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KSP has unrealistic/distorted 3D rendering


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17 minutes ago, klgraham1013 said:

I'll take the view our brain creates over the view our eyes do.

 I'd rather not have a fish-eyed, upside-down,  image with a blind spot.

Our brains don't turn our eye image over, we simply have always seen it upside down and thus we don't know any better. It's not the same as when our brain pretends peripheral distortion doesn't exist, and neither one is the same as the way our retinal output wiring doctors the image to make the blind spot seem to not exist.

But more importantly, as I have stated multiple times here (and I'm getting tired of re-iterating the point), the fish-eye effect doesn't happen at lower view angles and it isn't dependent upon the style of rendering. KSP still does the "fish-eye" effect, it just does it differently.

Edited by thereaverofdarkness2
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By default, 3D graphics don't do barrel distortions. Hence nearly all games are purely based on perspective, with no barrel distortion.

In the early days of 3D graphics it would be nearly impossible to do in real time. Drawing straight edges is super-easy, and takes very little processing power. However, a barrel distortion means you have to draw curved lines, and that was prohibitively expensive until recently. Besides, the distortion is something that is almost always subtle, so it is considered a low priority anyways.

With today's graphics cards, you could do the barrel distortion using shaders, but it is extra work.

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I've just read everything in this thread and it seems everyone else has said everything that needs to be said other than these points. 

First, this is a building game where your viewing an environment and having to place parts in that environment. If you had the view curve then placing parts at the edges of the screen would be impossible.

Not to mention having to view this same environment and having to select aspects of it. You haven't mentioned one game of the same style, because KSP is a first of its kind. Most building games are 2D, but KSP isn't. KSP is different from Quake, Minecraft and other games, so the view has to be different.

And lastly, the game isn't a focus point since again, your viewing all the edges of the screen for information. In the top left, you have your warp counter and MET/UT, in the bottom left you have your mode Ui And staging list. On the bottom center you have the navball, and on the bottom right you have your crew. Lastly, on the top right you have the resource info, contact info, and that's just the stock game. If you have KER, MechJeb, VOID, FAR or any other info providing mod, your looking at windows cluttering the screen! The game isn't from a camera perspective. 

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KSP uses unity's perspective view like most 3d games nowadays.

There are several different camera methods but the distortion you see on pictures actually comes from the fact that it's impossible to represent a spherical image in a plain, if you increase FOV too much it will get distorted.

And let's not get into discussion about how eyes work here.

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The absence of the phenomenon of straight lines appearing curved is common to all 3D rendering systems that use matrix multiplication to convert world space co-ordinates to screen co-ordinates. There are rendering systems that can simulate that phenomenon e.g. raytracers, but they're too computationally expensive to be used for accelerated 3D graphics in realtime games.

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Those images you're using are really wide angle lenses, with fields of view of 110 degrees or more. That kind of distortion is typical of wide angle lenses, but not all lenses.

Come to think of it, I've never seen a game that accurately renders a very wide angle like that, with straight lines that become curves. I remember playing Everquest a long time ago, and if you drank a lot of alcohol in the game, you would get an extremely wide angle view. :) But no straight lines ever became curved.

3 hours ago, TheBeardyMan said:

The absence of the phenomenon of straight lines appearing curved is common to all 3D rendering systems that use matrix multiplication to convert world space co-ordinates to screen co-ordinates. There are rendering systems that can simulate that phenomenon e.g. raytracers, but they're too computationally expensive to be used for accelerated 3D graphics in realtime games.

Well, what he said. :)

Edited by RocketBlam
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Two things, and apologies if anyone has already mentioned it...

1) The Kerbal home world is smaller than our Earth!!! You cannot really compare the two.

2) Adjust your settings to reflect the true resolution of your monitor.... you might have it set to something that looks wonky because the game is displaying the wrong resolution.

 

 

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There seems to be confusion over which effects are being discussed. I think these screenshots from issue #7495 make it more clear: The Mk1 Capsule appears to change shape depending on zoom level, becoming a cylinder if you zoom in far enough.

Normal:
screenshot7.png

Near-cylinder (try it in-game, you can make the sides parallel):
goo%20exterior.jpg

Short cone:
mesh%20edge%20exerior.jpg

Edited by pizzaoverhead
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5 hours ago, pizzaoverhead said:

There seems to be confusion over which effects are being discussed. I think these screenshots from issue #7495 make it more clear: The Mk1 Capsule appears to change shape depending on zoom level, becoming a cylinder if you zoom in far enough.

Which is normal rendering for a modern projection of 3d space onto a 2d monitor while using a very high field-of-view and moving the camera close to the subject. You won't get curved lines (which is what you'd get in real life with a lens/camera setup), nor would you get a cone that keeps the angle between the two sides constant (that's something a more specialized projection like isometric would accomplish).

You see the same distortions in three-point perspective drawings, which can be thought of as a distant ancestor of the projection that modern 3d graphics uses.

And for some more homework, here's Wikipedia on Curvilinear (ie a lens) vs. Rectilinear (ie almost all 3d computer games) perspective:

Edited by moogoob
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1 hour ago, moogoob said:

Which is normal rendering for a modern projection of 3d space onto a 2d monitor while using a very high field-of-view and moving the camera close to the subject. You won't get curved lines (which is what you'd get in real life with a lens/camera setup),

We've established this much earlier in the thread already. The topic is no longer about why the game doesn't render straight lines as curves. It is about why KSP renders stuff differently from other rectilinear games. Despite all the answers here, I have yet to hear anyone address this point beyond saying one of three things:

  1. yes it happens, and it's a good thing
  2. yes it happens, and it's a bad thing
  3. no it does not happen

So far, nobody has offered any explanation for it, and most of you seem to disagree that it even happens.

Edited by thereaverofdarkness2
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46 minutes ago, thereaverofdarkness2 said:

We've established this much earlier in the thread already. The topic is no longer about why the game doesn't render straight lines as curves. It is about why KSP renders stuff differently from other rectilinear games. Despite all the answers here, I have yet to hear anyone address this point beyond saying one of three things:

  1. yes it happens, and it's a good thing
  2. yes it happens, and it's a bad thing
  3. no it does not happen

So far, nobody has offered any explanation for it, and most of you seem to disagree that it even happens.

I don't think it's clear which difference between KSP and other games you're talking about. Do you have any screenshots from other games to compare with KSP?

Unity does support an image effect to give something along the lines you're looking for: The fisheye effect. See here for details, and below for an example use. Is this anything like what you're looking for?

 

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I just have to say and ask: The majority of this game happens in construction (VAB/SPH) or in space. So again why does any of this even matter? No really, why are people so in a twist whether the horizon curves (while not in space) or not? I have played since .21 came out and the only time this came close to mattering? When I noticed planets looked a bit egg like. A quick flick of some monitor and game settings fixed it. So, again why does it matter at all?

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@thereaverofdarkness2 Ok, let's consider the environment of KSP compared to those other games that seem different to you. Maybe the effect is minimized in KSP because you are not usually standing in a position between multiple horizontal/vertical walls. Take a Kerbal EVA into the middle of the R&D complex standing close to some walls and adjust the zoom/FOV and see how it compares.

I would try it but I don't exactly know what differences you are looking for, and I don't have the other games to compare to anyway.

I would like to make a quick tangential point about fish-eye lenses. The "distortion" we perceive when looking at a photograph taken with a fish-eye lens is purely a side effect of 1. being subject to perspective like every other photo 2. having a much wider field of view than we are used to, and 3. us being able to look directly at areas of the picture far from the center of focus. If you take any wide-angle photograph and crop down to just a small portion in the very center of the picture it will look just like any other normal "un-distorted" photo, albeit at a very low resolution now.

For example: here are crops of the center portions of the pictures in the first post of this thread.

Mmjtl5f.jpgn1YVzkT.jpgKHBp4LU.jpg

Is it possible that your field of view simply isn't wide enough in KSP?

Edited by HvP
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2 hours ago, pizzaoverhead said:

I don't think it's clear which difference between KSP and other games you're talking about. Do you have any screenshots from other games to compare with KSP?

I am finding it difficult to point out concrete differences. It feels way different, but I can't put my finger on exactly what it is. Any words I use to describe it seem wrong. Any pictures I show seem to match up on the most basic level, except for graphics glitches that are unique to KSP, such as the craft, ground, or sky not being able to draw all the way and being clipped with the camera. Here's an image that shows all three clipping artifacts:

Pdx0F6A.png

In KSP when you increase the view angle, you become able to measure distortion on the sides of the screen, but it doesn't seem like it's there. The thing you're looking at doesn't change shape, it just looks like you're zooming in or out. In any other game, the whole environment seems to change shape as you adjust view angle, and it is especially noticeable at high view angles.

Here is an album showing four images: KSP wide angle, KSP narrow angle, Minecraft wide angle, Minecraft narrow angle

I feel like the subject in the center looks essentially the same in both views in KSP, but very different in Minecraft. But I can't really point to any specific differences between the images. Do you see what I'm saying?

It feels like changing the view angle in KSP does about the same thing as moving the camera further from or closer to the craft, but in any other game, changing the view angle is completely dissimilar to moving the camera forward/back.

It also seems like the visible curvature of Kerbin is too high at low altitudes--it's clearly visible at 20km for instance. At 20km altitude, it should have almost exactly the same curvature as the horizon of Earth at 200km altitude, but it seems to have much more, two or three times as much even. It makes Kerbin look small, and it makes space less dramatic...unimpressive, almost. Narrowing the view angle to 30º makes for dramatic screenshots, but it doesn't make for an immersive game experience. And don't be talking to me about Kerbin's size relative to Earth. Yes, it is small compared to Earth. But it is very, VERY large compared to your spaceship. Regardless of how huge the Earth is in comparison, Kerbin should seem very big when you're in low orbit.

1 hour ago, pizzaoverhead said:

I've done some experimentation with a fisheye shader. Is this anything like what you're looking for?
 

I mean no offense when I say this, but that effect is nothing close to a real camera image. It seems to be trying to cancel out what I referred to as the "British Flag" effect, by pulling everything out orthogonally and squeezing it all in diagonally. It turns stuff into a different kind of unrealistically distorted. I'd love to have a real-lens effect in KSP, though.

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1 minute ago, thereaverofdarkness2 said:

feel like the subject in the center looks essentially the same in both views in KSP, but very different in Minecraft.

To me it looks dramatically different in the KSP pics.

I would also note that the KSP rocket is I believe somewhat smaller itself than the Minecraft arrow. And in general in KSP you're looking at a single object in either empty space or a somewhat bland environment. In Minecraft the environment is much richer in detail and any individual structures are often fairly large in all dimensions.

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17 minutes ago, thereaverofdarkness2 said:

I am finding it difficult to point out concrete differences. It feels way different, but I can't put my finger on exactly what it is. Any words I use to describe it seem wrong. Any pictures I show seem to match up on the most basic level, except for graphics glitches that are unique to KSP, such as the craft, ground, or sky not being able to draw all the way and being clipped with the camera. Here's an image that shows all three clipping artifacts:

 

The clipping of the vehicle that you're seeing is not unique to KSP, it's just near plane clipping.

The only reason it's more apparent in KSP than in most games is due to the decision (an entirely reasonable one given they type of game that it is) to allow a lot of freedom of movement of the camera, in particular not having the camera collide with the content of the scene, as is the case with most games.

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I hated the old days.... a top of the line video card being sold for hundreds of dollars was stated as being state of the art...

But I reckoned it was crap.... it had a fish eye view, playing DOOM for example .. the centre of the picture was fine, but it distorted near the edges of the monitor, the pixels were moving faster than those in the middle... I suspect that is what you mean... HOWEVER... these days, sanity has prevailed and that fish eye effect is no more, otherwise I'd have smashed my computer to bits long before now and taken up reading books again....

I suspect the REAL problem is your video card. This is why, maybe, no one "gets" your point. If you can, get a new video card, not the same model, of course... get a different one, with more RAM and stuff... Moar boosters? Moar Graphics Quality can *NEVER* go wrong. Overkill is your friend... Jeb will love you.

 

Edited by kiwi1960
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1 hour ago, HvP said:

@thereaverofdarkness2 Maybe the effect is minimized in KSP because you are not usually standing in a position between multiple horizontal/vertical walls. Take a Kerbal EVA into the middle of the R&D complex standing close to some walls and adjust the zoom/FOV and see how it compares.

While in the R&D Complex, the scene does indeed look much more like what I expect to see. Perhaps it's more an issue of the content in KSP than of the rendering method. I'm willing to believe that. It doesn't explain why EVE: Online looks fine, but then again EVE doesn't look perfectly fine, either. It still looks far more dramatic though. EVE doesn't have planet surface rendering, but space looks spacey albeit far too colorful for realism, but the planets look big to me even though I can warp from one side to the other in a matter of seconds. Maybe the resolution has something to do with it, too. For some odd reason, when I have the settings turned all the way up, the planetary terrain still looks like trash from low orbit. It could be utilizing far more of my VRAM and GPU to make that planet look amazingly high detail, but instead it looks worse than the limited-resolution planets in EVE look from low orbit, and those are rendered with only one level of detail.

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10 minutes ago, kiwi1960 said:

I hated the old days.... a top of the line video card being sold for hundreds of dollars was stated as being state of the art...

But I reckoned it was crap.... it had a fish eye view, playing DOOM for example .. the centre of the picture was fine, but it distorted near the edges of the monitor, the pixels were moving faster than those in the middle... I suspect that is what you mean... HOWEVER... these days, sanity has prevailed and that fish eye effect is no more, otherwise I'd have smashed my computer to bits long before now and taken up reading books again....

I suspect the REAL problem is your video card. This is why, maybe, no one "gets" your point. If you can, get a new video card, not the same model, of course... get a different one, with more RAM and stuff... Moar boosters? Moar Graphics Quality can *NEVER* go wrong. Overkill is your friend... Jeb will love you.

 

Please read previous posts or the bolded edit on the OP. I've been over this point so many times by now I'm basically beating a dead horse. I'm well aware of the "fish-eye" "effect" and I put both terms in quotes for a good reason. You call it fish-eye because you do not understand it, a point made clear also when you suggested it might have had anything to do with the quality of the graphics card--this is similar to the others who suggested it was caused by real/curvilinear/barrel-distortion rendering. It is just more data being squeezed into the same size space. You can't get around it by simply rearranging the data in any fashion. Please, if you read nothing else I've said, read the bolded portion here: the fish-eye effect is already present in the game; how much you notice it is entirely dependent on your view angle and has absolutely no relation whatsoever to any other graphical or rendering effects. The "effect" -- and I put the word in quotes because it is a mental illusion and no such effect actually exists -- shows up strongly in the images I provided in the OP because they are all wide-angle views. It shows up in the KSP screenshots, too, although its specific shape is different. If you had your view angle at 75º, you would probably not notice any "fish-eye" "effect", or at 60º you surely would not.

I am not trying to flame you, I'm just trying to get you to understand that these points have already been explained previously in this thread and that you're looking at this whole thing from the wrong angle.

I already have a graphics card that is far greater than what I need for KSP. It makes no difference, for reasons described in detail above.

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16 minutes ago, thereaverofdarkness2 said:

Please read previous posts or the bolded edit on the OP. I've been over this point so many times by now I'm basically beating a dead horse. I'm well aware of the "fish-eye" "effect" and I put both terms in quotes for a good reason. You call it fish-eye because you do not understand it, a point made clear also when you suggested it might have had anything to do with the quality of the graphics card--this is similar to the others who suggested it was caused by real/curvilinear/barrel-distortion rendering. It is just more data being squeezed into the same size space. You can't get around it by simply rearranging the data in any fashion. Please, if you read nothing else I've said, read the bolded portion here: the fish-eye effect is already present in the game; how much you notice it is entirely dependent on your view angle and has absolutely no relation whatsoever to any other graphical or rendering effects. The "effect" -- and I put the word in quotes because it is a mental illusion and no such effect actually exists -- shows up strongly in the images I provided in the OP because they are all wide-angle views. It shows up in the KSP screenshots, too, although its specific shape is different. If you had your view angle at 75º, you would probably not notice any "fish-eye" "effect", or at 60º you surely would not.

I am not trying to flame you, I'm just trying to get you to understand that these points have already been explained previously in this thread and that you're looking at this whole thing from the wrong angle.

I already have a graphics card that is far greater than what I need for KSP. It makes no difference, for reasons described in detail above.

Then live with it and stop complaining. KSP is KSP.

 

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