With this VU objects dead or despawned objects are removed from display using a "dissolve" animation. When objects are spawned or u enter a new area then objects are rendered using an equivalent undissolve animation. For shops you get all the original shopfronts visible and then over time the new designs are rendered over the top. You can either run closer or wait for a long time after you TP into an area. I suspect the order of rendering might be prioritised based on distance. I find this change very disappointing as it negates much of the benefit and impact of getting the custom designs. My shopfronts are designed to be distinctive and recognisable from the TP but now you dont really see anything unless you run close, or stand still for an extended period. It must be worse for owners of shops further from the TP. And also Celeste Harbour looks more boring now that the default vanilla look is back. And the same behavior happens when you exit a shop. All the surrounding shops fronts are blank. Most owners have removed their own signage because it was no longer necessary. Of course the same situation is experienced at Sanctuary cove. When I enter a shop the last thing to render appears to be the lighting effect. I'm not sure if that is the best strategy. I'm guessing that the change in rendering was some sort of performance based decision but I have to say I am not impressed by the change in user experience.
These types of visual problems with estate graphics have been going on a very, very, very long time in various forms. It's one of the reasons I gave up being an estate owner, at least for now. Got sick of how changing visual setup in client had such major changes in what you see in the estates... Got sick of seeing 'sun rays' coming in through the walls of the apartment basements on Calypso when they shouldn't have been there (especially bad at dawn/sunset as 5'o clock shadow was causing entire wings inside of buildings to go dark when there was no windows to justify that happening, etc), and all of that adversely affecting where I could put interior lighting, signs, etc... Got sick of seeing the difference in lighting from inside and outside of estates where outer wall of shop/apartment would have some completely different lighting setup than what was inside (moving stuff 3 inches along a doorway should not cause it to go from being almost pure white to pure black in shading)... got sick of items disappearing when you walked 5 feet away from them when PP or MA got the distance setup wrong on various estates. I'm sorry this is happening to you and your custom design, but I believe it's a much, much bigger issue than you may realize it is... It's not just the PP, but MA that is at fault too, as well as the game engine itself. I do think you are right, it's likely that they utilize a depth/distance rate to affect when certain things are rendered... as well as z-buffering, etc. as that type of thing is a typical technique utilized in the game development industry... However, the PP does probably have some say over it by how they set up different parameters in the Planet Design Dev Kit or whatever they call it that does that functionality in scripting for them... How much of a say - that's something only they know... and how much they actually 'test' on that type of thing by trying different client settings for each custom design is something that only they know... I'd hope that they'd really test the hell out of it with something like a custom design like you have, but suspect it's probably just a 5 minute job some intern is throwing together? Hopefully I'm wrong on that and they'll make it right, but only time will tell.
well I think it was a platform (and therefore MA) decision to make the change but I feel the most effective way to give feedback is via the Ark devs. Especially given the effort their team put into the custom shopfront design.
The dissolve spawn feature seem s better after the patch. But I agree it isn't a smooth or cosmetically pleasing as before.
While there are definitely some graphical issues, like taking a while to load up and lights and surfaces flashing on and off, I'm not sure I see any problem with the storefronts. They don't seem to change at all the closer I move, and I can see them fine from the TP.
Neil, I've described what is happening. Nice for you that you are not being impacted. When I get sometime I'll experiment with the graphics settings to see if I can somehow mitigate the effect.
Hmm my pc has SSD and a GTX 750ti and the shop front all the way down the street load on Vhigh before I can make it to the first shop in the row. I suppose its probably part of graphics options
