Glaringly ugly first impression

[ShnitzelKiller]

I bought the game because of the universal praise it's getting, and the first thing that struck me was how obscenely ugly the surface of the ocean looks. The ocean that's the entire draw of this game. I'm guessing that opening scene where you climb out of your pod to the new world you've landed in is supposed to be a breathtaking moment, but instead I see a repeating tiled pattern stretching out to infinity.
Similar disappointment when I decided to journey to the Aurora wreckage for the first time. I thought it was going to be sprawling with interesting stuff to scan, but nope, just a giant low-poly model with a texture so low-res that the pixels are bigger than the player. It looked like a skybox prop, even though I would think it's the first thing most players would want to explore.

I've been taking screenshots of the ugliest views I could find:
My first close-up of the Aurora:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1282588234
The infinitely tiled ocean:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1282588248

To be clear, I'm enjoying the game so far for its other aspects, but certain glaring flaws make it still feel like an early access title.

[MadPoet]

I would seriously check your specs, drivers and game settings. Even the most cursory glance at in-game pics other players have taken will show you that something is amiss.

[morph113]

The water looks amazing from below the surface, but obviously from a height above the surface it doesn't. Simply because it's not meant to, as 99,99% of the game you will spend underwater. Not sure what's up with that aurora texture. I haven't seen such a texture myself but that does indeed look ugly. However you have to agree that overall the game is looking really great. You can make any game look ugly if you pick out only certain ugly parts.

[Venturai]

Granted, there is a bit of an inconsistency here. If you're up high and see out far enough it almost looks like it's rendering land (badly) in the very far distance, that's how bad it is.

The very top of the moonpool surface, by comparison; they did a bit of work on it more recently and it looks fabulous now.

[Oceansize]

It's an Indie game. It's not going to have Assassin's Creed or Batman-level graphics. Also, you're cherry-picking parts of the game where you spend the least amount of time. You're so rarely at a height greater than sea-level, or even with your head above water, the tiling effect is rarely something you're even looking at. Find the Giant Cove Tree and then tell us this game isn't beautiful, lol!

[Enorats]

Yeah, the game really isn't meant to look stunning from a height high above the surface. You're not really meant to see that so much. Beyond that, I'm not certain what your graphics settings are either. The water detail changes more drastically from low to high than anything else in the settings.

The Aurora I will certainly grant you though. There are portions of the "damaged" areas that look (and have always looked) like they had placeholder textures that were simply never replaced. Of course, you spend only a tiny portion of time there compared to the rest of the game so in the end it matters very little.

[Baklavah]

Rather than trying to find a reason to complain.. perhaps you should be going "Look! A title that left early access that is actually awesome!" :/ just sayin.

[Sally]

Fair comments, but hardly something to worry about. 99% of the game is underwater. You can, and will, go days or even weeks without ever seeing the surface.

Personally, I think The Lost River is the most amazing area in Subnautica, I always build a base there.

[YabbaDabbaDoo]

Originally posted by ShnitzelKiller:

I bought the game because of the universal praise it's getting, and the first thing that struck me was how obscenely ugly the surface of the ocean looks. The ocean that's the entire draw of this game. I'm guessing that opening scene where you climb out of your pod to the new world you've landed in is supposed to be a breathtaking moment, but instead I see a repeating tiled pattern stretching out to infinity.
Similar disappointment when I decided to journey to the Aurora wreckage for the first time. I thought it was going to be sprawling with interesting stuff to scan, but nope, just a giant low-poly model with a texture so low-res that the pixels are bigger than the player. It looked like a skybox prop, even though I would think it's the first thing most players would want to explore.

I've been taking screenshots of the ugliest views I could find:
My first close-up of the Aurora:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1282588234
The infinitely tiled ocean:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1282588248

To be clear, I'm enjoying the game so far for its other aspects, but certain glaring flaws make it still feel like an early access title.

Your game is clearly on the lowest possible settings.

Turn the water detail up etc. Or upgrade your pc if it cant handle it. Your game looks like garbage compared to how it acutally looks

[ShnitzelKiller]

I just realized my "detail" setting was on medium by default. I changed it to "high", and that's the only relevant graphics option. The game still runs without any lag, so that's a plus. I will say that water quality was already set to "high" in those screenshots.
Out of curiosity, does this game run on the same engine as NS2?
(Also I just found out that the swivel chair does not in fact swivel. This is unacceptable.)

PS:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1282628175

[Tigerchips]

They mentioned the tiling of the water in there livestream, i think they wanted to fix it but couldn't because of performance issues. With this being developed for 4-5 years they probably had to think about priorities too.

[CapNKirkland]

Dis you plug in that toaster of yours?

[OnlyHalfTheTime]

Originally posted by tigerchips:

They mentioned the tiling of the water in there livestream, i think they wanted to fix it but couldn't because of performance issues. With this being developed for 4-5 years they probably had to think about priorities too.

They did. One dev said that the water is generated on the fly by simulated forces similar to real water... then tiled. He said that it wasn't a problem until they added a mountain from which you could look down at the surface from a distance. He continued, saying they did not have time to change something as integral as the surface of the water in a water world game.

Here is the youtube link timestamped to that interview if you are interested:
https://youtu.be/QdDkVg6pELQ?t=3h18m55s
Just kidding! The timestamp doesn't work with the embed code on steam apparently. Go to 3:18:53 for the question about the tiled water.

Simply put, they took Unity and bent, twisted, bolted on, and perverted until it screamed mercy and bent to their will. Unity should not be powering this game, but they made it happen. I'm pretty certain that if they had all this to do over again, they would choose something more appropriate.

ShnitzelKiller, To answer your two complaints, therefore, I would say that the water is what it is. No graphic setting will change that it is made of tiles and that it will look like hot immersion-killing garbage from up high. Your solace here is that you are seldom up high. The low-rez ship can be improved by upping your texture settings. I was blown away that I could now read signs and little details once I got a better graphics card and cranked the settings. I haven't been to that part of the ship since, so YMMV.

Happy swimming.

[edesignspl]

Originally posted by Baklavah:

Rather than trying to find a reason to complain.. perhaps you should be going "Look! A title that left early access that is actually awesome!" :/ just sayin.

That is a terrible approach. :/ just sayin.

[アゼム]

I disagree with you about the water. The Aurora is explorable if you find the entrance. And yes, the Aurora outside textures (other than around the entrance) are atrocious. Fortunately 90% of this game is underwater away from the Aurora if you're that bothered by it.

[ShnitzelKiller]

Originally posted by OnlyHalfTheTime:

Originally posted by tigerchips:

They mentioned the tiling of the water in there livestream, i think they wanted to fix it but couldn't because of performance issues. With this being developed for 4-5 years they probably had to think about priorities too.

They did. One dev said that the water is generated on the fly by simulated forces similar to real water... then tiled. He said that it wasn't a problem until they added a mountain from which you could look down at the surface from a distance. He continued, saying they did not have time to change something as integral as the surface of the water in a water world game.

Here is the youtube link timestamped to that interview if you are interested:
https://youtu.be/QdDkVg6pELQ?t=3h18m55s
Just kidding! The timestamp doesn't work with the embed code on steam apparently. Go to 3:18:53 for the question about the tiled water.

Simply put, they took Unity and bent, twisted, bolted on, and perverted until it screamed mercy and bent to their will. Unity should not be powering this game, but they made it happen. I'm pretty certain that if they had all this to do over again, they would choose something more appropriate.

ShnitzelKiller, To answer your two complaints, therefore, I would say that the water is what it is. No graphic setting will change that it is made of tiles and that it will look like hot immersion-killing garbage from up high. Your solace here is that you are seldom up high. The low-rez ship can be improved by upping your texture settings. I was blown away that I could now read signs and little details once I got a better graphics card and cranked the settings. I haven't been to that part of the ship since, so YMMV.

Happy swimming.

By upping the texture settings, do you mean the "detail" setting? There's no direct mention of textures in the graphics menu. And to all the snarky comments so far, I can run Crysis at max settings, and even I haven't encountered the FPS problems that a lot of people complain about in this game. And the water might look nice close up when water quality is turned up, but from far up high it reverts to looking like plaster wallpaper. The degasi island section and alien stargate island come to mind.