we're in the middle of graphical updates.

Minmatar just had theirs, I think it's Amarr/Gal left to go IIRC.

ok what do you called 3v shadeing there doing plus models changs i saw there vids you posted and eve looks a hell of alot better then that crap you posted. CCP has been up adding the looks of the game for over a year now.

As homeworld is not as big as eve it take time to changes things in a game as large as eve.

Sorry, but I think it's kind of a slap in the face to the art team (as well as CCP as a whole) to say they're in dire need of a graphical update. They've been making great improvements in the graphics department for a while now and there's still more to come.

Sure, Eve isn't the best looking game around, but it still looks great. It's gonna be 10 years old next year. 10. Very few, if any, 10+ year old polygonal 3d games look even half as good as Eve. Hell, you still get a couple of games up until this very day that don't look as good as Eve.

Just saying...

If you're actually comparing the current graphics to the ones from a game released in 2003 (the same year people started playing EVe by the way), then you probably need to pony up & buy new computer hardware. You can't really judge when you have everything set to 'low'.

Applying more manpower to a situation does not necessarily mean better results.

You kidding me? Those homeworld graphics suck ass. The graphics here are beautiful.

The problem with that argument is each new version of one of those engines is met with the release of a new game. They don't go back and redo an old game with their new engine. Mirror's Edge and Bad Company 1 are still using Frostbite 1. Crysis 2 is still using CryEngine 2. And so on and so on.

They make updates to the games and the engines, but none of them have gone back and redone those games with their new engines because it's a lot of work even for non-MMOs. in many ways, you're essentially remaking the game from scratch because the engine is the backbone of the entire game.

For MMOs, upgrading engines is a task that takes years. After Blizzard updated their engine for Cataclysm, they said they probably would never do it again because of the amount of time and money that it costs. WoW is their cashcow (pro rhymes). You can call Blizzard lazy if you want, but with the amount of money they make off that game, can you imagine how much trouble it must have been for them to upgrade their engine for them to outright say "we're never doing that again"?

Not everything can be art and for the time it was created HW 2 is just that.

But eve is mmo so shiny space whales is all we can wish for shinier they get less soul they have,i cant feel mass of eve ships i cant admire them on the other hand 2003 hw2 is awe inspiring all with DX9b and decade old graphic..silly isn it.

I like EvE space ambient suns look good background too,stars need work on they are from Pentium 3 era,i like hel even if it isn't updated.

I'm not sure I would call that an upgrade. While the ship there is nicely textured, the way it moves is very unrealistic and arcade motion. The missile effects are nice, but we have those, and the same goes for the turrets, though I think we have an improvement on both as I didn't notice any models for either. Didn't look that closely..

That and the jump-effect? or whatever that was, and the space itself, and UI...

EVE has that game beat 10-1

' the way it moves is very unrealistic and arcade motion'

saying that like it is bad thing..how about a frig bumping 19km ship lol rly eve have NOTHING in space movement that can be considered better.

I'll make it simple.

Good gameplay > best graphics.

/thread

Gameplay over graphics any day. I guess it's easier to judge a games graphics over it's gameplay when you grew up with games that look like this, as opposed to this.

(I'm not sure that the old game that I linked was any good because I don't recall ever playing it. In fact, I don't even know what it's called. What I do know is many of those games back then were great. these days so much effort is put in to graphics that the actual gameplay & story is over-looked. The Witcher was actually good, which is rather rare these days.)

...oh...ok then. Thank you for the clarification I guess, but the specifics are more or less irrelevant to my overall point earlier.

If only they had been working on the graphics for most of the year

Because EVE desperately needs another expansion that adds absolutely zero content to the game, while much more important stuff is being neglected.

EVE has better looks than a lot of the other MMOs to come out this year. Not bad for a 10 year old game.

Zooming in all way on your ship doesn't make for good gameplay. A couple of notches back and the ships look amazing. If nothing else they let you zoom in too far.

Put you face right up to any work of art and it looks pretty bad.

the OP seems to forget that not all of us can afford a new PC with the latest graph cards EACH year

beauty is in the eye of the beholder , the graphics in this game are pretty good in my opinion and compared with 4 years ago when i started playing they are even better and compared how they were 9 years ago they are brilliant ,
it takes time and effort improving them , CCP can't just shelf everything they work for and only concentrate to improve their graphics each time , the community majority will not like this

@Op. I sort pretty much agree with most of what you said. I think EvE is probably the best looking space game out there but they do need to up their game in certain areas.

My main beef with the graphics in EvE is the effects. They just need to go the extra mile and make sure that they have both visual and auditory oomph. They actually took a step backward in that department in Retribution as far as I'm concerned. The new explosions suck by HW2 standards, the particle system is technically better but the overall effect just doesn't compare.

In HW2, the life of a ship had a certain continuity. When a ship was built or undocking, it wasn't just popped out, it was launched. When a ship dies, it does so in a fashion consistent with it's mass and purpose. Fighters left a streaking fire trail leading to an explosion, bigger ships had secondary explosions and slowly rolled out of control before a devastating final explosion. The sound effect made you feel like the ship was being ripped apart from the inside or that you were fighting for your life in a spacebourne fur ball. I think CCP could learn a lot about battle immersion from HW2.

I totally agree with you about the community ship modeling contests! We definitely need more of them, even if there aren't any prizes other than the possibility of it being put in game. I've been working on a new Typhoon model off and on over the past couple of months and would probably submit it should they have another one. The creativeness of the community was one of the things that drew me to this game so long ago =)

That game isn't going to have hundreds to thousands of people in a single battle.

I don't have to zoom out.

Says the guy that punched reality out. Go to any art museum and put your face up to the painting and watch people mock you as you complain about the "defects".

Noone plays with their ship zoomed all the way in, so I don't see you point.

Good thead, it-¦s always good to discuss about all features in a game like this.

Also I think the graphics are really good for a game liket this. You can-¦t expect to see an MMO with next-gen graphics. It-¦s like if someone is waiting for a MMOFPS (like Planetside) with Crysis at very high settings in the same world with 2000+ players online, it-¦s not possible today.

More high-poly models? maybe, but I have some experience in 3D modeling and for me in the videogame industry; shaders/textures > polygons

Anyway I-¦m agree with you in some others graphics features, like explosions. This game it-¦s about spaceships, and this game needs bigger and better explosions imo. Would be awesome to see a improvement this next year.

So you are asking for more detailed models for ships. Now, englighten me, how much is your fps with max settings when theres 4 or more full fleets on the grid and fully visible? :)

How much time do you spend in Null? Not a dig just a question. If you want to see larger fights thats where they'll be.

Also I think this entire thread smells of you going "Hey heres a great idea everybody. Upgrade your graphics card or gtfo" Eve is still am amazing looking game. Graphically it blows away the majority of other MMO's out there. Why are you comparing an MMO that requires support for multiple client types and capabilities with Crysis2 which is a single player game made by a development team who want to burn your system out on low detail?

TiDi I agree is teh win. But I think you're being somewhat unrealistic

It should be noted that there is also a rather gigantic difference between EVE and both the games you mentioned.

EVE is an MMO, the other two are not.

Homeworld 2 was ostensibly a single player game with the ability to have a maximum of 5 people in multiplayer mode. Star Citizen will also ostensibly be a single player game, with possibly the ability to have up to 100 people on field at once, and even then only some time in the distant future.

Your comparisons are flawed and your argument negated. Having graphics with a detail level as high as that expected from Star Citizen in a game where 2000 people can be in the same place at the same time would prove impossible for all but the top 1 or 2% of PC owners to render without effectively dragging their system performance to zero.

I award you 0/10.

Ok, i'll make this even more clear for you, the reason "tricks" as you call them are used is due to it enabling easy graphical settings. If you go out and make models with more faces, those models will stay, and you can't do anything about it.

To sum this up even more for you, ccp is not interested in ditching a huge player base just because they don't have a top notch rig. Does this make sense to you? So they will use "tricks" to make eve look better, and in years to come, when the lowest end computers used to play eve have upgraded, they'll enhance models. They are already updating effects and didn't they just slap new explosions ? Also what comes to hull damage effects, who cares, you plow through target hull in seconds, and for that the fire effects work just great. I'm not going to include capitals that take bit longer in hull because you rarely see them, as you said you rarely even see big fights.

ps. you can't compare bf crysis and such to eve, they don't have as many models in view as eve does, not even nearly.

Pray tell, how many people partake in matches in any of the other games you just mentioned? Allow me to answer for you:

World in Conflict - Single player game with 16 person multiplayer support.

Battlefield 3 - Single player content with 64 player online multiplayer maps.

Assassins Creed 3 - Single player content with 8 player online content.

Dishonoured - Single player only.

As I already stated, not one of the games you mentioned is an MMO. Attempting to compare EVE to any of the above is the old apples and oranges routine and is thus doomed to fail.


And for clarification, as you appear to have missed my previous statement regarding the nature of Star Citizen, here is a quote lifted directly from the FAQ for said game:



source cited: Star Citizen FAQ.

I highlighted the appropriate section for the purpose of clarity. You cannot, in any conceivable way, compare any of the games you have mentioned to EVE online and still have your argument hold up. EVE's unique position in the PC gaming market is well known and thus far uncontested, something that CCP has been, and remains to this day, rightly proud of. No matter which way you attempt to come at this argument you will lose.

You cannot draw comparisons against something that is provably unique thus, as per my previous statement, your argument is void.

I would welcome a trinity3 engine.

I read them

Yes. All games should all look exactly alike.


(Not).

I'm seeing two different threads of conversation here. One is graphics quality. The other is performance.

As far as graphics goes, no one has mentioned Tesselation yet. At fanfest last year they showed this video and asked if it was something players wanted them to pursue. This was a stand-alone test, not using the current Eve engine. You can read more details in this dev blog
So CCP is looking forward with graphics, don't worry too much on that front

As far performance goes... well that got a very brief mention at fanfest too but they had no map of how they're going to do it. (unless I missed something) In my personal opinion performance should take as high, or higher priority than improving graphics. Just my 0.02 ISK

I clearly pointed out to you, as others have, that those improvements would require substantial hardware upgrades for all but the top 1-2% of EVE players. Do not forget that it is not just you that has to render these more complex models, but rather everyone who is in the same space as you and can see your ship.

While for the most part this may only be a handful of people if you live in a dead end backwater system, there are others who routinely see tens of hundreds of ships. The performance degradation inherent to rendering large numbers of high detail models makes such a thing impractical from a technical standpoint, not to mention suicidal in a customer retention sense.

You constantly made comparisons to both CryEngine 3 and the Frostbite engine, both of which are designed for use in singleplayer, or limited multiplayer games. They are not, nor will be in the foreseeable future, useful for games where it is possible (even if it is with time dilation) to have upwards of 1000 people all interacting within the same small space.

Reading back over your posts you have dismissed things such as shaders and tessellation, both of which can and have been used to great effect both in EVE and in many other games over the years. This leaves only one possible option; a complete engine overhaul, and yet you say this is not what you are asking for.

So, pray tell, what is it you wanted? Do you even know?

My! A whole thread dedicated to graphical updates that are already in the pipeline since before fanfest with several videos showing it off.

The only thing I can't seem to remember is if they are planing to increase texture resolution, but then again I also remember reading somewhere that the model polygons is the limiter and that tessellation would solve this but that it would take a good couple of man years to finish (I can't find a link atm but it was less work than the trinity update).

That same video also show off future lightning effects that will come after (with?) the V3 project. There are also concept art of ships taking damage to noticeable shields as well as armor damage effects.

This is a big project and it will take time and should not be rushed, just be patient.

And how is adding to performance issues good exactly?

EVE still manages to allow a thousand people to shoot at each other.
How many other MMO's have you played that allow that?

How exactly is peformance an intrinsic problem with EVE, when it allows for such large scale fights to happen?
Poly counts don't make a better game, but bad performance always makes a worse one.

Good job linking to the same video I did, proves that you read everything.

That video proves that tessellation is a great first step toward adding all that detail you are begging for. Give it time and relax instead of whining on the forums.

Like I said, what exactly is it that you want? Shader upgrades have already begun, tessellation is in the pipeline and new lighting is apparently ready to roll once the V3 work is complete. So if I understand this correctly, you want what is already planned, has already been implemented, or is in production as we speak? So you have no real point at all? Interesting.

On a related note:



Team Avatar being disbanded has exactly no effect on Carbon. That is overseen by the CTG, or Core Technology Group. You would know this if you had done even the smallest amount of research on anything relating to a subject which you claim to be passionate about.

source: Core Technology, Carbon and You.

So now we've cleared up a few things, what exactly was it you wanted to see?

I suppose you haven't seen the WIP titan destruction animations, where they actually brake apart? Just a response to an earlier demand.

What.

The graphic engine was updated in 2007ish with Trinity expansion. Please do some actual research before posting dates....

The graphics in EvE are fine. Thinking you need better looking ships/modules/whatever for the gameplay to be better is simply stupid.. Something I personally see as "the console disease"

Sure new graphics would be cool but after a week or two I wouldn't notice them anymore. I would much rather, that they spent time on WiS but that again is a personel opinion.

You're problem is that video card - it's a value card. I run the game on my Big Screen @ 1080p and it looks great.

Maybe if you upgraded your hardware to something that was released this decade, your experience wouldn't resemble something that was made last decade.

As for a new engine, people with hardware like yours would be the first to suffer.

Eve graphic is great, and the effort they do to keep it updated after 10 years is huge.

Homeworld is not an MMORP so high graphic standards are more easy to manage, and anyway looks far inferior and trivial to me.

Star Citizen is not going to be an MMORPG as well, but, most important: it doesn't even exists! For now is only some home-made movie. We'll talk about it and his graphic if will be released.

Beside all this gameplay is always the most important for a game longevity. Ultima Online is still a great game, go figure.

Personally I dont like them either, i-¦d like to have like in mass effect 3 at the beginning of the game where the (insert ship class here) on the surface got destroyed. If our vfx guys are working on them i honestly dont know.

The graphics in EvE are fine. Thinking you need better looking ships/modules/whatever for the gameplay to be better is simply stupid.. Something I personally see as "the console disease"

Sure new graphics would be cool but after a week or two I wouldn't notice them anymore. I would much rather, that they spent time on WiS but that again is a personel opinion.

I don't think graphics are going to matter much in EVE as long as the game encourages you to play zoomed out to the point that all you see is boxes and crosses. Or as long as the overview continues to command your attention more than what is being rendered in space. Unfortunately I don't think these things will ever change. CCP has made some changes to try to get more information into space itself, and has worked on the camera recently too... but to clear EVE of UI clutter and get a sense of scale going, along with immersive and visceral combat... its those things that EVE is missing and will never have. You'd have to change the game entirely to get them. EVE has decent visuals, its just the nature of the game prevents it from making the most of them.

I'm surprised no one posted the link to the March 2005 Black Sun 2 engine tech demo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwT-gHvRhUk

I love the way how the big ship explodes (towards the end of the vid).
And the idea to show shield effects is really nice, too. And the effect on missile impact and the missile explosions look better than what we have in EVE atm, imho (a matter of taste, I know).
Almost hard to believe it's over 7 years old.

Have you ever heard the saying "If it aint broke dont fix it" never has its been more appropriate to say that. There are lots fo things in this game that need fixing to make it a more enjoyable experiance for the entire player base. Those things are much much more important than a graphics update.

Also never forget this is an MMO, im sure CCP take metrics of the average EVE players PC and make an effort to cater to that, when they move the bar too high they start to exclude players and shut out potential buisness (think of all the multi boxers) I remember reading info on steams metrics and being shocked by how bad the average steam users pc was.

All I know is Caldari ships and Raven especially, need new models. Symmetric ones.

Im not sure it was at all misleading, the game still look amazing on full graphics, most people dont have incredible gaming computers and MMO`s make themselves accsesible to largest player base possible. Nothing misleading in what i said

interesting how two people can look at the same data and come to completely different conclusions - I look at the list of video cards and I see an awful lot of Intel's integrated graphics chipsets, many mobile chipsets and a surprising amount of incredibly old gfx cards (2 GeForce 9 Series cards in the top 10, a 2006 card - GeForce 8600 - on spot 23).

Now, pretty much anything could hide in the 35% "Other[s]" but based on that list my overall impression is that PC gamers have much worse hardware than I would have expected (and we aren't even talking about the "facebook games only" crowd at this point, these are actual gamers who were serious enough to search for and find Steam)

Yes it is...

EVE has won multiple awards for them.

...but how do you improve upon perfection?

But how closely does the population of Steam subscribers match the population of EVE subscribers? I play EVE Online, but none of my systems are represented in that Steam survey (2 Apple computers for starters).

Seriously, I don't give a rats behind about graphics. What I do care about is gameplay and fluidity of the game.

The fluidity of the game when you are in a 200+ man battle already suffers NOW, on decent up to date hardware. Imagine what it would be like if the ability to dumb-down graphics was removed in favor of Eve being more shiny.... seriously, go away and stop breaking my game. I have no even touched the dual/triple boxing here... which makes matters even worse.

Game play >>>> Graphics.

If you want Eve to be pretty, turn all settings to high and enjoy your laggy **** when doing any kind of fleet battle (but you probably mostly mine, right?)

Anyway, rant right back at ya.

Yes, I know, here's a great idea - let's make EVE's graphics so advanced that people struggling to get by as it is on their dual core pentium can't play anymore. I'll tell you what, if the graphics of EVE go beyond why I can afford by way of supporting hardware, I won't be playing it anymore. In fact, that's one of the reason people switch to console.

Additionally, Star Citizen is NOT a contender for EVE. It's a WOW/Wing Commander hybrid, and it doesn't even have a proper sandbox.

The graphics are working just fine, and I won't complain about a graphics update if the options remain to turn them right back to where I have them now. And I would not be surprised if a vast portion of EVE's audience were also subject to simpler hardware like myself. Remodelling and re-texturing is sufficient for now.

Read my post.

I said IF my computer is unable to handle any graphics updates to EVE, then I won't be buying a new one just to play EVE. IF my hardware can handle any graphics updates, then it won't be a problem. If it can't, but the option to dial them back is included, then it also won't be a problem.

How did you miss that point completely? And why would they revert to old technology?

That's wrong.

Star citizen is an EVE style mmo, with single player storyline missions akin to wing commander.

CCP should hire ice la glance, the creator of various gfx realism mods (like for GTA IV).

She knows how to push graphics. ^_^

OP,

While I agree that EVE lacks that continuity to ships (launch on build, and eventually a slow, multi-explosion drifting death), that's really just eye candy. As much as EVE is lacking graphically, it has the same weakness in its gameplay.

Compare EVE's combat to combat in any recent MMO, and you'll see what I mean. In modern MMOs, there's line of sight at the very least, where one ship/character can physically shield another from damage (Pirates of the Burning Sea, 2008 and onwards). There's active combat dodging (Age of Conan 2008, Guild Wars 2 2012, etc) to avoid damage in combat, based on player skill, not passive numbers generated in the background. There's compound effects, like arrows passing through fire becoming fire arrows and applying a burning effect on hit, weapon projectiles over long distance have trajectories (GW2), etc., etc.

By comparison, EVE is really, really simplistic when it comes to gameplay. And when the choice is between better eye candy and better gameplay, I'm afraid I have to go with gameplay. Though, since probably two different teams would be working on this stuff, there shouldn't be a conflict I guess.

A much faster pace in updates and everyone who disagrees with your opinions is a carebear whiner?

First, most of the problems EVE is having right now, namely incomplete /abandoned content came from the 6 month update/ expansion idea of CCP.

Second, I can't be bothered to write on how many of the OP ideas are wrong.

Isn't things like vinyls and progressive damage just more for the server to remember, or are ae you talking just seeing such details on your own ship? I don't really want to have my game (and it is a game) ruined just to see some paint chipping on 600 enemy ships.

You have to understand CCP lacking leadersghip and resources to expand EVE while Dust is in development (+ its PC version will take 12-18 months to finish after PS3 release).

You better enjoy debugs and re-skins because it's all you'll see for couple more years besides Dust.

The Good-

Runs on old DX9 Hardware.

Easy to multi-box.

Exceptional variety and scope regarding design of ships, weapons/turrets, jumpgates, stations, hangers, captains quarters to such an extent that any new player can (very quickly) identify any racial object or environment by looking at it.

All popular sci-fi styles are covered; Steam-punk, Neo-Tokyo/Akira, Blade Runner, Mirrors Edge/oppressive-dystopian and 2001/Kubrick colour palettes.

The Bad-

Explosions. They lack racial significance; if you were to look at a battle from afar, you should be able to tell whether a Gallente ship went down or an Amarrian. And they are not awesome and devastating. Both of these points undermine the intricate depths the design team(s) have put into the models, and, undermine the significance of taking someone down AND; is contrary to the laws of game addiction. This is surprising from a company who have been making a game for ten years.

Engine Trails. They are weak. The creative side of me says the trails lack a decent opacity gradient between the centre of the trails and the outside edge. It looks too fake and for some reason it bends after the fact, instead of emitting, adding to the fakeness. And, there is no correlation between the engine particles that do emit and the trails. Overall they look rushed and tacked on, probably because they were rushed and tacked on.

The GUI. Needs a complete redesign, it's functional at best and dreadful to work with. It genuinely looks like a programmer designed it "...Just make a series of lists on the screen...that'll work fine..." because programmers work with lists all day long :) We're supposed to be controlling a spaceship with our minds! I know we're not; we're sat at our computer terminal and using a keyboard and mouse; but FFS at least give us some onscreen representation that we're immortal demi-gods capable of controlling the destinies of entire worlds by thought.

The Ugly-

Graphical break-up of textures and polygons. Biggest issue I've had since day nought and suspect it's a problem of DirectX, but I'll mention it anyway. To explain this, undock your ship, 'look' at a station, move the camera as far back as possible - and then do ctrl+alt+shift+rmb+lmb and then move your mouse to the right, this will zoom the camera in. Post back here and tell me what you see.

Skybox. It's pixelated.

Low-res textures. Like the skybox, we all know you have higher-resolution textures on your servers, you use them for marketing videos/trailers and screenshots - and even have E-ON magazine with their own copy of your external dev-tool so they can create screenshots and not bother anyone @ HQ.
We understand you need to keep the downloadable client as small as humanly possible, but in all honesty, where is the harm in offering a high resolution texture-pack download as an option? An option.Optional. This would mean those with lesser internet connections would be no better or worse off for either deciding to download EVE or not; and the same would go for those who do not have enough VRAM to play EVE and load all of the textures. There is no argument for not making it an option.

Epilogue-

You spend so much time over suspending disbelief by style, and then destroy it by substance. And you wonder why you do not have more new accounts; it's not the NPE (although I'm sure it contributed) - it's because you alienate those who would be drawn to this genre.

But I still love you guys.

A

Except that "modern" cards and sli/xfire have outpaced graphical fidelity for years. You can easily run 2 2 year old cards and crush some of the most graphically intensive games out. This is not the early 2000's where upgrade cards every year was more or less required to stay up to date with graphical progression.

With a single 5770 (100$ 2 year old card), 3.2 ghz quad (overclocked to 4.0 with 35 dollar heat sink) and 8 gigs of ram I can run bf3 at almost full graphics at around 40-50 fps. This same system can run many accounts of eve at near full graphics with extremely playable frame rates. This system can be easily attainable for 500$, spend a few hundred more and you can put something together that will obliterate modern games and will continue to do so for a couple years.

Using the age old excuse of (I can't keep up with graphics) is not applicable anymore. It's easier and cheaper to keep up now than ever before...

There used to be separate "premium" and "classic" clients depending on your system setup... not sure CCP would want to go back to maintaining two separate clients though. Sounds like a big pain in the a**.

One of the graphical aspects that I have always hoped would be addressed is ther apparent scale of the ships. This is typically achievable through a combination of textures and model complexity and some shops and races in EVE deal with it better than others.

Take the Abaddon, for example. In my opinion it's model and texture purvey a large ship - it has a large mass of main hull with detailed bridges that are smaller and hint at the ship's true size.

The new destroyers are also excellent in this respect, especially the Algos. Those tiny details that make up the illuminated bridges and of course the drone hanger lights all add to the perception of scale. I think this is an easier task on smaller hulls too because you are not fighting the texture stretching that appears to be the case on large hulls.

Now let's look at the other side of things. Take carriers; the Thanatos has the bridge lights and drone hanger effects that the Algos boasts but on a large model the texture is stretched and the detail lost. I cold show the Algos and Thanatos models to a new player and they could be forgiven for believing them to be the same physical size.

The other thing in this area I don't like are moving parts on ships and stations like mechanical arms that instead of adding scale detail have the opposite effect because they are completely out of true scale.

Things are moving in the right direction though. The new ship modelling and V3 textures are amazing in my opinion. The Vagabond has been changed from ship with a Duplo model and Quake-like textures to an improved model with a much cleaner design that improves the perception of the ship's scale.

In summary there are two big ways in which CCP can continue to improve ships across the board:

1) Clean up and expand the detail on out-dated textures, especially on larger ships like carriers.
2) Remodel ships where required to remove blocky designs that to not purvey the true scale well.

You know, if we had an Art Dev blog, that would be nice

oh wait....

just look at screen shots of eve from before trinity, when i first started playing. this game has come a looooooong way in the graphics department.

Eve texture resolution is way too low:
Just zoom in on any ship specially those larger than a frigate, and you will notice there is something completely wrong with the texture resolution, specially noticeable on capital ships) better shaders alone will not improve this.

Ships need to be made of multiple textures with LOD instead of this large single texture files for a single model. this just kills detail.



The Backgrounds and nebulas albeit enhanced, are completely lackluster in awe, it would be nice to see megaliths and huge strange spatial phenomena that is light years away but covers half the sky something like:



http://www.deviantart.com/download/143017536/space_skybox_by_Orindoomhammer.jpg
http://www.3drt.com/3dm/space-bg/sk-20.jpg
http://www.3drt.com/3dm/space-bg/sk-20.jpg




The Scaling sense, something on the way ships scale when viewed from the camera at certain distances completely kills the sense of scale, battleships look small, and frigates look huge, HOWEVER! when you are on a small ship and you zoom in completely very close to a large ship, the scales look properly, this indicates there is a problem with the scaling factor related with camera distance.




Those dammed overview icons that look like huge red crosses, are so big you cannot see your target model, instead seeing only a red cross, they need to be made hollow (without fill) similar to those of homeworld 1 maybe.



The speed sense, not a balance issue but more how the client interprets ship movement, even if useless ships should do barrel rolls small jiggling and zigzags for small ships.

And large ships need to stop rotating in half a second when you are in a complete stand still, they could make it such that the client uses the time to 70% speed to calculate rotation time as to avoid ships warping side ways, but allowing for a more natural movement.



Explosions and damage:
Problem is, first, you see the ship dissapear and then the explosion that looks like a firecracker, this needs to be fixed seriously.
for fast ships after they explode you should see some fireballs that keep going.


The light effect is awesome, but is way short lived, large ships as has been said before need to take their sweet time exploding and should show wear from damage.



This can be done all client side, you just tell the client to add small decals and effects on damaged ships based on the % of armor remaining




Also even tho is not realist at all large ships could have some shockwaves as they explode, similar to how stations do it currently.

And last, weapon impact effects are really lacking.


now all of this its client side and can be turned off without much hassle, so it can be implemented without a very high impact on systems and it will NOT affect the server.




A bit content wise solar systems overall feel a bit empty, there should be a VERY large ammount of Derelic sites all around for players to warp at, kill rats, kill each other and if they get very lucky maybe find some rare module ammo or BPC, this sites should be HUGE (grids of at least 1 thousand kilometers) and should be mini warp disabled as to force players to fly aroudn them exploring and looking for stuff)

basically asteroid belts without asteroids but with plethora of nice decorations and low bounty or no bounty at al


wrecks: generic wrecks are bad thats it.

f+¦rums ****** up uber long post...


anyway what i mean is that backgrounds need to convey this grandiose feeling:

http://wallres.saiswa.com/bg/venkman/i/Artistic-Digital-Blasphemy-Unformed-Planet.jpg

http://links.services.disqus.com/api/click?format=go&key=cfdfcf52dffd0a702a61bad27507376d&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wallpapersonweb.com%2Fimage-107524.html&subId=344685&v=1&libid=1356107721373&out=http%3A%2F%2Fimg11.imageshack.us%2Fimg11%2F6464%2F4scrape177560.jpg&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wallpapersonweb.com%2Fimage-107524.html&title=Digital%2C%20blasphemy%2C%20viewmessage%2C%20forum%2C%20loading%2C%20image%20-%20107524&txt=&jsonp=vglnk_jsonp_13561149438551

http://links.services.disqus.com/api/click?format=go&key=cfdfcf52dffd0a702a61bad27507376d&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wallpapersonweb.com%2Fimage-19995.html&subId=344685&v=1&libid=1356107738468&out=http%3A%2F%2Ffc02.deviantart.com%2Ffs14%2Ff%2F2007%2F115%2Fb%2F6%2FCosmos_by_Keilious.jpg&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wallpapersonweb.com%2Fimage-19995.html&title=Digital%2C%20blasphemy%2C%20keilious%2C%20thread%2C%20cosmos%20-%2019995&txt=&jsonp=vglnk_jsonp_13561149554231

imagine this with a rotation animation as the eve gate animation, instead of that ****** up lil black spot:

http://wallres.saiswa.com/bg/venkman/r/Artistic-Digital-Blasphemy-Red-Black-Hole.jpg

and in red giant systems, stars to look like this:

http://th04.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/i/2011/203/6/a/mu_cephei_by_deathcl0ck-d3z2iaq.png

and i know i didnt made any links, f+¦rum keeps ******* up each time i link anything.

and last from ccp itself... this is how i imagine jita 4-4 should look like

http://geeksstuff.net84.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/eve-online.jpg

you know, planets that look big and stars that look even bigger....

So has every other game in the universe. Standards have been raised a lot and EVE is still lagging behind.

But how closely does the population of Steam subscribers match the population of EVE subscribers? I play EVE Online, but none of my systems are represented in that Steam survey (2 Apple computers for starters).

The best thing you can do for EvE graphics is get a second Screen. You can move alllllll the stuff thats "needed" to one side and have have a clear unadulterated view of space on the other.

Also after getting a new gaming rig recently, i turned all the graphics all the way up, with eve on one screen and swapping a number of other MMO's on the other and the comparison is laughable!! Eve Kicks ASS

Eve's graphics get better with each expansion. That being said, games on my phone/tablet are starting to look better than Eve.

The stations need an overhaul, the jump gates, asteroids. At the rate they are making changes it will be a few years. Personally they should get their asses off of Dust and put more people on Eve ( the game I'm paying multiple subscriptions on.)

And again i must wonder why people are allowed to voice opinions that keep displaying that they have
no clue of what the **** they are talking about.

People here still seem to be ignoring the fact that they are trying to compare EVE to normal NONE MMO Game.

This is an MMO... and it is the best looking MMO on the market.

There is a reason why it cannot appear to look like nearly as good as the X-Universe games. It has been pointed out multiple times in thread but people seem to ignore it.

This is not a Think Tank... this a blatant.. I WANT thread.

I told someone this in the forums here about three weeks ago, about how the two can't be compared other than they are both space games. I basically got told I was wrong (with less kind words), and unfortunately the article I'd read on SC was in a magazine, not on the internet, so I couldn't link it to demonstrate what I was talking about, so I just bailed. Why don't people get this? Star Citizen is going to be nothing like EVE.

Personally i think great gameplay thrumps graphics everytime. I'd rather ccp gave us lots and lots of gameplay and did'nt care to much about graphics. Personally I'd like to see more details and dynamic gameplay features put into pos, than it looks shiny, if you know what I mean. Just look at what happend to the gaming community when minecraft hit. Can't exactly say that minecraft is a graphic stunning game now can we..

Stop bullshitting.

I'm on an i7 box with a pair of GTX 570's, everything maxed just as you claim. After Retribution it began dropping below 60fps when zoomed in and engaging a target.

You're flat out lying to an industry professional, fyi.

universe.......procedural.....generation....aagh........must......resist.....walking....in.....stations........

This post kinda shows you don't know much about how graphics/game engines work...

EVE switched over to a 'new' engine in 2007 with Trinity. This is the base they're currently working on.

You have to remember that Frostbite 1 and 2 aren't exactly "the same" - That's like saying Unreal Engine 1 and 2 are "the same", or Quake 2 and 3 are "the same". There are significant differences between the engine versions, which is a reason why something like Bad Company can't simply be upgraded to use Frostbite 2.

Think of it this way: The engine is the very core, the foundation of a game. Switching it out would be a lot like trying to replace the foundations of a skyscraper - You're not going to do it, you're going to build a new one on the new foundation (ie, make Battlefield 3 instead of patching Bad Company 2).

CCP actually DID replace a lot of the foundation in 2007 (and is currently still making adjustments). They cannot be expected to rebuild the entire game from the ground up every few years like you are suggesting.



Why would it? With proper synchronisation, i don't see why it can't work. The problem is whether it should work since a much larger universe would mean less players meeting each other and less competition over economic resources, which could completely crash the market and a lot of incentives to wage war or even fight at all.

That said, the current universe is procedural aswell, just has been generated ahead of time ;)

When you want atmospheric flight you want procedural graphics. More so, when you want to have procedural system when you want asteroid belts forming all over the galaxy. Imagine those unexplored pockets of space, and the people exploring it, why not? When people want, they will leave crowded systems to produce and mine, others will be searching for them. Could it water down the fun? I think not, just scale generation of new systems the universe has to offer to amount of players on the server. And it will not crash the server, it can certainly crash your client if you run procedural on microscopic resolution of detail.

i might be wrong... but isnt eve single threaded and thus having 2 8 1249235234 cores dosnt matters at all?

Having an I7 I5, phenom or whatever barely matters on eve compared to raw single core perfomance and GPU perfomance.

Eve needs to be multithreaded, also games like homeworld 2 albeit not online, can in some chances have a load as high as that of eve in a single node, when you have thousands and thousands of objects floating around, that need to keep their stats synced and still manages to keep some quite awesome graphics.


mods like complex in hw2 can often get to this kind of situations in multiplayer turtling games, where people will build obsenely large armies with sick ammounts of fighters.

might not be easy, but i m quite sure its posible to increase eve graphic quality by at least an order of magnitude.

BF3 is not the "best looking game" its just publixized as such, and is publicized ALOT. ive played games 2-3 years older than BF3 that friends mistook for a movie when they walked in on me playing it, the games were just more obscure and therefore never got publicity, you knwo all those long lists of "great games youve never heard of".

It's kinda like saying WoW is the ebst MMO just because the media keeps saying it is because so many kids who play it says it is, but then you step back and realize, EvE is the best MMO ever. and anyone who disagrees with that is a PHILANTHROPIST.

Van Gogh is old, his paintings need to be updated. The Mona Lisa needs anisotropic filtering.

While I agree, zoomed up close the textures aren't too clever, CCP is working on updating its ships to V3 plus
there was that piece at the fanfest that showed improvements in the graphics in conjunction with nVidia. Some of the ships are getting new models [though whether models is what the OP is asking for is another matter] and Im sure there will be some new pos's coming. However the priority is the gameplay, graphics only take you so far.

Or you could play DUST 514 which looks nice.

I heard CCP are looking at DX11 & Tesselation :)
That will do a HUGE amount for the graphics.
So hopefully we all get behind that project and CCP listen & commit to it.

The key word is "scalability".

Your rig can take it? Client turns on tesellation and similar goodies. If not, client turns them off by default.

I don't understand CCP's argument about "waiting for people to update their machines".

I want moving parts on stargates, stations and POSes :(

The effects in this are nothing short of spectacular. The shield reactions... and the ship explosions! Nice!

Because tesellation as CCP are planning it is more than just a graphics update, since it allows for accurate collision modelling. So it will be a complete redo of the physics engine at the same time, which requires the tesellation to work.
So they can't have people running a client without tesellation or the physics engine will break.

Apparently this is not enough to run all mighty Eve, clearly my rig sucks


System Information

---

Time of this report: 1/9/2013, 14:45:01
Machine name: GEEK OR NOT GEEK
Operating System: Windows 8 Professionnel 64-bit (6.2, Build 9200) (9200.win8_gdr.121119-1606)
Language: French (Regional Setting: French)
System Manufacturer: System manufacturer
System Model: System Product Name
BIOS: BIOS Date: 04/06/10 09:10:06 Ver: 08.00.15
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU 750 @ 2.67GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.0GHz
Memory: 12288MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 12280MB RAM
Page File: 1530MB used, 15868MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DxDiag Version: 6.02.9200.16384 64bit Unicode

---

DxDiag Notes

---

Display Tab 1: No problems found.
Sound Tab 1: No problems found.
Sound Tab 2: No problems found.
Sound Tab 3: No problems found.
Input Tab: No problems found.

---

DirectX Debug Levels

---

Direct3D: 0/4 (retail)
DirectDraw: 0/4 (retail)
DirectInput: 0/5 (retail)
DirectMusic: 0/5 (retail)
DirectPlay: 0/9 (retail)
DirectSound: 0/5 (retail)
DirectShow: 0/6 (retail)

---

Display Devices

---

Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce GTX 460
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Device Type: Full Device
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0E22&SUBSYS_34FC1458&REV_A1
Display Memory: 4050 MB
Dedicated Memory: 978 MB
Shared Memory: 3071 MB
Current Mode: 1680 x 1050 (32 bit) (59Hz)
Monitor Name: Moniteur Plug-and-Play g+¬n+¬rique
Monitor Model: HP w2216
Monitor Id: HWP280B
Native Mode: 1680 x 1050(p) (59.954Hz)
Output Type: HD15
Driver Name: nvd3dumx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvd3dum,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um
Driver File Version: 9.18.0013.1090 (English)
Driver Version: 9.18.13.1090

---

Eve is harsh, ho dear.

Please tell me how many would unsub if CCP would just say "ahh F*** it lets render the whole game on Cry Engine 3 ?

I would love it, because I can handle it, but most of the people I play with are using what can be called "a avarge laptop" not a multi thousand dollar Gaming rigs like some players.

The Star Citizen game looks just amazing and I will check it out, but asking anywhere near this level of graphics from EVE is just silly...

If you spent multi thousand dollars to play cry 3 engine games then you got ripped off.

Cry engine 3 can be run by an xbox, its nothing special.

What I want most of all in eve is more information from the screen, not just overview.
Tactical overlay is pretty bad, it needs to be tweaked heavily.
I want to see ship types, their direction, signature, etc. by LOOKING at them.
I remember at some point there were new icons on Sisi but CCP didn't continue the project.

undocking, drone launching and other animations would be cool as well.

Current eve UI does not even look like game UI, it's more like a window manager for OS. it's hard to fit anything inside
separate icons for ships could work, to show hull types at least (frigate cruiser etc.)
signature bloom could be a little dot in icon corner. or more obvious flames from engines.

on selected item window and lock icon we could see 3D image instead of 2d icon that we have now. 3d image is good as it changes direction towards your ship, as enemy approaches or escapes.

direction in space could be indicated by arrow or icon direction. and there should be icon for YOUR ship.

Imma want:

- new better epic explosions
- better textures on big ships
- more better nebulas (better space feel not colorfull pony sky)
- Sci-fi UI, something like on fanfest 2012
- let us fly in space not some fluid
- new hangars (3per faction)
- new jump effects
- new cloack/decloak effects
- new awesome shield effects
- remove smoke trails from missiles ffs, get them some sci-fi

And most important improve scalling.
Make stations bigger (add orbital towns not only single station)
Stations close to planets so it looks like on every space movie/game/even eve trailers...

True true, space thingy should be epic, in EVE bad scalling destroy everything

That is your problem.. eve is properly played fully zoomed out when you see only tiny yellow red and blue boxes! I do not want to waste even move of my computer when this is an excel game in fact.

Wow you really put a lot of effort into this thread. I have no problems with the current graphics myself.

having just returned after a 3 year absence I am still surprised at how much better things are looking now. But I do applaud your initiative.

The OP's linked vids looked bad, Eve still has the best graphics around.

Understatement of the century.

People Aren't playing Eve on triple projector screens covering the whole wall just because they like to see the ships be big. They do it to fit the UI.

Yeah the UI is a bit crazy and now that I got into the game more it's more of a Spreadsheet with a min ship in the middle of the screen. Not very nice hehe.

I think it's all about perspective. Nothing in eve really gives you a sense of size. Nothing makes you feel massive, and ships handle like sports cars no matter what.

you are right... I don't fly battleships... I fly marauders.

As an additional note Eve Aesthetics are the next highest offender, look at this, it has 1/90 of the graphics of eve online Tech wise, but aesthetically it makes eve look like pong:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXF2uHPiZoo

OP, stop posting.

CCP are upgrading the graphics as fast as is practical for the game. People have already explained to you why it can't go any faster even if you want it to. A CCP employee has even come into the thread to confirm that these explanations are true. Saying you want it more often isn't going to get you what you want. That's the sign of someone who was spoiled as a child.

V3 capitals...

Yes, it's amazing the quantiy and quality of graphical detail you can get in a SINGLE PLAYER GAME... or a game where the number of players interacting is severely limited.

That being said, I do believe there are some interesting things still to be done and likely will be done.

I've seen some home world videos they are interesting. And as nice as the graphics are in EvE, I spend most of my time either looking at the overview, locking , approaching, orbit, hit F1, warping, jumping or docking.

No, you're right, rendering 30 or 40 ships is just as difficult as rendering a couple of thousand....

Homeworld was a great game, in fact I did work on several of the more popular mods for it. However you are making comparisons that are unrealistic on every level.

No, we are talking about a troll thread here, and large engagements ARE part of everyday combat here... and the graphics have to be implimented accordingly.

It's like saying that in classic ASTEROIDS the graphics are superior because the asteroids break up when shot, and that EvE should be able to "easily" do the same thing. Of course the truth of the matter is that for EvE to incorporate something like that effectively on the scale required will require Tessellation, which while doable is far from simple.

But that's okay, keep milking it. It's a slow day and this is fairly amusing.

BS >.>


My specs

Intel 2500K @4.5Ghz
128mb SSD
16GB DDR3
Nvidia 560ti max OC'ed
24" @ 1080P
+22" secondary screen (desktop)

Get into a scene with a lot of ships and translucent background effect and you can see and feel the frame rate drop under 30. BF3 however it runs maxed out @ 60.

Unless you have some magical fairy dusted 6 year old hardware going on there.

Grats on the new setup \o/

Its not that i just had to have 1080P but more that i just wanted a 24" screen and the 560ti would have no problem doing that in any game (maybe except Crysis 3) But of course on a 1024x768 res you can run it fine on old H/w,

btw SSAO, eve has this ?

SSAO.
Screen Space Ambient Occlusion.

It's a software implementation. This would have worked back in the era of 386,
if the speed would have been there. The only reason this didn't happen,
was because nobody figured it out yet and it would have been too slow anyway.

The reason it's used NOW is because it took until Vladimir from Crytek figured it out,
which has nothing to do with the hardware or the Direct3D-version.
RenderToTexture is a "feature" implemented eons ago.

Most of you people aren't even qualified to post in this thread.

Did i read crap about a server handling graphics for the client ?
Yeah, that guy really shot the bird with his post. Moron.