Auto Exposure

[Viktor]

Discussion.

[Viktor]

Originally posted by sbobo3113:

Originally posted by Wmss:

Harbinger, I really hope that one of the top priorities for the next version is an option for autoexposure that is true to the human eye. As I've already said in a reddit comment you may or may not have seen, the simulated camera is nice but absolutely not what I want to be using to look at planets under most circumstances.

I want to be able to jump to a planet and be able to immediately assess the lighting conditions compared to Earth as seen through the human eye, something that is only able to be approximated currently thanks to manual mode's fixed exposure (as a side note, 1/9000ish exposure is about Earth daylight).

The exposure of the human eye is nearly impossible to replicate realistically. Witch is why Auto Exposure in SpaceEngine is only made to simulate what a camera sees instead.

I knew someone would come up with this. If you would place yourself for example somewhere in the middle of galaxy, you would never see the universe like you see it in SE, no matter what mode you are using. So if you want SE to look pretty, you simply need to go unrealistic. Now, if that's out of the way, by simply adding the old and a little bit improved AE would be enough, as that is much closer to human eye view than the new AE.

[NichtSchnell]

Originally posted by sbobo3113:

The exposure of the human eye is nearly impossible to replicate realistically. Witch is why Auto Exposure in SpaceEngine is only made to simulate what a camera sees instead.

I agree with this sentiment. Additionally, don’t forget that the idea of human eye equivalency would likely only be applicable to planets, asteroids, and comets. There is no human eye equivalent for a star or quasar/black hole accretion disks. They’d be too bright. “But that would only apply when you’re close to those objects.” OK. How close? What would be a realistic value for that distance for each respective object type? On the flip side of luminosity you have nebula. They would probably be much dimmer and nowhere near as visually appealing if they were depicted with human eye equivalence. For me, having a camera-like exposure system eliminates these concerns and exceptions and gives us one quantitatively-based exposure mechanism that applies to all objects.

[sbobo3113]

Originally posted by Viktor:

Originally posted by sbobo3113:

The exposure of the human eye is nearly impossible to replicate realistically. Witch is why Auto Exposure in SpaceEngine is only made to simulate what a camera sees instead.

I knew someone would come up with this. If you would place yourself for example somewhere in the middle of galaxy, you would never see the universe like you see it in SE, no matter what mode you are using. So if you want SE to look pretty, you simply need to go unrealistic. Now, if that's out of the way, by simply adding the old and a little bit improved AE would be enough, as that is much closer to human eye view than the new AE.

Im aware that in reality you'd never be able to see the universe to the degree you can in SE regardless. However im stating that SpaceEngine's current AE is mostly focused on simulating a "camera" instead of an eye. The old Auto Exposure was way less "realistic" of projecting that specific perspective.

However you could say that the old AE was more accurate of a human perspective yes. But even that is far from being realistic in terms of reality. Both the new and old AE is far from this. The human eye is very dynamic and sees a wide variety of different light sources under different circumstances.

[HarbingerDawn]

Originally posted by Viktor:

If you would place yourself for example somewhere in the middle of galaxy, you would never see the universe like you see it in SE, no matter what mode you are using.

What makes you say that? What's unrealistic about it?

[Viktor]

Originally posted by sbobo3113:

Originally posted by Viktor:

I knew someone would come up with this. If you would place yourself for example somewhere in the middle of galaxy, you would never see the universe like you see it in SE, no matter what mode you are using. So if you want SE to look pretty, you simply need to go unrealistic. Now, if that's out of the way, by simply adding the old and a little bit improved AE would be enough, as that is much closer to human eye view than the new AE.

Im aware that in reality you'd never be able to see the universe like you can in SE regardless. However im stating that SpaceEngine's current AE is mostly focused on simulating a "camera" instead of an eye. The old Auto Exposure was way less "realistic" of projecting that specific perspective.

However you could say that the old AE was more accurate of a human perspective yes. But even that is far from being realistic in terms of reality. Both the new and old AE is far from this. The human eye is very dynamic and sees a wide variety of different light sources.

Old AE is less realistic than the new AE if it comes to camera view. Old AE is more realistic than the new AE if it comes to eye view, even though still unrealistic. New AE is simply more realistic only for camera view. I don't wanna camera style view, because we all know how badly cameras works with lights. And the new AE can stay for all i care, i'd just like to see the old AE added as an option also. Just a little bit improved maybe.

[Viktor]

Originally posted by HarbingerDawn:

Originally posted by Viktor:

If you would place yourself for example somewhere in the middle of galaxy, you would never see the universe like you see it in SE, no matter what mode you are using.

What makes you say that? What's unrealistic about it?

I mean, if you placed yourself in the middle of galaxy in real life. Have you ever looked through telescope for example at M42? Have a look and then compare it with M42 in SE, looking at it from Earth, using telescope mode.

[Wmss]

I'm completely fine with some objects being blindingly bright and some being too faint to see in a hypothetical "eye exposure mode." While getting pretty views is one important aspect of the SE experience, I also enjoy seeing things as they would be in reality.

Now, obviously it is very difficult to replicate the exposure properties of the human eye, but 0.9.8.0 behavior with autoexposure + real planet brightness was a lot closer than we have now, where everything is perfectly exposed all the time if autoexposure is functioning correctly, or overexposed if it isn't.

[HarbingerDawn]

Originally posted by Viktor:

Originally posted by HarbingerDawn:

What makes you say that? What's unrealistic about it?

I mean, if you placed yourself in the middle of galaxy in real life. Have you ever looked through telescope for example at M42? Have a look and then compare it with M42 in SE, looking at it from Earth, using telescope mode.

But those differences have nothing to do with exposure, so what does it have to do with this topic?

[HarbingerDawn]

Originally posted by Wmss:

0.9.8.0 behavior with autoexposure + real planet brightness was a lot closer than we have now

No, it wasn't. "Real planet brightness" was an extremely unrealistic feature, and was only useful for comparing the brightness levels of planets at different distances from the sun (that was the purpose of the feature).

[Viktor]

Originally posted by HarbingerDawn:

Originally posted by Viktor:

I mean, if you placed yourself in the middle of galaxy in real life. Have you ever looked through telescope for example at M42? Have a look and then compare it with M42 in SE, looking at it from Earth, using telescope mode.

But those differences have nothing to do with exposure, so what does it have to do with this topic?

But now you are mixing subjects. I was just explaining why it would be useless to even try to replicate 100% correctly the human eye view of the universe.

Originally posted by HarbingerDawn:

Originally posted by Wmss:

0.9.8.0 behavior with autoexposure + real planet brightness was a lot closer than we have now

No, it wasn't. "Real planet brightness" was an extremely unrealistic feature, and was only useful for comparing the brightness levels of planets at different distances from the sun (that was the purpose of the feature).

The new AE is only more realistic for camera view and camera view sucks.
Look, either please give us old AE as an option and improved if possible or work more on the new AE. But the thing is that if you keep concentrating the AE as camera view, it will still look like looking through camera and looking though camera sucks, because it sucks in real life too, if it comes to lights. What technology are you using for the AE? Is it the same as BDO is using? I just forgot the name of it and i can't find it on google. But many people are complaining about it there. The way how exposure is changing... You look more up and the ground gets darker, you look more down and the ground gets brighter and sky gets overexposed af. Yea, that's what camera in rl does too. When i want to take nice picture of some landscape outside, i always point the camera a little bit more up, so that the camera see better the details of the ground as well as the sky. But in games as you move your camera all the time and you see the exposure constantly changing, it's simply annoying af. Yes, in rl, if you want to take a picture of the Moon, you'll get nothing but an overexposed light ball without any details of the surface visible. The thing is, i can see the surface of the Moon with my eyes.
So what i'm suggesting is to drop the idea of realism (you made SE realistic enough already and is simply the most realistic space simulator i have ever seen, so great job on that) in case of how exposure should behave in SE and give us nice looking and immersive AE. Like mix of realism and nice picture. By dropping the idea of camera view would be the first step.

Can you guess what this is?
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/776223162087209085/2AA8D1C357DBBDED19482C9E3AAF95281C713F51/

[HarbingerDawn]

Originally posted by Viktor:

The way how exposure is changing... You look more up and the ground gets darker, you look more down and the ground gets brighter and sky gets overexposed af. Yea, that's what camera in rl does too. When i want to take nice picture of some landscape outside, i always point the camera a little bit more up, so that the camera see better the details of the ground as well as the sky. But in games as you move your camera all the time and you see the exposure constantly changing, it's simply annoying af.

It sounds like you just don't like exposure changing. If that's the case, just use manual exposure! Set the exposure you want for a scene and leave it there.

Originally posted by Viktor:

Can you guess what this is?
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/776223162087209085/2AA8D1C357DBBDED19482C9E3AAF95281C713F51/

A picture taken by an incompetent photographer?

[Viktor]

Originally posted by HarbingerDawn:

Originally posted by Viktor:

The way how exposure is changing... You look more up and the ground gets darker, you look more down and the ground gets brighter and sky gets overexposed af. Yea, that's what camera in rl does too. When i want to take nice picture of some landscape outside, i always point the camera a little bit more up, so that the camera see better the details of the ground as well as the sky. But in games as you move your camera all the time and you see the exposure constantly changing, it's simply annoying af.

It sounds like you just don't like exposure changing. If that's the case, just use manual exposure! Set the exposure you want for a scene and leave it there.

But manual won't make anything adaptive anymore. I can just decrease or increase exposure of different stuff and they will stay on that value no matter where i look. That's not what i want. It's maybe only good for taking screenshot. I want exposure changing but not the camera style.

Originally posted by HarbingerDawn:

Originally posted by Viktor:

Can you guess what this is?
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/776223162087209085/2AA8D1C357DBBDED19482C9E3AAF95281C713F51/

A picture taken by an incompetent photographer?

Really? Or is it Auto Exposure created by en incompetent developer? :) Because that's screenshot of the Earth taken from Space Engine. How about that?
Alright, i mean nothing bad against you, really. You just ran right into it by your reply on that picture. SE is still an amazing space simulator, as i said. But judging from your reply, you also didn't like that picture. So you see how badly your new AE behaves. There you have it.

[Defe777]

Same here, every object is like the Earth that Viktor posted, every sigle one at any distance from star/s. I think the metering area bug HarbingerDawn mentioned earlier plays a major role

[Defe777]

Viktor, which screen resolution are you using by the way? I changed it from the native one (3440x1440) to 1280x720. I know, it doesn't fix the problem but things are slightly better

[HarbingerDawn]

Originally posted by Viktor:

Really? Or is it Auto Exposure created by en incompetent developer? :) Because that's screenshot of the Earth taken from Space Engine. How about that?

Yes, I know what it is. My point is that any tool can produce a poor result if used improperly. I understand that auto exposure in SE is unsatisfactory to you, and I agree that it needs significant improvement. But, aside from fixing bugs, making something that works better that what currently exists will take a lot of work, and therefore time, and your claim that the way things worked in 0.980 was more realistic is just not true. For the moment, what we've got is what we've got, and I've tried to suggest ways to make it work for you, because that's all there is right now. That's all I'm saying.