Just read some of those comments at vR. Wow... yeah she's hilarious alright, beyond all that is reasonable. Like a broken record or something. Obvious troll who doesn't think she's obvious at all. Most of the replies are just copy/paste from previous ones she made. And she bases all of that off of YouTube videos and screenshots, not even owning the sim herself. Just wow... All in all, the negative comments about rF2's visuals are not really to be taken seriously. Some people just decide to put on the "no-hat" and keep it on at all costs. Close your eyes and ears and just stick to your cause no matter how silly it is. In short, most criticism that is thrown at rF2 doesn't stick at all, because most of it is unfounded, nitpicking or just plain hysterical and pedantic.
Well to be fair, Interlagos is the first track to take advantage of a new grass shader that was introduced in 860 but unfortunately the new shader has a bug which is why the grass looks yellow. The shader bug was fixed before 860 even hit the public. But the track team decided it was worth releasing as is rather than wait how ever long it would take before the next build goes public. Looking back they probably wish they released it with the old grass shader until the next build is released and then come out with a track update to switch to the new shader.
Not really. That would have meant at least 3-4 days of extra work spent on something that would NEVER be used again as soon as the new build is released. That would have meant wasting almost a full week that we are now spending on other work. Try defending the concept of wasting precious dev time to the people who can't live with the minor inconvenience of this glitch. Damned if you do, damned if you don't . The only real other option we had was to hold the track until the next build. No changes would have been made to the track, and you still have have ended up with this same v1.01 . So it's really simple: those who think we shouldn't have released the track in the exact same state as it will be by the time the next build is released should simply delete v1.01 from their HDD ... and download the exact same file again in the near future. It's THAT simple. To those who can live with it for now, enjoy .
Grass is not only the reason of why the GSC version looks better despite the prehistoric engine. I agree with stonec, most of the features are there, but ISI needs to make it pretty (the whole package; graphics, UI, HUD, etc) and easy of use...
"Baffled by people's obsessions with visuals and graphics". That could be another potential thread in the near future... I'm just amazed that so many people allow these minor details to ruin their racing experiences in this sim. Supposed serious sim racers who defend GSCE's cartoony graphics beyond all reason. It's a source of endless amusement... ISI's reasons for releasing this track make complete sense. The way Luc presents it above makes that pretty clear.
I will not quote the whole thing... it's a bit long. Good post with good points. I only have two thoughts. One, the track team doesn't really know when exactly the next build will go out so rather than potentially wait months they decided to release it with the new shader that is bugged in 860. Maybe that wasn't the best move though. I do agree that Tim's strong suit isn't videos (no offence Tim, neither are most of us). The least that could have been done is release a video on the latest internal build so people know what will eventually look like. As it is VR only posts rF2 videos that ISI submits. Never do they post customer videos that actually make it look good. So if you're going to release the one and only video that will hit VR you might as well make it look good. That NSX video was definitely a bad representation of the car. It seems to be a pattern that ISI releases a video, VR posts it, everyone says it looks bad, people post better videos in the comments but no one seems to comment on those accept to maybe claim they are altered or rendered. To me it seems clear that the commenters on that site are anti-rF2. You sort of discount the site as not being the press. I think they do have an impact on the whole market, but maybe I am wrong. I guess I should pull up my browser and pretend I am totally clueless and coming directly from a console and see what I can dig up on the web. My other thought is about participation. There is participation in leagues. We are actually struggling to find a way to accommodate all the drivers we have signed up in our league. We have 65 teams with a total of 234 drivers all wanting to race. We are capping the field at 45 right now because our test race showed that the dedi server isn't stable enough in the upper 50s. We are splitting up the classes into two qualy sessions and if you don't make the cut you can't race. So yeah there is some interest, I just don't think many of the big leagues have braved the switch yet. I really think the numbers will pick up though. Sure pickup racing is a joke but it always has been in rFactor. Pickup racing in any sim is a joke really. Who wants to race in a pickup with a bunch of wreckers with extremely broad talent levels? Who wants to be in a race with 20 drivers with only 4 of them able to stay close to the front of the pack? Who wants to deal with weak drivers who you end up getting blocked by when you are attempting to lap them? Yeah, pickup racing is a joke.
I trust you have actually driven the track on your own machine running 860 to make that call. I assume you aren't just going off videos. So you're telling me that this video looks worse than GSC?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMuzBmz2Lu0
Obviously I've tried both myself, and yes, for me this video looks worse than GSC for two fundamental things, asphalt and kerbs texture/color palette is worse/less quality than in GSC, same with other objects like trees. Sky also looks horrible in comparison when you have clouds. I understand that they are dynamic in rF2, but they look so horrible sometimes.... As I said some days ago the main difference is the dynamic shadows in rF2, which obviously looks better than in rF1 prehistoric engine, although there is still too much contrast on shadows (and obviously you can exploit more this feature by using late afternoon lighting, as in your video).
Compare asphalt quality detail and the brightness of the kerb in rF2: Sorry for going OT, but since you asked, I wanted to explain why do I think so.
I actually like the bright curbs. I've been playing on another track with bright curbs also and at first it looks unusual but it gives a better picture overall IMO in rF2. The sky however looks realy strange at times.
Try these is a little better IMHO http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.p...or2-(Download)?p=316329&viewfull=1#post316329
If only you guys would have held on to releasing the track. Or the DW12... The people left playing this game will wait semi-patiently anyways, we've been through far worse than to need a bugged track - especially when (correct me if I'm wrong!) that track had already been converted to rF2 anyways. You only damage your own sim Luc. People will see that version of the track that is affected by a well known bug to us, and those who don't know WILL be judging it by that version. It's inviting criticism and nothing more. This track could have sat until that update done and ready and no one would have noticed, instead you just released a track that once again says "rFactor 2 looks like trash". You can say "it's bugged, will be fixed in the next update" but no one not already playing the game will care. Take the tin foil hat off. http://www.virtualr.net/category/rfactor-2/ Mod track, Official Interlagos, Mod track, Official Oval stuff, Pablo's NSX video, Official NSX release, Interlagos preview screeny, My URD video, Tiger Moth official.... On and on it goes. It's certainly not a 50/50 split in terms of ISI versus community news articles, but alas, to say "As it is VR only posts rF2 videos that ISI submits. Never do they post customer videos that actually make it look good. So if you're going to release the one and only video that will hit VR you might as well make it look good." Is absolutely asinine. What more do you want? Even reading the Interlagos release thread, there is more bitching about people bitching about graphics than there are people bitching about the graphics! And that is on a track that is certainly not the worst looking rF2 track, but also has the largely supreme looking in a much older engine that returns better performance GSCE version hanging over it's head. Most users will welcome the improved realism over something like GSCE, but if the game looks worse, has spottier content quality and runs worse on their system, who can blame them? As for are they press... If you want to be technical, sure. But I've never seen someone outside the community reference VirtualR. Why do you think AC and Project CARS have so much hype behind them? It isn't just because they look pretty, it isn't just because of steam - it's because unlike rF2, they've achieved at least some real press. We're not talking about sites like VirtualR that in the grand scheme are almost irrelevant, but much, much larger gaming sites. While none of them mention AC a whole hell of a lot, they all certainly acknowledge AC even exists more often than the name "rfactor 2" has ever appeared. Hell, the only thing Gamespot has on rFactor 2 is a logo and a trailer from nearly 3 years ago now. That is the same type of existence rF2 lives in on many a site. There's been no press at all. Transferring into the youtube realm - do I or ISR or VVV Racing mean much? In the grand scheme of the whole thing, we're tiny insignificant people. Compare the size of those channels to those of some of the Forza/GT/F1 201x drivers who occasionally dabble in rFactor 1 or even just the random "I'll play anything, ramble on and scream like a girl while failing miserably but at least you see the game" crowd. Now you can certainly say those guys don't demo it as well or have a clue on how to drive at all, but at least it's getting the rFactor 2 name out there. I've answered the question "I thought rFactor 2 was in beta?" about a zillion times in the last what, 8 months? If you remember back to when rF2 became "no longer beta" (something I still don't get to this day) it was like someone woke up and said "nah, we're not beta anymore." It just... happened. Rather than there having been progress to justify that, or even promotion to go with it. There's been plenty of rFactor 2 progress, but the larger community as a whole doesn't even know it exists and many of those who know rF2, still think it's beta. If these "sim racing press outlets" were that big of a resource, don't you think you'd see some more love for rF2? We're a local town newspaper, not the NY Times. It may be press, but those stories sure don't float far. As for league racing - it only gets you so far, and only gets the sim so far. I have no problems at all with league racing, but the concept that league racing is all that you need. There is no question pickup racing is generally garbage, but do you expect someone who has played the game for maybe an hour to join a league? Do you think someone who has had the game for a month but only played offline who then decides to venture online only to be greeted by a not working Get Mod server or whatever is going to have a good experience? You think someone is going to hop online and see 10 people total in 7 different servers is going to have a good time? First impressions count a lot, and between a horrendous UI, lack of players, some poorly implemented features, difficult to join MP mode, poor graphics at best versus the competition and less than spectacular optimization, spotty quality control in content and general lack of cohesive content - you are asking a lot to get people to enjoy rFactor 2 by itself, let alone compared to it's competition which some people will prefer, just as you prefer rFactor 2.
Man you guys need to seriously worry about the pure racing/gameply more. I mean, grass? I had to blink like 16 times when I read that. Forget that the track drives amazing, the curbs, the bumps, the undulations, forget about the actual playing/racing part, it's all about sitting back, relaxing, and staring at grass! Lol. Joking aside, I've spent like 10 hours of time in Interlagos racing hard - I still have no idea what the hell you all are talking about with this apparent grass bug...LOL! Everything looked fine to me, there was concrete, there was grass, there were trackside objects, there were shadows, there was a sky, there was dynamic lighting, etc. etc. I seriously don't understand some of you. Oh God, what happened to the simracing crowd of the early to late 2000s who were obsessed with analysing vehicle behaviour instead of obsessed with sitting back and looking at grass, water falls, and shiny cows.
Oh come on. VR posts ISI official stuff from Tim and then videos that make it look bad. Mainly comparison videos with HDR disabled and crap like that. Can you find videos of rF2 on YouTube with the settings turned up so it doesn't look like crap? Yes. Then look at the other sims. Do you ever see any videos of those with everything turned down and looking like crap? Nope. Can you find videos of these sims on YouTube with settings turned down making them look like crap. Yes. And don't say rF2's default setting make it look like crap because they don't. Even the default time of day has been changed to put it in good light. HDR is enabled by default too. I really don't know how some of the videos on VR look so bad unless some one is going out of their way to turn stuff down. I'm just going off what I have seen at VR over many many years. Anyways, about leagues. Do I expect someone to race the game for a week and then join a league. YES! Absolutely. Why wouldn't you? Why does everyone think leagues are so out of reach? It's frustrating to hear all the time. Typically the excuse is they don't have the time for it. I don't buy that. If they didn't have the time then how on earth to they have the time to be on the forums all the time, VR all the time, posting YouTube videos all the time ect ect. Also, you say leagues will only get you so far? I don't even understand where your going with that. There are a lot of people that join a league and stick with it for years and years. I've been active in leagues racing and admining since 2008. Not that long really compared to a lot of others around here. But I've never felt like I wasn't getting enough out of a league. The only thing I craved for a long time was a league that did endure racing. But I have that now too. In a league it's more than just racing too. You make friends, sometime very close friends. You meet some of them in person sometimes. Go to weddings. Many get involved in real life racing projects together like 24 hours of lemons and stuff like that. You get together in groups at endurance races like 12 hours of Sebring and stuff like that. Pass down old hardware to others in need. All kinds of crap. What more could you want? In real life you don't do pickup racing with random people yelling at each other. And no, track days with point by's don't count as racing. In real life you join a league. SCCA, NASA, ect ect and race with a lot of the same people all the time and build relationships. It's actually leagues that make a sim survive. Pickups and offline hot lapping is what will only get you so far. Then you bored and looking for the next sim with better graphics. People are still racing rF1, GPL and GTR2.... Why? Because their in a league. It's the real racing that keeps you going. Just like in real life.
Can't disagree with much you're saying. Easy to respond with a list of reasons, etc, but it's just not worthwhile to do so.
Did everyone see the superb screenshots of Tommy 78's Seat mod. Really awesome.. lots of interior and exterior renders and a great deal of info all about his Wip. Well that little lot got sent into virtualRcade and ignored. Why ? Edit: I just reluctantly had a quick look at vR for the past few days news feed. 5 or 6 AC 3rd party mod reviews. A couple of screenshots of Nords for rf2. Am I really paranoid or is modding dead in rF2 and all the modders have moved to AC... vR would have its 1000's of followers believe so.
