Lighting whilst traveling between stars

[t_v]

One more thing, 2^21 is a factor of about 2 million, but latent starlight is at 0.04 nits and the sun's light (at Earth's distance) is 1.6 billion nits, a factor of 40 billion, so the human eye would need to improve by another 15 stops, at which point we could just barely see the average star while looking directly at the sun (but we could definitely see most bright stars)

[PDCWolf]

On 4/16/2022 at 2:18 PM, OHara said:

And that silhouette image seems to represent a craft painted a very flat black (or rendered with an inappropriate ambient light setting).  The sum of far-away stars does of course produce ambient light in interstellar space (lighting the nebulae, for example).  While not having been in interstellar space personally, I would expect a white craft to be look nearly as bright in that ambient light, as a blurred average of the stars in its background. 

If there was a mirror on the craft, I would see the starfield behind me in that mirror, which on average is as bright as the starfield in the background of the craft.  If the mirror is frosted, the starfield is blurred, so I see uniform illumination in the mirror with the same average brightness.  If we have white paint instead of a frosted mirror,  that paint scatters probably only 80% of the ambient light, so I expect the craft would be a bit dimmer than the average of the starfield in the background.

You seem to be the one most interested in an actual mathematical approximation.

On 4/16/2022 at 2:32 PM, t_v said:

HDR means high dynamic range, that is the dynamic range setting. But it doesn’t have a slider. If you slid the range all the way up, you would be able to see all objects, no matter how bright, at their relative brightness, but since a computer screen can only display so many different brightnesses, a lot of things would be near black because the absolute brightest thing would be white and depending on the shot, everything else would be drowned out. 

Yeah, Space Engine's HDR setting has its limits, plus it's either on or off. However, other settings like magnitude limitations take priority, as they directly hide objects below X magnitude. If you bring all the magnitude limits to max value, you'll see the entire universe, to the absolute peril of your computer.

  [snip]

Edited April 18, 2022 by Starhawk
Redacted by moderator

[Bej Kerman]

[snip]

There's a massive line between the shape and colour of a plume and the inner workings of its engine, and how bright things look on-screen. Keeping the skybox and ship in-view at all times keeps the player from getting disoriented. Making an engine realistic doesn't make gameplay any more difficult. Making the lighting realistic does. KSP 2 is only being marginally unrealistic by allowing you to see the galaxy and ships at all times without being over or under exposed.

Edited April 18, 2022 by Snark
Redacted by moderator

[Starhawk]

More content has been removed from this thread.

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Thank You For Your Understanding

[snkiz]

The problem here is people keep comparing space to what a camera sees, not kerbal. Biology has more dynamic range than CCD's for picking out bright and dark things in the same scene. Now that isn't an excuse, it was reported they couldn't see many stars on Apollo with their own eyes as well if at all. But that was in more or less full sun. Realism is this case also really messes with game play. Seeing a vaguely ship shaped silhouette with fire coming out the end is not the satisfying payoff of hours of work in the VAB. With that in mind Things will likely be dimmer or less saturated to get across the idea, but photo real doesn't make sense. Unless you break the fourth wall and call the game camera what it is and not your real window into this world. 

[The Aziz]

43 minutes ago, snkiz said:

Seeing a vaguely ship shaped silhouette with fire coming out the end is not the satisfying payoff of hours of work in the VAB

Before that ship turns into a silhouette as a result of interstellar darkness, it's going to get months of sunlight before it gets too dark. Not enough payoff?

[snkiz]

Just now, The Aziz said:

Before that ship turns into a silhouette as a result of interstellar darkness, it's going to get months of sunlight before it gets too dark. Not enough payoff?

No it really isn't. I don't care either way, I live near an airport, watch docking streams. Planes and ships are generally lit in very specific way and I do the same in game. Absolute realism is not why this game matters, it won't make or break it. Being fun while unintentionally learning things is the goal and darkness doesn't support that.

[Vanamonde]

Some comments removed. Don't make it personal, please. 

[Davi SDF]

Lighting can go both ways while Interstellar:

Option 1: It's completely realistic. You are in the dark until you reach another star. To solve this is easy, you add large lights to iluminate your ship so it is easier to access parts.

Option 2: It's stylized for gameplay porpuses, and you can kind of see your ship (I would still be dark though, just not complete black). This could make for great scenery. Perhaps adding faint colored lights (to mimic the  color of nebulas).

Either way, i don't care! We should add Spotlights in our large ships anyway, otherwise it migh be really hard to use them while on the shadow of planets.

Edited April 19, 2022 by Davi SDF

[shdwlrd]

2 hours ago, Davi SDF said:

We should add Spotlights in our large ships anyway, otherwise it migh be really hard to use them while on the shadow of planets.

Lighting on your ship will help, but the will be light scatter from close by planets and moons. (Stock planetshine.) Your ships won't be in complete darkness for most cases. 

Edited April 18, 2022 by shdwlrd