Why are so many gas giants black and white?

[Lucian667]

While its been pointed out that almost all planets seem to be some weird shade of beige I've also noticed that many many gas giants are simply black and white. Not all of course, there are quite a few exceptions (particularly with blue gas giants) but there do seem to be a very large proportion of gas giants that are just plain old black and white or a few shades of grey with absolutely no color in them at all.

This seems to be a sadly missed opportunity for helping to generate breathtaking vistas in a game that generally excels in that very area, not to mention that it doesn't sound even remotely plausible to have so many strangely desaturated gas giants popping up everywhere. Not wanting to be rude or anything but is there any chance that the artist / programmer responsible for the gas giants is color blind?

 

[CMDR Endincite]

Uh...
I'm trying to think of even a single black and white (or grey) gas giant I've ever seen in two years.

Graphical issue maybe? I dunno what to say. Utterly not seeing what you're seeing.

Maybe an example? I'm looking at the systems around me that have lots of gas giants, and they run through blue, beige, deep brown, red, mottled brown (Jupiter-esque), purple. No neutrals at all, really.

 

[mp4x]

I have to say, black and white gas giants don't spring to the forefront of my memory either... Do you mind a screenshot?

 

[mojonaut]

I've noticed a lot of the beige gas giants, but in general all the planets seem mostly to be built from only two major colours which are then blended out. Noticeable with ice planets which get an altitude blend while the gas giants get a latitude blend. I don't know why there aren't more colours but am guessing the engine can't handle generating more in real time and keep the frame rate up.

Mentioned this in another thread but it got quickly buried, Space Engine has some real nice gas giants and atmospheric worlds maybe FD should hire this guy.

Spoiler

[video=youtube;Fuh8bTcW2EM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fuh8bTcW2EM[/video]

 

[Sapyx]

Gas giant planets typically have three major colour components, which can be mixed up in several different ways, depending on the Class of gas giant.

Class 1 gas giants are typically brownish.

Class 2 gas giants are white or pale grey coloured. These are the most valuable types to scan when out exploring, a hundred times more valuable than any other class.

Class 3 gas giants are mostly blue, often with some white and occasional pink.

Class 4 gas giants are reddish-pink.

Class 5 gas giants are back to brownish again.

Water-life gas giants are "candy-striped with lots of eyes", typically cream-to-brown or cream-to-red colour.

Ammonia-life gas giants are also "candy-striped with lots of eyes", but usually much darker, murky-brown.

The life-bearing ones can get interesting when the stellar forge seems to be trying to make really, really dark stripes and instead, the colour goes negative and you end up with bright, fluorescent green stripes. Thread on the subject. Those ones definitely aren't black and white, or even beige!

 

[Lucian667]

I have to say, black and white gas giants don't spring to the forefront of my memory either... Do you mind a screenshot?

Hmm, I'm glad I posted now, I never thought it might be an issue with me that other players dont get. I'll post a screenshot next chance I get.

 

[Lucian667]

Ok here's an example, I know the rings are bluish but the planet itself is just shades of grey with maybe a hint of beige in there. I see a LOT of this sort of gas giant, maybe 1/3 of them, sometimes with darker black spots but with no color to almost no color. So are others seeing anything similar or do I need to look into getting a new graphics card?

Spoiler

 

[CMDR Space Lurker]

I do see alot of those whitish grey ones, but they don't bother me... it is not like we don't have vast numbers of other variations too. The blue ones and the red ones are fairly common.. as are the blue. My favourite among the fairly common ones are the "chocholate giants", (whitish/grey with highly contrasting brown stripes)..
There are also some "bleberry icecream" ones out there.. and many forms of murky ones.. and so on.

So, I agree the whitish ones are very common, but there's lots more types out there.

Sometimes it seems to me they come in regions, like hundreds of light years with 90% blue ones..

 

[mp4x]

Ok here's an example, I know the rings are bluish but the planet itself is just shades of grey with maybe a hint of beige in there. I see a LOT of this sort of gas giant, maybe 1/3 of them, sometimes with darker black spots but with no color to almost no color. So are others seeing anything similar or do I need to look into getting a new graphics card?

Spoiler

View attachment 120288

I do see those, too, I think. Though, it does look a little flat in your screenshot, like it's missing a layer of colour. I just tried it and if you image search Google: elite dangerous gas giant screenshot that's about the mix I get, in game. A bit of everything

 

[FrogsFriend]

Ok here's an example, I know the rings are bluish but the planet itself is just shades of grey with maybe a hint of beige in there. I see a LOT of this sort of gas giant, maybe 1/3 of them, sometimes with darker black spots but with no color to almost no color. So are others seeing anything similar or do I need to look into getting a new graphics card?

Spoiler

View attachment 120288

Looking at the system map, it does show as a grey/pale beige gas giant for me too. Although I've not seen it 'in the flesh' as it were.
I've not really paid attention to the proportions of different colours out there but I'll try and take notice now and see if there are more pale giants than other colours.

 

[Nick Sticks]

I came across this one half way to Colonia.
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Spoiler

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Edit: added spoiler tags.
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Edit 2: Thought I'd go through my pictures and find where this was. Looks like I must have upped the brightness and luminance a bit to bring out the detail but the originals still look good. It's FLYIEDGIAE MQ-X B20-7 A 2.
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Spoiler

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[Lucian667]

Lol,when I was searching for a suitable target for a screenshot I suddenly couldn't find any and had to use the galactic map to find that one. I'll check my graphic setting to see if anything's set on "low" although its entirely possible that I just ran into a random cluster of these grey/white gas giants and ended up mistakenly thinking they were a lot more common than they actually are.

Edit: Nick Sticks, that one's pretty awesome, I never seem to run into anything like that, just the boring grey ones.... lol

 

[Sapyx]

Ok here's an example, I know the rings are bluish but the planet itself is just shades of grey with maybe a hint of beige in there. I see a LOT of this sort of gas giant, maybe 1/3 of them, sometimes with darker black spots but with no color to almost no color. So are others seeing anything similar or do I need to look into getting a new graphics card?

Spoiler

View attachment 120288

That one is a water-life-bearing gas giant - the multiple small storms or "eyes" give it away. As I said, many of them are like this, though WLBGGs are much more colour-variant than non-life-bearing classes. These planets often have "candy-stripe" patterns where the three rival band colours are wildly divergent (like cream-brown and chocolate-brown). In this case, the three colours are almost the same (pale brownish, medium-brown and slightly darker brown) giving a rather bland, uncontrasting planet.

The one Nick Sticks posted also has lots of "eyes"; I would assume this one is an ammonia-life-bearing one.

 

[Besensec]

I've noticed a lot of the beige gas giants, but in general all the planets seem mostly to be built from only two major colours which are then blended out. Noticeable with ice planets which get an altitude blend while the gas giants get a latitude blend. I don't know why there aren't more colours but am guessing the engine can't handle generating more in real time and keep the frame rate up.

Mentioned this in another thread but it got quickly buried, Space Engine has some real nice gas giants and atmospheric worlds maybe FD should hire this guy.

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fuh8bTcW2EM

How many people are working on Space Engine? only one?

 

[Lucian667]

I've noticed a lot of the beige gas giants, but in general all the planets seem mostly to be built from only two major colours which are then blended out. Noticeable with ice planets which get an altitude blend while the gas giants get a latitude blend. I don't know why there aren't more colours but am guessing the engine can't handle generating more in real time and keep the frame rate up.

Mentioned this in another thread but it got quickly buried, Space Engine has some real nice gas giants and atmospheric worlds maybe FD should hire this guy.

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fuh8bTcW2EM

Wow, space engine is really stunning! You're right, FD should definitely hire him. No more universe infested with bland grey gas giants and beige planets.

 

[mojonaut]

How many people are working on Space Engine? only one?

I believe so, a stream I watched the other night mentioned he was a professional astronomer and was now working on it (SE) full time thanks to donations.

Some of the Development work on nebulae they showed was stunning.

FD seem to have given up on making the galaxy look good and are more interested in the three C's

Combat, Consoles, Cosmetics

 

[nexxo]

Yes, it's a single-man effort.

I've noticed a lot of the beige gas giants, but in general all the planets seem mostly to be built from only two major colours which are then blended out. Noticeable with ice planets which get an altitude blend while the gas giants get a latitude blend. I don't know why there aren't more colours but am guessing the engine can't handle generating more in real time and keep the frame rate up.

Mentioned this in another thread but it got quickly buried, Space Engine has some real nice gas giants and atmospheric worlds maybe FD should hire this guy.

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fuh8bTcW2EM

I totally agree that overall Space Engine has the look and feel spot on.

This is not to be disparaging about Elite Dangerous, the galaxy simulation of which is an impressive achievement, but the art direction (visual appearance and feel) is bad; it's all over the place. Some of it looks great, but a lot of it simply does not look good at all.

There is too much (and too coarse) dust mottling of the black background, which breaks the impression of the vastness of space (sometimes less is more!). Stars lack the lens flare you see in Space Engine or Eve Online, so you don't get a sense of them as a light source, or their brightness. Their colour is also too exaggerated. The way the light reflects from the planets is too flat. There is no specularity. The radiance just feels off. The star field looks a bit coarse. The milky way looks too beige and orange.

I also think that the ship exhaust makes no sense. Contrails? Sparks in the afterburn? Do these ships run on coal?!?

This is how it should look:

[video=youtube;QBRqG9lSChw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBRqG9lSChw[/video]

This is a great pity because it is quite clear that the engine could do these things better. All the mechanics are in place. It just needs better visual art direction.

 

[Jools]

Wow, space engine is really stunning! You're right, FD should definitely hire him. No more universe infested with bland grey gas giants and beige planets.

At some point it was expected that FD will put Space Engine to shame, after all Space engine was an underfunded one man hobby project and already pretty old.

I was almost stoned to death by the fanboy mob back then for daring to suggest otherwise (based on the fact that David and his team - supposedly at that point the masters of procedural generation LOL - did not even know about the existence of Space Engine - proof is in David`s early interview)

Space engine is amazing. Elite is lacklustre.

For me PG is one of the main pillars of elite franchise but the effects are less then stellar unfortunately. David once was a PG expert,sure, but today he is not even a programmer, just a businessman with a company who fell behind the curve years ago and is now trying and somewhat failing to play catch up.

Space Engine, Infinity Battlescape, Outerra, heck even your random demoscene demos from the recent years are all far more impressive than FD`s low resolution old school boring 2 colour height maps that have like 3 features in total programmed into the equation (1 type of craters, 1 type of canyons and one type of mounties)

 

[nexxo]

Space engine is amazing. Elite is lacklustre.

I think you hit the nail on the head. There are many moments of beauty in the game, but it could so easily have been so much better.

 

[Besensec]

FD seem to have given up on making the galaxy look good and are more interested in the three C's

Combat, Consoles, Cosmetics

He puts FD to shame.