Why is everything so dark?

[Old Duck]

What happens when you set PrototypeLightingBalancesEnabled to 0 in your GraphicsConfiguration.xml file?

 

[Dan Sho]

Would give it a try, but where to find this file?

 

[Janesha]

Just makes everything even darker and breaks the HUD as well.

 

[WeComeInPeace]

I had made note of the fact that it was really dark during the Alpha phase. I normally play in VR but given that any walking around was going to be on a flat screen I decided to just stay on my monitor during the Alpha. Today, I wanted to see those amazing (yet dark) views and graphics of planets in VR. Sadly it was NOT Good.. In some places that had more light it looked GREAT. But their are so many dark shades and held back lighting in VR you get blobs of things you can not make out. Even the fleet carrier when not parked next to a star, looks horrible. As if black clouds are covering it in spots and all around. I tried to take a photo with my phone to show an example. Was hard to focus but I think you will get the picture. Or lack of.

This is VR Horizons:
View attachment 227559

This is what it looks like in Odyssey:

View attachment 227560


All of the dark spots are as if there is nothing there. These dark spots are everywhere a pitch black texture is rendered.

I will be waiting for a fix for this.

It's called crunching the shadows. It's a no go. You can use all kinds of gamma curves to simulate darkness, but no flipping crunching! It's typically something you see beginners do, and it shows that they have no understanding of color/light theory whatsoever. Whomever is responsible for this should get a new job.

To those arguing about "realism": Yeah right. You are 500 ls away from Sol. If you look at it you WILL go blind (don't!). In a spaceship fuel scooping a star your eyes would be destroyed in a spilt second.

@Fdev: Fix it, or make the crunching optional.

 

[MadDog McMild]

Does anyone have a real HDR screen? Like 10 or 12 bits? Do you see any difference?
I have the feeling that the graphics are tuned for HDR. Maybe someone who can make sense of all the settings in the "HDRnode" and "HDRNode_Reference" sections of the config file could try his luck?
There's an old thread about it with some details, and I see a chance in here, but I am no expert to interpret all the settings.
Old HDRnode thread

 

[MrTwister]

Constructively complain over here:

https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/31324

 

[mbr1337]

Lighting is brokeb. I set gamma all the way up as well as dashboard brightness and still can't get there to how horizon looked with default settings.

 

[mbr1337]

Does anyone have a real HDR screen? Like 10 or 12 bits? Do you see any difference?
I have the feeling that the graphics are tuned for HDR. Maybe someone who can make sense of all the settings in the "HDRnode" and "HDRNode_Reference" sections of the config file could try his luck?
There's an old thread about it with some details, and I see a chance in here, but I am no expert to interpret all the settings.
Old HDRnode thread

I have a samsung g5 odyssey and i can confirm that may be the case. When enabling HDR systemwide (in windows settings) it gets better. Actually it gets too bright because the windows HDR thing is kind of broken.

 

[Wendake]

It's broken. This video highlight the differences quite well :

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpb2uvGf0OQ


Making space darker is fine but actually it messes up everything and even some visual features are not visible right now.

 

[jojon]

Part of the problem is that nebula are responding exactly inverse of how they should with the new light adaptation code. Normally, when you're looking at a bright object (like, say, staring at the full moon) your pupils contract and let in less light, and everything else appears darker (we'll just ignore the atmospheric effects for now). When looking into a dark moonless sky though, your pupils dilate to allow more light in so you can see fainter objects. Very simple and intuitive for anyone that's ever looked at the stars for more than a few minutes.

In Odyssey, looking at a bright object somehow makes the background nebula brighter. Compare these screenshots, and notice how Barnard's Loop is faintly visible while the star is in frame, but once I'm several hundred LS away from the star, Barnard's Loop is almost completely invisible.

Edit: Wow compression really did a number on this screenshot, but I think you get the point. Try it out in-game for yourself.

Yes. I noticed exactly this effect in the three nebulas I've passed through since release. Together with the very high contrast the current tonemapping profile produces, this becomes quite ridiculous when you play in VR; It is like somebody has dimmer switch on the universe, that they play with as you look around.

...I don't know how you even got the Milky Way background that bright. I can barely see it...

There are three properties in GraphicsConfiguration.xml : <GalaxyMap></GalaxyMap>, that affects the Milky Way brightness, determining how how many "brush stampings" are used to "draw" the galaxy; How large the brushes (...or "instances") are; And how bright they are. More and larger instances overlap more, producing stronger effects, but increasing rendering load (whereas too few and too small makes the galaxy into disconnected puffs of smoke).

 

[Janesha]

Milky way brightness is extremely screwy right now. Here's some screenshots I grabbed in the bubble about 100ly apart. Identical settings, no post-processing or other trickery.

I'm gonna try to see if I can pin this down a little more later today when I have time. Very weird.

 

[InDigital]

Stars are also broken

 

[Gungan]

It's the weirdest mess. The elements on my hud that were a nice bright pure blue are now a dull mint blue-green kind of color, the orange portions are much dimmer, but the brighter yellowish target circle and lettering is so overblown that the characters bleed together and blur.

I've been curious, they didn't happen to make your shield HUD appear the colour of your actual shields? Green = prismatic, purple - bi-weave, blue = normal? I haven't actually checked this myself but I could live with it if that's the case.

I don't think it is though because the interior of the Krait 2 looks green now, and it was blue/grey in Horizons.

 

[WeComeInPeace]

I just went to look at a white dwarf close to Shinrarta. Once there, everything looked a lot better, except for the star itself. Seems that the star offset the black level additive. Really?!?

VR, Ultra (not VR Ultra), no SS or AA.

 

[Boltzmann Brain]

Yeah, ok, space being darker is one thing, but why the hell is the UI way darker? I just logged in to both to take the same screenshot of me sitting in a ship.
In Odyssey, the UI is darker, the radar has a reflection now, that obscures the information it's showing, so I don't quite get the rationale here.

 

[Darth Ender]

I moved the gamma to max and i still can't see the left most image at all in the gamma settings page.

But yea, this got a decent QA before release.

Every release is like this...and yet, i'm still able to be surprised by the level of incompetence at just the simple details that get pushed to the public.

 

[Helvellyn]

Well I like the darker space. But not darker everything else (minus the blinding planets, which are rather the opposite extreme).

 

[Rooster Podunk]

Maybe we can finally get a braille version.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

I had made note of the fact that it was really dark during the Alpha phase. I normally play in VR but given that any walking around was going to be on a flat screen I decided to just stay on my monitor during the Alpha. Today, I wanted to see those amazing (yet dark) views and graphics of planets in VR. Sadly it was NOT Good.. In some places that had more light it looked GREAT. But their are so many dark shades and held back lighting in VR you get blobs of things you can not make out. Even the fleet carrier when not parked next to a star, looks horrible. As if black clouds are covering it in spots and all around. I tried to take a photo with my phone to show an example. Was hard to focus but I think you will get the picture. Or lack of.

This is VR Horizons:
View attachment 227559

This is what it looks like in Odyssey:

View attachment 227560


All of the dark spots are as if there is nothing there. These dark spots are everywhere a pitch black texture is rendered.

I will be waiting for a fix for this.

Sweet mother of randominous, that is hidoeus!

 

[Andrew Gaspurr]

While I can confirm that space, the galaxy background and a number of cockpit features just look too dark and a bit out of contrast I'm also puzzled about the neutron stars and a fair number of planets I discover that look super bright. I run an Nvidia 2060 RTX Super. Added it to the issues tracker and I hope FDev deals with it swiftly.