How Dark is Dark?

[Roger Wilco Jr]

I can't remember the last time I saw a reasonably dark side of a planet - until tonight. For several months, at least, the dark side of planets get very light for me when I attempt to land on them. It may appear pitch black from space, but on the ground it is almost daylight bright - no need for lights on the SRV. A few nights ago I was in the map and exited to my ship sitting on a ground pad. It was dark for about a second, and then got brighter. I saved a vid and finally got around to cutting and cropping it. It's not very good, but only 2 seconds, but you can see it ramp up from very dark to pretty bright. This normally takes several seconds in 5-6 steps while approaching the ground.

https://youtu.be/reRxNzlQ5ss

Then tonight I landed on a planet and it stayed dark. It wasn't black, but there may have been another sun or something nearby. It was totally unexpected so I wasn't paying that much attention, and I forgot to see what happened when I took off. Anyway, it was back to being bright again when I visited other planets.

Also, it doesn't seem to make a difference whether I'm in the Rift or using my monitor.

So is this happening with everybody? Is there something I can do about it?

Thanks.

[Sinxar]

I've never had that happen. Very unusual. There was a huge thread on reddit about the brightness of the dark side of planets not too long ago, but I didn't see anyone say anything about that type of transition.

Seems like there are few really dark planets anymore but they are out there for sure. I landed on one that was so dark I nearly fell into a giant ravine even with the SRV lights on high, no fog or anything just black as pitch with a nice view of the stars.

Maybe it has to do with the graphic settings? You have everything on ultra?

[Roger Wilco Jr]

You have everything on ultra?

No, but I used to before VR. I'll try that on my monitor and see what happens.

[evovi]

I've got this issue, I glide in its pitch black then suddenly it's like a disk or dawn - I've yet to find a dark side to any planet I've been on, has tweaking the graphics made any difference ?

[Roger Wilco Jr]

Tweaking the graphics settings isn't making a difference. I've got everything maxed out, except AA SS & HMD, and although I'm seeing some special effects that I haven't see before, and maybe some more lights around outposts and etc, the day for night on the dark side of planets has not changed. I will say that getting interdicted looks really cool with the settings maxed. I do maintain 90FPS most of the time, with it dipping into yellow and red every so often. I'm also getting a lot more graphics artifacts at the edges of the Rift where planet textures disappear in batches of squares. After I've flown with it for a while, it's starting to look pretty good, even with the FPS drops. I recently put AA to SMAA and there is a performance hit for sure.

I've also had this happening to me a lot recently. Just twice tonight, and several times this week. Before, it used to happen once every few weeks or a month or so. What happens is I'll be approaching the dark side of a planet, and as usual it will start getting brighter and brighter, but sometimes it will go dark for a few seconds before getting light again. Like this:

https://youtu.be/es_ZNIjkReU

It's obvious they are capable of making it dark. I wish I just knew wtf is going on.

[Sinxar]

Yeah im not getting that at all. What graphics card you use? I am using a gtx 1070.

Well I was going to test it for myself, can't see flying 22k LY to test it though.

[Loriath]

The best you can get is further from the core and on the darkside of a planet that is facing away from the core. I can get somewhat dark, but they never get what we see here on good old Sol.

Its kind of amazing how much the milky way and glow from orbiting moons/planets can brighten things up. I have been lucky enough to be up in the mountains away from everything on a clear night. After I stopped being in awe at the sky, I realised that my eyes had adjusted and I could see pretty good.

In Game Explanation: Both the ships Canopy and the Helmets (remloks as well) we wear compensate for low light conditions in the same way we can star into the heart of a star without melting our retinas. Personally I think its BullShit.

[Sinxar]

The way the planets brighten up isn't what the issue is.

Look at his videos.

[Roger Wilco Jr]

I have an Asus GTX 1080 Strix that I got with the Rift.

And I do have a problem with the planets brightening because it didn't do it before. I just can't remember when the change happened. I've certainly had the problem since I've had the Rift, but back on the DWE, there were some planets that got pitch black. I'd like some variety, so if you are on the dark side of a moon in the shadow of a gas giant 10,000LS from the primary, with no other light sources around, it should be damn dark, but brighter in other situations.

I kind of like the idea of the canopy/helmet boosting the light, kind of like how it must tame the brightness when you are close to a sun. And the flashes I occasionally are just gremlins. It is bullshit, but it kind of helps when dealing with it. But it's so boring. It was exciting to sometimes try to land on the black, never knowing if there was a mountain it your way.

And I have the same problem in beta in the bubble.

And there was the one time, a few days ago, where it got just a tiny bit brighter - and then stopped. So I know they can do it. Oh hell, maybe I'll search the main forums and maybe raise a bug report now that I have a couple of short vids posted.

[Sinxar]

Sorry guys. Thought you were talking about the dark flash issue that you made two videos about, because that isn't normal.


Its been like that since... 1.5 i think? There are huge threads about the ambient lighting though. I was looking through them trying to find info about the dark flash thing and seen in there where supposedly FDev said it was a placeholder effect. Can't find the source though so take it with a grain of salt.

Here are a ton on the forums. The earliest report I seen was in 2015 https://www.google.com/search?q=elite+d ... tier.co.uk

Here are some from reddit https://www.google.com/search?q=elite+d ... reddit.com
Not all of those are about the planet ambient lighting but most are.