Does the Zoom feature still 'zoom' in on the background as well as the object you intended?

yes

is there any intent to stop this in future patches?

No, but I think I heard something about new high-resolution backgrounds...

kk. Its probably the only graphical letdown I can think of :D so thats a thumbs up all round I think.

When my trial is up I shall be subscribing I think.

Glad to have you! :)
Please shoot pirates...

That's because zoom isn't zoom; it's a FOV change. This is true of many games, but isn't quite as evident because very few deal with the scale that Vendetta does (ships may be kilometers away). A real zoom would require changing the viewpoint instead of the FOV, which would probably be a bit of a bother to program.

I wish I had a telescope that changed the viewpoint instead of the FOV. I could look right past our atmosphere and stuff.

Of course, the real world doesn't have a bitmap skybox rendered a few cm in front of the telescope, either. If it did, I'll bet that the effect would look a lot like what we see now. :-)

actually, wouldnt it be easier to render the skybox after the zoom? zooming in/out doesnt affect the skybox at all.. it would graphically look better, and from the little bit of programming knowledge i posses, it shouldnt be extremely difficult.. but may require reworking of how the background is generated, but the basic premise would be, put the background into one level, and the in-game objects into a second, and only zoom the second level.

youguys are ignoring wat A1k0n sad. Once we get the bitmaps improved, it;ll look better. but the way it is now is actually realistci. Telescopes don't sho you the view from way out in space, they show you the view magnified many times.

-Caldre

sorry for typos, I can't read tthis small font in a box with my computers video problemss.

You are correct, but in space, where there is no atmospheric distortion, a telescope wouldnt really affect the backdrop of stars unless it was extremely high powered, and then they wouldn't be able to focus on the relatively MUCH MUCH MUCH closer ship..

And for those of us who dont, or cant run with the background turned all the way up as it is, it'll REALLY kill cpu cycles if the resolution is enhanced to the point where zoomed in looks as good as zoomed out.. its the DPI that needs to be increased, which increases the overall size of the image, etc.

Have a look at the binds thread at the top of the forum , there are variable zoom binds on there which work very well.

Ecka

actually, wouldnt it be easier to render the skybox after the zoom?
No. Skybox is generated once* when you enter the sector. If it were generated every time you turn or zoom you'd have fps drops all the time

*excluding planets which actually rotate