Graphics improvements suggestions

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by hamiltonfan2205, Nov 16, 2014.

  1. Bjørn

    Bjørn Registered

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    Why aren't you on their payroll? :) You seem much enlightened/capable :)
     
  2. KeiKei

    KeiKei Registered

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    We had live weather plugin at server so our tests are not comparable 'cause things may work differently. By the way live weather thing is magnificent feature! It's so cool to watch real radar and try to figure out when to switch into different tires. :) Hopefully transitions in weather would be improved in the future as now it's sometimes kind of stupid as weather changes completely in a blink of an eye. :)
     
  3. tjc

    tjc Registered

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    Got to +1 this...
     
  4. KeiKei

    KeiKei Registered

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    K Szczech to ISI, you got my vote!
     
  5. K Szczech

    K Szczech Registered

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    As ironic as it sounds, you at least have some readable information about weather conditions from external source :)

    If you rely on rF2 graphics to determine driving conditions, you're f***d ;) You can race in dry weather, you can race in the rain, but only because you know it's dry or wet. Racing in variable weather conditions is a no-go in rF2, unless you like your sim playing tricks on you.
     
  6. DurgeDriven

    DurgeDriven Banned

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    Thanks for the plug mate.

    I have to apologize to rookies lately my wheel and pedals are, well put it this way you would be horrified .......lool p

    Yeah Mat is def no rookie. p

    I would not have stuck my head back in here, ended up a sugar feast from graphics to MP to bagging severs to rain lol

    I think its was pretty much nailed in the first 2 posts.

    Post 1. Graphics don't need much, a bit of a tart up. lol

    Post 2. Any big changes are too time consuming and will come at a cost to other stuff.

    Take Rain, I like the concept but I had a good think about which sim was best for this, any takers ?
    Personally I think they all pretty well fall flat on their face one way or another.
    What I mean by that on a scale of 1 to 10 as opposed to the best features of the same sims.

    Like in a sim review I never heard anyone say the weather is awesome, there is always half a dozen things they will mention beforehand.

    What is the best weather in a game rain wise, how good is it really ? I mean I asking I do not know.

    I would concentrate on aspects of weather that are less complex, like cloud formation and long time pet hate ....... Fog.


    For top notch rain you would need so many things not even replicated in a sim, realtime aquplane from track convex and puddles
    calculated on depth etc. Before that you need the actual puddles and not a track that washes clean all the time the same way.
    Water beading and shear, light refraction, mist, spray barely scratched the surface.

    Really nice cloud work and fog sounds easier to me.

    The early morning runs in winter could be magic.........picture Dundrod or Spa or Rouen at 8am. :eek: .

    [​IMG]

    Or like F1 Testing . yeah that is fog not tyre smoke from DD lol p
    View attachment 15132



    As for the 2014 whinges about download / mod concept, really guys you got to get over it, you will get a ulcer.
     
  7. Spinelli

    Spinelli Banned

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    rF2 is/was supposed to be able to model just about all of that (heavy clouds, more foggy/misty/humid parts of the track where there are more trees [eg. down the straights at old Hockeheim with all the trees around you which makes the mist in the air take longer to go away, same with the Monza areas of trees]). Light refraction - isn't that quite a "normal" graphics effect by todays standards? Real-time aquaplaning from true, non-scripted puddles based on track surface physics and amount of water/rain, etc. etc. I'm pretty sure these are things already partly implemented, or are supposed to be coming. In-fact, I'm pretty sure we even already have different drying times due to shadows and no shadows (and/or sun).
     
  8. K Szczech

    K Szczech Registered

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    It's not really that complex - we really don't need light refraction and other stuff mentioned, but there is a certain minimum that is needed for weather to be practical.

    Sadly, a lot of stuff that could be used is already in rF2, but poorly connected, inadequately scaled or based on features that got broken in recent builds.

    For now, I've given up on weather transitions. No sim currently in development is likely to offer these at decent level. Some may even have fancy cloud, fog and wet road visualizations, but lack the proper placement of rain in 3D environment.
     
  9. Satangoss

    Satangoss Registered

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    rF2 is a hopeless case regarding to graphics, I learnt to live with this.There're so many bad aspects that I get tired just to think in list them.

    Luckly the physics and FFB are excellent, but graphics are bad and always will. Maybe some 3thParty improvements come to light as SRPL shaders did to Rfactor 1, but no hopes to have a up-to-date GFX and light system for rF2 ever.
     
  10. Satangoss

    Satangoss Registered

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    The funny thing is Microprose GP3 was able to offer it in 90's.
     
  11. Some1

    Some1 Registered

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    IMHO, one problem with rF2 graphics is that material settings are stored in the GMT files. This is a seriously bad decision, because every time you need to change material properties, you need to re export all meshes using that material. And if you don't export all meshes, then a mesh that uses old settings and gets loaded first overrides the material settings for all meshes. Also, this means that content cannot be updated that easily.

    It would be great, if we could override material settings in respective configuration files for tracks and cars. That way we could much more easily update old content or simply do quick material tweaking without starting 3ds max.

    Actually, rF2 has the potential for good graphics, most of the effects are there, just poorly implemented or turned off for time being. I think the problem is that a lot of the graphics depends on the content (e.g. material settings in GMT).

    As for weather, even the age old NFS4 had reasonably good rain and snow implementations graphics wise. Also, I love the wet weather effects on the windshield in DriveClub: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEhitZcWXZQ
     
  12. Empty Box

    Empty Box Registered

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    Weren't races prescripted in the GP series? I know in GP4 they certainly were.

    The game would basically pull up a number behind the scenes and that would determine everything in your race more or less, when certain cars will DNF, when certain drivers make pit stops, when the weather changes and how it changes.
     
  13. MikeeCZ

    MikeeCZ Registered

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    Dont know about scription of GPs but they certainly did have some edge over gMotor, but that would apply to many other gameengine today which simply insist on DDS texture formats, i am still failing to see what is so good about DDSes except that they make everything look worse.
     
  14. Hazi

    Hazi Registered

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    +1

     
  15. Tosch

    Tosch Registered

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    Yep, separate material settings from gmt's, or at least a config file that overwrites some materials, would be a great idea. You can adjust the materials in devmode and it should be easy to create a simple text config file from the materials dialogue box.

    Atm, for noobs like me, 3dSimEd is the best tool for the job (has a nice material filter) but I prefer to let the gmt's unmodified whenever possible. 3DsimEd is useless for billboard trees, because they loose the rotation axis after export.
     
  16. Lazza

    Lazza Registered

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    In a discussion about weather everything you mentioned except the weather changes is irrelevant; and whether the game knows what's going to happen isn't really relevant either - as the player you don't, so it's effectively random (I know you could save the game and have the exact same thing(s) happen each time you loaded it and continued, proving it wasn't random, but that's obviously different to a single play-through). rF2 has .wet files you can edit to change what happens with the weather, and transitions are handled better than via the plugin interface. By setting that file before a race weekend you can have effectively random weather despite it all being in the file.

    The downsides: you can't reload that file live, so you need to reload a multiplayer server (actual restart or go to next track) to get different weather (which also means any unsaved car setups are lost). As for the track itself, once it starts to actually get wet (not damp) the current implementation doesn't even qualify as a placeholder for proper puddles and aquaplaning we'll hopefully get at some point.

    But if we're comparing to the GP series, we shouldn't forget that the track itself was barely dynamic at all. rF2 is on another level, which is why doing things properly (the way ISI will) is much more complex than what it was doing.
     
  17. Spinelli

    Spinelli Banned

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    I think so, with regards to vehicle/driver performance, failures, stuff like that, I'm pretty sure it did.

    The first "sim" I ever played was years of GP2 (late 90s, maybe even early 2000s) in TV cam mode with the steering aid on. I would usually disable auto-brake and TC, and just have abs and, and steering aid (and probably stability control) on. My friends thought I was on glue trying to play a racing game from the TV cam, where you sometimes can't even see the corners approaching. It's addicting, I did the same with rF1 once in a while too, but for some reason it wasn't as addicting. Something about GP2 made it seem like you were watching a real-life event.
     
  18. Ronnie

    Ronnie Registered

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    This for smoke, spray etc. ;)

    One can dream, eh?
     
  19. DurgeDriven

    DurgeDriven Banned

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    You seen the AC unity effects and a few other titles.

    Why i asked whats is best weather in a game too.

    Just interested is all. lol
     
  20. Tony

    Tony Registered

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    Yup, we're having a variable weather league race this coming Sat, & the lack of progress with rain showing on the windscreen & wipers to wipe the rain is depressing (on stock ISI tintops - some of the wipers are modelled & some aren't)

    The promo pic that a couple of guys have already posted - the one of the Nissan GTR in the pitlane - is terrific & also got me hooked, as "the big step up" from rF1

    I really, really don't like being negative about this sim as there's so much about it that shines out, but that promo pic is from 4yrs ago, & most of us here have spent big sums of money (mainly on graphic cards & secondly on processors) just to enjoy all this stuff.. :rolleyes:
     

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