High Quality Post Effects

I like rFactor since v.1 and just purchased v.2 but compared to other even older race games, rFactor completely lacks of post effects. I have recently found some plugins that slightly increase the quality of the image but I'd like to see some basic features that are delivered with any modern game engine. I made a quick search through the forums so if I missed something, please tell me. However, I'm working with those post effects all the time and it can make the game look completely different. Any volunteers are welcome since I can't do any coding stuff . In return I might offer quality cars or tracks to the community but right know the spark just doesn't jump across because some missing post effects cause extra work and over the years I got lazy .

Ambient Occlusion
I'd prefer the HBAO (horizon based ambient occlusion) but SSAO (Screen Space Ambient Occlusion) would do its job as well. I'd like to start off with track modding first, a huge track, but vertex baked AO doesn't fulfill my expectations and AO maps have to be rerendered all the time when changes in geometry are made. I don't even know if I can use a 2nd UV chanel.

• Not to bake any AO maps or vertices does not only decrease texture load but also saves alot of time in creation, especially for cars and cockpits.
• Since SSAO works dynamically, parts in cars or on track can be moved without stacked AO shadows.
• SSAO can be differently set up to achieve different looks
• Tweakable values make this effect also viable on lower powered machines

Motion Blur
This one is definitely a must have in a racing game. I have seen one effect for rFactor 2 already but it doesn't work well (not at all actually) at high speed.

HDR Bloom
Using Billboards for headlights is actually not really necessary anymore when an HDR engine is already being used. In other engines, where I have set up cars, I simply assign a blank material to the headlight or even the bulb only and just set a self illumination color as well as an output multiplier. The higher the output value is, the more the headlight brightens up and increases its glow/bloom amount. It works so f****ing perfect in motion, because the glow softly increases its power, when the headlights gets covered by itself and so on. In most engines a lens dirt map can be assigned which increases the realism alot especially when watching into bright lightsources like the sun, flood or brake lights. All this can even be modified with lens streaks (cross/horizontal or directional).

Eye Adaption
I don't notice any changes in brightness, wherever I drive. So it might be a great addition, when driving into a dark tunnel, everything brightens up and leave it with an overbright environment which turns back to normal after a short while.

LUT Color Grading
I have seen so many vintage mods for rFactor but there is no image processing to simulate old analog films. This is a basic feature in any films but also modern game engines. That would support the feeling of vintage motorsport. Combined with some other lens effects the game could look incredible.

Misc Camera Effects

• Chromatic Aberrations
• Vignette
• Overall Brightness/Contrast/Gamma/Saturation Settings
• Basic Film Grain
• Animated Film Scratches/Dust
• Sharpen
• Scanlines
• TV Glitches for replays for example (possibly when taking a bump)

I might add some visual examples later on.

 

Sun occlusion (at least) /HDR: already there.

Motion blur: Bah!

Eye adaption: shouldn´t be necessary if HDR and sun occlusion are right (or ?)

Colour grading: Bah! Play Codie´s!

I for one like a gfx-engine that works indipendent of postprocessing-effects. (what rF2 does to some extend)

 

There was a sort of eye adaptation in the old HDR (auto exposure), it was removed because it made the track look bright and horrible when inside a dark cockpit. Motion blur and lens effects are totally not needed in a simulator imo, some of the other effects can be argued. Gamma/saturation slider would be nice, as would bloom.

 

Thanks, I'm havin enough framerate problems when there are more than 10 cars around me as it is but no, thanks.

 

You should not compare products with completely different goals and targets.

- AO; bake it, as we do, in a second channel
- Motion Blur; we don't want these kind of effects while driving.
- Bloom; we had this but it was pretty inefficient and causing more problems than benefits. Again, kind of effect which is not really a must. As we have much more important prios I think this is gonna be bypassed for rF2. You can use some injector if you need it.
- Eye Adaption; still, creating more problems than goods when assigned to a such complex dynamic environment. We had this, we removed. Let your own eyes do the job.
- LUT/Calib; that's something good to implement but not a priority, at all.
- Misc Camera Effects; No offense but that's a pretty kitsch list of effects. Something I'd espect in 1998 editor showreel. They are really out of place in a sim like rF2. Film Scratches and Dust...really?

The only fx I would like to see (as a user), personally speaking, it's a proper replay CAM DOF and some realistic lens effect on top of it. That's it. Still, no prio.

As for rF2 driving experience, we don't want any kind of visual effect. Real life is not a demo of Adobe Premiere...


Cheers.

 

DOF would do wonders for replays.

 

Hi.

Was just thinking about graphics recently but would'nt do it now because of so much great releases in terms of quality and quantity done by isi this lasts weeks
But yes, i agree totaly with tuttle, DOF is an effect that gives a real 3d sensation.

My biggest concern is about the night lightnings and reflections.
How ISI consider it?
If it's a work in progress, no problem, i can wait
But the lights of the cars and the shadows projected in night (with some strange white reflections ) are not great for now.

I've tested with the latest tracks and cars and still like so much the morning or late afternoon. But in night.. no it's not great.
Bloom can help in car lights i think but i can be wrong, i'm no grafist at all sorry

Last but not least, the lights of the cars does'nt flash enough. ( Look at some brake lights in some real videos, they really flash in the eyes and can be seen from a long way )
I just see some improvements with apex modding cars. Why?
Thanks again for the good work isi

 

SweetFX can deliver some of the effects in question. Give it a go.

 

Try HDR ON maybe

Looks fine to me. ?


With HDR OFF it is horrible white light..........


Take into account not all tracks reflect light properly , you can clearly see some posts and poles don't here.


Close enough for me !

 

Durge, I've just bought rFactor2 and wondered what mod and track the pics are? I know from NG you're a historics fan they look like Can Ams(please say yes they are)

 

This ^

 

As for rF2 driving experience, we don't want any kind of visual effect. Real life is not a demo of Adobe Premiere...

• I guess we have a totally different picture of the usage of post effects . I should note, I've been working as art director for a long time and I'm well aware of the overposteffected kiddy games. But this is simply a bad use of it (or explicitly wanted). In realistic games the challenge is to use it subtle but visible. Following simple rules can increase the visuals enormously. Generally AO is a real effect, bloom & glare are realistic effects, motion blur is a realistic effect, eye adaption is a realistic effect even chromatic aberrations are a realistic effect so this IS actually real life, not a result of filters and effects .

AO; bake it, as we do, in a second channel

• SSAO just solves so many problems, decreases loading times and saves alot of time at the asset creation so this might be a feature for future releases (rFactor 3 maybe??? ).

Bloom; we had this but it was pretty inefficient and causing more problems than benefits. Again, kind of effect which is not really a must. As we have much more important prios I think this is gonna be bypassed for rF2. You can use some injector if you need it.

• Since I personally spent much time into setting up hdr environments I'm totally into this post effect. A standard bloom definitely can not come up with this fine glare appearance.
  View attachment 18340

Motion Blur; we don't want these kind of effects while driving.

• I wouldn't call this an unimportant effect especially since this is even happing within the human brain by purely using the human eyes . In too many games the motion blur is just completely wrong adjusted to convey super duper sense of speed. This is waaaay too much. If a pixel becomes more blurred than it's actually moving, it looks weird and wrong. Even the same blur/move distance is way to much. The speed in many cases, when the effect becomes visible, is way to low, too. The choice of the blur technique also makes a huge difference. Look for a game with vector-based motion blur. It simply looks amazing even at a low level of quality. Generally it can be subtly used as well. So it's not the effect at all that screws up the brain but the setup and technique.

Eye Adaption; still, creating more problems than goods when assigned to a such complex dynamic environment. We had this, we removed. Let your own eyes do the job.

• Too bad. I thought a race environment would be a great environment.

LUT/Calib; that's something good to implement but not a priority, at all.

• Hope dies last .

Misc Camera Effects; No offense but that's a pretty kitsch list of effects. Something I'd espect in 1998 editor showreel. They are really out of place in a sim like rF2. Film Scratches and Dust...really?

• I never thought about to play with those effects but fortunately you are able to set up different cameras for replays, dash cams etc. So it's not ridiculous actually to watch your 1966 24h win in vintage style or set up the dash cam as low quality cam with scanlines, film grain, distortion or whatever to actually get a more real impression. DOF is indeed a nice effect for the replays.

Don't get me wrong. I love rFactor for its driving experience and I actually enjoy this discussion. I just love simulations and unobstrusive state of the art games so rFactor is pretty close but not behind my finish line. I'm not after eye popping visuals like Halo 25 oder Crysis 12 but I was way too often surprised about a final result after setting it up and polishing it finally.
Thanks for your suggested plugins btw.

 

I may be saying noob stuff here because I have no idea about this stuff. But AC with PP menu off is nice (ignore screen resolution, was doing a test back then)
View attachment 18341
View attachment 18342

rF2 is not bad, tbh I like it, but could improve IMO (HDR is on, is this a PP?)
View attachment 18343
View attachment 18344

*Core i3 2100, XFX HD 7850 Core 1gb, 8GB RAM. Both had 26 cars on track (but rF2 can handle 42 here) or AC had 24, it was the max track limit. If I remember right AC was not fully configured during that test I did, PP was off and reflections too because I don't like it much.

 

PP before the update was beautiful but not as much as now, had the brightness that has not , the pictures are common RF2 have pictures like that

 

I think AC has always looked better, without and with P.P. effects. I have to try it with P.P. turned off as I haven't since v1.3 but it still holds true with the Default filter.

 

Sry missed that .......

That is

Longford
http://isiforums.net/f/downloads.php?do=download&downloadid=35

Lemans
http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.php/16872-Virtua_LM-Le-Mans-1991-1996-(v1-00-released)

Lola T280 v1.4 (Click on NEW VERSION v1.4 )
http://www.internationalsimracing.com/forum/index.php?topic=2937.0

 

Yes we have.

PS: +25 years as a pro in the CGI/VFX industry and a degree in electronics. Guess I've some clue about it too.

PS2: it's all about company/product goals and taste. That's it.

 

I notice that in real life when you're looking at the road, scenery, or for example the rail way path from a train in movement, your eyes see motion blur. The lack of it in sim racing games couldn't also explain some loss of speed sensation compared to driving rl? I know that multi monitors and virtual reality headset give you a better peripheral vision of the world, than a single screen, but I think motion blur is an independent aspect from that. And I know that in a modern race track the speed sensation is lower than in a city or even a mildly busy highway, especially if you're going in a fast race car which constantly drives at over 100kmh, whereas in the city you're used to low speed cars, and there if you happen to go faster at like 130kmh.. you're like woah warp speed
For example in a game if you look directly at the asphalt with the camera placed looking closely to the asphalt, like you'd be in the passenger seat looking down to the road, in the game you see the texture more clearly, but in real life it gives the sense of motion blur, unless you open your eyes more than normal and trying to focus on it as it'd be a still image, but otherwise in normal state I believe there's more motion blur effect in real life than used in sims. But I'm not saying to use a lot of it in games, just a percentage of it. And besides, in first person camera when driving in sims, motion blur effect would be less noticeable than in 3rd person, with chase cam.

All this analysis, is because I think when creating real life in games, you can't just think that raw depiction of real life graphics is seen the same way through a computer screen in a game, as seen by our eyes in the physical world. For example the wheel rim blur from cars. There is a technique used in racing games development that needs to be used, otherwise wheel rim blur/backwards-forwards movement doesn't happen naturally, but in real life it does. So this effects needs to be recreated in racing games.

 

I think the only post effect I'd like to see a lot, is some depth of focus on trackcams... That's about it

I'm perfectly fine with how rF2 looks from inside a cockpit... Outside a cockpit... that's another story!

 

No, please no !!!