It's all in the lighting?

[Woodee]

A few things I have pondered for a while and I am looking for technical explanations of what I am about to say.

It seems in most cases gmotor based sims have suffered from that bland midday look when the track is sunny. Overcast or early morning/late evening has always been a strength. What is it about the lighting method/differences to other sims like Assetto Corsa/Automobilista 2 that they don't seem to suffer the same problem?

I can look at a screenshot and see something is "off" but I don't have the technical knowledge to explain why. I don't think it's the resolution of textures, there is something with lighting.

Can anyone help? Technically speaking, what does gmotor do (or doesn't in this case) that makes this effect?

 

[Highlandwalker]

I can't comment on what gmotor does or doesn't do. I think some of the problem concerns the textures in that they are sometimes too bright which in turn tends to reduce the contrast. I have reduced the brightness of a lot of textures in some tracks and the improvement is very noticeable. The tracks I have worked on are Tiger Moth, Virginia and Road America, available on Overtake. Tracks for my own use are Silverstone 75, CTMP, Spa-AC, Spielberg and Kyalami. They all show an improvement with the reduced brightness of the textures. The newer tracks don't seem to suffer so much with the problem. This may not help with your question.

 

[davehenrie]

A few things I have pondered for a while and I am looking for technical explanations of what I am about to say.

It seems in most cases gmotor based sims have suffered from that bland midday look when the track is sunny. Overcast or early morning/late evening has always been a strength. What is it about the lighting method/differences to other sims like Assetto Corsa/Automobilista 2 that they don't seem to suffer the same problem?

I can look at a screenshot and see something is "off" but I don't have the technical knowledge to explain why. I don't think it's the resolution of textures, there is something with lighting.

Can anyone help? Technically speaking, what does gmotor do (or doesn't in this case) that makes this effect?

AFAIK, it has always been about shadows. The dawn/dusk period produces near horizontal shadows which cover a lot more area(and thus hurt fps)
But as to why the skybox at midday is bland? dunno!

 

[Highlandwalker]

I think it's a general lack of contrast and colour saturation, midday and bright sun is a very high contrast time of day and it also varies on the track used, it could also come down to monitor settings. Here's a couple of pics that could help with your monitor settings, they have a good range of subject matter and colour scales to judge your monitor settings to.

 

[mantasisg]

I think best looking is Gran Turismo 7, to me iRacing also looks very good particularly in track side view during their broadcasts for example... but it depends in iR...

I think rF2 has better lighting than AC, even when taking CSP, Pure, natural mod filters.... Pure, however, adds HDRI skies, and that is very powerful. But rF2 definitely has more correct light for different times of day. rF2 is worse than AC in night.

In my opinion where rF2 gets behind is clarity of images, maybe there is little bit of lacking in artistic department of tracks, even though later ones are very well modeled.

rF2 also suffers from lots of bad replay cam angles, or tracks aren't modeled with those cameras views too much cared about.

Last but not least rF2 suffers from majority of INCREDIBLY BAD TASTELESS SCREENSHOTS that were underselling the look of rF2 for more than a decade....

We also pick all kinds of details such as rims blur moddelling (notoriously rarely well done), everything sums up...

Spposedly GT7 has very good color tones mapper, which also got into BeamNG lately, and I have seen examples of beamNG looking very well.

rF2 does look better to me when screenshots has blur involved. Is it motion blur, or blur due focus distance.

Original unedited:

I asked AI to replace the sky with HDRI sky

Here is another attempt with AI:

Maybe not the best example, as I haven't worked enough on shading of this car:

Same prompt, it switched sky to overcast, but it does prove the point:

 

[mantasisg]

It turns out to be fun to make these edits.

Here is original already very well looking by all meanings to me:

And in fact AI didn't make it look better, just smeared it a bit in typical AI manner when it is a bit confused and boosted saturation, AI gave other variant where car looks more realistic, but changed scene too much:

Asked AI to reshade it with medium cloudy sky:

One last one with no sky visible, just to see how much impact there is just from relighting with different sky, here is original, pretty good I would say:

Lets see what AI does, struggled with this one to keep image as it is, changed cam angle and reversed sun angle, but it looks almost real, only better grass would improve this one:

Another one, original was dry btw:

BTW isn't it impressive that AI knew how previous turns are in this fictional race track ?

Based on all these I think it is safe to say that realism adds up from every little small detail. Skies and matching lighting. I don't understand where the tones mapping stand in but it might be a thing. Reflections. Ambient occlusion is big deal. Shadows.... and much more.

I think it is also safe to say that rF2 is close to looking very real, but various small details adds up, and moves it a bit off from target.

Where there is huge area of sky in the view, just different sky look already is a big deal. All of the darkening of places due to AO is massively impactful. Glass is not reflecting correctly on some angle, or body work lacking reflection is also already pushing immersion from us, we might not understand that it is it doing that, the same way some of us don't understand why car does things that it does, but subconsciously we can feel that it might be right or wrong.

Some people thought can't tell much about cars handling as they don't watch real videos very often and doesn't study cars. But everyone, even worst of the worst smart phone/computer slave frequently walks outside and looks at the sky, at grass, at trees, birds flying around, animals running around, the streets, the buildings, water, ground, THE TRASH and oil stains...

It is interesting way to appreciate it by trying to replicate these visual experiences virtually. Ironically the closer games get to it, people also weirdly starts rejecting the games, and games feel less than the games. It should be good for simulations though...

 

[Highlandwalker]

I have always thought rF2 has the the most natural lighting of all the sims. Car reflections can be very good but not all cars, a couple of unedited pics at Brands Hatch mid morning. Shadows are not always rendered for all objects at tracks, more objects rendered the better, I think that's why some tracks look better than others. Good shadows and reflections brings tracks and cars to life. I also think some people should go outside and have a good long look at how the real world looks instead of looking at other sims as a comparison. None are perfect. Another problem is that not every bodies monitor is correctly calibrated.

My in game graphic settings.

 

[philrob]

Great thread and comments

 

[mantasisg]

I have always thought rF2 has the the most natural lighting of all the sims. Car reflections can be very good but not all cars, a couple of unedited pics at Brands Hatch mid morning. Shadows are not always rendered for all objects at tracks, more objects rendered the better, I think that's why some tracks look better than others. Good shadows and reflections brings tracks and cars to life. I also think some people should go outside and have a good long look at how the real world looks instead of looking at other sims as a comparison.
View attachment 57448

I also think that rF2 lighting is one of the best, especially when taken across all times, except night from dusk till dawn.

Let me comment these few screenshots what is really wrong and might be wrong:

The one above has these problems: jaggies everywhere, rimblur design is not good plus the rendering of it is broken, shadows as allways their softness..., the black tones of diffuser and shadowing underneath are very blended, in general the modeling ofthe car is low standard than later S397 cars, the grass area looks too solid like lava rock painted, grass has no variation by the sides of barriers and fencing, speculars on top of the car ahead rear wing looks not right, sky doesn't look real, some fences posts are floating above ground

View attachment 57449

Here is more clouds and sky, more rimblur that doesn't even blur and alpha fighting issue visible, tarmac specularity might be a little off, marbles display no specularity response and in general very flat looking, again sharp shadows, everything that is black at the rear of the car is not contrasting well, I think tramac texture scale might be too small perhaps...

These are some of the "smaller" things that would make it all look a lot better. Of course there are complex raytracing related things like AO, reflections, specular color bounces all that.... more realistic grass and so on...

 

[mantasisg]

And it is AI showtime, IDK about you, but I think this is helpful as a tool to understand what would lead to improvements:

Two versions:

I think AI did ver ygood job there at maintaining the exact rF2 look, just changed sky to HDRI sky and reshaded the picture with that sky lighting, and also replaced the wheels, exactly what I asked it to do.

 

[Woodee]

Point still stands though.

When I compare the sims, I compare all to what I see as "real life". Not so much a movie camera look as some racing games have done in the past with vaseline on the lens and camera effects all over the place.

Most sims we have left have gone for the "natural look", but even with the DLC tracks for rF2 and comparing to the lighting of AMS2 (which isn't too overblown) there is something different. rF2 looks a little flat when the sun is high in the sky, maybe a bit bleached. This isn't anything about monitor calibration, it what feels real always comparing to real life. When something is "off" it can be jarring, but in most cases there is a question why does it feel this way?

Viewing things from a VR headset for these past years probably skews my point of view, but I can still tell the difference for what "looks real". But I still don't know the terms for what it is doing wrong or what needs changed.

Also I guess what can sometimes skew my perception is the variance in tracks I would use in rF2, varying in age and quality. This is not to desparage the track authors but more to the fact there is such a range of age and gfx technology between some of the content. Other sims didn't go through these growing pains. AMS2 has always had a certain look and style, even AC up to a point I guess. But rF2 can vary so much depending on what content is used, what author and how old it is since the DX9 days. I mean haven't we all raced content that hasn't been fully updated, uses textures that haven't been toned down for albedo and blow everything out?

I look through the dev docs occassionally trying to take in the plethora of information. Gmotor still has a lot of power (as we can see from what they have been able to do with LMU).

 

[Highlandwalker]

And it is AI showtime, IDK about you, but I think this is helpful as a tool to understand what would lead to improvements:

Two versions:

I think AI did ver ygood job there at maintaining the exact rF2 look, just changed sky to HDRI sky and reshaded the picture with that sky lighting, and also replaced the wheels, exactly what I asked it to do.

The first edited screen shot is totally the wrong colour shading for the time of day, it's more sunset or early morning. It looks nice but wrong. The second one is ok. The wheels on that particular car do not look good any way. I was trying to illustrate that rF2 can have good car reflections and as I said the screen shots were unedited. I still maintain a lot of peoples monitors are not correctly calibrated, I have had about ten monitors over the years and only two of them were calibrated correctly. I am a landscape photographer so I need monitors that are correct. I agree rF2 is not perfect but it's the one I prefer overall and always go back to.

 

[mantasisg]

The first edited screen shot is totally the wrong colour shading for the time of day, it's more sunset or early morning. It looks nice but wrong. The second one is ok. The wheels on that particular car do not look good any way.

Now I am certain that we, or some of us, aren't only bad at judging relatively subjective vehicle dynamics that can be perceived by observing how real cars behave. But we are also bad at perceiving totally objective visuals...

The first AI edited image IS about sunrise time, or low sun angle and with appropriate shadows and shading. Also wheels in both images looks absolutely amazing. I am reading what you write in disbelief that it is written seriously. There is no discussion.

 

[mantasisg]

Comparing sims to sims is never great, but people do it all the time when they talk about physics, it is inevitable to have when talking about everything else. Loosing connection with reality is never a good thing, it is never a good thing also when people just can't agree which simulation does it the the best, especially when they do it very differently.

It is not a bad thing though to reference at other simulator as a reference point IMO, assuming people can agree where they stands.

For a long time most people agreed that rF2 has best physics. Everyone was aware and virtue signaled, but never properly supported or chose rF2.

I wonder how many would agree that these are best, most realistic graphics that has been achieved on a video game so far ?

This is very idealized screenshot, obviously GT doesn't look this real all the time, but in rare occasions it pulls close. Note insane detailing of trees textures, these are cardboard trees. Crazy texturing everywhere. Grass is procedural I guess, I don't know, but looks real from this angle. You can see asphalt rubber grooved on individual tracks of wheels just as it is irl in nords where is just one strict racing line. Subtle reflection of taillights on tarmac. Track surveillance with solar panels is far away, but you can tell they did not spare resources on it. Grass and shrubs everywhere. Armcos looks great from backside too. Soft foggy haze in distance between trees. Variation of Armcos colors. Cement patches on road. Subtle tarmac repair patch by the great looking kerb. Cars looking perfect. Colors are super realistic everywhere, which means shading is extremely good. And everything is rendered very cleanly without jaggies and artefacts.

I mean people, we need to calibrate our perceptions, because right now after all these years I am rapidly coming to a totally conclusion that we do not live in same realities. For example some of you in the UK live in totally different reality than we here in Lithuania or the bros back there in Japan. Whats up with that ?

I think rF2 and iRacing were the only simulators that were heading same direction as GT, now maybe BeamNG too, but early to speak. GT graphics is levels ahead of the rest. Out of sims IMO iRacing, though sometimes dull looking, is taking the lead, and they are preparing their new "SPARK" graphics engine right now. rF2 might have had most potential, but it is always difficult to predict rF2, S397 sometimes struggles a lot for a long time, and then in short time makes leaps ahead. Modded AC can look very good in particular settings, but it is just not right to hassle so much with settings while fundamentally it is just not as good.

Definitely it is best to look at reality:

One thing sure is that reality is more dynamic. Subtly saturated, and contrasted.

 

[davehenrie]

Back when rF2 got the sudden cash influx from the MSG purchase, I posted a picture of a Corvette running uphill with a small backfire to show off the graphic improvements. Then sombody recreated the same shot with AC, using all the SOL and other apps. His picture was better, but it was a cartoon. Everything was brighter, shiney-er(lol) but it just didn't look real. Many of your images are downright eye-boggling how 'real' they do look.

 

[Lazza]

Back when rF2 got the sudden cash influx from the MSG purchase, I posted a picture of a Corvette running uphill with a small backfire to show off the graphic improvements. Then sombody recreated the same shot with AC, using all the SOL and other apps. His picture was better, but it was a cartoon. Everything was brighter, shiney-er(lol) but it just didn't look real. Many of your images are downright eye-boggling how 'real' they do look.

That's the 'issue' for me - we already accept compromises/changes everyone can agree on when it comes to things like FOV (yes, some of us use triples or VR to get that correct, but I'd say still most don't). When you go into 'game world' you can totally shift your perception without realising it. Games get 'pretty' without being any closer to reality. And then here I am on my TN panels, I can calibrate all I want... but go sit at my rig with IPS and it's totally different. (yes, you can compare against real life photos, but you're still then comparing to the camera settings, and any post-processing they did)

I don't know about anyone else, but I don't often drive around in the middle of the day. Actually I do every 2 weeks and that's a work commitment. The rest of the time it's 7am or 5pm. I'll go hiking fairly often and when you do a climb from mid morning, get to a peak or lookout around midday, then a couple of hours back down, those midday photos are pretty flat.

All I'm saying is it's really hard to be objective. So devs will tune their engine to suit a particular goal, and chances are a good proportion of the userbase won't like it as much as something else. And that's sticking to the palette; if people are going to bring rim/tyre blur, texture details, shadow quality, and antialiasing into it, good luck debating all that...

 

[davehenrie]

Resade gets me. The sky is the wrong warmth color of blue. It's a sky for Chrissakes! We ain't looking at the sky... They spend in-ordinate ammounts of time fiddling to get that shade of blue...or grey...the perfect for their eyes. Or the road textures. There was a few who complained the asphalt was not dark enough or light enough or didn't show the pebbles enough...

 

[Lazza]

Resade gets me. The sky is the wrong warmth color of blue. It's a sky for Chrissakes! We ain't looking at the sky... They spend in-ordinate ammounts of time fiddling to get that shade of blue...or grey...the perfect for their eyes. Or the road textures. There was a few who complained the asphalt was not dark enough or light enough or didn't show the pebbles enough...

To be fair, and perhaps you know this as well as I do, if you drive slowly enough those details do kind of matter

 

[mantasisg]

I like a lot how rF2 driving onboard looks realtime from sunrise till sunset on properly modeled tracks, with properly modeled cars. I do think it is sincerely honest and completely true to say that rF2 could look a lot better, people likes to wish and share their feels, but they, I mean, you guys - have been professionally neglecting to care about details for a decade. So whats the point of presenting them, or even making it happen for devs... so they could make something much better, what is the benefit for them ? You don't eve notice. Then make a really awful screenshot, that looks like an insult.

iRacing has best broadcasts appearance. AC is best for screenshots because it is made to do so, plus people there try to do good screenshots... GT has best graphics tech and attention to detail. Few other games/simulations also has pretty impressive look in general.

Everyone apparently has their monitors settings and reality perceptions out of whack. We subconsciously notice every little bit anyway, even those who can not perceive the most obvious and objective things, still knows subconsciously, and when graphics get super real, or whatever gets faked very well, if they won't be told, they will be the first ones to be tricked into thinking it is the real thing, tell them it is fake - they will tell you it looks wrong

 

[ThomasJohansen]

The biggest problem for me in lighting is lack of aperture, like when it's cloudy, the cars get too unnatural dark in the shadows.
A game like ArmaReforger have tried to incorporate that effect, when going indoors to outdoors or when looking out of windows etc.