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CCP Darwin
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Posted - 2015.12.09 13:04:21 -
[1] - Quote
Regarding camera field of view, we are looking into whether any changes to our camera system might have unintentionally affected the existing camera's field of view. Nothing to report on this front yet. We did not intentionally change this parameter.
Previously to this patch, the star fields were added on top of the background nebulae. Now, nebulae occlude the star fields behind them to varying degrees. This means that you're able to get a better look at compression artifacts, which have always been present in our nebula textures. We're looking into our options for improving compression for these textures to reduce the artifacts you've pointed out in your screen shots.
Finally, I'm working with one of our art directors, CCP Nag, on optimizing our background starfield to reduce artifacts when zoomed in and sharpen the visual impression of the stars. This work is looking promising and would be a simple change, but as with the nebulae, it requires balancing quality against compression so that we don't kill your video card or deliver something with artifacts that feel worse than what's in game now.
There's no doubt that our new nebula setup has brought certain artifacts and imperfections in our assets to the forefront, but the technological groundwork is sound and we're doing what we can to deliver a higher-quality look for the sky background that addresses the issues you've raised here.
CCP Darwin GÇó Senior Technical Artist, EVE Online GÇó @mark_wilkins
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CCP Darwin
C C P
C C P Alliance
1759
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Posted - 2015.12.09 13:21:51 -
[2] - Quote
Solecist Project wrote:Why can't you make it procedural and end the discussion once and for all ?
There's algorithms out there.
The sky environment is a multi-part system that combines texture-mapped and procedural elements. The nebulae are not procedural because they're paintings, and we're not looking at a procedural alternative to that element at this time.
Quote:Or why not simply have a dithering algorithm run over it to reduce the banding?
Or what about high resolution nebulae?
As I indicated in my comments, we are looking at alternatives for delivering higher-quality nebulae. Some of these alternatives are promising, but they all involve delivering more data to the client and using more texture RAM on the video card than what we're doing currently.
Quote:And where is the slider? I can't find it ...
If you're asking about the brightness slider, press Esc to open the settings window. On the Display & Graphics tab, on the far right, you'll see a column labeled Graphic Content Settings. About a quarter of the way down is a button labeled Brightness. Click that and a window with the slider will appear.
(The reason the Brightness slider opens another window is that the Settings window darkens and occludes the scene you're trying to adjust with the slider, which would make adjusting the control more difficult than it has to be.)
CCP Darwin GÇó Senior Technical Artist, EVE Online GÇó @mark_wilkins
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CCP Darwin
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1762
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Posted - 2015.12.09 13:45:26 -
[3] - Quote
Solecist Project wrote:And sorry about me ranting. Minmatar space has been ugly for years now and the redish brown/black
contrasts make it the most ugly space to live in... :(
Most techniques for image compression sacrifice quality in reds and blues to achieve a better overall look for typical real-world scenes. Unfortunately, this isn't very kind to very red images like our Minmatar nebula backgrounds. I'll make sure that we carefully take a look at the impact on Minmatar nebulae as we discuss texture compression going forward.
CCP Darwin GÇó Senior Technical Artist, EVE Online GÇó @mark_wilkins
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CCP Darwin
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1770
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Posted - 2015.12.09 15:12:02 -
[4] - Quote
Daemun Khanid wrote:Please tell me at least that this is not an intended or unavoidable effect because it was obviously taken into consideration with the old system.
Long focal lengths (narrow fields of view) have always showed up severe artifacts in the sky backgrounds. The controls in the beta camera make it easier to wind up zoomed in, which makes these artifacts easier to see. Our efforts that I describe above should improve the results when you do this, but it's not a magic bullet. Zoom in enough on any raster image and it'll look bad.
CCP Darwin GÇó Senior Technical Artist, EVE Online GÇó @mark_wilkins
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CCP Darwin
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1782
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Posted - 2015.12.10 10:24:39 -
[5] - Quote
Nevyn Auscent wrote:
I'll happily take a small performance hit for high res nebula's and backgrounds, especially minmatar space. Minmatar space is often also very dark relative to the other area's of space for some reason as well which doesn't help.
Sometimes, and I'd say in this case, the performance question is less about a typical player taking a small fps hit and more about whether the game is playable at all on the minimum system specifications.
CCP Darwin GÇó Senior Technical Artist, EVE Online GÇó @mark_wilkins
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CCP Darwin
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C C P Alliance
1789
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Posted - 2015.12.10 18:04:51 -
[6] - Quote
Solecist Project wrote:
I appreciate his effort, I hope he's not discouraged...
They're all doing amazing work ... :/
Not discouraged at all, and thank you for the feedback on these nebula and star field changes.
CCP Darwin GÇó Senior Technical Artist, EVE Online GÇó @mark_wilkins
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CCP Darwin
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1796
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Posted - 2015.12.10 23:45:06 -
[7] - Quote
Kuronaga wrote:High res textures?
Oh. You mean the ones that are never coming.
Here's the update that I posted on the thread on that topic back in September:
CCP Darwin wrote:In this instance, it's because we got into doing it, then, looking at the images side-by-side, realized it didn't add much. All of us were surprised at how little a difference it made.
If we make this happen, it's going to be to check a box, not because it adds much to the look of the game.
Never is a long time, but as long as we can find ways to improve the look of the game that we feel provide better value for the time, we'll be doing those things instead.
CCP Darwin GÇó Senior Technical Artist, EVE Online GÇó @mark_wilkins
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CCP Darwin
C C P
C C P Alliance
1797
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Posted - 2015.12.11 00:21:47 -
[8] - Quote
Arthur Aihaken wrote:There is absolutely zero feeling of depth from my perspective. All I see are large areas of pixelated backgrounds. I don't know if this is a Mac-specific thing, but even a 4k monitor does nothing to smooth it out.
One thing to try before doing anything else is to visit the Displays section of System Preferences. Under the Color tab, you should be able to calibrate your display. Calibrate for your monitor's native white point and Gamma 2.2 (if you have that option).
You may well find that this, in itself, resolves the issue. If not, try using the new Brightness slider in-game. Even minor adjustments might make these artifacts less annoying.
CCP Darwin GÇó Senior Technical Artist, EVE Online GÇó @mark_wilkins
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CCP Darwin
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C C P Alliance
1800
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Posted - 2015.12.11 10:36:16 -
[9] - Quote
Memphis Baas wrote:Because the zoom isn't really a lens zoom, it's the camera drones moving closer to whatever we're looking at; and in reality when we move we get closer to nearby objects but the horizon, sky, stars, etc. stay at the same apparent distance as before.
Our camera can both dolly and zoom depending on your control inputs. If you see the star field magnified, you're zooming, i.e. increasing the focal length.
CCP Darwin GÇó Senior Technical Artist, EVE Online GÇó @mark_wilkins
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CCP Darwin
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1802
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Posted - 2015.12.11 18:34:48 -
[10] - Quote
That's actually a "dolly/zoom" where you dolly one way and zoom the other. A dolly by itself is a translation of the camera toward or away from the subject without zooming.
CCP Darwin GÇó Senior Technical Artist, EVE Online GÇó @mark_wilkins
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CCP Darwin
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1816
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Posted - 2015.12.13 22:45:57 -
[11] - Quote
Legion Masser wrote:Aren't textures the easiest of things to mod?
No, for two reasons. One is that many of the better options for texture compression require DX11, and we currently support DX9.
Second is that textures constitute most of the data we deliver to the client, so modest increases in texture size can have big impacts enlarging Eve's size footprint, required download bandwidth, and also overall graphics performance.
That's not to say that changing textures to fix an issue is a difficult task, but it's one that has to be balanced against our other tasks, and we have a busy spring lined up in the art department.
CCP Darwin GÇó Senior Technical Artist, EVE Online GÇó @mark_wilkins
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CCP Darwin
C C P
C C P Alliance
1826
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Posted - 2015.12.14 10:36:25 -
[12] - Quote
Solecist Project wrote:
Have you tried running your own little decompression algorithm on the shader?
Nebulae are mostly gradients...
Gentle color gradients are by far the hardest type of image to compress without visible artifacts.
CCP Darwin GÇó Senior Technical Artist, EVE Online GÇó @mark_wilkins
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