Lighting 2.0 suggestions

quantumquantonum · February 2017

The new lighting looks great, but could use some work on.

Make the reflections more dynamic. When I look into one of these, I see shininess, however I also see a pixelated reflection of the floor and walls. Perhaps expand on the graphics settings like enabling dynamic reflections which reflect almost everything and are more high quality.
Add some material blend to relfections. Every reflection is super shiny, with a shiny metal coating on it, and at times I find this awkward. Most reflections should have a less reflection amount in order to bring out material details more, while still looking realistic with reflections.
Add dynamic lighting to ambient stars in sector space. They should be weak, but still bright enough to emit light onto close passing ships. Also, it's better than seeing a 2D image pass next to you.
Continue updating the Cryptic engine. Lighting is a huge update, and some more things that should be updated are model details (especially wildlife and nature, water, and a lot on the ground) character animations, particles/effects, hitboxes, and character vocals. I think these are all doable over time and would improve STO a lot.

Feel free to share any other tips below.

undedavenger · February 2017

Reflections are one of the most demanding GFX processes you can get. It would knock out even more of STO's player base to goose them too much.

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