Lights Are No Longer Useful

My first night on Alpha 10 I thought it was a foggy night with my flashlight out. Visibility was low, but I was initially impressed at how annoyingly lifelike the fog was. Then I switched to my survival tool, the light went away, and so did the fog. Then I noticed the weather condition was indeed "Clear." This was an artifact of the new volumetric lighting.

I'm not saying I hate the new lighting entirely. The volumetric lighting could be used in realistic and positive ways. The haze on lights should only apply during foggy nights, or perhaps during a storm. On a clear night, I should see extremely little haze (a faint haze on the brightest of lights could make sense). In space and worlds without atmosphere, I should see none.

When I shine a flashlight into the air and it looks like I am shining it on a curtain instead of a clear, starry night sky, this adds negative value.

I did find a similar thread in the experimental branch, but since this made it to Stable I thought it was fitting to bring attention here too, since this is where I first encountered it.

For reference, this is the related thread in Experimental:
https://empyriononline.com/threads/haze-added-to-shoulder-light.49144/

 

Trust me, you aren't alone here.

It takes away from my enjoyment greatly. I can't see crap anymore. It's supposedly been toned down a couple times so far, but I can't tell a difference.

 

Yeah same here. I run without my lights on now. They have become useless now. Even tried a straight lights for my HV thinking it was only going to effect spot lights. Nope still puts up a haze. So that gives me limited time out at night. It's almost way back when it wasn't safe outside at night. Now it's because I hate running into trees!

 

Hello, not only the Shoulder Light is bad. Lights from SV/HV/CV have the same Problem, that you can see great Fog in a clear Night I can say, i hate the new Lights! Its enough, when Rain, Fog and Storm restrict my view. I dont need Lights for See a Wall of Fog. I need Lights, to see my Enemy´s, Ressources and Predators, for hunting them.

Now i put not on the Lights. Only the NightVisons can help to see something.

 

The lighting is fine for the bases but when it comes to getting out and about in my HV tank it is not fine. Going about the planet taking on bases etc and suddenly it's night time and you are hit with this wall of fog then you are continually bumping into rocks, trees etc because you cannot see in the distance. For me it means sitting out the game until daylight returns. Not a fun way to play when you just want to get on with things. It's not fun when you have to sit out half your playing time because they changed the lighting when there was nothing wrong with it in the first place.

 

yep, I don't use lights either.. it's nighvision goggles or nothing.. thanks devs, NOT.

 

I am actually refusing to play until we have the option to turn off volumetric lighting.

 

The haze is awful, was highlighted in exp10 but I think the devs were too busy with other critical stuff. It's like heavy fog :|

Problem is you get in your ship (1st person) with the spotlights on and it's hard to see anything in front of you. Switch to 3rd person, zoom out a bit and turn the lights off and you can see much times further .

The haze needs to go imo

 

the devs were not too busy, this was an intentional change, just like the 5 lighting changes before. Somebody gets paid to screw stuff up.
Here have a light take it away and put it on the weapon take it away and put it on the suit take the suit away and make the light so foggy you can't see.

 

the new light is a neet effect for the first 10 seconds then it is just bad for gameplay. Volumetric lighting should be removed.

 

While I normally try to be positive, I have to weigh in on this. The worst case is when I'm in space, using my CV to asteroid mine, and I can hardly see the ore because of the fog. Fog? In space??

 

I find myself in agreement with the OP, especially comments made about making use of the haze associated with volumetric lighting. It appears that the haze was "toned down" over a few experimental releases, so I assume it's adjustable. My question would be: Can the haze in volumetric lighting be adjusted dynamically? That is, when the player is in clear air or in vacuum, the haze is set to zero (or clear); when in a fog, it's set much higher, to where using a light is like turning your automobile's high beams on in a dense fog (i.e. can't see much). Further, if the color of the haze can be dynamically set, make it green when in radiated fog, and white-ish in normal fog. I think using the haze associated with volumetric lighting for purposes like these would be very cool.

No idea how possible any of this is, so just my two cents.

 

Could someone post some screen caps or maybe even a video that shows this effect? I admit there is a lot of glare, and the whole playfield seems so lit up all the time that any lights at all seem to be largely optional (you can visibly tell the difference between a moonlight clear night, a night without a moon and an overcast night with lights off in a tunnel that is scores or a hundred or more meters from the surface overhead and potentially kilometers from the nearest entrance [and source of light], not to mention that lights shine RIGHT THROUGH solid structures no problemo (you can illuminate the inside of your base with those portable lights you can only place on landscape).

Why these egregiously bad lighting effects which frankly spoil ANY suspension of disbelief at all are not yet addressed I cannot fathom. I suspect it is a fairly large technical challenge and/or simply beyond the capacity of the engine as it is presently configured to calculate occlusion appropriately for adjacent but enclosed spaces?

As such, these deficiencies may just be "out of scope" for any fixes, and I cannot blame anyone if that is the case. But if that is the case, and objectively COMPLETELY UNREALISTIC LIGHTING is just the way it is and always will be then I say: "STOP! puttering wasting development resources on things like 'volumetric lighting' and instead turn to areas where the game can be dramatrically improved and where you guys with your small team and limited resources can accomplish it in a timely manner: narrative, characterization, campaign mode, and a sense of progression and growth through a living world."

Plenty of small teams even as early as the 1990s managed to target these goals in the days before current standards of 3D first-person format games, so I think you guys are up to the task should you choose to take it on.

 

diche...it was entirely acceptable before they did this in A10, All they have to do is take it right back out.
Once again someone is getting paid to mess things up.
It is like the current thirst to add fog in every single situation. A mechanic that actually reduces the potential for PLAYING a game is not a plus.

 

Yep, we complained about it in Experimental, and to their credit, they did tone it down once. Unfortunately, not nearly enough, and we did complain about it a bit more to no avail. Not surprised that it's attracting complaints on stable now.

I think the volumetric lights have their place, but in clear conditions, they should be virtually invisible.

 

jlego, they have no place ..it is another useless draw on resources. We are constantly told " we can't do that because of resource demands" BUT we sure can add a drain on the cpu for absolutely no reason at all. It doesn't matter how small a resource drain it is, it did not need to be added.

 

I respectfully disagree with removing it completely. I think it does have its place. I also am always in support of having options.

First, I would like to say if I had to choose between the current state and complete removal, with no middle ground option, I would go with removal. However, here's what I consider ideal:

We apply what I outlined in my original post. Dynamically volumetric lighting that applies to the current conditions. Adds realism and immersion. I like this. However, I understand some won't want it at all, or the small performance hit it involves. For this, we could have an option to disable. Now with the client-side option to disable, we introduce another problem: Munchkins and min/maxers, who will disable it purely to gain an advantage, forcing everybody else to do the same just to level the playing field on a multiplayer server. For this, we can also have a SERVER side option, to either allow clients to toggle it, or enforce it to be always on. It would remain your choice whether or not to play on that server.

 

Exactly what place does having a milk whiteout in your vision have?
Please explain--in small words-why this is something you want in a game.
We already have fog radiated fog underwater fog underground fog space fog and and atmospheric fog.
do we really need another impediment to vision?

 

Realism. You shine a bright light into a foggy night, and it is very hard to see. This is why you drive with low beams instead of high when it is foggy.

Even on a clear night this happens to some degree with intense lights, just due to the atmosphere. I have a green laser pointer intended for pointing out things in the sky for astronomy. Even on a perfectly clear night, you can see the beam from the emitter all the way up into the sky. This is of course and extreme example, but it illustrates the point that this condition does indeed exist. The current form in the game is simply too much, and doesn't match the conditions.

 

I love volumetric lighting but I wish it was an option set per light.