I would like to see in next tracks more photorealistic textures. I think rf2 with photorealistic textures could look much better. http://feels3.strefa.pl/sim/GRAB_205.JPG http://feels3.strefa.pl/sim/GRAB_206.JPG
Agreed. You can look at some of the stuff in the more recent screenshots and videos - dawn/dusk illumination, wet track reflections, shadows (when they work properly) and it's all starting to look really quite lovely, but the textures are a bit of a let down in more than a few areas. Your grab206 shows how good it can look, and it looks superb.
Totally agree with this. With road textures, you'd have to see the stones. I think Reiza does a great job with their textures in GSC. @Feels3, where do you get your textures? Free sites, paid sites or self-made? BTW isn't some guy from ISI (I think Luc van Camp) doing track-textures for Reiza?
also it would be great to use a lot track textures (not only 1 or 2 as it was in rf1 in some tracks, they just put 1 or 2 textures to all track surfaces)
The main problem is how a shader works, and the actual road shader is not too suitable to load a simple asphalt picture as before - just because you need to "build" the asphalt using different layers (maps). If you use a generic tarmac picture this will be mixed with a grainy specular map, another grainy multi map plus the bump/groove/marble stuff that have to be created dynamically by the game engine... Reiza (and many other titles) are using a different shader... BTW...ISIs are using photorealistic material as well for many other objects..maybe they've to put more attention on the color/saturation side...
In rF2 you're free to use a X number of road textures. There're no limits. I'm actually using 5 different road material for a small track as Dunsfold is. The actual RR shader is a huge feature as it is, imho...
Off topic: I did do most of the terrain textures for GSC, yes. If you look at the textures themselves of both rF2 and GSC, you'll find that the exact same philosophy has been applied. Some people pointed out that the Reiza track detail looked similar to the early rF2 previews we had released at the time. It really surprises me when people tell me to look at GSC to see how it should be done . Now, back on topic . You'll find that 99% of the terrain textures are photorealistic, so I don't fully understand what you mean. They are (heavily) reworked though, to compensate for the following: Shaders: there is no point in creating a huge 8192x8192 diffuse map if a detail map is going to be applied to it. It will look slightly better, yes, but it'll fill your VRAM quite quickly. You have to make a compromise somewhere. For the same reason, specularity should be added by the spec map and should therefore be removed from the diffuse map. Unless the weather cooperates perfectly, you'll find that each photo you take comes with baked spec and normal maps and/or reflections. If your graphics engine can only handle T1 materials, then by all means, copy/paste photos with baked, fake effects. If a more complex shader is involved, it'll look correct only at one angle and at one point during the day. Tiling: there's nothing worse than seeing repetitive patterns appear everywhere. They are annoying enough to be noticed straight away and kill all immersion. You will always want to tweak a texture and find a decent compromise between detail and repetition. Again, having unlimited VRAM would help here. That concrete road image is a good example. Before my eyes had the time to admire the detail, I had already noticed the pattern. When you're doing 300km/h, all you'll see is the pattern, and only the pattern. It's an artist's worst nightmare. Spec mask: according to the tech document, this is a tricky part. Guess why? It greatly enhances the repetitive patterns, and adds more patterns if you're not careful. This applies mainly to road textures: if the groove and marbles are done through the shader, then you'll want to remove those from your diffuse map. At one point, I experimented with a rubber layer in the diffuse map. It looked wrong against the dynamic groove. The more something is being done dynamically, the less you can control it (or fake it). I think I covered the main points in that list. The art of texturing is slightly more complex than taking a picture and slapping it onto a polygon. It's nice to have one nicely detailed texture applied to a polygon, but you always have to keep in mind how that texture will look like when it's being used in a large environment.
Tuttle and feels3 have some of the best looking grass I've ever seen in a racing game. What's the secret?
Thanks mate but...no secrets at all for me. Just using grass edges, some grass decals (loft or polys) and orthomaps to get a general realistic (and anti-tiling) look, plus the "3D" grass for some areas. Nothing more than applying some imagination on how to use shaders and objects. It's not a "one way" method...everyone is free to experiment his own style.... BTW, feels3 terrain artwork is just fantastic.
So it is you Luc, where I made the comparison between GSC and rF2, I meant the Asphalt detail map: http://rfactor.net/web/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/ZA_017.jpg vs http://www.virtualr.net/wp-content/gallery/3341/475119_10151013870632743_117951843_o.jpg
I didn't know that GSC has a such good textures. It looks much better then in rf2. Definitely more photorealistic, also quality is better (sharpness, resolution, colours) Luc, could you explain this?
Shaders and HDR are the obvious reasons to begin with. The lack of RealRoad means the shader can be a bit more complex and gives you more control, as in it doesn't tie the artist's hands as much. "The more something is being done dynamically, the less you can control it (or fake it)."
Maybe if we want talk honestly...could be fine to make comparisons in a similar light condition and camera angle, as you can get HUGE differences using high sun conditions and/or almost 90° asphalt close ups... This is how the joesville asphalt looks in similar conditions; did you notice the difference with the high sun picture you post above? The same thing with tarmac pictures when you're moving fast above it...you can easily get awful patterns movements on your monitor even though they looks soo tasty in a still shot. View attachment 2883
Yeah, this is the tricky part. Let me explain what Luc refers to, so first part of my post will be against photo textures... while second part will be the other side of the coin, Photos are final result of lighting on an object. What texture should be is a description of object's properties, not it's final look. Shaders will generate that final look from this "description" and lighting algorithms. And this is where everything gets messy. Let's look at this photo: LINK Looks realistic - so we can use it as texture, right? Now imagine that there's overcast in the game - but barrier still "reflects" blue sky - now it will not look good. What we need to do is to remove all sky reflections from this photo, before we will use it as texture. Then create specular map and let shader add actual sky reflection. This way our graphics will come alive and will be much more realistic. Another example - nice tiled photo, ready to use as texture: LINK But when you look at it - it contains lighting. All pebbles are lit from one side. What if light source in the game will be on the other side? Again we end up with "dead" graphics, unless we remove all lighting from that photo and create normal map so all pebbles can be lit according to current weather and time of day. So, ideally we wouldn't want photo textures. We would want game engine to create realistic picture out of proper "parameter" textures. The problem is - where to get them from? And even if we do get them somehow it's not as simple as that. Look at the pebbles again - they cast shadows on each other, they occlude ambient light and so on. Normal lighting algorithms in game engine won't do that, so even if we get perfect parameter textures we will still not have proper end result. We would need advanced shaders that perform self shadowing in texture space and a few other things. So while not using photos as textures is the correct path to ultimate realism, it's also extremely diffucult path. In the end, it often leads to unsatisfying results, just as using pure photos would. There is a very similar problem with sky. You can of course put some nice photo in the background: It will look very good, especially on screenshots. But it will also be "dead". You will not be able to see some rainclouds above one part of the track and watch it roll over the sky. But you can also make realtime clouds: They will not look half as good as photo, but they will be "alive" - you will see rainclouds coming and going, you will see cloud density changing and so on. And here's one of my favourite examples - look how grass saturation changes between these two screenshots: This is the same corner, only on scecond screenshot car is exitting it so camera has rotated and now we're looking against the sun. Although grass texture on these two screenshots is very poor it has good immersion to it - feels alive. This is a very difficult compromise. Making realistic and lively graphics is challenging, but we're past the point where static photos are good enough for everyone. In the end - whichever approach you take, it's the end result that matters. When I look at rF2 grass now, it looks like it's stripped down of all environment reflections, light scattering and other dynamic effects. So that's why it looks unreslistic, because all dynamic properties have been removed and we see raw grass color. If you add some environment reflections approximation it may completely change brightness and saturation of what you see as end result. Photo textures look good straight away, while such stripped-down textures will look raw ("cartoonish") untill those dynamic effects are added on top of it again by shader. Final result will be very difficult to predict by artist and engine programmers must do one hell of a job. Vegetation shaders in Crysis are a fine example, how raw textures, covered with dynamic effects can look realistic again. The easy thing with photo textures is that you're actually working on final result - you don't have to dig into raw material properties.
