Where did the stars go?
- Thread starter Eeka
- Start date
No question Horizons is far better looking.
Odyssey DLC = downgrade. I have regretfully asked for a refund. You might want to do the same.
Odyssey DLC = downgrade. I have regretfully asked for a refund. You might want to do the same.
@ Eeka. Same issue. It seems relative brightness no longer depends on you know, relative brightness! I've adjusted the graphics, played with the gamma, done it all. It is like FD decided everyone needs a pair of jet black RayBans.
The stars look awful (colorless white dots) the background galactic dust is missing in addition to everything being too dark. I noticed this in the alpha and thought for sure it would be fixed on release but still looks just as bad. I am extremely disappointed. Did they really not notice this??? The sky box looks like a 1980s Atari game. I will not play Odyssey until this is fixed.
Hmm, ok I will comment, background galactic dust is essentially black, with the removal of the tinting from the star, which arguably shouldn't have been there in the first place I suppose, the skybox is probably more realistic although far less attractive. You don't actually see background galactic dusk when you look at the sky, you just see black patches in the star field. However some of the stars as a result of whatever adjustments they have done seem...dimmer, in general the light is indeed dimmer overall and needs adjusting up in some areas. People have long complained about the tinting effect of stars and this may be a side effect of adjusting that.
As players, since none of us have actually been in space and can compare what we see to what it would actually look like, we don't really have any understanding of what it should look like near a nebula. However when we see the nebula on the skybox we aren't looking at a nebula we are looking at a generated 2d image wrapped around our pilot and the tinting effect from the star will have affected that just as it affects all other objects. So the question is do we go for what may be a slightly less realistic but much better looking background? I would personally go for the better looking since it really affects us not at all apart from a better looking game, but we might have a accept the tinting effect of starlight on other objects.
As for the stars themselves, yes there are serious problems, not just in brightness though. Recently taking off from a planet I saw a brown dwarf suddenly change from a brilliant white glare to a dim purple orb, why that happened I am not sure but I think it may have been an effect of the new atmospheres. Because only one of the stars act as a light source and the brown dwarf was a secondary the atmosphere may have been taking it's lighting from the main star not to far away rather than the brown dwarf it was orbiting and presented a white star for me to look at while I was in the atmosphere instead of the correct brown dwarf image, it did seem to change from white to purple after I left the atmosphere.
We can only continue to report these problems as bugs and problems using the issue tracker and on the forum here so that the devs are aware of the issues. Meanwhile I am still playing, yes it's slightly less attractive but I can live with that for a while!
Related to a confirmed issue - but yea overall things look worse :
Except it's not.
Yeah - there's no way they've fixed the renderer yet. There was a detailed thread a few weeks ago that showed how/where it's broken and it's not something that's going to be hotfixed.
So why does the tracker comment say "Last patch did not change much"
It is clearly better to me. Still not the same as Horizon's since we still have the annoying lightning issue but the background details are definitely back.
At first i had the impression it was partially fixed but then i remembered i had tweaked my GraphicsConfiguration.xml file for Horizons to make it look better. It's in the game's install folder and each game has its own that works independently, so you'll need to apply the same tweaks you made in your EDH file to the EDO's.
A simpler solution i found was to leave both xml files in their default configuration and add the <GalaxyMap> and <GalaxyBackground> headers in the GraphicsConfigurationOverride.xml.
If you had any settings already present in this file, you just need to add the headers in the end of the file. This way you'll apply the same tweaks to both games using just one file.
My GraphicsConfigurationOverride.xml is like this now (i've highlighted what is changed from default):
If you have no clue what i'm talking about (i.e. never eddited any Elite's xml file) there's a nice tutorial to improve the skybox here. Just make sure to not copy/paste the whole GraphicsConfigurationOverride.xml as recommended there because it has a lot of old settings that could cause problems on the new Odyssey settings. Use only the <GalaxyMap> and <GalaxyBackground> headers.
I hope this helps
o7
At first i had the impression it was partially fixed but then i remembered i had tweaked my GraphicsConfiguration.xml file for Horizons to make it look better. It's in the game's install folder and each game has its own that works independently, so you'll need to apply the same tweaks you made in your EDH file to the EDO's.
A simpler solution i found was to leave both xml files in their default configuration and add the <GalaxyMap> and <GalaxyBackground> headers in the GraphicsConfigurationOverride.xml.
If you had any settings already present in this file, you just need to add the headers in the end of the file. This way you'll apply the same tweaks to both games using just one file.
My GraphicsConfigurationOverride.xml is like this now (i've highlighted what is changed from default):
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<GalaxyBackground>
<Low>
<LocalisationName>$QUALITY_LOW;</LocalisationName>
<TextureSize>512</TextureSize>
</Low>
<Medium>
<LocalisationName>$QUALITY_MEDIUM;</LocalisationName>
<TextureSize>1024</TextureSize>
</Medium>
<High>
<LocalisationName>$QUALITY_HIGH;</LocalisationName>
<TextureSize>4096</TextureSize>
</High>
</GalaxyBackground>
<GalaxyMap>
<Low>
<LocalisationName>$QUALITY_LOW;</LocalisationName>
<NebulasCount>10</NebulasCount>
<NebulasInBackgroundCount>40</NebulasInBackgroundCount>
<LowResNebulasCount>16</LowResNebulasCount>
<HighResNebulasCount>1</HighResNebulasCount>
<LowResNebulaDimensions>64</LowResNebulaDimensions>
<HighResNebulaDimensions>256</HighResNebulaDimensions>
<LowResSamplesCount>25</LowResSamplesCount>
<HighResSamplesCount>128</HighResSamplesCount>
<MilkyWayInstancesCount>8000</MilkyWayInstancesCount>
<LocalDustBrightness>0.13</LocalDustBrightness>
<MilkywayInstancesBrightness>1.5</MilkywayInstancesBrightness>
<MilkywayInstancesSize>1.3</MilkywayInstancesSize>
<MilkyWayInstancesOffscreenRTEnabled>true</MilkyWayInstancesOffscreenRTEnabled>
<StarInstanceCount>2000</StarInstanceCount>
</Low>
<Medium>
<LocalisationName>$QUALITY_MEDIUM;</LocalisationName>
<NebulasCount>20</NebulasCount>
<NebulasInBackgroundCount>40</NebulasInBackgroundCount>
<LowResNebulasCount>16</LowResNebulasCount>
<HighResNebulasCount>1</HighResNebulasCount>
<LowResNebulaDimensions>64</LowResNebulaDimensions>
<HighResNebulaDimensions>256</HighResNebulaDimensions>
<LowResSamplesCount>30</LowResSamplesCount>
<HighResSamplesCount>110</HighResSamplesCount>
<MilkyWayInstancesCount>12000</MilkyWayInstancesCount>
<LocalDustBrightness>0.033</LocalDustBrightness>
<MilkywayInstancesBrightness>1.3</MilkywayInstancesBrightness>
<MilkywayInstancesSize>1.15</MilkywayInstancesSize>
<MilkyWayInstancesOffscreenRTEnabled>false</MilkyWayInstancesOffscreenRTEnabled>
<StarInstanceCount>2000</StarInstanceCount>
</Medium>
<High>
<LocalisationName>$QUALITY_HIGH;</LocalisationName>
<NebulasCount>150</NebulasCount>
<NebulasInBackgroundCount>80</NebulasInBackgroundCount>
<LowResNebulasCount>25</LowResNebulasCount>
<HighResNebulasCount>10</HighResNebulasCount>
<LowResNebulaDimensions>64</LowResNebulaDimensions>
<HighResNebulaDimensions>256</HighResNebulaDimensions>
<LowResSamplesCount>35</LowResSamplesCount>
<HighResSamplesCount>138</HighResSamplesCount>
<MilkyWayInstancesCount>1000</MilkyWayInstancesCount>
<LocalDustBrightness>0.5</LocalDustBrightness>
<MilkywayInstancesBrightness>1.0</MilkywayInstancesBrightness>
<MilkywayInstancesSize>1.0</MilkywayInstancesSize>
<MilkyWayInstancesOffscreenRTEnabled>false</MilkyWayInstancesOffscreenRTEnabled>
<StarInstanceCount>10000</StarInstanceCount>
</High>
</GalaxyMap>
<GraphicsConfig />
<GalaxyBackground>
<Low>
<LocalisationName>$QUALITY_LOW;</LocalisationName>
<TextureSize>512</TextureSize>
</Low>
<Medium>
<LocalisationName>$QUALITY_MEDIUM;</LocalisationName>
<TextureSize>1024</TextureSize>
</Medium>
<High>
<LocalisationName>$QUALITY_HIGH;</LocalisationName>
<TextureSize>4096</TextureSize>
</High>
</GalaxyBackground>
<GalaxyMap>
<Low>
<LocalisationName>$QUALITY_LOW;</LocalisationName>
<NebulasCount>10</NebulasCount>
<NebulasInBackgroundCount>40</NebulasInBackgroundCount>
<LowResNebulasCount>16</LowResNebulasCount>
<HighResNebulasCount>1</HighResNebulasCount>
<LowResNebulaDimensions>64</LowResNebulaDimensions>
<HighResNebulaDimensions>256</HighResNebulaDimensions>
<LowResSamplesCount>25</LowResSamplesCount>
<HighResSamplesCount>128</HighResSamplesCount>
<MilkyWayInstancesCount>8000</MilkyWayInstancesCount>
<LocalDustBrightness>0.13</LocalDustBrightness>
<MilkywayInstancesBrightness>1.5</MilkywayInstancesBrightness>
<MilkywayInstancesSize>1.3</MilkywayInstancesSize>
<MilkyWayInstancesOffscreenRTEnabled>true</MilkyWayInstancesOffscreenRTEnabled>
<StarInstanceCount>2000</StarInstanceCount>
</Low>
<Medium>
<LocalisationName>$QUALITY_MEDIUM;</LocalisationName>
<NebulasCount>20</NebulasCount>
<NebulasInBackgroundCount>40</NebulasInBackgroundCount>
<LowResNebulasCount>16</LowResNebulasCount>
<HighResNebulasCount>1</HighResNebulasCount>
<LowResNebulaDimensions>64</LowResNebulaDimensions>
<HighResNebulaDimensions>256</HighResNebulaDimensions>
<LowResSamplesCount>30</LowResSamplesCount>
<HighResSamplesCount>110</HighResSamplesCount>
<MilkyWayInstancesCount>12000</MilkyWayInstancesCount>
<LocalDustBrightness>0.033</LocalDustBrightness>
<MilkywayInstancesBrightness>1.3</MilkywayInstancesBrightness>
<MilkywayInstancesSize>1.15</MilkywayInstancesSize>
<MilkyWayInstancesOffscreenRTEnabled>false</MilkyWayInstancesOffscreenRTEnabled>
<StarInstanceCount>2000</StarInstanceCount>
</Medium>
<High>
<LocalisationName>$QUALITY_HIGH;</LocalisationName>
<NebulasCount>150</NebulasCount>
<NebulasInBackgroundCount>80</NebulasInBackgroundCount>
<LowResNebulasCount>25</LowResNebulasCount>
<HighResNebulasCount>10</HighResNebulasCount>
<LowResNebulaDimensions>64</LowResNebulaDimensions>
<HighResNebulaDimensions>256</HighResNebulaDimensions>
<LowResSamplesCount>35</LowResSamplesCount>
<HighResSamplesCount>138</HighResSamplesCount>
<MilkyWayInstancesCount>1000</MilkyWayInstancesCount>
<LocalDustBrightness>0.5</LocalDustBrightness>
<MilkywayInstancesBrightness>1.0</MilkywayInstancesBrightness>
<MilkywayInstancesSize>1.0</MilkywayInstancesSize>
<MilkyWayInstancesOffscreenRTEnabled>false</MilkyWayInstancesOffscreenRTEnabled>
<StarInstanceCount>10000</StarInstanceCount>
</High>
</GalaxyMap>
<GraphicsConfig />
If you have no clue what i'm talking about (i.e. never eddited any Elite's xml file) there's a nice tutorial to improve the skybox here. Just make sure to not copy/paste the whole GraphicsConfigurationOverride.xml as recommended there because it has a lot of old settings that could cause problems on the new Odyssey settings. Use only the <GalaxyMap> and <GalaxyBackground> headers.
I hope this helps
Because the issue is not specific for the skybox as this thread. It is related to the overall lighting issue in which i agree it did not change much.
o7
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The game is too dark and they know this - they're addressing it in the roadmap as far as I know.
Steam refused it because I had over 2 hrs in - any strategy you found around that?
Yes. What worked for me was asking to be put through to the legal department, because I wanted their UK registered business address so I could serve them with a claim, or they could take our dispute to arbitration as per the EULA that we were both a party to.
I think they finally grokked I was deadly serious: They had enraged me and cheesed me off that much that I was willing to go in front of a judge, spend real money and ask for my money back for their unfit -for-purpose bugridden software, and ask for my costs also, or I was willing to make them pay an arbitrator.
I got my refund.
Edit to add: Right makes might. Demand your rights when wronged, people. Are you going to let these pondlife rip you off with defective product and get away with it?
HELL NO. In the words of the late, great, Harlan Ellison, this is my philosophy:
"If you put your hand in my pocket, you’ll drag back six inches of bloody stump."
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