Build: v1.9 4012 Mode: Any SERVER NAME: N/A SEED-ID: N/A If applicable: MODIFIED PLAYFIELDS: N/A Reproducibility: 100% Severity: Annoying (minor) Type: Texture and lighting Summary: v1.9 has introduced a lot of changes and among them seems to be changes to the flashlight and sptlights. They seem to have a different output in general, but, more importantly, along the way a dithering pattern seems to have been added, which simply was not in 1.8. I've been seeing dithering in a lot of games (especially UE games -- though this is Unity so I was hoping not to see it here) as devs rely more and more on TAA to blur out design weaknesses (such as low-quality shadow grading,) but I think maybe this was more likely just not noticed due to us of TAA or too much bloom or whatever on by default in dev setups perhaps. Some people can't use a lot of blurring effects due to weaker videocards or because it makes them sick, but also some of us just like our games to be clear and have a sharp, accurate image. (I am in the accurate category myself, but I know a lot of people have troubles with the way all the blurring messes with their motion perception.) I'd rather trade a few FPS and have a cleaner, more accurate light than an ugly dithering pattern and I honestly think anyone without extra blurring effects added would agree. Description: Steps to Reproduce: 1) Turn on a flashlight (suit light or handheld) or a ship spotlight in a semi-dark area. Screenshots, Crash Logs, any other Relevant Information or Download links: Full screen screenshot (you'll have to click for the full size since downsampling averages out the pattern): It's even more visible in darker areas: Zoomed in to make it easier to see: EDIT: I think it actually reduces visibility perhaps even. I'm not sure exactly how it works. It may be over-responding to atmosphere or something. I have a couple of spotlights on a SV and it reduced visibility to almost zero when I turned them on. If I used the night vision goggles everything was super clear though. The dithering is so much worse with the spotlights that you can see it even after the resize on this page.
No fog. As much as I would like to see a proper fog be an actual thing in this game, this is not it. (Also, if such a thing were to be implemented, please please please no dithering!) Without flashlight: Note how things like base lights don't have the dithered overlay: I presume the idea is to give flashlights and spotlights more of a classic flashlight sort of feel (btw, I don't see any reason why in such a future they wouldn't be using projector lenses -- I have several $15 flashlight from Amazon that do today, so I'm pretty sure in a future where we have space travel and experimental warp tech we'll have projectors on our exterior lighting.) The overlay with the dithering I presume is to give it sort of a foggy look of sorts. Unfortunately, the dithering decreases clarity (which is not how lighting should work anyway) and just plain looks ugly besides, regardless of whatever its purpose may be. If there were an actual fog it would make sense it would illuminate it and effectively decrease visibility, but it wouldn't work quite like that and certainly wouldn't create an ugly dithering pattern. EDIT: Sorry, I may have misunderstood your point. Yeah, I think it may be intended to implement a sort of blurry lighting much akin to a fog, but if so it's definitely done at the wrong end via the wrong method IMO.
