In most of the streams we have seen some beautiful and huge landscapes, but some of the points of interest/large buildings (castles, ruins, towers, forests, mountains) that are considerably far away, are obscured by fog or simply show up as a grey silhouette. I don’t like this, I’ve looked at landscapes and most of them don’t just disappear or become a colourless silhouette with nothing behind. In most cases you can still distinguish the different colours (they’re only a bit washed out) and see the scenery behind the landmark you’re looking at. I don’t know the reason for this effect, maybe it’s the engine’s lighting or the relative positions to the sun that creates this “fog”, I know it’s still in pre-pre-alpha, but I would like to know if this is something that’s intended or if it will be tweaked latter on down the line.
Some pictures of what I’m talking about.
From the 2nd stream.
From the 3rd stream. The landmarks and the forest just disappear with the landscape behind it, having almost no differenciation except the darker silhouettes.
From the 4th stream. Again, the landmarks and forests just disappear with the landscape behind it, having almost no differenciation except the darker silhouettes.
Some pictures of the Witcher 3 that show a more realistic aproach to view distance and usage of the "fog" without completly removing parts/colours of the landscape.
First picture taken from the top of the main city. we can see 2 prohiminent landmarks. They're way of in the distance so a slight "fog" is noticable, but you can still distinguish the colours and there's a well deffined silhouette on both landmarks.
I travalled to the first landmark, and from there looked to the city. You can still notice the slight "fog" but the colours are still there, and a differnce in colour is clearly noticeable from the grass fields to the city and the scenary behind it.
Travelled to the second landmark, and I can see the city and the first landmark, there's again the slight "fog" around the city and it's territory, but it doesn't make the colours of the city blend with the rest of the landscape behind it.
Bottom of the landmark 2
Top of the landmark 2
Just trying to make some constructive criticism about a topic that's dear to me, again I know it's pre-pre-alpha and all can change, I'm just trying to know if it's an intented design decision or an unfinished part of the game. What do you guys think about this?
I agree with the OP that I would like to see more detail in the distance. I also agree with the other comments that to have a toggle or slider to not compromise performance would be good.
What I would like to add is I would be in favor of going to Alpha/Beta/Launch with this part of the game just as it is, these things could be added while we're doing the testing of the mechanics.
jpedrote said:If they have an option in the graphics settings menu you can choose.
We can try to include an option for people to adjust this themselves if Unity allows it (with our hacks) but the fog is strictly for performance, if we remove it the FPS drops considerably, so the more we work on graphics to make the game better the more important that fog it to stop your PC/Graphics card rendering the distance.
I understand the comparison you tried to make with Witcher 3 too but it is a completely different game engine built for an RPG (one of my all time favourite mind you!) and it doesn;t have the problem of trying to render hundred or thousands of player character models in one place, they have NPCs spread out to balance performance and can crank up the graphics to show off a bit.
In saying that the Witcher 3 has serious performance issues and took many patches and even some mods to help balance it out a bit, so they weren't without issues trying to show off those graphics, plus they had to give the graphics an overhaul from their E3 presentation to what you saw when the game launched, again, for performance reasons, so the distant fog plays an important part and if we are able to remove it, extend it or allow players to adjust it we will but I just wanted you to know why it is there and how important it is.
Kilsin said:jpedrote said:If they have an option in the graphics settings menu you can choose.
We can try to include an option for people to adjust this themselves if Unity allows it (with our hacks) but the fog is strictly for performance, if we remove it the FPS drops considerably, so the more we work on graphics to make the game better the more important that fog it to stop your PC/Graphics card rendering the distance.
I understand the comparison you tried to make with Witcher 3 too but it is a completely different game engine built for an RPG (one of my all time favourite mind you!) and it doesn;t have the problem of trying to render hundred or thousands of player character models in one place, they have NPCs spread out to balance performance and can crank up the graphics to show off a bit.
In saying that the Witcher 3 has serious performance issues and took many patches and even some mods to help balance it out a bit, so they weren't without issues trying to show off those graphics, plus they had to give the graphics an overhaul from their E3 presentation to what you saw when the game launched, again, for performance reasons, so the distant fog plays an important part and if we are able to remove it, extend it or allow players to adjust it we will but I just wanted you to know why it is there and how important it is.
Thanks for the reply Kilsin :) cool to know the fog is only there to avoid performance issues.
So in theory if I have a monster PC and you guys create that option I can disable the fog right? I don't mind sacrificing some texture quality for more draw distance :)
jpedrote said:Kilsin said:jpedrote said:If they have an option in the graphics settings menu you can choose.
We can try to include an option for people to adjust this themselves if Unity allows it (with our hacks) but the fog is strictly for performance, if we remove it the FPS drops considerably, so the more we work on graphics to make the game better the more important that fog it to stop your PC/Graphics card rendering the distance.
I understand the comparison you tried to make with Witcher 3 too but it is a completely different game engine built for an RPG (one of my all time favourite mind you!) and it doesn;t have the problem of trying to render hundred or thousands of player character models in one place, they have NPCs spread out to balance performance and can crank up the graphics to show off a bit.
In saying that the Witcher 3 has serious performance issues and took many patches and even some mods to help balance it out a bit, so they weren't without issues trying to show off those graphics, plus they had to give the graphics an overhaul from their E3 presentation to what you saw when the game launched, again, for performance reasons, so the distant fog plays an important part and if we are able to remove it, extend it or allow players to adjust it we will but I just wanted you to know why it is there and how important it is.Thanks for the reply Kilsin :) cool to know the fog is only there to avoid performance issues.
So in theory if I have a monster PC and you guys create that option I can disable the fog right? I don't mind sacrificing some texture quality for more draw distance :)
I believe so yes, I will have to check though as I know the devs have hacked Unity to better suit us, but that is basically how it works with most games that allow it.
jpedrote said:Thanks for the reply Kilsin :) cool to know the fog is only there to avoid performance issues.
So in theory if I have a monster PC and you guys create that option I can disable the fog right? I don't mind sacrificing some texture quality for more draw distance :)
I am seeing more games do it this way to reduce FOV distances. Gaining 25% in FPS or more back to the client when they do not need to see the whole world directly past the mob.
going from 150fps, to 15fps even in a short time frame is annoying. View distance is a huge draw.
I would be happy with 60FPS constantly over 150 of tearing in the game.
Cromulent said:I'm going to be buying a pretty nice computer in either June or July so I hope I'll be able to turn the fog down or off although if you can't it wouldn't be too much of a problem. I just like seeing epic views and seeing ways to get to new places.
I havent floated the new PC idea past my wife yet, but its definately on my list of things to risk soon too :)
I don't remember how but there was a tweak you could make to the VG.ini file that would get rid of all fog and allow the game to draw forever. The views were amazing from the back of a flying mount. Been trying to do the same in EQ (back there while killing time) to open up the draw distance but not having any luck, if anyone knows a trick to get rid of EQ fog lemme know please.