New User: Graphics Seem Disappointing - Am I Missing Something

Is there something else in player.JSON that can make shadow draw distance less obvious?

I have them set in game on MAX with Shadow Blur on QUALITY, it does make things better, but still, the most annoying is the drawing shadow line on the armcos and walls while driving. I've thought maybe Anistophic filtering has to do something with it, so I've forced it through nVidia Inspector, but it's the same like doing it from the game.

 

Can you also try it without the negative LOD clamp fix, if that is active it might be making the shadow cutoff closer to you.

And yeah I agree even at max the shadows are not perfect. So don't set it any lower. The shimmering/aliasing of shadows is a problem, I use some supersampling AA to reduce it.

 

Modify the title to suit our needs. Let's see who comes up with what. ​

Also @Tuttle are you currently working on sth that you think should improve things or make you more satisfied with gfx department.

Luc was mentioning sth about some completely new shaders that he was dreaming about some time ago on twitter I believe (At least that's how I remember it). Are you guys still working on them or are they already in? Also are you trying to bring sth new in the near future (or later) or just trying to tweak and adjust things for the time being?

 

As already mentioned we're in the middle of a (yeah, let me say long one...) transition to improve HDR automation, tonemapping and then reduce at minimum all those issues caused by extreme sun elevation conditions (equator area) and the multitude of variables involved. We already know what we have to do but that need a bit of time to make everything working properly.. but this has to be managed without kill or overload other high priority schedules, so don't expect that transition to be closed in a week.... As for new shaders (like the new terrain shader) the rule is the same; priorities. Usually you see new GFX changes popping up between major contents release because we (everybody involved in the graphic area) can't jump between stuff, for obvious reasons.

In short; we (and you) already have a working graphic engine and a complete set of shaders - so everything new (in the form of improvement, shaders or bug fix) has to be managed without overloading standard development (code, contents, UI stuff etc etc etc).

 

dam it, I thought it was all pretty much in
I hope when it is included in a future build that will be it once & for all + content updated
I kind of get the feeling that these things can be the sort of thing that could be fiddled with & tinkered with forever

I guess the pressure is now very much in to finally bring these things to a conclusion & all in good time I guess

p.s thanks for the update

 

Hilarious..! Oohh god, that was hilarious...

But you can't give 'em too hard a time though.
There's probably bull shark testosterone supplement at play here.

 

I totally agree with you, in a bar, if some random stranger told me that my beer sucked, I would think he was not very polite.

But on a forum from the beer brewer, his comment, if polite would be welcome, and if based on demonstrable facts, very interesting.

As said Beaumarchais in Les noces de Figaro, "Sans la liberté de blâmer il n'est pas d'éloge flatteur", which as been the moto of a very respected newspaper in France.

I have some difficulty in understanding how the criticism in a forum of a given aspect of your prefered sim can spoil your pleasure when driving it, but I respect it.

Cheers.

 

Hahahaha!! That thread deserves a bookmark...... done.

 

My brain hurts. It shouldn't hurt. My eyebrows sweat. I hate when my eyebrows sweat.

I'm lovin' it. Am I sick or sth? ^^

 

Sure. Thanks a lot. That was nice of you and informative. UI being finalized as we speak?

 

Those two settings make no difference to shadow draw distance, only makes shadow edges softer/rougher. The only setting that makes a tiny bit of difference is to put shadows at Max. It would be nice to have two settings controlling shadows: one for shadow quality and one for draw distance. Now one is basically forced to use max shadow quality to get somewhat acceptable draw distance.

 

Nice idea on draw distance slider. If you have the juice to run max shadows with far far draw distance, do it. Make it look fabulous. If not but still want to have decent draw distance. Keep your draw distance high but lower overall quality of shadows from max to high or medium. You have PC which was new when Vista came out? Keep both as low as possible. Everyone's happy.

Ps. Does anyone else think that new cars that we get (New GT cars, new clio) have too strong headlights? Should they really iluminate so far ahead and so wide? Also the overall power of the ilumination. It's like having stadium lamps fixed onto your bonnet. Just my feeling. Nothing wrong with someone disagreeing with me or proving me wrong. I'd welcome some insight!

 

Race cars that race at night don't use street-quality head lamps. If they did, you'd have about half a second of reaction time at full speed. The Clio's aren't that fast, but for safety reasons, on unlit tracks, everyone needs to see very well where they are going and there are no oncoming cars/drivers to blind, so draw your own conclusions about what lamp power would get selected.

 

Hi Tuttle,

Do the billboard shaders have to be altered a lot to make them suited for receiving shadows again? Those billboards lighting up like christmas trees in shadowed areas are a real immersion killer for me, especially at tracks like Brianza.

R.

 

Thanks for this explanation. We have experienced a bit of the HDR evolution and it's going in the right direction. I am confident the engine can display fantastic lighting if coded and adjusted properly. The aliasing, shadows and reflections problems are another story. We don't seem to have made any progress on those. Are they part of a grpahics overhaul that is occurring now?

 

I can try that later on but without the clamp fix everything else looks so much worse (lines, fences, ...) so don't know if that's gonna be a real solution

 

Of course they aren't. However when watching let's say... Le mans as the best possible example as more than half of the track doesn't have any sort of ilumination whatsoever apart from headlamps. But when you look at videos or pics from both onboard and outside taken by either tv cameras (as we know filtering and other things can make it deceiving) but amature camera shots or even pro shots. Different techniques, different equipment. Still they don't seem to be that strong. Even famous Audi's laser light tech used last year wasn't as powerful as what we have in rF2. Just an observation.

 

I just pissed myself. LOL. Great way to start the day

 

Agreed.

Now be honest, Tim--aren't you glad you're moderating here and not there?

 

When the Indianapolis track was released I spent a while trying different settings and these were the ones making shadows disappear a few metres from the car. Shadow blur makes the fine distant shadows get blurred into nothingness, so yes they are being drawn but you cant really see them. And if I understand correctly the texture sharpening or lod bias thing makes it so the lowest lod is shown closer to you, so that where you would previously have seen the lowest lod shadow, you get nothing. So that does effectively reduce the draw distance.