customization kit requests

[luckyluca]

Hello Vice,

I'm back to EM after a while (I was playing ER a couple of years ago) and I'm amazed at the improvements, EM feels really nice and very deep well done!

I was hoping, as part of the customization kit,
to being able to reduce the ambient light so that the shadow part of the objects would be black when in space.
Perhaps a config file with shaders and light/shadow parameters would be quite easy to implement?

Here's a comparison shot of what I'm trying to achieve
Also being able to do my own star background texture would be handy too






Thanks a lot and keep up the good work
Luca

[Edited on 9-18-2010 by luckyluca]

[Edited on 9-18-2010 by luckyluca]

[Vice]

You'd like the ambient light even darker? Wow, ok Send me an e-mail with that request, so I have a better chance of remembering to include it. I'd probably set up something like a text file like 'ambient.txt' that would let you specify what setting you want to apply.

[luckyluca]

I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing,
I'm referring to the part of the planet asteroids and ship in shadow.
I just fancy the idea of having it darker to simulate the harshness of space (black shadows and bright lit areas eheh).

I'll forward you this in an email too
Thanks a lot for looking into it!

L

Originally posted by Vice
You'd like the ambient light even darker? Wow, ok Send me an e-mail with that request, so I have a better chance of remembering to include it. I'd probably set up something like a text file like 'ambient.txt' that would let you specify what setting you want to apply.

[reaper2040]

This suggestion from luckyluca would certainly add realism. I always thought that one thing space simulations had to sacrifice for gameplay reasons was just what one would really see in deep space. I have heard that if one were to visit Saturn, for example, the view would not be nearly so spectacular as imagined because light levels are quite low that far from the sun.

Here's an idea I always thought would be cool: All cockpits or HUDS are equipped with an image enhancer (maybe adjustable) and battle damage could cause a failure leaving the pilot nearly blind when too far from a star or blinded from being too close. In a realistic environment, there would be few "sweet spots" that our eyes would be comfortable with.

[Vice]

I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing,
I'm referring to the part of the planet asteroids and ship in shadow.
I just fancy the idea of having it darker to simulate the harshness of space (black shadows and bright lit areas eheh).

Ambient light is basically what you're referring to. There is a base lighting level called 'ambient' that the graphics engine uses as a baseline for lighting the scene. Then various other lights are added for light from stars. When a side of an object isn't hit by the star light, it drops to the minimum ambient light level being used. By lowering that ambient level, the dark sides of objects will dim further, giving you that 'drop to black' look you're after.

[TGS]

Just be very careful with what you're suggesting... I'm all for realism and harshness of space but in reality "dark" objects literally cannot be seen at all from ambient light alone in space. If you were to fly a ship from earth to near the asteroid belt you'd find that you couldn't see any of the asteroids. That could make getting within shooting/mining range of asteroids very difficult and that's just the tip of the iceberg... if you were to fly towards the dark side of a planet with no additional lighting... you wouldn't be able to see the ground or gauge distance outside of instruments.

While I do sort of agree that the current lighting might go a bit to the extreme... I think if you reduced the dark side of objects too much there would be a very hard contrast between the light side and dark side you'd have to tone down the lighting for all sides of the object including the directly lit portions which would in my opinion reduce the quality of the lighting effects dramatically.

[Blackthorne]

Well, if it's an optional "switch" included in the mod kit, it's okay by me - I won't use it, since, as TGS already mentioned, it cranks up the difficulty and offers little in return. But hey, who am I to arbitrate other people's fun. As long as it's optional, it's fine.

-Blackthorne

[Edited on 19-9-2010 by Blackthorne]

[Wasp89]

This is something I've wanted too, that picture looks really neat!

[Marvin]

I've found that adjusting the gamma and contrast on my monitor can give me much the same effect.

[Vice]

I have added the ambient light option for the next update. It will use this filename:

ambient.txt

And in the first line, enter the value of the ambient light you want to apply. The default value is 5, so if you want no ambient light, set it to 0, high ambient light would be a value like 25 or 50.

[Edited on 9-19-2010 by Vice]

[Marvin]

Reminds me of how it's done in Orbiter.

[Wasp89]

Awesome, thanks.

[Maarschalk]

Great, thanks Vice.....

[luckyluca]

Thanks a lot Vice

L