Latest Roadmap Update - April 2017!

Something from launching the game, going through the W.I.P. UI where a car, track, and session settings are shown and then on track footage would be interesting. Also more previews of the more commonly used hours - 11am-3pm - to show changes to the lighting.

 

For goodness sake, just post some shots showing more typical racing hours (like 11 am to 3 pm). Or one of those lovely 24-hour cycle videos that show the sky and image evolving through the full day and night. We are debating what we haven't seen, since all the shots are showing the low-light conditions. Old rF2 already looks very nice in most low light conditions. It's noon hour that the majority have always had concerns about. And more recently, with night racing, midnight.

 

I guess they wish to surprise us.

 

Some here will do some more soon These are WIP and were still balancing the contrast in bright conditions.
https://forum.studio-397.com/index.php?threads/first-rf2-vr-pics-posted.55065/page-5

 

Good to see you involved with the game and good to know the team knows there is still work to do, the latest screenshots on FaceBook were a "dose of reality" for some dreamers.

 

Good, because they are "artificially" dark, too. Look forward to a video and more pics

 

I trust in studio397

 

You guys need to chill out a bit. You just need to wait few days and will see by yourselves , and if this is too dark for you in the meanwhile stuff will be tuned, you can tweak your videocard profile.

 

That debate is still very controversal, I remember this gfx debate on many many titles: simulating eye view versus camera view.
Problem with simulating eye view is that our eyes have different range, and most of all - peak levels, than camera/output devices.
In real life you can look at very bright sky but still see whats going on in shadow, but also you'll be blinded by the sun. You cannot be blinded by camera shot or display. You'll see only white. Cause most of bright places will be peaking and showing as white.

So the different titles use different range and different effects of peaking - some have more white peaking, such as GT5 or iRacing - but even iRacing sometimes looks "too hdr" because of too dark sky vs bright track surfaces and TSO.
titles like Forza have quite nice balance between the peaking levels tho, although they still look a bit "cartoony" - because of that. They look like very post-processed photographs.
So the best way would be combining these ways though, IMO: combining camera output and balanced output. Something like very high-ISO sport cameras with "fast lenses". GT Sport has exactly that look, like sports camera. It still looks quite dark, but it is a bit more balanced than current rF2 shots. It has way less contrast, on the same time the overall brightness level is similar. And obviously, it has variable variations of few stops too.

 

If anything is sure, no matter how the DX11 build will look, people will either complain it will look too "cartoony" or too "flat/dull". That has been a running theme with rF2 over the last 5 years, and I doubt DX11 will magically solve that. It's a boring debate and I hope people will see other things than just the saturation level, but I have my doubts. People that scream the most about wanting new graphics features seem to be the ones who understand the least about actual computer graphics.

 

Making changes alone is already controversial. Some people don't like any kind of changes and push back to smallest deviations. Sometimes there are issues and rarely things are perfect on the first try. Instead of antagonizing people with different views I hope we can have constructive discussion where people can point out issues without being attacked (see above). Already calling out people as haters when nobody has said anything... I hope people take the time to word out their posts and feedback constructively no matter what kind of opinion it is.

This is the first big release from 397 for rf2. I'm sure they are just as excited/concerned as us to see how it goes.

 

I see more hype than hate to be honest...

 

I think there has been very little hype, in the literal sense of publicly promoting the update prior to release. There are people above calling for in-game videos but S396 has kept to their monthly updates and if anything it is understated comparing it to something like pCARS/2, i-Racing Dirt, AC Porsche pack DLC etc.

I'm just plain old excited as rF2 is for me the best sim on the market & hopefully in 4-days (!!!!!) time, I'm going to be back on it again.

 

I agree. For the most part everyone is excited to get DX11, UI updates, and VR Support. These are things that have been asked for since ISI started development of rF2. (At least the DX11 and New UI) So Far S397 has done what ISI couldn't do/ refused to do due to manpower and money issues. From getting rid of online sub (Not a bad idea in theory, just didnt take off as DLC took over the Sim racing land) to updating at an accelerated pace, to keeping their community abreast of the upcoming improvements, S397 has been a godsend to this sim.

 

4 Days !

 

I think a good compromise will be "packs" as Raceroom, I will pay for an European Track Pack...

 

Me all this weekend

 

*that will be Monday as soon as I see Steam downloading a large update to rF2.

 

Expect it to be almost unoticable
What you may notice :

-Fps dips not as bad as pre-dx11

-Certain small subtle effects improved

-shaders/smoke don't hit fps as much

Same when iracing went dx11 it was a bit of an anti climax
but remember each future build is building upon an improved re-worked graphics engine running in dx11 which should help devs take greater strides on improvements for future updates

Rfactor2 never really felt as if it was out of beta I think this is about to change

Throw in the new UI & barious bug fixes & we really have ourselves a whole new shiny title

Maybe should have been released as Rfactor 3

 

-are you guys going to delete it first from steam and do a fresh install for this update when it arrives?