Bug :: Mysterious Deep-Space Light.

[ADCK]

Kind of hard to put this in the bug category, as it seems intentional...

But when misjumping on purpose, I notice that in the deep space void between worlds, there is a mysterious source of light that lights up all the ships, as if some invisible Star resides there, the ships all recieve the same amount of light they would get when they are actually right next to the sun...

Just an immersion thing really.

Also, on an unrelated note, is there an addon like system redux, but for suns? All the suns are exactly the same size, colour and type of star. I wanna see variety, more realistic.

[Svengali]

But when misjumping on purpose, I notice that in the deep space void between worlds, there is a mysterious source of light that lights up all the ships, as if some invisible Star resides there, the ships all recieve the same amount of light they would get when they are actually right next to the sun...

I wouldn't like to get only black ships .-)

Also, on an unrelated note, is there an addon like system redux, but for suns? All the suns are exactly the same size, colour and type of star. I wanna see variety, more realistic.

The suns are already of different size and color. The colors are a bit subtle and the differences are best seen in the corona. Depending on your GFX-card and display you will see (or not) the differences.

[ADCK]

I wouldn't like to get only black ships .-)

With shaders (hull glows, engine glows) they wouldn't be completely black, and there would still be some light from nearby systems, just no where near as bright.

The suns are already of different size and color. The colors are a bit subtle and the differences are best seen in the corona. Depending on your GFX-card and display you will see (or not) the differences.

They're all white and the same size for me. And its not my graphics card, (see: https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?t=6612&start=15 ) There's no red giants, or tiny green stars... theyre all blue/white tiny stars.

[another_commander]

Gameplay is more inportant than realism. If we switched off all lights in witchspace, might as well render a completely black screen, but that would not make a very good game, would it? And what if I don't have shaders for showing the engine glows etc., would I be doomed to not see anything in witchspace?

As for the suns being the same, this is incorrect. Each sun has already its own set of properties, like light color, size, corona flare, etc. Most of it is already changeable by scripts.

[ADCK]

As for the suns being the same, this is incorrect. Each sun has already its own set of properties, like light color, size, corona flare, etc. Most of it is already changeable by scripts.

What about the areas I'm describing (the voids between systems) Can we manually change them in an OXP?

And also, about the ability to change the system suns, if i made a red sun for a system, would the ships in that area have a red glow? (with shaders)

And what if I don't have shaders for showing the engine glows etc., would I be doomed to not see anything in witchspace?

If you didn't have shaders, it wouldn't effect you at all, as things like lighting are what the shaders do, can't get darkness w/o shaders.

[DaddyHoggy]

If you didn't have shaders, it wouldn't effect you at all, as things like lighting are what the shaders do, can't get darkness w/o shaders.

No, shaders in Oolite are what add all the additional effects to the standard diffuse map of the texture, without an ambient light source defined, Oolite space would be completely black - notice how the 'dark side' of planets are never completely black even though with a single sun they should be almost completely black (and as Oolite doesn't model atmospheric scattering) then it should actually be completely black without this 'gameplay enhancing' background light.

[ADCK]

(disregard)

[another_commander]

What about the areas I'm describing (the voids between systems) Can we manually change them in an OXP?

And also, about the ability to change the system suns, if i made a red sun for a system, would the ships in that area have a red glow? (with shaders)

Have a look in the planetinfo.plist page in the wiki. It contains all of the information you require regarding sun properties that can be changed and also the ambient_level setting, which you may find useful.

Changing the sun light color, will result in ships having their colors affected. See the Coriolis in the screens below, I have switched Lave to full blue sun color first, orange color afterwards.


Regarding the comment about lack of shaders not affecting anything, well, it would. If we start with a totally unlit scene without ambient light, how is one supposed to see anything? Applying shader glows to engines or lightmap effects to ships would be the only way to see some part of them.

[ADCK]

What about the areas I'm describing (the voids between systems) Can we manually change them in an OXP?

And also, about the ability to change the system suns, if i made a red sun for a system, would the ships in that area have a red glow? (with shaders)

Have a look in the planetinfo.plist page in the wiki. It contains all of the information you require regarding sun properties that can be changed and also the ambient_level setting, which you may find useful.

Changing the sun light color, will result in ships having their colors affected. See the Coriolis in the screens below, I have switched Lave to full blue sun color first, orange color afterwards.

Nice, i wonder though, it seems to be a very soft light, is it possible to make a harsh blinding light, eg: from a red giant that would make things glow a deep red?

Also, is it possible to retexture a sun?

Also, OpenGL supports HDRR (High Dynamic Range Rendering) doesn't it?
That could be used to make dark things appear dark yet still visible in space, if i recall correctly.
Getting the devs to implement it though... probably won't happen... with only 1 light source i can't really picture them prioritising lighting.

[another_commander]

ADCK: I am not sure that what you want can be achieved. The chosen sun color is blended with white to achieve what you normally see as ambient light, so I don't think it is possible to have very bright or intense sky colors.

Retexturing of the sun is not possible at this stage.

[ADCK]

ADCK: I am not sure that what you want can be achieved. The chosen sun color is blended with white to achieve what you normally see as ambient light, so I don't think it is possible to have very bright or intense sky colors.

Retexturing of the sun is not possible at this stage.

That's too bad, I was wanting to improve the suns, with amazing looking planets/ships/objects done through oxp's, there's only one thing that looks rather poor graphically, that being the sun.

[another_commander]

Run a quick test. This is what the Coriolis shown previously would look like if we did not blend the sky color with white for the final effect. Pure red sky color is shown here. I have mixed feelings about how nice it looks. And it is true that the sun could be improved, but I guess this a project for the future.

[Cmd. Cheyd]

ADCK-
I've inquired on this subject myself when I first got here as I agree, with great planets, ships, stations, etc - The suns seem rather lacking. My understanding is that the sun is not an actually a sphere in game, but rather a large flat disk. It would require MASSIVE recoding to change this, and so was rejected as an upgrade idea. I'll go digging for the thread and see if I can find the explanation therein, as I may be mis-remembering it.

EDIT:
DOH, it was a PM and I believe I've deleted it. Anyways, is this something more like what you were wanting to see?





Just some mockups I'd done using a "solar" texture on a planet.

[Commander McLane]

@ADCK: One question. Have you ever attempted to fly towards a sun, like for skimming fuel? If you had (in different systems), you would have stumbled across the very obvious fact that suns are not the same size everywhere. Your altimeter would show very different heights above the sun when starting the fuel scoops, because you have to fly much closer to a small sun in order to start the process. Also a bigger sun will heat you up much faster.

And while the colour differences may be subtle (a reddish white, a greenish white, a blueish white, ...), I think they are hard to overlook when the sun fills your screen, and they are also very well visible in the ambient light of the system. And if you would employ one of your side views while sunskimming, you would also see at once the clear differences in the colour of the corona.

[Kaks]

One thing nobody has mentioned is the way our eyes automatically colour correct for bright lights.

If you were to fly close to a red dwarf, it'll look pretty white to the naked eye, regardless of what it might look like from a distance (distance being defined in light years, not AUs)

About solar textures, what Cmd. Cheyd says!
It's something I thought about when I redid some of the planets code for 1.73, but - again to the naked eye - It's almost impossible to tell individual features on the sun's surface due to its brightness, and Sol is a pretty dim star to begin with...
The amount of rewriting to get it working 'just right' would have meant quite a big delay in releasing 1.73, and it's definitely not a feature planned for 1.74!
As always, if there's a patch coming from anyone, by all means, we'll test it & include it in the code if there's no problems with it!