"It's impossible to race in the rain in RF2..." - not really! :)

Just need someone to create it then.... fancy doing it?

 

Doesn't angle of the picture taken have a lot to do with this? Nobody drives out a 2nd story apartment building and nobody drives 30cm off the ground like the pic in post #8.

 

This is Poznan Circuit for rFactor 2 made by Feels3 (yes sir, unedited screens) :




But it's not exactly there yet, either. Road shader provided by ISI allows for these looks but not for clear distinction between the 3 cases (dry, wet and standing water).
In reality we have "dry" => "wet" => "standing water". In rF2 we have "more dry <=> more wet" schema only. It's gonna change, since ISI is already working on the subject of wet weather and standing water, but I hope their visualization will represent that "3-way" model distinctly enough for the driver.

Looking at the first screen I'd say "slicks will be possible" since there's very little water, only wet surface. But in rF2 this much of "wet appearance" could already mean big loss of grip - you just don't know until you try. That's what I'm missing from rF2's weather system - a good translation of what I see onto what I experience.
When looking at these videos posted earlier I wasn't sure what I'm looking at - standing water? damp road? Can't really tell - need to take a test drive and see how it goes. After some time I would probably learn how much reflection means what, but that's not the way I would like it to be in rF2.

It does - the lower you get, the more reflection you see. That's why I'm having issue with videos from rF2 posted before - you're sitting in F1 car and only see a black stripe with faint reflection, rather than highly reflective stripe.

 

Yep, that's why I said we've the "tools" already. As K Szczech showed, but we all know that most of the tracks don't look like that .

And also, he also said, there's the link between the graphical representation and the physics behaviour.

 

You could make grass and buildings change appearance, but that would require using the more advanced (heavier) RealRoad shader - it's about priorities, allways.

Same goes for amount of reflectable objects/polys, their rendered resolution, etc.

But this thread was actually intended to focus on the racing in wet, not visuals and a long list of wishes for the future (again)

 

True, but I think K Szczech has a fair point if he says that the visuals should tell you something about the conditions of the track so you can alter your driving style. So while talking about the visuals its still down to the actual driving

 

Actually lighter than RealRoad shader, as they wouldn't need vertex painting based on car contact with it. For buildings, for example, you'd need a shader with one more slot for Obj Space Normal, so based on that, the specular and the reflection maps already present, the shader would be able to calculate where to tweak some values, or not.

But as you said, for sure is matter of priority. Nothing I'm saying here is meant to be read as "do it now!!".

 

Yes.

That's why I say I'm not after fancy effects, wipers, raindrops, etc.
What I'm after is visual representation of actual physical conditions - something that let's you know what's happening.

And of course those "actual physics conditions" must be there - not just simple grip decrease, but the "3-way scenario" I mentioned (including aquaplaning and using water to cool down tires or perhaps even influence of water spray on your engine performance).

But I do realize that current state is sufficient for many people, so I'm not surprised they enjoy racing in rain. Personally I'm interested in changing conditions, so there's also a matter of proper cues in visualization that rain is coming (in real life you can see the rain in the distance, not just dark clouds above your head).

A good example here: LINK
It's not raining where you stand, but you can see rain over a town nearby. You can also tell (judging by wind direction) that this rain will not hit you, but pass by you, unless it grows.
You don't get such early warnings in any racing game nowadays, but ic could be done and it would be the new standard. There are many different algorithms for volume fog that have been used for years in games. Just a matter of adjusting one of such algorithms to represent rain in game.

Another juicy video here: LINK
Makes you think how far games still need to go with sky visualization

But for now I can live with something that lets me recognize weather situation. Hell, I could even live with static low res sky images for as long as I'm also given a decent weather radar

 

But you still need to use your driving skill to combat conditions, if you talk yourself into driving exactly how things look then you won't be going very fast. Drive how things FEEL underneath you, only then you will know when you want to change tyres.

 

People from competing leagues is my guess. Or maybe people from competing sims that can't stand it that VEC has such a large user base on the sim they wish would die. Who knows. This VEC video probably has more down votes then up and down votes combined for other league broadcasts. I think of it as a complement to the league. Hahaha

 

I always handle the car based on what I feel, but that's just handling.
Unfortunately I cannot feel what's 100m ahead of me - but I could see it.

So while car handling is something I can live with, decision making is compromised.

 

Make decisions on what you feel than what you see. Because appearances can always be deceiving

 

I tend to agree with K Szczech. Obviously you drive based on feel but driving blindly into a turn that's wet is going to be a big surprise. If you can see ahead of time that it is wet you know you need to back up your break point a little and take it slower. If it turns out there is more grip than it "looked" like there would be then the next lap you know you can push more and at least you didn't end up in a wall. This is no different from real life. When you see a wet patch you don't go in full tilt and cross your fingers. You drop well below your normal levels and test the limits and on the next lap you kick it up a bit.

I agree that it's been difficult to really judge when the track is wet. Especially with reduced settings. But even on full settings it's hard to tell sometimes if the track is wet. When the car has no grip you know it must be wet. Hahaha

 

The tech could be improved, but for some reason Poznan shows ten times more realistic standing water (100% wet) reflections than ISI tracks. So it's not all about tech, it's something that ISI does wrong with their tracks as well.

 

As good as the wet reflections look at Feels3's Poznan, the "puddles" are still fake - there is just as much grip outside of them, they are simply boosted visually in the texture's alpha layer, which dictates the level of reflection and includes a bit of variation. Just to be clear...

I'm not saying that K Szczech is completely wrong, I just don't agree that it's a problem to judge the wetness by looking at the tarmac. Could it be more vivid ? Possibly.

But the thread turned out to be very constructive, thanks for that

 

We all know rf2 is physics first. To me altho the visual cues are not telling me much, but the feel on the wheel will tell me from there and i will simply gauge and as a preference point for the grip - say raining and its drying. i can only assume that the grip is gonna come back. If it rains again and its back to square one.

 

Absolutely, that's why I said:

It's like you say - we can see puddles in Poznan screenshot, but it's just a visual effect, not tied to real road physics. Real Road shader does not yet provide ability for the artist to make such distinction. It only offers linear transition from dry to wet.

We can all only benefit from it. ISI listens. They may work on other things right now, they may not reply to our posts due to lack of time for discussions (or an attempt not to provoke even more discussions), but they do listen.

I guess ISI is aware of the situation (why wouldn't they be anyway? ) and just doesn't put much attention to reflection settings. When better road shader is available they will have to update all tracks anyway.

 

"Real Road shader does not yet provide ability for the artist to make such distinction. It only offers linear transition from dry to wet."

Well, it kinda does, but it would require alot more materials and polys/vertices for the RealRoad to manipulate - you'd need to model in any dips and areas for potential puddles, I don't see a way around this unless you wanna add a fake and random "puddle modifier"

Tarmac only CAN transition from dry to wet and vice versa IRL - and the RealRoad does affect the level of reflection, dependant on wetness.

Only miss could be that reflection isn't quite good enough, it IS very dynamic allready.

Wishfull thinking (breaking my own rules, I know), would be if ISI created a DEV tool like pTool or tTool, which rendered a database, much like the .HAT were drainage capabilities and puddle buildup -possibilities existed, based on pure geometric math on the track surface (hights/angles/cambers)

 

It can also have previously mentioned puddles creating third state - standing water.

From build 930 release notes:

So the 3-way model I mentioned is under development by ISI: dry - damp - wet.

Real road shader does not support it yet.

 

Back on main subject. it's not impossible to wet race in rF2, but, in certain tracks, it is useless because the grip range appears to not work correctly. a 100% wet track is almost like a dry track. On the contrary, other tracks is overdone, 20% wet and you can't drive anymore. This appears to be the source of inconsistent of wet races against the AI (sometimes they drive like crap, in others they run like hell). It's not a terminal problem to online races.