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Spikes, Gas Giants and some other things
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| MannaroThePatient | Date: Monday, 06.02.2012, 09:28 | Message # 1 |
 Observer
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Italy
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| First thing first: this program is THE "space thing" I'm waiting for a life!!! I grow up with Commodore 64 and Amiga, there I saw the early 3D space simulation with Elite and Elite II - Frontier. In 1995 there was a game I loved so much: Frontier First Encounters. On that game, the thing I most did was just exploring... but, damn!, i have to get fuel for that crap engines! And the hyperspace jump was always too short. I want just exploring those million of star system fractal/procedural generated.
When i casually saw this program i cant believe it. Literally trillion of space bodyes... I spend nights pick up random stars to... well, see... just see. And this program is still in developing, i can barely imagine what improvement you can make.
By my point of view, Space Engine should be focused on representation of spatial phenomenon, I saw pulsars still not well implemented and black holes should be improved maybe with the gamma ray burst. What about a whirpool effect?
But AS IS this program gone far far away my most optimistic expectations.
Now, if I can make some suggestion, i find the Diffraction Spikes quite intrusive. On direct view of a star the spike is sometime SO HUGE that engulf the whole screen that become nearly full of the color of the star. I know there is a Auto Exposure option and a way to disable spikes at all, but i think would be nice a way to control the size of those spikes. Maybe set a maximum, some like "over this size the spikes dont grows up".
Spikes shows also on all planets with sufficient albedo:
On distance sometimes i have difficult to understand if that thing is a star or a planet. Maybe should be an option to disable Diffraction Spikes on planets/moons.
Ice and Gas Giants: what about add the core? I mean a solid rock surface way below the uppermost clouds. Like other "solids" planets but with a HUGE atmosphere. Maybe we can encounter several layers of clouds, lights will decrease and finally we touch a surface. I know this will be impossible on real, well actually maybe, but as in Space Engine we can land on a black hole... ^^
Keep up the good work! You make an old 40th yo little boy very very happy.
PC: Intel i7 4Ghz, 32GB RAM, nVidia GeForce GTX 980Ti (6GB VRAM), Windows 10 PRO 64.
Edited by MannaroThePatient - Monday, 06.02.2012, 09:31 |
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| Robbie | Date: Monday, 06.02.2012, 10:20 | Message # 2 |
 Pioneer
Group: Global Moderators
United Kingdom
Messages: 590
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| Hi MannaroThePatient, you raise some interesting points, and I agree with most of your ideas wholeheartedly.
Quote (MannaroThePatient) Now, if I can make some suggestion, i find the Diffraction Spikes quite intrusive. On direct view of a star the spike is sometime SO HUGE that engulf the whole screen that become nearly full of the color of the star. I know there is a Auto Exposure option and a way to disable spikes at all, but i think would be nice a way to control the size of those spikes. Maybe set a maximum, some like "over this size the spikes dont grows up".
I had this particular problem myself on a planet where the diffraction spikes obscured a coastline landscape pretty badly. I tried filming an area to show the water reflection effect while descending to a planet surface, but the star's spikes literally overwhelmed the scene near the coastline, so I agree with you, it would be nice to have the diffraction spike length adjustable. Hopefully this is something SpaceEngineer can incorporate in a next release perhaps.
Quad Core i7 930 CPU o/c 3.8 GHz - 6GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM - ATI HD 5870 1024Mb - Intel SSD X25-M Gen 2 - Win 7 64-bit
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| SpaceEngineer | Date: Monday, 06.02.2012, 10:51 | Message # 3 |
 Author of Space Engine
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Russian Federation
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| Hi. Diffraction spikes are computed based upon brightness of a body. Why should they be limited? They are as big and bright as the star/planet. Only thing that I can do is have a slider that controls the size of spikes for everybody.
About gas giants - sorry, in reality they have no solid surface  Additionally, SpaceEngine's atmosphere can't work with very thick atmospheres, its height should be small compared to solid body radius, otherwhise it gives huge artifacts.
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| MannaroThePatient | Date: Monday, 06.02.2012, 12:12 | Message # 4 |
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Observer
Group: Users
Italy
Messages: 16
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| Quote (SpaceEngineer) Why should they be limited?
Er...
Click to full size image
Maybe just a little ^^' . Auto exposure works fine, but then there are no more stars on screen (yes, as should be in reality). Anyway, as an amateur photographer, I really appreciated the exposure controls on Space Engine (auto and manual).
PC: Intel i7 4Ghz, 32GB RAM, nVidia GeForce GTX 980Ti (6GB VRAM), Windows 10 PRO 64.
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| Phil | Date: Saturday, 26.05.2012, 18:57 | Message # 5 |
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Space Tourist
Group: Users
United Kingdom
Messages: 39
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| I was just looking for a solution to this too.
I also wish there was a way to make the diffraction spikes much more subtle when auto-exposure is disabled.
Edited by Phil - Saturday, 26.05.2012, 18:59 |
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| apenpaap | Date: Saturday, 26.05.2012, 22:39 | Message # 6 |
 World Builder
Group: Users
Antarctica
Messages: 1063
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| I like the diffraction spikes myself. It's exactly what a star does when you get close to it. It's not going to be nice and let you see the things you want to see, it says "Muhaha, I'm a star and I'm brighter than fuck and I shine in your eye, blinding you!" look up at the Sun to see what I mean.
I occasionally stream at http://www.twitch.tv/magistermystax. Sometimes SE, sometimes other games.
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| Phil | Date: Sunday, 27.05.2012, 08:33 | Message # 7 |
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Space Tourist
Group: Users
United Kingdom
Messages: 39
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| Sure, but if you're trying to get a nice screenshot, as most people are, the overwhelming spikes often spoil it (as illustrated in the above screenshot).
I'm assuming here that it is simply a matter of changing one or two parameters of the graphics engine, as with the other graphic settings in the config files.
IMO it would be better to have another spike setting sliding from 'off' through 'subtle' up to 'realistic' - which would be additional to the current spike quality setting (simple/normal/super) and the auto-exposure. So you could control and mute the spikes for any particular screenshot.
But in fact, the setting does not even need to be in the game menu - being able to edit the config file would be a huge improvement in itself.
Thanks for considering this suggestion.
Edited by Phil - Sunday, 27.05.2012, 09:01 |
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| HarbingerDawn | Date: Sunday, 27.05.2012, 11:50 | Message # 8 |
 Cosmic Curator
Group: Administrators
United States
Messages: 8717
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| Phil, you could take two screenshots, one with auto-exposure on and one with auto-exposure off and diffraction spikes disabled, and then photoshop them together to combine the stars with the spikes (in GIMP the appropriate layer blending mode is called "Lighten only"; I believe that it is similar in Photoshop).
Example attached: 
All forum users, please read this!
My SE mods and addons
Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2 GHz, 16 GB DDR3 RAM, GTX 970 3584 MB VRAM
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| Phil | Date: Sunday, 27.05.2012, 16:16 | Message # 9 |
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Space Tourist
Group: Users
United Kingdom
Messages: 39
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| Thanks for your suggestion. You're right, compositing is a nice workaround, and is fun in its own right.
However, a bit more control over the diffraction spikes and lens flare wouldn't do any harm either!
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| HarbingerDawn | Date: Monday, 28.05.2012, 01:39 | Message # 10 |
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Cosmic Curator
Group: Administrators
United States
Messages: 8717
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| Quote (Phil) a bit more control over the diffraction spikes and lens flare wouldn't do any harm either!
I absolutely agree. I just figured I'd make a suggestion that could be implemented immediately and not have to wait for another version
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My SE mods and addons
Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2 GHz, 16 GB DDR3 RAM, GTX 970 3584 MB VRAM
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| HarbingerDawn | Date: Friday, 28.09.2012, 10:55 | Message # 11 |
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Cosmic Curator
Group: Administrators
United States
Messages: 8717
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| Quote (apenpaap) Muhaha, I'm a star and I'm brighter than fuck and I shine in your eye
And four months later, it has been noticed. Apenpaap, you are the undisputed master of surreptitious rule-breaking...
All forum users, please read this!
My SE mods and addons
Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2 GHz, 16 GB DDR3 RAM, GTX 970 3584 MB VRAM
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| apenpaap | Date: Friday, 28.09.2012, 10:59 | Message # 12 |
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World Builder
Group: Users
Antarctica
Messages: 1063
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| ^Thank you.  It won't happen again.
I occasionally stream at http://www.twitch.tv/magistermystax. Sometimes SE, sometimes other games.
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