WARNING : THIS IS A TEST

NOTE : THIS DOES NOT CONTAIN NEW TYRE PHYSICS OR ANY NEW CONTENT

PLEASE TEST BEFORE YOU POST

PLEASE AVOID : OFF-TOPIC FEATURE REQUESTS / UNRELATED COMMENTS


Hello Racers,

Here is a new TEST PATCH : 0.6J5

Nearby objects are now visible in the reflections on cars.
Building reflections have also been improved.
The HTC Vive VR headset is now supported through OpenVR.

To enter VR mode if you have an Oculus Rift or HTC Vive :
Options... View... 3D button at the top of the screen.
Select VR headset. Select Oculus Rift or OpenVR.

This test patch IS compatible with version 0.6J
This test patch CAN play replays from version 0.6J

You cannot upload hotlaps made with this test patch because it is only a test patch, not an official patch.

Please keep a backup of your LFS.exe from 0.6J so you can easily go back if there are any problems.


Changes from 0.6J4 to 0.6J5 :

AI :

Now avoid ramming other cars when in the pit lane or lap of honour
FIX : Could go wrong when entering BL pit lane for a pit stop


Changes from 0.6J3 to 0.6J4 :

Fixes :

Render target problem in HTC Vive when changing tracks
AI driver names can no longer be blank

Misc :

Max drivers in single player increased to 24 (online max still 40)


Changes from 0.6J to 0.6J2 :

Graphics :

New reflections system and shaders for cars and buildings
Nearby objects are visible in new dynamic reflections on cars
Option to set number of dynamic reflections in main view and mirror
Misc option to enable a programmable post-processing shader

Misc :

New command /rsh to reload shaders (e.g. after editing externally)
Maximum number of controllers increased to 10 (was previously 8)

VR :

HTC Vive headset is now supported through OpenVR
Oculus Rift support now requires runtime 0.7 or later
Improved dialog sequence after any error entering VR mode

Training lesson editor :

SHIFT+T on main entry screen to access lesson editor or list editor
Layouts for lessons must be copied from layout to training folder
SHIFT+T on training screen to view and test newly added lessons

Fixes :

Alpha sorting issue on bricks at base of a South City building
Improved validity check when loading car colour settings


INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS :

A FULL version of LFS 0.6J must already be installed

To install the PATCH using the SELF EXTRACTING ARCHIVE :

1) Move or save the patch into your main LFS folder
2) Double click the patch to extract it to that folder
3) When you see "Confirm File Replace" select "Yes to All"
4) Now you can start LFS in the normal way

NOTE : You can see if the patch is correctly installed when you run
the program (LFS.exe). At the bottom of the entry screen : 0.6J5


DOWNLOADS :

PATCH 0.6J TO 0.6J5 (SELF EXTRACTING ARCHIVE) (if you already have 0.6J) :
www.lfs.net/file_lfs.php?name=LFS_PATCH_6J_TO_6J5.exe (1.3 MB)

PATCH 0.6J TO 0.6J5 (ALTERNATIVE ZIP) (if you already have 0.6J) :
www.lfs.net/file_lfs.php?name=LFS_PATCH_6J_TO_6J5.zip (1.6 MB)

Last edited by Scawen, Fri 18 Dec 2015, 16:58. Reason : J5 update

Quote from loopingz :

However it is not written that you need to inboard to post. But maybe it is the case for the developper forum.

Yes, I am sure that is only for the developer forum.

Quote from email from Valve :

We do require that developers complete the onboarding process to gain access to our developer forums and the available VR demos, regardless of planning to ship content via Steam or not.

My current plan is to release the LFS test patch next week. Then I'll do a Steam wallet payment, that I think will allow me to post in the public SteamVR forum to get LFS tested by a few people. It seems there are a few Vive users who want to try some more games or demos but there are not many available. It also seems that any other games and demos are only available for onboarded people.

Then I'll email my contacts at Valve to let them know we've done the implementation! Hopefully they'll like that as I guess that is the main reason for sending me a Vive!

Quote from loopingz :

Maybe you don't like the idea but if the vive was a free development sample then a $5 payment to end registration would not be a steal.

As I did say before, I don't mind paying them $5. Although I'd be happier if it was clearly stated there that the $5 would definitely allow posting. This possibility is not mentioned on this page, in the section "What features are unavailable to me?"
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3330-IAGK-7663

So in my opinion that is not clear. I did ask them about it in my very helpful and polite feedback email recently, but there was no reply from either of the three recipients. It's a little odd how they have fallen silent and ignored both emails I've sent since I explained why their rules prevented me from completing the "onboarding" process which they invited us to do. That has nothing to do with the $5, by the way. Onboarding is the thing which allows you to sell on Steam, and for some reason if not onboarded you are not allowed to talk on the SteamVR developers forum, even if they sent you a Vive.

I'll try adding $5 to my wallet if I want to say something (on the public SteamVR forum). That might seem important when I release the LFS test patch with OpenVR support.

Last edited by Scawen, Fri 27 Nov 2015, 14:14.

Quote from Shirtkicker :

So there's a possibility for specular/shine maps in the near future? This would make a lot of skin artists very happy

I discussed that very briefly with Victor. It can't work with the existing skin system, as a jpg has only r/g/b channels. I suppose what we need is one more channel? E.g. use the alpha channel to specify how shiny a pixel is. Is that the main thing that is needed? If so, what would be the best texture format for uploading skins? I won't do that for this test patch but it's something to consider.

Quote from Racer X NZ :

Have you contacted them regarding your posting rights ?

It seems pretty clear that... "Posting privileges: Only players who own SteamVR Developer Hardware are allowed to post in this forum."

Yes, I have contacted them. They told me this:

"We do require that developers complete the onboarding process to gain access to our developer forums and the available VR demos, regardless of planning to ship content via Steam or not."

But it is actually not possible for Live for Speed to complete the onboarding process. A US Taxpayer ID is required, and partnerships are specifically excluded from onboarding.

Where did you see that note about posting priviledges? I can't find it, although googling showed that someone else had seen that same text.

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

Scawen, another potential option for support/bug reporting is the Github page.

Thanks. Interestingly a couple of issues I reported by email have been fixed, although I did not get a reply to my feedback email.

Quote from nacim :

Finally! I hope you made a lot of different kind of shaders, depending on which type of object it is (grass, road, cones, tires, glass, and wall for example), that will be nice to edit or create future detailed materials later.

Did you noticed a performance improvement after converting shaders to HLSL ?

There isn't a different shader for all the materials yet. The reflections system took quite a while so I haven't gone far down the path of new shaders. There are different shaders for matt materials / shiny paint / glass / metal / black glass. But nearly all the world is simply matt materials at the moment. There are complications to consider, such as textures which are a boundary between road and grass. But of course I am interested in working on specular effects and so on for roads and grass in future.

EDIT: About performance, I did get a significant improvement, specially in the shadows code. Partly due to the shaders and partly due to a significant amount of restructuring. Now that everything uses a vertex shader and a pixel shader and the FVF system is not used, quite a lot of restructuring and optimisation could be done. I think most of the latest frame rate improvements are swallowed up by the generation of the dynamic reflections, but that depends on the situation. Also today I am adding an option to set the maximum number of dynamic environment maps. Probably separate options for the main view and the mirrors.

Last edited by Scawen, Fri 27 Nov 2015, 09:12.

Yesterday I did most of the finishing of the implementation, such as allowing the user to select Oculus Rift or Open VR, updating the translations and generally cleaning up all the related code which has changed a but to support two different VR systems.

I was busy with other things today but there was one problem remaining - judder and stutter! Just what you don't want in VR. And it was worse in menu screens. In game it was very smooth at times but bad at others. As usual, this was when doing everything the 'correct' way. So I was baffled.

This evening I decided to experiment with a few things to see if I could figure out how to get the timing right (or whatever was going wrong to cause stutter). I read a few threads about judder and stutter on the Steam VR developer forum.

The clue that allowed me to solve it came from this thread:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/358720/discussions/0/490124466474881389/

It turns out that the solution is to issue a pContext->Flush() command just after submitting the two eye textures. Now it's perfectly smooth. But I can't tell them that on the thread, because I'm not allowed to post there!

Anyway it's so smooth now I really want to get this released as soon as possible, along with the dynamic car reflections. I expect to release a test patch next week.

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

If there's any game/software/video that you find interesting that's on the Steam Marketplace, you can always purchase that and it will count as "unlocking" your account.

FWIW: I can post in the public SteamVR forum, but I cannot post in the private one. It may be worth emailing [EDIT: Gabe Newell] explaining your situation for the private one. From quickly reading, it looks like all the developers in that group have access to the Steam application for SteamVR, so they want people who are actually signed up to SteamWorks (their distribution/integration backend) for access as they have the ability to publish their demos if desired.

It makes sense that a payment can allow more access and I don't object to sending them $5. Their text should be more clear though. In fact, exactly the same vague explanation about Limited User Accounts is linked to from the SteamVR Developer Hardware forum, although it is not relevant over there. When asking for money it is best to make sure the customer knows what they will get. Vague, generic explanations aren't all that encouraging!

Anyway it sounds like the payment should get me access to the SteamVR forum so I'll probably end up doing that, if I have a question that could be answered there, or perhaps to let people know about a test patch with LFS support.

For now it's a bit of a struggle to get through the code. Their documentation has not been updated. For example it mentions functions that you need to call, but you find those functions don't exist anywhere. I found out that I need to read the change log as well, because there you can find that certain functions have been removed and there's now another method for doing what the original function did.

Also I could not find any simple step by step guide of a minimal way to get support in there. Compared with the Rift, it seems there are many different ways to implement Vive support, and hundreds of function calls available, most of which I should not need to use (hopefully). Trouble is, this makes it quite confusing!

Anyway let's see how far I can get today. Sometimes these things can get clearer as you just keep trying to do them and see what comes up...

I sent an update to Eric today and this evening I was able to test the Vive.

It's not really too hard to set up. The instructions are pretty clear and it's just a bunch of wires to plug in. I used a tripod to mount a base station in a location where it can see the floor and my seated position. In my office room there isn't really space for room scale VR so for me it is fine to use only one base station. Lucky that because the first one I tried seems to be faulty. The base stations are very "pre-production" and there is quite a bit of noise / vibration from the base station (mounted on a tripod on the left desk - maybe the desk is amplifying it). A continual hum that is much noisier than my PC, for example. I guess these will be miniaturised for the production version.

For some reason I had to stop and restart the hardware and software several times to make it work, and eventually it started to work. I can run a VR demo where you can just walk around a bit, or in my case take a step in either direction.

The screen resolution seems good in the demo. I can still see the pixels as in the Rift but my first impression is this has higher resolution than the Rift DK2. However it is not really comparable until I can see the same thing in each headset (e.g. LFS). One other thing is better in the Vive - you can turn right around and the tracking stays for much longer. Presumably this is even better when you have two base stations. I have no idea how to access any other Vive software. I'm not too bothered about that, as LFS is my main concern. I plan to have a better look at the OpenVR SDK tomorrow.

Yes, I have received the socket adapter. I am finishing off some functions for Eric and then I will test the Vive. If it works then I'll have a deeper look into Valve's OpenVR SDK. I am hoping it will all work in a similar way to the Rift without too many nasty surprises! As we have some other priorities at the moment, I don't want to get involved if it's going to take more than a few days. One good thing about OpenVR is that it is supposed to support a variety of headsets, not just the Vive.

Thank you for the test.

0.6J is now available. Just the same as 0.6H really...

Dear Hosters,

If any of you would like to test, here is the 0.6H11 DCon.

https://www.lfs.net/file_lfs.php?name=LFS_S2_DCON_6H11.zip

I don't think there are any notable changes and only the exe has changed. The only purpose of this is to make sure nothing is broken, ready for the full release which we plan to do on Saturday.

Updated first post with H11.

The change logs from H to H6 have been combined.

This is intended as the final test. Thank you all for the testing.

https://www.lfs.net/forum/thread/87997

Test Patch 0.6H6 is now available, with various fixes and some improvements. Thank you for the testing and feedback.

https://www.lfs.net/forum/thread/87997

Changes from 0.6H5 to 0.6H6

Misc :

Reduced min / max values for "Sound lag" setting - default now 0.08
Small error report added to deb.log if failed to start DirectX 9Ex
More efficient car distance sorting system for sound and graphics
More updated translations. Thank you translators.

Oculus Rift :

Updated ORDIRECT.dll to use 0.6.0.1 runtime instead of 0.6.0.0

Fixes :

CPU usage increased if minimised from full screen mode with vsync
Missing sound from nearby cars that were off screen in multiplayer
Frame rate limit system could cause lags when used in Windows 10
Frame info display could be clicked even when mouse was hidden
Virtual dashboard disappeared if another nearby car was drawn

Quote from Amynue :

https://developer.oculus.com/blog/upcoming-oculus-pc-sdk-0-7-compatibility-changes/

Thanks, they sent an information email about this. Our current official version will no longer work with the new Oculus runtime when it is released on 20th August. It seems to me the best plan for LFS is to finish the few remaining bugs and make the current version official as soon as possible, e.g. next week. Our Rift support in the test patch is based on Oculus 0.6, so it will work with the new runtime. Then I'll get on with the track shaders that can help Eric with the initial S3 tracks.

Quote from valiugera :

@Scawen, I found a mistake on Fern Bay. The wall is in the air, but Z is 0. Can you add ground level check the for new objects or add option for -Z?

I had to make that decision, to disallow Z values below zero, in order to reach the highest altitudes at Westhill. The autocross object data is highly compressed, to allow them to be passed quickly to joining racers. There is only one byte in the object data for altitude, so it can't go below zero. There are very few places in LFS which are below zero so this is the best decision. Maybe in future the sutocross object size will be increased, allowing more flexibility.