PLS don't break the game

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enduser

enduser

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Up to patch 1117 there's been nice graphics improvements, noticable even though i use low pp, especially as i go back and forth from ac (vanilla - no content manager) & rf2, at some point rf2 started looking noticeably better although various problems remain (shadows, lack of windscreens, totally black cabins, clouds, racegroove gaps). Since patch 1118 however there's a constant downfall, patch by patch something breaks with older non PBR materials looking bad which are 99% of mods atm.


Why don't you implement new shaders for your new tracks and leave the old ones as they were?

The terrain for example is now much more specular (shinny & bright) for what, to make it darker again, is this a joke? I don't think terrain needs metallic roughness properties and additional maps to look good but what do i know, plus it gets more and more complicated for modders to keep up with all this complexity (bye bye modding?). Instead, like it's posted in this forum before terrain shader (grass) looks very flat and that's something you could improve, also players including me would like the tires to pick up dirt, grass blades (posted before as well) would also improve the terrain in case you want to bother with improving something. Btw silverstone looks pretty bad in 2020 PBR or not, zandvoort too, terrible color balance. New fog looks like smog (completely white).

Also as a referece to this vid, which i don't find very accurate btw:

You seem to care about graphics at the moment and adress to new potentional buyers but unless you expect the whole playerbase to only play a couple of the latest and greatest DLCs with PBR, i suggest you keep the mods in good shape for this game to have any value, including the rest of the dlcs. Right now you set high dlc prices (with low base title price - big/often discounts to lure new players in) for a title of low value as it lacks in so many areas imho.


At this point i think it would be actually better if you just posted fake post-processed pics for media promo, instead of breaking dozens of well done mods we use atm.
 
enduser said:
At this point i think it would be actually better if you just posted fake post-processed pics for media promo, instead of breaking dozens of well done mods we use atm.
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It's the modders job to keep their content up to date, not S397's. Stuff is moving forward, and modders know that. At least you have the option to go back down to version 1109 or something. so if you think that version is better, use that version ;)
 
enduser said:
You know nothing John Snow ™.
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It is definitely up to the modders to update their stuff as rF2 improves and grows their product. They even release a ton of documentation on how to update stuff. that is huge because in the Past ISI documentation always sucked, if there was any, and you just had to figure it out on your own or reading forums. I plan on going back and updating my Atlanta Motor Speedway but have not had the time due to working on the new Stock Car 2018.
 
How long will that take, i want to play right now, do i have to wait for modders to update toban raceway its s397 content... i have the (paid) Reiza dlc tracks , do i call them to update the track pack so i can enjoy my content, also honest inquiry will the reiza track pack be updated, reiza is developing ams2 atm as we know.

Silverstone was just updated and then new changes come in next patch and make it look much worse again, for as long as i have rf2 it has been a subpar looking track, they update it to an ok-ish mod and a couple of patches later is looking funny again , lol wtf.

Early access would look better from another developer.

I respect the work that's done so far but it sucks to have the game in a permanent wip state.

Many workshop tracks are rarely updated and other tracks i use are pre dx11 conversions that i 've spent a lot of time to update. And that's not a lazy batch process to darken textures which looks like overcast weather when u set it to sunny, it takes some effort and a lot of time if you want good quality, studying the real location yada yada and work some more.

DX11 is a big step forward and was quite necessery , PBR materials not so much imho the results are minuscule for track graphics except maybe the trees which use cube reflections, but the community last time i checked didn't care so much about trees.
There 're more important issues to solve with the graphics & gameplay, ofc not all in v2 but...

I 'll have to repeat myself but glaring track issues are black shadows, poorly set lods, the skybox and clouds, and now the fog (before it was the blue tint), the racegroove , tire smoke/dust and improving the grass particles fx, sparks, barriers and tirewall sounds, pit crew animations etc.

PBR materials is like the cherry without the cake, huge overkill for rf2 graphics state.

Many mods use low res textures, introducing low or uncompressed maps is largely useless for a rf2 changing format will be still low res , what u need is ease of use and efficiency, set sharp mips when u need and adjust texture sharpness and dds if fine (old silverstone tarmac was so blurry it looked like you were floating) although color accuracy is time consuming because of the compression. Even a large tarmac map that repeats every 5m is looking early 00s repaving texture, a new material definitely won't save you. On the other hand take a look at ac tarmac which is the favorite title for many. Rf2 is the only game i know with a sloppy/bad color balance, regardless of dx9/dx11.

Iracing (and RRE) are doing fine with dx9, take the hint, if i wanted eye candy i can buy the usual arcade titles out there and not wait for rf2 graphics to improve by the year 2030... strong pointer (identity crisis) that devs fail to emphasize their strengths (physics/ffb & AI maybe) and try to sell sim for eye candy when the rest sell eye candy for sim.
 
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rF2 has some long standing graphical issues, and sometimes in order to move forward, changes are required, breaking compatibility. Progress has to happen.

That said, S397 provided us with fantastic ability to stay on any build we want: https://docs.studio-397.com/users-guide/in-full-control-managing-your-steam-install-manually

I now have 2 rf2 installs, one for v1117 and one for current build and content that will be moved to new shaders. It works very well, huge thanks to S397.

A side benefit I removed 60gb of stuff from workshop cache and from now on I only download stuff manually.
 
Woodee said:
Awwww.... now they must bow to your demands in the direction of the game.... just because just YOU said so.

Also.... repeating for what seems like the 1000x.... the gfx department does not code.... and the coding does not do gfx. How dare they try and make the game look better.
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Not sure that's accurate either. A graphics engine runs on code, without code you wouldn't have anything except for a static geometry and textures. Even writing new shaders involve some kind of code, although it's maybe a cross between artwork and coding.
 
enduser said:
How long will that take, i want to play right now, do i have to wait for modders to update toban raceway its s397 content... i have the (paid) Reiza dlc tracks , do i call them to update the track pack so i can enjoy my content, also honest inquiry will the reiza track pack be updated, reiza is developing ams2 atm as we know.

Silverstone was just updated and then new changes come in next patch and make it look much worse again, for as long as i have rf2 it has been a subpar looking track, they update it to an ok-ish mod and a couple of patches later is looking funny again , lol wtf.

Early access would look better from another developer.

I respect the work that's done so far but it sucks to have the game in a permanent wip state.

Many workshop tracks are rarely updated and other tracks i use are pre dx11 conversions that i 've spent a lot of time to update. And that's not a lazy batch process to darken textures which looks like overcast weather when u set it to sunny, it takes some effort and a lot of time if you want good quality, studying the real location yada yada and work some more.

DX11 is a big step forward and was quite necessery , PBR materials not so much imho the results are minuscule for track graphics except maybe the trees which use cube reflections, but the community last time i checked didn't care so much about trees.
There 're more important issues to solve with the graphics & gameplay, ofc not all in v2 but...

I 'll have to repeat myself but glaring track issues are black shadows, poorly set lods, the skybox and clouds, and now the fog (before it was the blue tint), the racegroove , tire smoke/dust and improving the grass particles fx, sparks, barriers and tirewall sounds, pit crew animations etc.

PBR materials is like the cherry without the cake, huge overkill for rf2 graphics state.

Many mods use low res textures, introducing low or uncompressed maps is largely useless for a rf2 changing format will be still low res , what u need is ease of use and efficiency, set sharp mips when u need and adjust texture sharpness and dds if fine (old silverstone tarmac was so blurry it looked like you were floating) although color accuracy is time consuming because of the compression. Even a large tarmac map that repeats every 5m is looking early 00s repaving texture, a new material definitely won't save you. On the other hand take a look at ac tarmac which is the favorite title for many. Rf2 is the only game i know with a sloppy/bad color balance, regardless of dx9/dx11.

Iracing (and RRE) are doing fine with dx9, take the hint, if i wanted eye candy i can buy the usual arcade titles out there and not wait for rf2 graphics to improve by the year 2030... strong pointer (identity crisis) that devs fail to emphasize their strengths (physics/ffb & AI maybe) and try to sell sim for eye candy when the rest sell eye candy for sim.
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One of the biggest complaints about rF2 in the past were the graphics (with a recent example being a long discussion about trees) and propably one of the most important reasons why it never really took off pre 2016, not just sales wise but also as a platform for people to showcase their content. Luckily the trend for rF2 has shifted to properly crafted 3rd party content so I have no idea how you come to the conclusion that most mods are low res. Even the 1988 tracks from carrera wich are rF1 ports got transformed to something acceptable simply by using those new materials. Taking care of everything that is lowres is exactly not how it works or should work and it is one of the reasons why we don't have stuff like the DRM mod here in rF2. Give people the proper tools and knowledge on how to use those tools and you have a win-win situation.

For the last couple of years S397 have tried to lay a foundation to make the product sustainable, wich requires up to date tech. So PBR was a must have and as much as you try to deny it, it really shows with the updated content when you compare it to the last ISI DX9 build, wich never would have been able to be showcased worldwide on channles like Eurosport :D. How is it a bad thing when materials finaly react to light physicaly corrent? It Isn't the icing on the cake, but an important ingredient of how the racing world in rF2 looks and how it will appear in five years. I would argue that this is the bare minimum of what a game engine should be capable of these days. Do I have to mention that rain was nothing more than a haldbaken feature under ISI? Screenspace reflections and updates to the shadow system have been hinted and if I had to make a guess I would say that an overhaul of the particle system aswell as a modern weather system is on their to-do list.

And I hope you are aware that iRacing is using DX11while RRE is so limited by their graphics engine, that they are basicly the last modern sim to have no TOD cycle, nor anything weather related.
 
hitm4k3r said:
One of the biggest complaints about rF2 in the past were the graphics (with a recent example being a long discussion about trees) and propably one of the most important reasons why it never really took off pre 2016, not just sales wise but also as a platform for people to showcase their content. Luckily the trend for rF2 has shifted to properly crafted 3rd party content so I have no idea how you come to the conclusion that most mods are low res. Even the 1988 tracks from carrera wich are rF1 ports got transformed to something acceptable simply by using those new materials. Taking care of everything that is lowres is exactly not how it works or should work and it is one of the reasons why we don't have stuff like the DRM mod here in rF2. Give people the proper tools and knowledge on how to use those tools and you have a win-win situation.

For the last couple of years S397 have tried to lay a foundation to make the product sustainable, wich requires up to date tech. So PBR was a must have and as much as you try to deny it, it really shows with the updated content when you compare it to the last ISI DX9 build, wich never would have been able to be showcased worldwide on channles like Eurosport :D. How is it a bad thing when materials finaly react to light physicaly corrent? It Isn't the icing on the cake, but an important ingredient of how the racing world in rF2 looks and how it will appear in five years. I would argue that this is the bare minimum of what a game engine should be capable of these days. Do I have to mention that rain was nothing more than a haldbaken feature under ISI? Screenspace reflections and updates to the shadow system have been hinted and if I had to make a guess I would say that an overhaul of the particle system aswell as a modern weather system is on their to-do list.

And I hope you are aware that iRacing is using DX11while RRE is so limited by their graphics engine, that they are basicly the last modern sim to have no TOD cycle, nor anything weather related.
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So the problem is that eurosport pays more than steam sales, ok thanks , didn't know.

ISI 7-8 core developers that was left before s397, have merged with s397, you can read the credits. Also the steam mods that were tagged as "ISI" also changed to "s397" fwiw , as presumably they no longer update or create content and focus on other tasks.

I think everyone agrees rf2 on launch looked bad but we 're past that.

Quoted in bold completely not true, sounds like influencer talk. Yes the trend is to have better quality steam content, which also have the trend to look like shit sometimes, and the trend to be very inconsistent even among dlcs or s397 content (pretty popular opinion if you read forums), but im talking about low res materials inside mods not trends. F1 1988 was entirely low res and for the new one i haven't played yet but the pics posted are rather meh looking, the under-saturated retro look is cheessy for me. It's actually a very good example that they're more important things than PBR!

I assure you that despite the welcome graphics improvements overall, tracks like portland and dlc tracks look good because of attention to detail. Another change is lower specularity objects that don't shine/reflect that much but that happened before PBR that's the main difference for recent rf2 graphics, it is a new approach however which applies to all tracks. Another big difference is crisper textures which also applies in general and has nothing to do with PBR. This change also is a lot less forgiving for low res maps so hence the complain recently for bad looking barriers (mod depended), i wouldn't place any bets that it's going to be updated any time soon either. Portland is (was) the latest track which balances all the changes very well and gives that good result, and that was in the previous patch lol. Other new ones looked great too some patches ago, time to move on in an ADD fashion.

The lengthy discussion for trees ive missed it seems, i only read that trees at lemans look too opaque, but ok others may want more. Perhaps verstappen complained that trees look flat... ...nicki thim also complained that cabins look very not realistic but screw that guy he doesn't work for us! I m sorry i m just surprised that trees were high in priority that's all. :)

And you're glad your game looks good for tv/broadcast because playing is not that fun, watching is better... oh wait maybe there's something for you too when you participate in the event to fill the grid, good for you (anyone who does)! It's good for us to have 3-4 tracks look good on live streams and break 80-100 mods in the workshop which at some point many of them will be updated but not all who knows, i'm very happy! It's not like we play them in the meantime or anything so everything's cool!
IBL is also not new but is rarely implemented (and that's for pit garages only) because it's resource heavy for small benefits, but in case eurosport likes it i guess modders will have to rethink!
/sarcasm

Anyway, if you re going to notice something in a broadcast is the slow suspension movement and/or cars wiggling up & down too much.

About the aggressive post quoted above , am not the only one who would like to play offline or complain about those mentioned so dont' be hypocritical , only a percentage plays online in leagues or hosted races. I 'm probably only one left to post about it in this forum tho, tough world! But pls allow my constructive criticism.

The issue is that rf2 complicates things because it advertises both online & offline but one is not really implemented, guess which?
In general i don't completely disagree with posts above except if the core game didn't lack so much i would just install a previous version maybe, but atm i don't think is even worth it.

Going bankrupt is tough , in game files there's is remains of text that feature game credits for grinding (or buying too?...) for content... maybe that's why they didn't care about a decent offline experience. Point is many of us get hooked but can't really enjoy the game, many also uninstall the game... while your argument is that world cares about PBR materials and new helicopter meshes at silverstone, ok whatever...

My 2 cents is that PBR can wait, rf2 looks much better in general, graphics have gone a long way while the rest of the game remains untouched.

All i want is to enjoy more time playing rf2 than checking what's broken patch by patch. I'm sorry if you disagree but i think it's not that much to ask for!
 
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If you want old content looking good for offline revert to an older build.

The graphics engine has undergone a number of tweaks as they try to implement new features and colour/light balance without making the old content ugly, I think more recently they've had to bite the bullet and establish a mostly fresh base so things can work consistently. What they need to do, and what I think they are doing now, is making that the baseline for the future - which might encourage content creators to update because the goal posts won't shift again.

Some people want rF3 with a whole new engine and start content from scratch, so you can't please everyone.
 
I am not sure if I can follow the logic. If one can show me the tons and tons of workshop and 3rd party content that got ugly with the latest patches I might give you a point. From my experience, the content that was created properly in first place never showed any big issues. That's the reason why tracks like Matsusaka or Longford still look beautiful because someone knew what he was doing. With the difference now, that people can use what ever texture resolution they see fitting for their track, while grass will look like grass and tarmac will look like tarmac and not like some minecraft chessboard. How does it come that modern engines like UE4, FB Engine or CE are pretty much completely based on PBR? Should I make a guess?

And I have no issues playing online (just did that) or offline, atleast not more than anywhere else so I have no idea what you are talking about. And that's from experience with basicly any current sim on the market inclduing products that get alot more praise while stuff like server browsers or netcode issues are far more severe.

If you think that it is possible to finance development for a game these days while your game looks like garbage after years of complaints then you are quite far off the mark. Anyway, I get the impression that you want everything as soon as possible and it's fine to make constructive criticism but there are limits obviously. I would see other stuff changed or fixed first aswell, but I am not ignorant to the fact that I don't have the inside knowledge on what's best for rF2 and it's current development. The only thing I see is S397 trying to build a system for the future. And it doesn't matter who works within S397 and who worked within ISI. The important thing is that they make progress, wich they obviously did the last couple of years.
 
I think everyone agrees rf2 on launch looked bad but we 're past that.
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I would suggest not generalising. Believing that everyone believes your opinion, because they don't and you come across as very arrogant.
 
hitm4k3r said:
I am not sure if I can follow the logic. If one can show me the tons and tons of workshop and 3rd party content that got ugly with the latest patches I might give you a point. From my experience, the content that was created properly in first place never showed any big issues. That's the reason why tracks like Matsusaka or Longford still look beautiful because someone knew what he was doing. With the difference now, that people can use what ever texture resolution they see fitting for their track, while grass will look like grass and tarmac will look like tarmac and not like some minecraft chessboard. How does it come that modern engines like UE4, FB Engine or CE are pretty much completely based on PBR? Should I make a guess?

And I have no issues playing online (just did that) or offline, atleast not more than anywhere else so I have no idea what you are talking about. And that's from experience with basicly any current sim on the market inclduing products that get alot more praise while stuff like server browsers or netcode issues are far more severe.

If you think that it is possible to finance development for a game these days while your game looks like garbage after years of complaints then you are quite far off the mark. Anyway, I get the impression that you want everything as soon as possible and it's fine to make constructive criticism but there are limits obviously. I would see other stuff changed or fixed first aswell, but I am not ignorant to the fact that I don't have the inside knowledge on what's best for rF2 and it's current development. The only thing I see is S397 trying to build a system for the future. And it doesn't matter who works within S397 and who worked within ISI. The important thing is that they make progress, wich they obviously did the last couple of years.
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I m terribly sorry there's been a misunderstanding , it's s397 who bake their cake and sell it too.

Btw ISI are criminals not implementing OFFline gameplay decently on launch with such good base AI, there i said it.

What does that post mean, ignoring the community is good for the community, i didnt know we were that self destructing!
Well don't break the game and my criticism will be more relaxed, makes sense doesn't it.
About "well done mods" take a look at toban yellow green terrain atm, silverstone similar, so s397 don't know what they re doing, thats what you re saying?
They could leave PBR for v3.

Anyway if you can't tell the change spare me some lazy trolling pls.
Also the trend is only for online players to vote for , the rest get all the hate, lovely community, don't interrupt their nirvana tho.

It's not my fault game launched in 13 and started developing in 2016. You must draw a line somewhere, begin as crappy dx9 and want to be madness engine in who knows what time frame ... devs resources are not limitless as well so where do you set the bar for graphics , do you go after GT and when you get there GT has moved on because they throw all their resources only on graphics like always?
After some point you reach diminishing returns anyway, if you re not a big studio better play smart.

Its also common practice to not touch paid content in order to avoid refunds but idk
how steam exactly works except the intro period, so have some mercy....

Earlier versions are for bugs/instabilities in server events that ppl have scheduled and logged in to participate, in this case its more like "pick your poison".

No disrespect intended and nothing personal ofc but"futureproof" sounds like some old bob sw producer who thinks he'll fund it once and when it's over it will last forever.

Btw PC3 at launch is selling less then PC1 & 2,
Do you know the guiness record for most concurrent players online, it was a subpar looking game called WOT, now that it looks much more eye candy never reaches anywhere close to those numbers and the servers are endless twats that barely can play. It was in esports even back then graphics were not an issue.
Old CS has been in esports forever.

When IR made track weather and car mesh collisions i wanted to play IR, thats also something strong which you can showcase to your playerbase AND the rest of the world.
PBR in track tech is what's that & were is it, everything is at distance anyway unlike FPS and the variety of objects is much less, it looks the same to me and for the rest of the world is plain "what's PBR".
On the other hand implement transmission emulation and update the tranny sound to react to that, your community goes WHOAH and rest of the world says "that sounds nice".
Similar for animated pit crews.
Make a vid and show it , instagram pics are for pussies. (kidding)

Do your reality check, you think we don't know eyecandy when we see it, or do you think (sorry to sound demotivating but) nords new trees will impress some guy that was playing id5 engine.
A small note on rf2 location graphics standards:
meshes: super excellent
materials: nice
the scene altogether: hit or miss
content in comparison one to another: titanic

In other words you 'll never compete with a game that's consistently good, wake the fuck up!
Instead of looking after that, time to break some content it looked good while it lasted, move on ppl nothing to see here - everything is WIP yay!
 
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I agree modders have to keep up to date to keep mods up to date, my concern is how many modders have left rf2 and are they willing to come back.
 
I do not understand the purpose of this, I honestly believe that making developers work to maintain OBSOLETE content does not make sense.

I think it is very simple for both cars and tracks, all third-party content must be updated by the creators themselves, if they leave their content aside and decide not to update it, it is their business.

Making the game revolve around mods is not a good idea. On the contrary, content creators must update ourselves and keep up with the game. otherwise the developers will only waste time with absurd ideas instead of advancing with more important topics.

By this I don't mean that developers don't care about the modding community, I just think that if a material is out of date, you should just let it die.
developers don't have to waste time making old materials compatible, for me that's a waste of time and resources.
It is our duty to update the Mods.

At least that's how I see it...
 
As far as I know all old mods are still compatible in the sense that no mod breaking changes have been introduced, which isn't the case for many other games. I haven't come a cross a modded car or track that the latest builds would have prompted to stop me from playing and I never found the need to revert to a previous build. So yeah, I agree with above post, supporting or not supporting old mods isn't the main issue with rF2 right now, especially since old mods are still working without game breaking issues. Frankly, the whole emphasis on mods has gone down in the last couple of years with official events only running with stock content and modders having limited time to build content that rivals official laser scanned tracks for example. Once the new competition system is out, I'm pretty sure that won't support mods either.
 
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