Graphics are Great WTF are people saying rf 1 ?

rf1 graphics, for it's time, are pretty nice, but man does it have a lot of bugs. That's the biggest problem with rfactor, and race 07, loads of graphical bugs. rf2 so far has the exact same bugs. As i have said, i will hold out till the end in hope the ISI will correct them all this time, but part of me is worried...

 

Absolutely pointless post MaXyM. Why did you even bother (Rhetorical). Whilst not a necessity, it IS unfortunate that DX11 isn't implemented for RF2....that makes it a shame. It's my opinion, so I posted it.

As for RF1 having a 'LOT' of issues, I disagree. There are a few hiccups here and there, but what I actually said was that with a quality mod and track it was pretty good. Running an Enduracers mod at VLM Mid Ohio, or VLM Fuji, looks brilliant, and RF2 promoses to improve upon that. In fact, the majority of graphical issues normally come from some mismatch between the mod and the sim, which puts the resibilty on modders to create a qualty product.

It will be interesting to see how things go over the next few months.

I'm fully aware of what has been pointed out, but those pointing it out aren't necessarily correct.

 

Nvidia card by any chance?

I get flickering textures and no Anti-aliasing on certain areas of tracks unless i turn on super-sampling, something i can't do since i have switched to triple screens as it's too demanding even on rf1. There were a lot of bugs in rf1, the actual graphics quality of rf1 is really quite nice, but the bugs ruined it. And as I keep saying, rf2 has exactly the same bugs on my system, so not sure what's going to happen...

 

These issues in rF1 are unlikely to be noticed by end user, because he's busy driving.

Mod developers on the other hand could point out a lot of them.

For example - cars don't just cast shadows downwards. They also cast shadows upwards. When you drive on top of the bridge at Suzuka, then you can see shadows of cars passing under the bridge. This isn't something modders can fix.
It's just an example - I could go on with pointing such things out.


I can see lots of improvements in rF2, but on the other hand I can allready see lots of things that developers have overlooked or simply not finished yet.

For example - this tree at Mills looks like this:



But when you look at it from track level it completely self-shadows itself in result of an error:



I wonder how many of you noticed that trees at Mills look suspiciously dark?

Sometimes errors and issues in graphics can stare at you and you don't even notice if you don't know what you're looking for Guys who spend time developing mods are more sensitive to such things.

 

Yes, I personally think vegetation looks terrible.. Generally, there is a big problem in doing it well in most games.. Advances in vegetation graphics didn't go forward since Richard Burns Rally! And why the trees in RBR looked so good is not actually the shadows or some over the top graphics effect (it actually didn't have any dynamic shadows if I remember correctly).. It was simply the textures (high quality, well chosen non-mirrored, well blending, non-repeating looking samples),, balance (color balance, tone grading) and "design" (by that I mean how and where you put the models upon which the textures are set), which gives the non-cartoonish (and by that I mean realistic xD) look and atmosphere. One another good design characteristic is variety.. Variety of these three mentioned characteristics..

I am also always angry when I see some tracks that are even in the rfcentral Hall of Fame, the track looks amazing, but the trees around not only have the same textures, but also FACE THE SAME DIRECTION!! And I'm like... PAY MORE ATTENTION PEOPLE!!! (I think the palms in rf2 Monaco have the same issue)

Now of course you must pay atention to what stuff are "eye stabbing" and recognize and which not to pay atention detailing, it's also up to an artist to consider.

I faced many troubles in trying to design the vegetation look in a realistic way for my tracks I made, especially cause many are heavy on vegetation. The tracks around Serbia are quite poorly maintained and overgrown, but I needed the "right" look. Here is an example I used for the Kičevo track:





and from Ušće track:





as you can notice, they are mostly the textures from RBR, cause out there not many other can match them. And actually all trees and grass are made of 2 plane objects.. You might wonder what the performance is like, but I think Kičevo track is one of tracks with lowest requirements. I took atention in design and optimisation, and the whole track only weights around 15MB. I don't really get why the todays racer games tend to use more high poly objects, cause it REALLY isn't necesarry.. They should more take care of feel/look/atmosphere than maths..

I am not glorifying and saying my tracks are the best, of course, but I am saying that at least I am TRYING to pay attention. They have many many faults, primarily cause I can't spend years tweaking one sidewalk =)

And I must also say K Szczech that your tree shaders are trully revolutionary (the ones with pixels towards the texture edge getting brighter when looking trees contrary to the sun). I have never used them, but I was really surprised when I read the theory about it and coundn't really remember if I ever saw something like that before in a game.. I think there are always more thoughtful and good looking simple solutions, and I saw many tweaks like these simple ones in other games or by other modders that are just mindblowing and bring the look to a completely new level.

(specifically, this MIlls tree would have lots of use of that shader of yours K Szczech)

 

RBR graphics were stellar for it's time and the art direction was top-notch. I still think it's a great looking sim, mostly due to the hard work of the art team.Some modders (above included) have continued that tradition of doing amazing things with the limited tools at their disposal.

As far as the technical aspects of graphics in rF2 clearly there is some work needed in the shaders and shadows, but that is all 'known' and presumably ISI will get that sorted out.

However, one thing I have noticed in the ISI tracks is that their asphalt textures are obviously tiling and lack location specific details. I hope they will fix this - visual details on the track are useful as brake point markers as well giving cues to the quality of the pavement. The track to curb/grass interface is also rather uninspired. Since this is where are our eyes are usually pointed I hope they can give some of their art staff the time to improve the asphalt and curbing details.

 

I have to disagree

Self shadowing, sky reflections, sun reflections, subsurface scattering (light passing through leafs) :



And from a distance - you can see how vegetation shading matches terrain shading - one look at these trees and you know where light comes from:



Yeah - RBR has great textures, but textures alone, no matter how good, will never "come alive" on the screen. Sure you can see polygons in these Crysis trees, but that's just one disatvantage. It's only a matter of time before this flaw will be overcome or limited to the point when it's not noticeable.

 

Yeah I'm really going to notice great vegetation trying to hit the apex at 130km/hr.

 

Agree, that's what I don't notice either, and sometimes I am going so fast, I don't notice the apex of the corner.

 

I think pCARS2 will look like that.

 

We all know you are ready to ignore any improvements. Looks like gfx from early '80 (black screen with white lines) is enough to you.
But we are trying to do virtual racing which require reproducing real world as best as possible.

There are some attempts to improve appearance of trees in simracing already. In Shift (and in iRacing I think) there are normal mapping used to give additional dimension for plain textures. It looks quite good from distance where tree is lit by light. Additionally it affects lighting of objects which additionally improves immersion when time of day changes.
SRPL ShaderPack provides such feature - but I cannot find screenshots. I'll try to add these later.
KS should add some screens/demo but looks he is too humble.

 

+1 to anyone actually answered the thread question. lol

Overall it is better then rFactor imho, I not going to comment on other simulations.

As for cartoon graphics ie: not worth playing, who cares ?
Skyrim and the rest of those shooters look like cartoons imo so you best be giving them up too.

Throw over rFactor, GPL, GTL, and GTR2 for my rF2 and pCARS ......not bloody likely.

 

It's the themes that make them cartoonish, not the graphics.

 

like Tim said they are more worried about physics at this time than graphics............ so looks like we will have to wait a bit longer for the graphics to be up to standard... ok by me

 

Exactly get your bread and butter i.e the core of a racing simulation correct first then impress with visuals. There was a good post from Tim on the matter over at VirtualR last week in response to someone slating the graphics. Can't find it now, but it was blunt and right on point

 

Everything this guy said is spot on

 

I've used iracing on and off for quite awhile and I couldn't tell you what the trees looked like. You know why? Because I didn't care. I'll stay outta this thread though since I don't care. You guys can argue about your mipmaps.

 

I find the overall look of the game okay, the only thing that's unacceptable at the moment is the performance given the average quality. I look forward to optimisations of the graphics engine much more than any further improvements to the look, get it running smoothly then add the spit and polish.

 

No... because these look quite good. If obscure, you will notice it I'm sure. And this is a point.
Additionaly when driving you usually don't notice some issues, because you are focused on driving. But I can bet it is true as well for gfx, sfx as physics.
But I'm curious you will be satisfied with B&W graphics? I'm sure no.

Some one said: live is made by details. You cannot deny details just because you can't notice single one. But any single piece affects overall perception. Looks like a lot of people forget about this.

 

I'll tell you this: If you are somehow disappointed by rF2 graphics, you better voicer over, and not sit down being sure that ISI will address it later. Because I bet if not enough people manifest their critics about the graphics, they may just treat it as a secondary issue and let it aside, definitely. So, I think that we all should tell what we think about it now, even if we are trying to be optimistic about it (and yes, I think it is kinda cheesy right now).

Rodrigo