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Work progress - 0.9.7.2
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| Azirphaeli | Date: Friday, 12.12.2014, 15:45 | Message # 931 |
 Space Tourist
Group: Users
United States
Messages: 32
Status: Offline
| IMO: 16k across the board, even for earth, and keep the larger download. At the end of the day it'll look better and the tradeoff is to wait a few seconds to a few minutes longer to see it.
~
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| Hati | Date: Friday, 12.12.2014, 16:04 | Message # 932 |
 Observer
Group: Users
United Kingdom
Messages: 16
Status: Offline
| 128k looks amazing... but I can see the issue with download times and memory usage. Just... release two versions?
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| second-ich | Date: Friday, 12.12.2014, 16:18 | Message # 933 |
 Space Pilot
Group: Users
Germany
Messages: 87
Status: Offline
| I think 258x258 tiles seems more reasonable because of the performance.
Quote SpaceEngineer (  ) Or should I keep the better resolution if planet could be fit into 100 Mb size?
Yes, of course!
Quote SpaceEngineer ( ) Earth is a planet with a most massive textures, because its surface is RGBA textures (color + specular in alpha), which could be saved only in PNG file format (JPG doesdn't support alpha channel)
Maybe you could use a RGB JPG and another grayscale RGB for the specular map?
Conclusion:
I would say if it mainly tackle the startup time than use a higher resolution but if the "game" starts to lag than use a lower one.
Edited by second-ich - Friday, 12.12.2014, 16:22 |
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| Handbanana | Date: Friday, 12.12.2014, 16:33 | Message # 934 |
 Astronaut
Group: Users
United States
Messages: 70
Status: Offline
| My personal opinion is that higher resolution of the planets is more important than keeping file size low. If it takes a couple hundred more megabytes to give Earth a pretty look then so be it.
I'll admit that I may have an unfair opinion since with my computer, performance and file-size is a non-issue.
Tonight... you.
Edited by Handbanana - Friday, 12.12.2014, 16:38 |
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| Inarius | Date: Friday, 12.12.2014, 16:50 | Message # 935 |
 Explorer
Group: Local Moderators
France
Messages: 237
Status: Offline
| I don't care a lot about Earth.
Can you tell us more about performance with each type of texture ? How long does it take to display a random landscape on a random planet, for example, with a strong and a weak computer ?
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| JonasTheRoman | Date: Friday, 12.12.2014, 18:16 | Message # 936 |
 Observer
Group: Users
Germany
Messages: 18
Status: Offline
| x128k looks amazing!
I would prefer 16k over 8k, because hard disk space is not a problem for most people I think (especially within the scope of a few hundreds of megabytes).
Of course the download time would increase, but still, I think it is not a big deal for most of the people. If you have a very bad connection, downloading over 1gb takes long anyway.
And the performance wouldn't increase that much anyway, if you would be using 8k textures, I guess?
I think the better looks are worth it, especially compared to the space view of the planet with 8k textures.
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| Fireinthehole | Date: Friday, 12.12.2014, 18:39 | Message # 937 |
 Pioneer
Group: Translators
Sweden
Messages: 356
Status: Offline
| Is x128 the resolution of Earth now or is it an upcomming feature?
Love SpaceEngine!
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| sniper23 | Date: Friday, 12.12.2014, 18:57 | Message # 938 |
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Observer
Group: Newbies
United Kingdom
Messages: 9
Status: Offline
| I think 8 is enough , but other 16k and 128k packages should be downloadable .
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| j2oss | Date: Friday, 12.12.2014, 19:01 | Message # 939 |
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Observer
Group: Newbies
Canada
Messages: 3
Status: Offline
| I vote for 16k with 128k available as an Addon. (Looks absolutely gorgeous! Keep up the great work, can't wait for the release!)
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| Karakurt | Date: Friday, 12.12.2014, 19:08 | Message # 940 |
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Space Tourist
Group: Users
France
Messages: 20
Status: Offline
| Quote j2oss ( ) I vote for 16k with 128k available as an Addon.
Same here.
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| werdnaforever | Date: Friday, 12.12.2014, 19:24 | Message # 941 |
 World Builder
Group: Users
Pirate
Messages: 897
Status: Offline
| The new terrain looks great! I was worried SpaceEngine was falling behind Orbiter when I saw that video of the Orbiter beta. I knew the gap wouldn't last long!
I also think 16K would be good to include as default, with 128K as an optional download.
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| Watsisname | Date: Friday, 12.12.2014, 20:29 | Message # 942 |
 Galaxy Architect
Group: Global Moderators
United States
Messages: 2613
Status: Offline
| If the 16k textures fit within 100MB size, I'd say keep 'em, but otherwise reducing to 8k sounds fine. The visible reduction in quality is a lot less than the reduction in memory.
Keep the high-res textures as optional downloadable packs. I don't think everyone should be forced to have a larger SE size and memory/VRAM usage just for a prettier Earth texture. It should be available for those who want it. 
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| FastFourierTransform | Date: Friday, 12.12.2014, 20:33 | Message # 943 |
 Pioneer
Group: Local Moderators
Spain
Messages: 542
Status: Offline
| First of all
Quote werdnaforever ( ) I also think 16K would be good to include as default, with 128K as an optional download.
I also agree with that.
Second, thank you somuch Vñadimir for your hard work on making this masterpiece. I can't be sufficiently thankfull Love those city lights everytime I see your pictures of the next version.
Third, I've noticed 3 facts that I want adress about things that could make city lights even better:
- The lights cut abruptely on the terminator, but I think it would be more realistic if those lights ramificate and entered the day hemisphere a little in different locations (at dawn many cities are illuminated). The problem is that there is a uniform gradient that turns on the lights when you cross the terminator. The fact is that the lights of a city are turned on with the same intensity even if it's still noon. I think I can't explain myself hahahahaha
- The other issue is that these are not totally "lights". I see little contrast and a lot of light looks only like yellow color with a gradient to the grey. Nightside lights maybe need more brightness and need not to dissipate in grey tones in the outer parts of a city. Maybe I'm totally wrong.
- And the last issue is about clouds. Why it seems that night side has no clouds? why they cross the terminator and then dissapear when they enter the night side? Are the clouds semitransparent so the light of the cities filtrate through the clouds and make them glow a little like in real life?
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| Mosfet | Date: Friday, 12.12.2014, 20:38 | Message # 944 |
 World Builder
Group: Users
Italy
Messages: 754
Status: Offline
| Quote SpaceEngineer ( ) should I keep the better resolution if planet could be fit into 100 Mb size?
better resolution is better
I'd say 16k as default and 128k as addon it's the best "business card" that SE could have now.
Quote second-ich ( ) Maybe you could use a RGB JPG and another grayscale RGB for the specular map?
this way is still missing the alpha (transparency) information I believe.
Quote Inarius ( ) performance with each type of texture ? How long does it take to display a random landscape on a random planet
I thought random landscapes didn't use textures at all
"Time is illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."
Douglas N. Adams
My mods
Asus x555ub: cpu i5-6200u - ram 4gb - gpu nvidia geforce 940m 2gb vram
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| SpaceEngineer | Date: Friday, 12.12.2014, 21:17 | Message # 945 |
 Author of Space Engine
Group: Administrators
Russian Federation
Messages: 4800
Status: Offline
| Quote second-ich ( ) Maybe you could use a RGB JPG and another grayscale RGB for the specular map?
This is an idea I have during years, but still can't implement it.
Quote Fireinthehole ( ) Is x128 the resolution of Earth now or is it an upcomming feature?
Quote werdnaforever ( ) The new terrain looks great! I was worried SpaceEngine was falling behind Orbiter when I saw that video of the Orbiter beta. I knew the gap wouldn't last long!
did you ever use the official hi-res Earth addon? This is the same textures, with the same resolution.
Quote Watsisname ( ) and memory/VRAM usage just for a prettier Earth texture
You know what if you don't go to Earth, its textures don't loaded to memory, right? The issue here is only the release distribution size.
Quote FastFourierTransform ( ) - The lights cut abruptely on the terminator, but I think it would be more realistic if those lights ramificate and entered the day hemisphere a little in different locations (at dawn many cities are illuminated). The problem is that there is a uniform gradient that turns on the lights when you cross the terminator. The fact is that the lights of a city are turned on with the same intensity even if it's still noon. I think I can't explain myself hahahahaha
I can't change their behaviour "at different places". This needed additional texture layer (to code light switching time) or procedural texture. This can't be implemented now.
Quote FastFourierTransform ( ) - The other issue is that these are not totally "lights". I see little contrast and a lot of light looks only like yellow color with a gradient to the grey. Nightside lights maybe need more brightness and need not to dissipate in grey tones in the outer parts of a city. Maybe I'm totally wrong.
There is no gradient, they are uniformly yellow across all Earth (colored lights are supported of course, but increasing the pack size 3 times have no significant purpose). The gradient you has talking about is an lights extinction in the atmosphere.
Quote FastFourierTransform ( ) - And the last issue is about clouds. Why it seems that night side has no clouds? why they cross the terminator and then dissapear when they enter the night side? Are the clouds semitransparent so the light of the cities filtrate through the clouds and make them glow a little like in real life?
They didn't disappear. You simply can't notice them on a static picture, because they look like reducing of the lights brightness. BTW making clouds lit by city lights is extremely difficult.
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