How do I make my game look like the trailer?

[Antignarot]

EDIT: Thanks to everybody for their tips! I keep getting posts on it and didn’t notice I could edit my original post, so sorry this is up a bit late XD
Soon after creating this topic I found that the fog had to do with my altitude. The higher you are, the less fog there is (unless you’re in the clouds).
Also for draw distance (which was my biggest issue), I started a build project which took me a few hours and noticed that the world had time to load in, so that’s all it was 😛
I didn’t mean to sound like the trailers tricked me or something lol! I just knew my game wasn’t looking as tight, but it turned out to be a simple solution.

ORIGINAL POST:
Hi there!
I just bought Oort Online yesterday and have been building houses all over the place. This game reminds me of the days before Minecraft was complicated and I’ve been having a lot of fun with it and look forward to the future 🙂

But I instantly noticed that my game doesn’t look nearly as sharp as the trailers / screenshots do.
My computer can handle Oort maxed out with no framerate dips, however I’ve noticed the game crashes a lot when using the most recent “highest setting” for textures, especially when I’m grappling at high speeds.
To solve this I’ve cranked my textures down and it seems to be a lot more stable. It still crashes which is the price of pre-alpha, but not as often.

Draw distance is the big one! Despite having it set to “epic”, I immediate noticed I couldn’t see as far as the trailers implied. The game fog which looked beautiful in videos now looks more annoying as it blocks out distant islands on the other side of a lake.. I also noticed the big blue Citadel Beacon acts like a graphical barrier. Straight up, unless I’m standing inside the Beacon, I can’t see past it. It just appears as a giant blue wall.

I’ve seen screenshots by other users and it looks beautiful like the trailers, so there must be something I’m missing.

I’m still new, but I heard that you can get permission to build in a beacon. Does this eliminate the giant blue barrier?
I’ve also noticed that a lot of recent updates have been focusing on the graphics and messing with the fog a lot. Maybe the game doesn’t look as good anymore?

I’m still having fun with Oort Online, but the biggest appeal was how amazing it looked! I’m hoping it’s just a simple “Yeah you need to enable this” to get it running, because max settings isn’t cutting it.
Thanks!

• This topic was modified 9 years, 5 months ago by Antignarot.

[Swede]

You can disable the beacon effect at the graphic settings.
The beacons are transparent for me, but still not very pretty.
It would be nice with a keybinding for it so you can switch it easily.

Perhaps you could upload a screenshot from a known location, like a capital.
Then I can upload one from the same place. Please write what settings you use in that case. Depth of field adds blur to stuff not in focus, so I prefer to have it off.

Do you know what hardware you got? Updated graphics drivers?

[Antignarot]

Hey dude, thanks letting me know about the Beacons. I should look more carefully at the options.. Also I always turn Depth of Field off in games too 🙂

Here’s a few comparison shots from Tawas by the main beacon (the fancy building used in all the trailers). I’m just standing on the docks and one beside the tree house.
On average, this is how my game looks with only Depth of Field and Beacons off. Is there a fog weather effect or something? SOMETIMES the fog isn’t so brutal, but I’ve never been able to see past the capital no matter what I do (unless this is normal).
imgur.com/a/6K8aE

My specs are
CPU: Intel core I7
GPU(s): 2 Nvideo GTX 780’s
RAM: 32GB
My drivers are also up to date.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 5 months ago by Antignarot.

[CualitY]

I dont think that it´s because of bad hardware 😀
You got some badass hardware. It´s somewhere in the settings. I cant check it out right now because I´m at work but I can look up what settings I have, because for me everything works perfect. And my hardware is way lower than yours.

CPU: Intel i5 3570K
GPU: Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
RAM: 8GB
Drivers up to date.

We will find an answer to your problem 😉

[Swede]

Yeah, seems like the fog changes. I couldn´t see the other side either at first.
Then I waited a few days ingame and suddenly I could see the other side, a minute later I couldn´t. Even with fog I could often see the land in the water reflection. 😛

http://www.dand.se/wot/oortrange1.jpg

http://www.dand.se/wot/oortrange2.jpg

http://www.dand.se/wot/oortrange3.jpg

http://www.dand.se/wot/oortrange4.jpg

• This reply was modified 9 years, 5 months ago by Swede.
• This reply was modified 9 years, 5 months ago by Swede.

[CualitY]

This might be the answer 😀
Maybe there are areas where the fog is changing pretty fast and when it changes it turns brutal.
Would be my suggestion.

[Antignarot]

Thanks Cuality 🙂 Did you maybe change anything in the config file? I tried taking a peek at it but it seemed pretty out of sorts so I didn’t touch it 😛
I’d still like to know your options and try them out 😀

And yeah Swede your screenshots look pretty similar to mine..

The trailers / screenshots on the Steam and Oort pages are either using hidden settings, or simply put; earlier builds looked better.
In fact in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq9tmi_yXjA the colours seem a lot more vibrant with sharper contrasting. The fog also isn’t as “in your face”, but maybe I’m looking too closely XD

Different altitude levels seem to have less or more fog. Maybe there’s a sweet spot between the clouds on top and fog down low.

Overall I’m still happy with Oort and am having fun making little houses, I just wondered if there was a secret “ultra setting” I was missing ’cause the graphics were what sold me XD

[CualitY]

These are my settings

• This reply was modified 9 years, 5 months ago by CualitY.
• This reply was modified 9 years, 5 months ago by CualitY.
• This reply was modified 9 years, 5 months ago by CualitY.

[Pharoah]

Mine looks essentially the same as in the video, only more crisp.

[Antignarot]

Thanks guys, I think I was able to figure it out the best I could 🙂

For anyone else who stumbles upon this topic, there seems to be a sweet spot between the cloud and fog line where the draw distance looks nicest, but the big trick is staying in an area long enough for the world to load. I’m not talking about a simple 10 minute wait either, the world took it’s sweet time loading while I built a castle, but by the end my draw distance truly was epic 😀

As for my colours, they still don’t seem quite as vibrant as all of your screens, but maybe it’s just the area I’m in 😛

[Pharoah]

Edit… never mind what I had lol, I just read what you have for gear and it’s much better than mine. I don’t know what to tell you then.

I am concerned tho about this 10 minute area load time for you, my visible area loads within a matter of a minute. Maybe send in the specs and issue to the devs directly.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 5 months ago by Pharoah.

[Havok40k]

Some planets (like Tawas) just have foggier weather. You can turn fog off in the options if you want. The fog is also affected by things like being in low laying areas or being near large bodies of water, so if fog bothers you try building at a higher altitude, but below the main cloud layer. Many of the videos and screen shots are taken either on planets with less fog, or with fog turned off.

Oh, I think fog is also affected by the time of day, so that could be affecting things as well.

[deltaluca]

You can’t turn off fog in the settings, the volumetric fog option mostly only effects the fog in the first 56 metres where it is ray traced to get more accurate results for things like caves or to get local effects like block lights lighting up the fog

[James]

There weren’t any special secret options for the captured videos.

Make sure you max “Draw Distance” to EPIC this gives you a draw distance of 1 km.

Also make sure you max “Terrain Detail” – this pushes out the Level of Detail distance, meaning that you have higher quality for a longer distance.

Also make sure that you’re looking at the same time of day, as the lighting changes dramatically depending on the sun location.

We have tweaked, iterated and improved (??) the rendering since many of the videos clips were captured. It’s obviously possible we’ve made things worse – but we hope not!

As you suggest – it’s possible that there is a bit of an optical illusion going on. When we capture the videos we’re often flying so the view height is different. It might be possible this accounts for the visual differences.

[James]

Additionally – if you think the draw distance is worse:

1. Make sure you give the game enough time to finish loading all the chunks.

2. There could be a bug which means that you’re not getting everything. Please share a screen shot and we can replicate the position and check.

[Antignarot]

Thanks for the replies everybody!
I guess I should edit my original post because I’ve become a lot more learned soon after the first couple posts. I noticed that different altitudes change the fog and as I started my first big build project (which had me hanging out in one specific area for a few hours), the world loaded in and really looked great! 😀

[Author]

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