Non-nebula space backdrop

Discussion in 'Suggestions' started by LiftPizzas, Jan 9, 2021.

  1. LiftPizzas

    LiftPizzas Rear Admiral

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    Can we get some space backgrounds that aren't filled with color for the "Nebula" component of the skybox? Maybe a completely empty one, and a few subtle "galaxy" type images, something like the Milky Way you see in our night sky (away from the city) where it's just a small area of fairly dim cloudiness.
     
    #1
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  2. Hummel-o-War

    Hummel-o-War Administrator Staff Member Community Manager

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    The sector "background" should depend on where the sector is situated in. Nebula should only appear nearby. In case I do not understand what you mean > plz screenshot what you do NOT want to see. :)
     
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  3. LiftPizzas

    LiftPizzas Rear Admiral

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    I want this
    Spacenebula.jpg

    to be able to look like this instead.
    Spacewithoutnebula.jpg

    Or this:
    Spacewithoutnebula2.jpg
     
    #3
  4. Hummel-o-War

    Hummel-o-War Administrator Staff Member Community Manager

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    Hm.. it actually should look like the screen in the middle in case you are looking in a direction where no nebula are places. The „skybox“ as of version 1 is the REAL ingame stars and nebula, not the fixed one in the 1st picture anymore. Although there might be a config in your playfield that overwrites it.
     
    #4
  5. In all my default random starts recently mine looks like the first picture posted above as well, not like the second one.

    Those are 100% vanilla random scenario starts as well. Basically any direction I look I always see overly cartoonist colors and extreme brightness.

    It's a big turnoff for me, everything looking way too colorful and bright, and it really hurts my eyes after a short while.
    It definitely needs changed.

    We really shouldn't be seeing overly saturated and bright colors like this in space basically at all, no matter which direction we are looking.
    We aren't looking through a long exposure camera lens after all.
     
    #5
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 10, 2021
  6. Hummel-o-War

    Hummel-o-War Administrator Staff Member Community Manager

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    As I said: currently the orbits "pick" their stars and nebular from how they are set up in the galaxy config. The "old" system with fixed skyboxes is still available, but not used anymore.

    Currently the orbit looks like this when starting a default game:
    20210110201221_1.jpg

    If you do not want ANY nebula, you need to remove them from the galaxy config.

    If you want to have a "milky way" like in your screenshot you might need to flatten the eliptic of the galaxy a bit (also done in the galaxy config). The current vanilla has quite some stars in its halo, so it does not look like a tether. But this is kind of achievable.
     
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  7. Hummel-o-War

    Hummel-o-War Administrator Staff Member Community Manager

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    upload_2021-1-10_20-16-3.png
     
    #7
  8. LiftPizzas

    LiftPizzas Rear Admiral

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    Ok, I started a vanilla game and that's what I wanted. In my scenario I am using older file formats (playfield.yaml instead of space_dynamic) and my sectors.yaml file looks different, so I will attempt to re-parse them into the new format and see what happens.

    I did a complete uninstall and reinstall from scratch of Empyrion back in December. I wonder if you have stuff from the older versions that is altering how your galaxy gets generated.

    Also I agree that the existing nebulae (the new and improved ones) I saw in the vanilla start I tried are still oversaturated and too in-your-face. I'd like to have something more subtle. The ones in Hummel's screenshots look great.
     
    #8
  9. LiftPizzas

    LiftPizzas Rear Admiral

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    Ok removing these lines from the orbit's playfield.yaml did it:
    Code:
    SunFlare: EnvironmentalEffects/SunFlareWhite3Space
    Stars: SkyboxStarsBlack
    Nebula: PrefabNebulaBlueGlittery
    I had actually tried removing the nebula line only, before posting here, but that had no effect. I guess the other two lines cause an old-style skybox to be produced.
     
    #9
  10. I'm now wondering that myself. Steam says all files verified correctly when I checked a couple days ago.
    When I get home I'll delete the entire playfield folder and verify again and then start a new game.

    It wouldn't be the first time they updated playfield files and Steam refused to recognize it.
    I can remember at least a few times of Steam doing this in the past.
     
    #10
  11. LiftPizzas

    LiftPizzas Rear Admiral

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    I found that this setup in the galaxyconfig.ecf will create a smaller number of nice subtle nebulae: :)

    Code:
      NebulaCount: "10, 40" 
    
    # Nebula 1 ---------- Dark reds only and near blacks
      NebulaColors1: "0.5,0.25,0.16,   0.30,0.25,0.16,    0.15,0.0625,0.08,   0.1,0.05,0.01"
    
    #                 dark cyan        light cyan
      NebulaColors2: "0.0,0.14,0.125,   0.0,0.05,0.05" 
    
    # Nebula 3 ---------- Green-blue nebula
    #                    Dark                    Grey                 BlueDark            PinkDark          Blue-Green Main         Brown Secondary    Green Secondary
      NebulaColors3: "0.008,0.000,0.012,   0.010,0.010,0.015,    0.000,0.035,0.035,   0.045,0.000,0.020,   0.02,0.045,0.04,      0.150,0.120,0.000,   0.010,0.05,0.035"
     
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  12. LiftPizzas

    LiftPizzas Rear Admiral

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    Looking in the files, I discovered that the galaxyconfig.ecf is written into each savegame. So even when the default one is updated, a particular save will keep whatever galaxy file it started with. You can try my settings above (or just make the nebula count 0,0 to remove them altogether?)
     
    #12
  13. Kassonnade

    Kassonnade Rear Admiral

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    Here's my setup for minimal nebulas (very faint) and less stars, but still enough to make it look crowded. I also lowered the amount of each star type in the following sections of the file (TotalSpawnCount).

    #===========================
    # General Galaxy Settings
    #===========================

    { GalaxyConfig, Name: General
    StarCount: "1500, 2000"
    Radius: "0, 5000"

    NebulaCount: "2, 10"
    NebulaColors1: "0.1,0.1,0, 0.1,0,0"
    NebulaColors2: "0.1,0,0, 0.1,0,0.1, 0.1,0,0.1"
    NebulaColors3: "0,0.1,0, 0,0.1,0.1, 0.1,0.1,0.1"

    StarterSystemLYCoord: "134, 25, 126"
    StarterSystemName: Ellyon
    StarterSystemStarClass: G

    #RestrictGalaxyDisplayRadius: 500

    GalaxyMode: Regions
    SectorsPerLY: 100000
     
    #13
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