Longford Private Preview Test reviews

woochoo said:
...my own failure to tick the No Render box for the sun blocker. One way or another the underground sun blocking mesh was interfering with every other shadow blocking object in the scene. With No Render checked it still blocks the sun at dawn/dusk as well as it ever did, but no longer messes up the other stuff. From now on I'll be double-checking that all my shadow-only objects are set for No Render too :)

Having looked at the problem for a little while trying to figure what was actually happening, it turns out something like this was happening:
The 50cm or so of the model that was closest to the ground was being completely ignored by the shadow system (that's how it appeared anyway). I tweaked some shadow bias settings in the viewer which helped, but they didn't persist in the cam files or into the game. Then it came down to the old "hide almost everything and see if it still happens". Hiding everything but the road, terrain, and some buildings did fix the problem. Happily, one of the first few things I tried turning back on was the sun blocker, and then it was a matter of examining it's settings. A few clicks later and it was all working properly. So, there's a little tech writeup in case anyone has the same problem in the future.
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Well, an update on this issue. It wasn't No Render that was the problem. I guess I got tangled up in exporting gmt files and publishing scn files, and not fully checking results.
The issue is actually due to the size of the shadow casting mesh. I've split and simplified it into sunrise and sunset meshes, so they're both smaller than the original mesh. And, regardless of the state of No Render, the shadows now draw properly again. So, I'll also be keeping track of the size of my shadow casting meshes in future.
 
That's not a bug. Bogans of the area steal everything at night as we can plainly see. ;p

Woochoo, I'd be interested to see if this has a positive effect on FPS on the area just past the viaduct.

This part of the circuit drops to 70 from 120 and at first it was only when shadows were on but I also noticed it in a session yesterday with shadows off. Seems a bit sporadic for me at least.

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Thanks Andy, I'll have a look into the fence's night lighting.
I don't seem to be able to reproduce it with the Howstons, but I didn't save an alpha channel for the fence spec map so that might help.
edit: I've had a look and the T1 alpha wasn't dark enough. Should be fixed easily.

matf1 said:
Woochoo, I'd be interested to see if this has a positive effect on FPS on the area just past the viaduct.

This part of the circuit drops to 70 from 120 and at first it was only when shadows were on but I also noticed it in a session yesterday with shadows off. Seems a bit sporadic for me at least.
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Thanks Mat, it looks like your FPS are similar to mine.
I think the combination of the new sun blocker arrangement and no longer self-shadowing the trees might have given a 5-10 fps gain in the viaduct area, and some other areas. Not much that is noticeable without attention, but it might be there. It's a tricky spot with trees ahead and trees behind, and also the town is in the field of view too, though i've made an effort with lod distances. The terrain is also divided in what seems to me a sensible way, but the lods still need to be a bit longer so that they don't pop out in the mirrors.

I've also made duplicates of the pub and the mill. One for the distant shot after turn one which clips out again when the car passes below the level of the railway. Then the the nearer versions draw just before the car gets to the bridge. They don't give an obvious fps gain, but they help me sleep at night :)

In the new version I made a fairly severe "high" track detail vis group, which has been aimed only at leveling the FPS around the pits and viaduct area. It rejects a whole bunch of grass clumps and reeds, and cars, and the metal mesh fence panels.
For me the pits area only drops maybe 10fps rather than about 30 (though it looks quite sparse), and the viaduct area is around 10fps better, on top of the other shadow-related gains.
These numbers are all based on max shads with fast blur. I get about 30 extra fps with no shads on (maybe 20-25%).

So, what does all this mean / tl;dr :
official version should produce a few percent more fps. Maybe 10 percent.
Additional gains are available with lower or no shadows, and "high" or lower track detail settings (relative to max settings there might be 30-50% depending on systems - but it won't look so nice).
 
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This track would be even more out-of-this-world amazing if it had a few different layouts, each with their own personality.

1. Maybe a layout where it goes into an old city-town and drives through it's streets, with old rough and dusty city roads slightly narrow with old stone houses/apartments all around, like the residential sections of the Mille Miglia, or the residential sections of ISI's Lienz

2. Turning-off and going through a mountainside area with all sorts of elevation changes and some twisties, but also fast scary parts, again, just like parts of ISI's Lienz (that track is truly a masterpiece in so many ways), and I'm guessing the old Mille Miglia had tons of sections like this as well.

3. Or, through twisty farmlands (instead of mountainside) you can even throw in some farmers with a heard of sheep or something (kind of like the horses at ISI's 60s Spa, only the farmer and sheep would be much closer to the road since the farmer is walking them) Again, this would also have a mix of twisties and fast scary sections.

4. A super long version - like ISI did with Lienz - connecting some of the different layouts. Maybe have a very, very long straight, similiar to Le Mans' Mulsanne straight, to connect the two different parts of the city/different towns and each of their layouts into a super long layout.

5. Again, like like ISI did with Lienz, you can also have a layout that is 50% - 75% a sort of rally stage, with dirt/gravel/mud, jumps, trees, fences, and all sorts of rally-type stuff. Part of the lap would still be regular ashphalt/concrete/pavement, but 50-75 percent would be other stuff (dirt, gravel, mud, snow, whatever)

Sorry to keep bring up ISI's Lienz and it's layouts up as a reference, but many ideas and lots of inspiration can be drawn from that masterpiece of a track, and your track's potential reminds me of Lienz in ways (that's a compliment :) )

Plesse don't take this the wrong way, this track is already amazing, it's so good that I think to myself "hmmm, I wonder what it would be like if the track turned off here and headed into this direction instead, there's a whole 'nother world out there". The fact that this track makes me wonder about what else could lie "out there", is a testament to just how good the current track and it's environment-immersion are (plus I'm a sucker for multiple layouts). So again, please don't take this in a negative way, even if the track only ever includes 1 layout, it would still be great :)
 
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Spinelli said:
This track would be even more out-of-this-world amazing if it had a few different layouts, each with their own personality.
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Have you ever heard of Lienz? I think that's what it's called. It's an old ISI track from rF1. I think someone has converted it for rF2. Sounds pretty similar to what you're looking for. :p
But, actually:
1: Nope
2: Nope
3: Nope
4: Nope
5: Nope
I appreciate that you want a good thing to be better, and that's fine. But no. :p
If nothing else I think it would be a bit rude to the history of the track. It's not fictional.
 
woochoo said:
Have you ever heard of Lienz? I think that's what it's called. It's an old ISI track from rF1. I think someone has converted it for rF2. Sounds pretty similar to what you're looking for. :p
But, actually:
1: Nope
2: Nope
3: Nope
4: Nope
5: Nope
I appreciate that you want a good thing to be better, and that's fine. But no. :p
If nothing else I think it would be a bit rude to the history of the track. It's not fictional.
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Nothing against your thoughts Spinelli but I`m really glad the above was your reply woochoo. Real historic tracks should stay exactly as they were. Imo... :)
 
Looks awesome and true to life ... many years since I was down there but it certainly brought back vivid memories of the area in the 70's. Wonderful work and obviously a labor of love for you Woochoo ! Woo Hoo Yip Hip Hooray !!! :)
 
The v0.90 video doesn't really represent the track as I'd like anymore, so I've gone ahead and made a new one :)
 
woochoo said:
The v0.90 video doesn't really represent the track as I'd like anymore, so I've gone ahead and made a new one :)
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Such a fine job man. Thanks for the video! :)
 
woochoo said:
Well, an update on this issue. It wasn't No Render that was the problem. I guess I got tangled up in exporting gmt files and publishing scn files, and not fully checking results.
The issue is actually due to the size of the shadow casting mesh. I've split and simplified it into sunrise and sunset meshes, so they're both smaller than the original mesh. And, regardless of the state of No Render, the shadows now draw properly again. So, I'll also be keeping track of the size of my shadow casting meshes in future.
Click to expand...

Thank you so much for sharing this information! Just fixed my shadow issues at Nordschleife. Panorama (background image) was set as shadow caster and it seems it is not a good idea to have a mesh 10 kilometers in diameter casting shadows. :D
 
Tosch said:
Thank you so much for sharing this information! Just fixed my shadow issues at Nordschleife. Panorama (background image) was set as shadow caster and it seems it is not a good idea to have a mesh 10 kilometers in diameter casting shadows. :D
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I am sure glad there a few of you genius-obsessives willing to persevere and figure-out all these arcane issues necessary to produce commercial-grade tracks in rF2, which both Nords and Longford unquestionably qualify!
 
Hey woochoo, any idea as to when the v0.97 mentioned in the video and elsewhere will be available for download? Seems like you've got quite a few fixes in it, I've been running 0.96z with an xbox controller (which is beyond frustrating) while waiting for my new wheel to get here, or maybe you're waiting until you're at v1.00 to do a public release?

thanks, amazing track :)
 
Hi Gents :)
Tosch said:
Thank you so much for sharing this information! Just fixed my shadow issues at Nordschleife. Panorama (background image) was set as shadow caster and it seems it is not a good idea to have a mesh 10 kilometers in diameter casting shadows. :D
Click to expand...
I'm glad that's been helpful to someone, not least of all the Nords crew :D
I thought it was worth writing it up with a little bit of detail, and then correcting myself... in case someone else happened across the same issue.

fohdeesha said:
Hey woochoo, any idea as to when the v0.97 mentioned in the video and elsewhere will be available for download?
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It is packed and ready to be uploaded. I just finished up with the realroad profiles today. Will probably upload it in the next 24h.
But first, I'm dumping my fictional 1967 skinpack for the Howston G4 and G6, any minute now...

DurgeDriven said:
hehehe ;)
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Longford? yeah, it's ready, but stuff it, I'll do it tomorrow
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tick tock = ~120mins
This thread has just about run it's course now, so i'll be posting the news in the original Longford thread when ready :D
 
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