World Scale?

[WeComeInPeace]

no it isn't. As you go passed a planet or star you are well aware of it being a 3d shape. It has stereoscopic depth. In reality we would see something large and distant as flat.
Look at distant clouds, they don't appear as 3d they appear as a flat plane, you only realise their size and distance when you take in to consideration other things in your view like trees , hills and buildings.

You focus on planets as if they are 10ft balls at 5ft away.

You seem certain that the VR experince isn't well calibrated? Why?

The other day I replaced the foam on my Rift. At first I didn't get the thickness right, leading to some strange parallax issues, but that disappeared once I slimmed down the new foam. It's "completely" gone with the thickness of the original foam. It seems to me that the optics (FOV) is pretty well calibrated.
With regards to the images seen through the optics, they seem to be pretty exact scale as well. If not, you would see much more curvature on straight lines, and when you fly towards a giant star, even though it looks the same size as a small one, if you try and measure it (hitting the exclusion zone), you'll find that the size matches.

Motion helps the brain determine size, just like relating the clouds to things close to the horizon. You get a lot more sense of scale when moving towards the star or the clouds, but when you move at several times the speed of light, it's difficult for the brain to relate to anything it knows. Add parallax and it helps the brain even more, which is why the two flat 2D images we see, in the brain, gets transformed into something that we perceive as a big ball of fire.

If you look at the scale of the surface details of the larger stars in ED, even that matches scale, to a certain degree:

But it's still hard for the brain to comprehend the true size of Betelgeuse.

 

[klimaschreck]

I think...no I know for sure this is just a problem regarding Vive products...at least that was the problem I had with the Vive. But since I am flying with a Rift S these days, there aren't any scaling issues anymore. And for anybody who is interested: my IPD is way under 58mm. So I got the feeling that people with an IPD less than 58mm won't have as big of a problem as people with higher IPD. Getting no headaches or similar things.

Cheers

 

[VR - wickfut]

You seem certain that the VR experince isn't well calibrated? Why?

I've explained why. Large objects at distance don't have 3d depth. Planets are large objects at distance and they have 3d depth.

Scale is out once you get passed your cockpit.

 

[WeComeInPeace]

I've explained why. Large objects at distance don't have 3d depth. Planets are large objects at distance and they have 3d depth.

Scale is out once you get passed your cockpit.

I'm sorry, but i find what you wrote contradicting. Do you mean that "Large objects at distance don't have 3d depth" or "large objects at distance and they have 3d depth"?

What would you like things we see outside the cockpit to like like? When I scoop a star, using my old Oculus Rift, the star looks like a giant ball of fire. Not a disk. When I stop the ship, yes, then things at a distance becomes "flat", just like the clouds you see in the distance IRL.

The distance between your eyes create the two different images your brain combines into one. That's called parallax. If you hold one finger in front of you, and look at the finger using one eye at a time, the background you see changes. The further away you move your finger, the less the background changes. If you moved your finger just a few kilometers (or miles) away, then you wouldn't be able to see any parallax. However, if you stand on a mountain top and look at distant mountains while moving slightly, you get the sense of depth back (the brain seems very sensitive to parallax), just like you get a sense of the shape of a star or planet once your ship is moving.

 

[VR - wickfut]

Large objects at a distance in real life don't have a 3d depth. Large objects in game at a distance have 3d depth. This breaks the effect of planets being large objects and makes them appear much smaller.

IIRC a while ago someone did an experiment on how large your biggest VR space would be and it was something like being in a 20ft cube. Nothing in a VR game world could give the sensation or appear larger or further than this with normal stereoscopic vision.

 

[zverochert]

I use HP Reverb (my first and only VR headset), my IPD is 67. I also not happy with the sense of scale in ED (while it was perfect in Boneworks and other action games). The pilot's body looks like I am 10 y.o. (my IRL height is 186) planets look like balls not very far away like I can see real depth, which looks really weird. If you are, for example, 2km above the surface it looks like you are 30-50m above the surface. Other large ships in distance look like cars not very far from my cockpit. However, ships seem large enough when you are in an SRV or in main menu. I am not sure if something wrong with the headset, some settings, or my perception.

I don't know. But the results are obvious. Try it yourself, if you don't believe me.

Any way, I tested your settings and there were no noticable changes to world scale at all just as @Kyokushin mentioned.

I don't see any effect from changing this setting. Setting IPD to 67 in WMR (which is both maximum allowed setting and my real IPD) helped a bit with pilot's body, but not with ships and astronomical bodies. I also don't see any effect from changing "ipdOffset" in Steam VR settings file nor from the IPD setting in Elite Dangerous graphics config file.

I've explained why. Large objects at distance don't have 3d depth. Planets are large objects at distance and they have 3d depth.

That can surely explain why we perceive planets like not so big objects. Maybe we can check if it is true by comparing left and right eye view from one screenshot? We need to overlap two images and check if there is at least one pixel of parallax for planets. How can you do a screenshot of both eyes in VR? If there is no difference in position for a planet than you should see it as infinitely far away, and all our issues are just tricks of brain trying to imagine depth where it shouldn't be.

IIRC a while ago someone did an experiment on how large your biggest VR space would be and it was something like being in a 20ft cube

Can you please give us some more clues so we can find and read or watch about that ourselves. This is very interesting and might be related to the problem.

 

[Kyokushin]

I mean it change nothing for me because i am not noticed any change.
I compared image in gogles and on 'flat' preview screen - i just see no change.

Its not about better/worse or what i prefer - i would lieke to see the effect and compare it - but changing the settings does not make the effect in game.
I tried both from console and xml but its same - maybe i am doing something wrong.

 

[Florenus]

I found this setting in Elite Dangerous /Products /elite-dangerous-64 /GraphicsConfiguration.xmll:

<scale>0.650000</scale>

Would this have anything to do with world scale?

View attachment 158805

Those settings are for Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO). In case of this particular screenshot, you're changing a setting that is used when SSAO is turned OFF.
I has nothing to do with FOV and scale of the "world" in game. It regulates how SSAO works, although in this case it doesn't even do that, because one of the first lines turns that feature off:
<Enabled>false</Enabled>

 

[VR - wickfut]

Maybe we can check if it is true by comparing left and right eye view from one screenshot? We need to overlap two images and check if there is at least one pixel of parallax for planets. How can you do a screenshot of both eyes in VR? If there is no difference in position for a planet than you should see it as infinitely far away, and all our issues are just tricks of brain trying to imagine depth where it shouldn't be.

I think planets should be on the same plane as the background starfield. It looks like it's set somewhere between your cockpit and the starfield now. They probably need to do this to be fair, it might be jarring to have a station suddenly pop into 3d as you get closer to it.

Can you please give us some more clues so we can find and read or watch about that ourselves. This is very interesting and might be related to the problem.

Sorry. I have no idea where/when that info came from, it was just something I read which stuck in my head.

 

[WeComeInPeace]

Large objects at a distance in real life don't have a 3d depth. Large objects in game at a distance have 3d depth. This breaks the effect of planets being large objects and makes them appear much smaller.

IIRC a while ago someone did an experiment on how large your biggest VR space would be and it was something like being in a 20ft cube. Nothing in a VR game world could give the sensation or appear larger or further than this with normal stereoscopic vision.

Ah! Now I get it.

The thing is that planets are much closer to you than any star outside the system. There will be more parallax at those planets once you start moving your POV. When you approach a planet in ED you are moving at tremendous speeds. 100 c is equal to 6,710,808,876 mph. That's fast, and since we have no experience of such speeds, it just looks "weird". Once you start cheating with scale and perspective in 3D, you quickly end up with strange visuals like this:

Source: https://youtu.be/NB4bikrNzMk


You don't see that in ED.

 

[CylonSurfer]

Those settings are for Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO). In case of this particular screenshot, you're changing a setting that is used when SSAO is turned OFF.
I has nothing to do with FOV and scale of the "world" in game. It regulates how SSAO works, although in this case it doesn't even do that, because one of the first lines turns that feature off:
<Enabled>false</Enabled>

Ah someone else who actually knows how that config file works.

 

[CylonSurfer]

I don't see any effect from changing this setting. Setting IPD to 67 in WMR (which is both maximum allowed setting and my real IPD) helped a bit with pilot's body, but not with ships and astronomical bodies. I also don't see any effect from changing "ipdOffset" in Steam VR settings file nor from the IPD setting in Elite Dangerous graphics config file.

WMR devices may not be affected by the steamVR config settings like other SteamVR devices are. The IPD settings in the ED config file are left over from the old pre-CV1 / SteamVR days, they do nothing now.

As I have said countless times, FDEV really need to add a 'world scale' option in this game, preferably 2, in cockpit scale and out of cockpit scale.

 

[VR - wickfut]

Or, if you're on WMR you could just lower the IPD slider in the WMR settings page to the lowest you can without going weird eyed. This will increase the world scale slightly.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Note to participants - please discuss the topic, not the other participants.

 

[Vtskr]

If you want to really feel how huge planets are you can try this trick. Go to a combat zone, win the fight. NPCs will stay in space minding their own business. Pick any big NPC ship and start flying backward keeping both ship and planet in your view. Your brain calibrates and you realize how huge planet really is. Works best with orange gas giants.

 

[VR - wickfut]

yeah, the scale changes depending if you're in supercruise or not. When you're not in supercruise the planets are placed like a wallpaper background - so they're at the correct depth/scale. They turn into much smaller 3d objects once you get in supercruise.

 

[777Driver]

yeah, the scale changes depending if you're in supercruise or not. When you're not in supercruise the planets are placed like a wallpaper background - so they're at the correct depth/scale. They turn into much smaller 3d objects once you get in supercruise.

The devs have stated a number of times that the above is not true.

 

[Old Duck]

Have we confirmed that the OP's voodoo doesn't work? I don't see any difference.

 

[BigDuke6ixx]

yeah, the scale changes depending if you're in supercruise or not. When you're not in supercruise the planets are placed like a wallpaper background - so they're at the correct depth/scale. They turn into much smaller 3d objects once you get in supercruise.

No, just no.

 

[CylonSurfer]

Have we confirmed that the OP's voodoo doesn't work? I don't see any difference.

Yeah, simple logic without even testing would deduce that it would do squat in regard to world scale. Also a number of us have tested and yeah, it does nothing. Based on the ops lack of presence in this thread I guess he has also concluded the same.