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Put the rust back on the widow it made if feel much more like a black ops type ship now it just looks plastic

The ishkur and the enyo will get their own look in a later release.

The new rendering obscures and waters down the detail on every single ship in the game.

This is similar to what I observed on some of the other ships like the Barghest. I'm just downloading the new update so we'll see what all may have changed…

Overall: I like the tweaks and improvements, but there still seems to be an appreciable loss of detail and all the Caldari ships look really flat (this includes regular, Navy, skinned and Pirate variants such as Guristas and Mordus Legion).

The new Physically Based Rendering is much brighter on one hand, but eliminates any ambient light caused by the nebula and other space object. Is this still a work in progress?

I'm sorry, but this really isn't an improvement, where one side is appropriately lit, while the other side is completely black, even though the background nebula is bright. It just doesn't look seamless and loses detail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6yPPuTy5UY&list=UU6L76TQIxYnWrkQrF7tErSg

Now!

Kaalakiota : was cleaning again. (before / after image)
Duvolle : Proper luster (gloss was too severe)
Minmatar(T2 contains) : Was a little brighter. Remove rust. It's clean (after image)
Ark : not bad, good (after image)

This shouldn't have been said until like an hour before the blog release. Now we're all sitting here waiting for it and it hasn't happened yet D:

T2 Duvolle ships look a bit bland. Like the Maulus has this nice matt green over the metallic hull. But the Keres looks too much matt grey covered with this bland sand yellow. A bit of gloss on the yellow maybe? Gloss isn't bad, as long as its moderate

Just when you thought I was gone, I'm not - and today I have commentary about Megathron hulls.

A long time ago, I remember watching an interview about EVE. They were talking to someone in the art department, I believe and the relevant part was where this person was explaining the philosophy behind item designs in EVE. This was pre-Trinity and things like cans looked overwhelmingly different. Anyway, he said that (for reasons I don't remember) everything in EVE was intended to look old and worn and used; rust and dirt and corrosion and decay just everywhere because this isn't a pristine, well-maintained society we're living in. Looking over the ships, I get a strong feeling like we're going back to that kind of philosophy again after a few years now of shiny ships and everything coming into the game looking fresh and new and well-maintained.

While I'm not posting to disagree with going back to those design roots (if in fact that's what is going on here) I do want to say that in some places it can feel a little harsh to see clean surfaces suddenly covered in rust.

With that in mind, I would like to suggest that maybe the rust effect on the Megathron hull be toned down a bit - especially on the inside, between the hull prongs. It gives the whole ship this kind of Minmatar feel, like maybe someone has been spending too much time doing fancy Gallentean drugs and not enough time doing the ship maintenance I paid them for.

The Quafe and Navy megathrons have the same rust effect going on, although their color schemes conceal it better than the base Megathron does. It's a bit less noticeable on the Navy mega, as it blends in better. It stands out a bit more noticeably on the Quafe megathron, where the brown rust doesn't blend in with the black paint. I'll refer back to the Quafe mega later, so keep it in mind.

Moving on a moment to the Kronos, I looked all around the ship. I'm alt-tabbing again and again to keep looking as I write this. It looks a lot better than the last time I said anything about it, so good work on that. I can't seem to find any particular traces of rust between the hull prongs though.

If the hull prongs on the Megathron-based hulls were cleaned up to be more like the prongs on the Kronos and if the color patches on top of the prongs and around the ship were a bit shinier than the rest of the ship, (like how the Quafe Edition's blue patches are just slightly shinier) then I personally think the ship would be much improved.

Obviously I don't work for the art team but it seems to me as if someone decided "T1 ships should be rusty and dirty while T2 ships should be maintained and not rusty." I do remember how the Nighthawk was, though, so perhaps this is a misinterpretation on my part. Let's move on to the final Megathron hull, though.

The Vindicator: Famous (or infamous) throughout EVE, beloved (and equally hated) by many and probably the signature ship of the Serpentis line. It's a lot better now than it was when the PBR was first implemented on SiSi, but I don't think it's quite there yet.

Remember that rust I keep going on about? If anything, the Vindicator has even more of it. Sure, it's a pirate ship and pirates are outside the law and don't have access to the amenities of Empire but we're talking about Serpentis, though. They started off as legitimate science with plenty of science money and started to deal in all kinds of things (including drugs and slavery) and roll around in drug/abduction/science money for amusement. Serpentis ships have always been sleek and clean and above all else almost completely black.

The Vindicator isn't. The Vindicator looks like a black ship where paint has corroded away to reveal brown underneath - maybe like someone left it outside in the salt and snow and ice over the winter.

It was a little tough to see at first, which is why I had this feeling about the Vindicator that something wasn't right but couldn't quite figure out what, but then I noticed that the outer surfaces of the hull have all that aforementioned brown. I said I'd be mentioning the Quafe Edition again, and here it is: The Quafe Edition doesn't have this mixture of black and brown all over it and looks amazing for the unity of color. The same goes for the Kronos.

Remove all the brown from the outside of the Vindicator, like in that notched area behind the outside of the front prongs and in the middle of the ship, where you've got that kind of angular structure coming up above the drone bay and the sides of the control tower. Turn all of that black. If you want to have weathering and rust, keep it as details and not a measurable part of the color scheme.

The forward part of the prongs, on the outside where it's black plating and the rear quarters of the ship where it's black plating as well with those pieces that jut out on each side for hardpoints - those outermost bits of black plating are very well-done and if the entire ship was like that, with the rust and dirt kept minimal (even more minimal than on the base/Navy Mega), then I think an appropriate balance between weathering and sleek black ominous-ness would be struck with the Vindicator.

Then the Ark needs the gloss as well, although I'd prefer if it just remained as it is right now.

I pointed out the switched colors on these ships a couple of pages back. Hopefully, CCP changes that back. It looks kind of OK on the Crusader, but Pilgrim and Retribution are a no go.

If the minmatar brown was more of a reddish brown than the neutral or yellowish brown it's becoming, then I think the ships overall would look a lot better.