Ultimate space simulation software

 
Roy
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I request shadows

19 Feb 2021 17:08

You mean exactly how he cringes looking at water, horizon, purple planets and absence of shadows?
 
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HarbingerDawn
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I request shadows

19 Feb 2021 23:07

You mean exactly how he cringes looking at water, horizon, purple planets and absence of shadows?
So why would you want to add another thing to that list?

Also there is no physical reason why a planet cannot be purple.
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Roy
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I request shadows

20 Feb 2021 07:09

Because we had 10 years and that was not enough to make things qualitatively as u see it, so this will be totally fair to say they will never happen if you keep the same line. On the other side halo and many other things can be done the simple way in a few days. Better we have effects done primitively but for real rather than perfect but never done.
 
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HarbingerDawn
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I request shadows

20 Feb 2021 14:17

Because we had 10 years and that was not enough to make things qualitatively as u see it, so this will be totally fair to say they will never happen if you keep the same line. On the other side halo and many other things can be done the simple way in a few days. Better we have effects done primitively but for real rather than perfect but never done.
You are talking as if nothing at all was done in 10 years, which isn't the case. A ton of things were done, just not these specific things. Therefore, it is totally possible that the things you're talking about will indeed be done in the future even if things continue as they have in the past. Your entire argument is flawed.
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midtskogen
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I request shadows

20 Feb 2021 15:25

Halos could be added as a 2d png texture with small shining effect which is auto-enabled if the camera is
1. In atmosphere
and
2. In a low temperature zone.
That's all it takes. It's one day of work.
That would be similar to implementing atmospheric rendering as changing the background colour to blue if the camera is:
1. In the atmosphere
and
2. On the night side of a planet.
and declare: That's all it takes.  It's done in a day.

A proper implementation of halos would have to take into account the composition of the atmosphere and consider what kind of crystals could form (ice doesn't imply only water here), what kind of dust it could hold, or droplets.  Plumes from cryovolcanos would require new modelling.  Also, some sense of depth and density of particle clouds must be modelled and be reflected in the rendering.  It could even involve original research to create those textures correctly (if implemented that way), because I don't think there has been much research done on this (hey, university students reading this - if you would like your master's thesis or whatever to offer new research and this could fit in your field, here's an idea for you).  Some limited simulations can be found here and here.

Halos would not only offer a new dimension to the atmospheric rendering, but also bring some stunning views.  Whilst pre-rendered textures with some relatively simple masking could be pragmatic way to display such halos, the graphical representation is only a small part of a proper implementation.
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Roy
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I request shadows

20 Feb 2021 16:53

Why not go both ways? First work for quantity, create many natural phenomena in a simple way in a short time and later work in details when resources, time, money, programmers will appear for this. Look at the rings, the hands reached their detailed implementation only recently. What would happen if the authors had not make them at all before that point?
 
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HarbingerDawn
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I request shadows

20 Feb 2021 18:52

Some things can be made in a simple way without being grossly inaccurate. Rings are one of those things. Halos and shadows are not.
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midtskogen
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I request shadows

21 Feb 2021 10:29

Roy, then you have explained to yourself why no proper shadows yet.  First the simple shadows which were implemented early, later the details which require a very different approach.

Halos are not permanent features like rings, on many planets surely quite rare, so a simplistic implementation might not be worthwhile.
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Jokovich
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I request shadows

24 Feb 2021 11:19

I requested ice halos, I don't know - almost 10 years ago? 192.168.1.1
Halos could be added as a 2d png texture with small shining effect which is auto-enabled if the camera is
1. In atmosphere
and
2. In a low temperature zone.
That's all it takes. It's one day of work.
There is a lot of negative mood here, guys relax, everything will be fine soon.
 
NaNexistsInSpace
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Re: I request shadows

16 Jan 2024 14:40

About the discussion about emergent effects (based on the rendering equation when the rendering is done with raytracing or pathtracing) like shadows and halos: 

Give the team time to implement it correctly without piling to many (graphic) hacks (such as faking halos with textures) on top of each other like there is no tomorrow. This almost always leads to a big messy codebase because it handles emergent effects as a big tree of if-else statements, instead of the actual more correct and most of the time more compact code which explains these emergent effects and a lot more than what was and can be considered by humans (simply speaking).

The physics simulation of the engine (temperature of planet based on distance to suns, emission of suns, etc.) etc. is AWESOME. This includes the renderer, even if it is aged somewhat (every renderer ages, even pathracing renderers age). The output of the engine is always inspiring me to code up some code which attempts to implement a similar thing. It's just a great piece of software.

While some other people seem to seek only gameplay (as done in some "space" / space games). This is fine too, but short lived.
 
NaNexistsInSpace
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Re: I request shadows

18 Jan 2024 17:28

Also raytracing is still a thing for most power PCs, most players in the world are not able to use it. All good games try to support the old solutions keeping raytracing as an option only.
I am not so sure that most computers can't do some light raytracing (ray vs sphere of celestial body) in realtime. Yes it should be an option but it's nice to have.
SE is under development for 14 years.
point taken.
I literally heard a story of a big fan who died several years ago without seeing SE in a state he wished. And this is a story I know. How many we more we don't know? A lot of people died those years.
Point taken. Sure this project isn't developing as some hoped/planned. Other software will render this software obsolete at some point.
Yes, there is also still a lack of decent emulation / simulation space games in general.
I am not really a fanboy, I would jump ships when there were a comparable software (which still doesn't exist).
I was also waiting more than 5 years till "Limit Theory" was playable. At least it's fully OSS now, unlike Space Engine which may be for ever kept close source (which is itself sad).
 
NaNexistsInSpace
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Re: I request shadows

18 Jan 2024 17:32

You also forgot to take into account that Space Engine is doing a lot of pretty complicated things under the hood. For example procedural terrain generation and texture generation. Not even Unreal Engine 4/5 or Godot 4 etc. come with that by default.

Not speaking of the countless code to generate star systems, render volumetric effects, etc. . All the support code to do that in realtime. Etc.
 
EthanRivers
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Re: I request shadows

22 Jan 2024 14:48

thanks for bringing this up.

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