Player Features and Ideas Discussion

First off, I'm very pleased to see that attention is finally being paid to updating station interiors. I know that I for one, spend an unwarranted amount of time in there whether I like it or not...

I'd like to open up an honest critique of the updated station visuals with a focus on providing a list of minor tweaks and changes to really make these environments shine.

Overall, I'd like to avoid any suggestions that include changes to the actual geometry of of the station interiors. This is to maintain ease of implementation, because updating texture files is significantly easier on an art pipeline than reworking an entire in-game asset.

Hopefully, CCP will notice this thread and some of the feedback here will be included in the upcoming expansion. Also, I hope we can get some comment from one of CCP's artists about how the shaders are set up for these objects (map inputs ect.) Knowing what kind of tech is being used would allow much more accurate suggestions...

Anyway, on to the meat and potatoes



An anatomy of the updated Caldari interior:

http://s1300.photobucket.com/user/canofjuice/media/Caldari_hangar_anat_zps72f9b7e6.jpg.html?sort=3&o=1

This is mainly to put everyone on the same page so the suggestions made here are at least a little better informed. I'm more or less guessing here, and I'm sure I got some things wrong and/or missed other things.



Anyway, on to my critique.

The Caldari hangar seems to have received an updated shader model which added improved specularity, as well as a number of new map inputs.

It also recieved new decals, particle and FX emitters, little animated elevators, ship models flying around in the background (on a path), and (possibly) some updated diffuse textures.

All of these changes look great, and I personally am quite happy with them. My issue with the updated Caldari hangar is actually the things that weren't changed.

http://s1300.photobucket.com/user/canofjuice/media/Caldari_hangar_corrected_zps17c7db65.jpg.html?sort=3&o=0


I'll start by proposing the removal of the fog effect. I realize that its function is to help create the illusion of distance, the way that terrestrial objects often appear hazy as they get further.

Unfortunately fog of this type cannot take shadows or lighting into account, and cause areas that would naturally be dark (such as the hangar entryway), to instead be highlighted in the color that the fog has been set to. Instead, there are two simple changes that would achieve the desired effect without the detriments of the current system.

The main area of interest for the current fog, is the passageway outside the ship hangar proper.

The better way to simulate the distance of this area would be to create a localized haze effect by re-purposing whatever is used to create the in-space nebulae. I'm not entirely sure how that tech works, so I'm completely open to suggestions as to how that would be implemented.

Addittionally, I would add some strong up-lighting to the exterior passageway to create more dramatic lighting for the passing ships. Using up as opposed to down-lighting would help to seperate the passageway from the rest of the interior, as well as reference the complete lack of orientation that exists in space.


The other trouble with the Caldari hanger, is that being Caldari, its mostly grey. With only what appears to be a single white directional light in place, this causes the entire scene to sort of blend together (not in the good way.)

To change this, I'd suggest strengthening the scene's lighting (either by changing the settings for the scene's directional, or including additional light sources). The idea here is to create higher contrast regions of light and dark, and therefore add more visual depth to the scene.

As well, I'd change the main directional lights color to be slightly blue. This would be in keeping with the Caldari theme, and would add a unifying color to tie all of the scene's elements together. (All the other station interiors actually have colored directionals)



Anway that's all I can think of for now. If people are interested, I'll do critiques on the other hangars as well. Otherwise, discuss at-will.

-Tiff

Both impressive display of knowledge, and an impressive display of skill in your links.


I really like what you did with it! +1 (inb4 CCP job offer)

To an extent, you're absoloutely right. However that doesn't negate the importance of proper lighting. The primary problem is that right now when you sit in that hangar, you can actually lose ships against the background. The ships are grey, the walls are grey, the fog is grey, everything is tiled paneling, and there's no real shadows to delineate the background from the foreground.

That's actually one of the basic rules of composition, you light your area of interest, and shade everything else.

To your point however, the geometry DOES need to be updated *eventually*. Right now there's some awkward texture stretching in places where the geometry wasn't UVW'd properly. As well, let's face it, the GIANT fan up on the wall as neat as it is really just doesn't suit the scene.

Although if they wanted to keep it, I'd say to actually re-use it to make an entire bank of much smaller fans in varying locations. You could take the fan's geometry textures and animations, shrink them down, and float them as a seperate tile over the existing geometry. Doing that would also help with preservation of scale, right now the existing fan is somewhat larger than a battleship.

I don't know how CCP's engine handles parented objects but normally that would work fine, even if its being imported that way.

Me gusta!

The interior feels too lighted. This is supposed to be space, even if it is inside a station. How strong the lights are when they can lit so fast areas of space? Not to talk about hazy light. It should be somewhat darker, and what ever lights there are, make them shine and glitter more like stars. Otherwise it feels pony hazy instead of science fiction.

Have you simulated what happens if you have vast open space and some lights and how the lighting appears in there? I can't believe it is so hazy and foggy. It should be vacuum as it is pointless to have air in there.

Google dark hall for images and you see nice good examples. The haze needs to go, add more contrast, and there can be lights too, but more epic instead of just hazyfog all over.