to big planetary rings in VR pretty much makes the game. They feel gigantic.

 

[Kaltern]

When in SC, you're never THAT close to planets or stars, and so you don't really see the correct scale until you drop out. As Darkfyre mentioned, planet rings are a great way to show the true scale of size - it is simply a ridiculously epic experience the first time you fly through a ring, after approaching in SC, and then your brain manages to readjust it's sense of scale when you see massive boulders flying past you set against the impossibly huge size of the gas giant you thought was tiny only a few moments ago.

Elite has faults, but it's ability to make you feel you are in space is not one of them

And you know what.. I've yet to actually fly though the Sol system in VR as of yet... I really must rectify that!

*Edit - bloody ninja's