They still haven’t fixed broken stellar lighting.

[Threeofseven]

New update and the same game breaking bug remains. The main star’s light has no effect on the environment more than a couple ls away. This really destroys exploration because it makes every system feel the same as everything is bathed in the same neutral dull light. This also makes all atmospheric planets sky coloration look exactly the same.

It really is unacceptable to allow these game breaking bugs to go on for years. It would be nice if Fdev wouldn’t commit 100% of their resources into the thargoid war. A lot of cmdrs have no interest in it and it feels like ED is turning into thargoid war simulator.

 

[Joey2o15]

It's hardly game breaking

 

[Old Duck]

It would be nice if Fdev wouldn’t commit 100% of their resources into the thargoid war.

While I empathize with you (my pet peeve was EBL back in the day), I'm going to defend Frontier in this regard. Reports are in, and they are making improvements to the core game, improvements I never expected to see, like the new UI for fleet carriers on the system map. This one really bugged me, to the point where I would use the galaxy map filter to avoid systems with fleet carriers. The fact that Frontier finally fixed this means:

• They are committing at least some resources to things other than the Thargoid war.
• There actually is hope that issues like yours will eventually get fixed.

I'm not saying you can't complain about it, as squeaky wheels do sometimes get the grease, but your analysis of the effort distribution is incorrect. Adding a new FC UI was not a trivial bug fix, but rather a thoughtful, intentional design and development. Now you just have to figure out how to get your lighting issue to receive the same attention.

 

[Mika L]

New update and the same game breaking bug remains. The main star’s light has no effect on the environment more than a couple ls away. This really destroys exploration because it makes every system feel the same as everything is bathed in the same neutral dull light. This also makes all atmospheric planets sky coloration look exactly the same.

This is an issue, but it doesn't break the game for me nor for many others. Quite many are still playing this game. Most of the time I don't even remember this issue. Now I remember this again because you reminded. And the atmosphere colors are not the same. They still vary by composition.

 

[Threeofseven]

While I empathize with you (my pet peeve was EBL back in the day), I'm going to defend Frontier in this regard. Reports are in, and they are making improvements to the core game, improvements I never expected to see, like the new UI for fleet carriers on the system map. This one really bugged me, to the point where I would use the galaxy map filter to avoid systems with fleet carriers. The fact that Frontier finally fixed this means:

• They are committing at least some resources to things other than the Thargoid war.
• There actually is hope that issues like yours will eventually get fixed.

I'm not saying you can't complain about it, as squeaky wheels do sometimes get the grease, but your analysis of the effort distribution is incorrect. Adding a new FC UI was not a trivial bug fix, but rather a thoughtful, intentional design and development. Now you just have to figure out how to get your lighting issue to receive the same attention.

That’s basically what I’m trying to do, bring attention to this. To me, and I’m not the only one, this does feel game breaking. The reason for this is because a core activity in ED is exploration.

The lack of stellar lighting destroys a lot of the sensation of realism and it makes every system feel flat and uniform. Land on one carbon dioxide world in one system with an L class star and then land on one in another system with a bright blue star. You will find the shade of the sky and ground is the same.

 

[Old Duck]

That’s basically what I’m trying to do, bring attention to this. To me, and I’m not the only one, this does feel game breaking. The reason for this is because a core activity in ED is exploration.

The lack of stellar lighting destroys a lot of the sensation of realism and it makes every system feel flat and uniform. Land on one carbon dioxide world in one system with an L class star and then land on one in another system with a bright blue star. You will find the shade of the sky and ground is the same.

Well if I get sucked back into playing Elite (this latest update tempts me), then I'll add my voice to yours on this matter, as I think it would bug me too.

 

[Willyum-71]

The main star’s light has no effect on the environment more than a couple ls away.

Lighting isn't my area of knowledge... but isn't that how all light sources work? The stronger frequencies travel further. Pink stars means there is also white in with the red, and pure red light has a fast fall-off compared to the remaining full spectrum of the white.... I have been in those more-red star systems and the planets have appeared almost black on the surface at only 100 light seconds away. A similar thing seems to happen here on earth, with water appearing blue... Our atmosphere bends light waves, so I won't mention the daytime side of the planet, but the night side should not be affected which means (aside from pollution at times) the Moon should appear as Yellow since it does not have an atmosphere. Satellite's outside of earths atmosphere also capture the moons light as white instead of Yellow... The white light remains longer than the yellow. I'm not saying ED is 100% correct because I have not been to other solar systems, but I do see the effects of bandwidth fall-off right here in our own solar system.

My comment is based on our Eyes perspective... Which I believe is what ED is based on... for instance if you turn off your ship and SRV lights, you will see that in Odyssey, your vision begins to adjust to the dark and you can start to see things.

 

[Arioch]

Lighting isn't my area of knowledge... but isn't that how all light sources work? The stronger frequencies travel further. Pink stars means there is also white in with the red, and pure red light has a fast fall-off compared to the remaining full spectrum of the white.... I have been in those more-red star systems and the planets have appeared almost black on the surface at only 100 light seconds away. A similar thing seems to happen here on earth, with water appearing blue... Our atmosphere bends light waves, so I won't mention the daytime side of the planet, but the night side should not be affected which means (aside from pollution at times) the Moon should appear as Yellow since it does not have an atmosphere. Satellite's outside of earths atmosphere also capture the moons light as white instead of Yellow... The white light remains longer than the yellow. I'm not saying ED is 100% correct because I have not been to other solar systems, but I do see the effects of bandwidth fall-off right here in our own solar system.

My comment is based on our Eyes perspective... Which I believe is what ED is based on... for instance if you turn off your ship and SRV lights, you will see that in Odyssey, your vision begins to adjust to the dark and you can start to see things.

It was reported as a bug and has been acknowledged by FDev:

Issue Tracker

issues.frontierstore.net

 

[Willyum-71]

It was reported as a bug and has been acknowledged by FDev:

Issue Tracker

issues.frontierstore.net

I don't fully understand how the 'perceived' light fall off thing works with 'red' being low energy, 'white' being medium and 'blue' being high energy... or why it changes over distance. I do remember the science people in the forum arguing about it and explaining that it was actually the old lighting system that was incorrect, and the way they explained seemed to make sense to me. I wish I could remember 'why' the explanation worked from our eyes perspective. I was also one of the people that didn't initially like the new lighting system, but after that old post, things suddenly started to seem correct in the 'new' galaxy. Maybe one of those guys will see this post and break down the argument.... I just spent the last hour watching astrophysics videos trying to get an answer, and I actually feel even more confused on how it works lol.

 

[Mika L]

I don't fully understand how the 'perceived' light fall off thing works with 'red' being low energy, 'white' being medium and 'blue' being high energy... or why it changes over distance. I do remember the science people in the forum arguing about it and explaining that it was actually the old lighting system that was incorrect, and the way they explained seemed to make sense to me. I wish I could remember 'why' the explanation worked from our eyes perspective. I was also one of the people that didn't initially like the new lighting system, but after that old post, things suddenly started to seem correct in the 'new' galaxy. Maybe one of those guys will see this post and break down the argument.... I just spent the last hour watching astrophysics videos trying to get an answer, and I actually feel even more confused on how it works lol.

I was good in physics at school, but my Master's degree is in engineering, so I'm not as proficient in this as a real astrophysicist, but I'd like to explain how I understand this. In my understanding, you have misunderstood how light fades in space. All wavelengths can travel across the universe equally well, but on cosmic distances, say over millions or billions of light years of travel, redshift makes light redder than it originally was. That however does not have a noticeable effect within a planetary system. So, when you fly away from a star, its light should become only dimmer, while maintaining it's color. When astrophysicists measure the spectrums of stars in the Milky Way, in my understanding they don't need to do correction because of redshift, or purely because of the distance to the star.

 

[alexzk]

All wavelengths can travel across the universe equally well, but on cosmic distances, say over millions or billions of light years of travel, redshift makes light redder than it originally was.

Space itself is growing. This means wave which takes some part of the space is longer now. And there is connection between length / color / energy of the wave. So wave is longer because container became longer (imagine as wave is drawn on the space and you stretch the space) -> red shift color -> less energy.
Same effect happens when you fly with speeds close to light speed (those rainbows from the flying ships - I think it is simulation of this).

As for star light inside planetary system, yes, for the naked eye it must be dark there. Eye is small = collect less photons then any camera/ telescope, that's why it sees all darker and less details. And unlike cameras eye cannot collect the light during extended periods too.
So when you see super cool space pictures into internet, well, it is not possible to see by your eye at all, even if you will look through the Hubble - you will see blurred white "something". White because b/w and colorful parts of eye has different sensitivity too, RGB needs stronger light.
Also there is a trick with Green part. Sun is most powerful at green color on Earth's surface. That's why grass is green - to reflect and avoid burn out. This means, our eyes are less sensitive to the green so we don't see any green stars.

 

[Willyum-71]

All wavelengths can travel across the universe equally well, but on cosmic distances, say over millions or billions of light years of travel, redshift makes light redder than it originally was.

That's exactly what started making me get really confused when I watched vids today looking for the answer.... I was like 'wait, that's not what they said about red light fall-off in our eyes' before.... I'm out of my depth here... I'm gonna go back under my rock now lol

 

[Willyum-71]

Eye is small = collect less photons then any camera/ telescope, that's why it sees all darker and less details. And unlike cameras eye cannot collect the light during extended periods too.

I remember the argument was about perceived light. thats why I mentioned in my first post, new ED lighting is from 'our eyes' perspective.. So from what you're saying, does that mean the higher energy light will be picked up on more and the reds will fall off?

 

[Morbad]

This means, our eyes are less sensitive to the green so we don't see any green stars.

Human vision is most sensitive to green wavelengths.

 

[Morbad]

Also, the reason there are no green stars is because of the Planckian locus...there is no temperature at which black body radiation will be exclusively at wavelengths we perceive as green. Basically, at the temperature there is the most green light from any incandescent black body (including stars) there is also craptons of red and blue light as well, enough for us to perceive it as white light.

Anyway, a system lit by a very cool (red) star should most definitely look like it's illuminated with red light, because there will be very little higher wave length light. Obviously, reflected light can change things, as different reflectors will reflect and absorb different wavelengths, but if the sun is red and the sun is up, the main source of illumination is going to be red light.

 

[alexzk]

I remember the argument was about perceived light. thats why I mentioned in my first post, new ED lighting is from 'our eyes' perspective.. So from what you're saying, does that mean the higher energy light will be picked up on more and the reds will fall off?

I'm not sure if I said so. I trust lighting as game do because they stated they use real physical laws. If somebody want to say it is wrong, he must calculate everything self and show the numbers.
I just tried to explain the reasons why those people think things are wrong here.

The light how you see it depends on:
1. Size of the receiver. You use telescope and see more because it simply has bigger size.
1a. Ability of receiver to collect light - cameras can collect, eye cannot. This is +/- the same as (1). You can make huge sized lens or collect with smaller for 30 minutes. Or do both as Hubble do.
2. Sensitivity of the receiver to colors and activation threshold., i.e. minimal amount of the light when receiver sees anything except dark.
Receiver may have different thresholds for different colors. as eye do, RGB needs more light then B/W. So when you look into telescope 99% for your eye will be "something white there".
3. Post-processing. For example I have scratch on the eye and I was ok, 100% vision confirmed by tests for 25 years and only later I had to start to use glasses because "post processor" (the brain) became too old to correct this scratch. So what you see maybe "generated" too.

 

[Old Duck]

Also, the reason there are no green stars [...]

You mean that No Man's Sky has been lying to me all this time!?!?

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

A possibly related issue..

Spoiler: 33ls

Spoiler: 440ls

At a close distance to the star, the lighting from it has a very diminished effect, its pitch black right next to it.. but when you fly out of the interesting range, it switches on and is bright and furious as expected. At least it works somewhere.

 

[Markov Chaney]

I think you guys are mixing multiple things here, and some of the things in the mix are not optically accurate either. In short:

• Colour perception is super complicated, so physics is not the whole, er, picture, so to speak (sorry!). That can mean a perfect physical simulation rendered onto a screen (or indeed an old-fashioned photo on photographic paper) can still look "wrong" even when it's right, because the context cues are missing.
• The physics of temperature, energy, flux, and luminance can combine in curious ways BUT if a star looks like a particular colour at 100ls it's quite likely to look the same colour at 200ls as well. At 10,000ls perception comes into play because human perception does not strictly separate hue and luminance, so blue things look brighter but also bright things look bluer. That might be where the "red falls off over distance" misconception above comes from.
• The eye physically uses different types of cell in low light too, so for super-dim objects there is no colour information at all reaching the brain. (That doesn't stop the brain filling in some colour perception if it damn well feels like it though, so if you see something that looks exactly like a tennis ball with the two seams and the felt texture in a very dim room, you're probably gonna assume it's green; the "rods" in your eye are working in black and white though, and the "cones" are not sensing anything in terms of wavelength mix.)
• The colour of the Sun as seen from Earth is affected by multiple atmospheric phenomena and that does filter out (via scattering) some of the red. But that's the atmosphere; that won't happen in space.
• On the scale of a stellar system, there is not enough dust to change the colour noticeably and there certainly isn't enough red shift to make a difference. The percentage shift for a distance of a million light years is typically 0.007 per cent.

 

[Markov Chaney]

You mean that No Man's Sky has been lying to me all this time!?!?

You will notice that the NMS "main sequence" runs "O, B, E ..." not "O, B, A ..."

I guess they thought the pure white "A" stars IRL were boring and replaced them with exciting green stars instead.