Quote :

Bump mapping will make holes on the road and bumps also will model bricks on the wall and space between them and small cracks on the survace without raising number of polygons.

You are still confused:

Bump mapping by itself does not make holes. That requires mutiple channels of textures ( bump, specular, diffuse as minimum - as well as can be done nicely with light mapping and ilumination)

In the case of LFS - I would say nothing more than a Specular Map is needed for track surfaces anyhow - and possible using the generic bump mapping in conjunction "only if it is optional".


BUMP MAPPING:



^-- LFS can implement this easily without switching to a newer version of directX.


Parallax Mapping (Offset Mapping)


^--- overkill in a racing sim




Steep or deap Parallax Mapping (Offset Mapping)
In this form - the normals texture can cast raytraced shadows upon itself...


^--- If you want "holes" you want this: But this is overkill for a racing sim - but this is good for emulating Grass effects using shaders only ( grass on a flat surface without sprites ) If you have played X-Blades - that game demonstrates this effect quite nicely.



Image 3 is a flat surface if your are too lazy to click on links. In because of the note on SL2.0 - means that this 'should' be possible using directX 8

[--- I'm going to go to a more productive thread now ---]

Quote from CodieMorgan :

You are still confused:

ORLY
Just joking thx for explanation.

Quote from E.Reiljans :

Unlimited Details

Well now we have to make a poll in which technology we want LFS to be rebuild.
I mean Dx8/9/10.11 or in this new unlimited point cloud data.
But Jokes aside.
I wonder first if they make a whole road made of those pebbles does that mean that when you take a step you create some pressure on pebbles under your leg they create pressure on the surrounding pebbles and so like in billiard and in result your PC will start smoking

Second how much time will it take to build every pebble from atoms or every tree with leaves and branches and stuff.
The cost of the games will rocket because a lot of people would need to be hired to build this.

And third, even now the better graphics in game the shorter more linear and simple the game is.
I mean to make a modern looking game now it takes ages, devs concentrate on graphics and as a result game is linear and short because they don't work on the game itself but the way game look like.
Enough to compare older games with modern ones.
So if they decide to make games in this new technology i wonder how it work out what would be devs priority, but still it looks like a very distant future.

And just to think about it no need to regularly buy new graphic card I bet Nvidia and ATI already hiring hitmans

Quote from Chupacabras84 :

Second how much time will it take to build every pebble from atoms or every tree with leaves and branches and stuff.
The cost of the games will rocket because a lot of people would need to be hired to build this.

No game will ever do that. Only Hollywood.

That detailing in my previous post is created using textures.

Look at iRacing. I think its good balance and not overdone.
LFS need upgrade to graphic and there in do doubt about it. At least some better lightning and few shadder effects would make the game more realistically looking and adding immersion.

Now that the bump is made, I'm going to take this opportunity to express my opinion. Personally I don't think LFS needs that much of a graphical improvement. In z25 when the XRT got itself a new set of rims and an updated dashboard. That was to me a huge improvement. I don't think any biggies needs to be made to improve the graphics of LFS. Improve some of the cars, for instance the RB4. Give it some fresh rims, improve the interior. The over all graphics in LFS is a relief in my opinion. They are not drowned in blur and particle effects. It's easy on the eyes if you know what I mean.
Some things I might miss though is for instance some nice back fires as you hit the rev limit, some glowing discs as you brake from 200 kph. Avarange things like that. And again, do to all cars what you did to the XR in z25.

I'll put my first comment in this thread after having my license for nearly 4 years.

LFS is not dying so far as I have seen. I've personally recruited people to join in the last few months on the sole principle that this is the closest simulator I have found for drifting. We all track day drift occasionally in real life. Even some of the drivers I have met in the BDC occasionally play lfs because of how close it can be with the right hardware setup.

Drifting is become more and more popular than around 2 or 3 years ago with many more people starting the sport. Many of the UK tracks have started doing public drifting days once a month or every 2 weeks and there are always more people driving and spectating everywhere I go. Hopefully as the word gets passed around more and more people will try lfs out now the sport is becoming more popular.

As for the graphics / game-play argument. I would pick game-play over graphics every time and it doesn't really matter in this case as there are mod packs for lfs to make it better if you want that. Take GRID for example that is an awful awful game for drifting far to arcade like for my tastes but the graphics look amazing. I'd much rather it be the other way around.

Also to back up the cruise point and GTR points. There not my cup of tea personally but the cruise servers always have a high number of players from what I've seen.

Quote from pärtan :

Now that the bump is made, I'm going to take this opportunity to express my opinion. Personally I don't think LFS needs that much of a graphical improvement.

Agreed. The graphic engine itself I really don't think needs work (aside from the horrid track shadows) unless it is necessary for dynamic weather/day cycles.

LFS is the best looking simulator out right now, IMHO. I was pretty disappointed with iR, personally. Looks pretty in screenshots, but in motion it just didn't have any personality at all.

What LFS needs, in my opinion, is more attention paid to existing tracks and cars to bring them up to the new standard, and more interesting tracks/venues/locales.

Quote from DEVIL 007 :

Look at iRacing. I think its good balance and not overdone.
LFS need upgrade to graphic and there in do doubt about it. At least some better lightning and few shadder effects would make the game more realistically looking and adding immersion.

I dunno if all those guys who post iR videos on YouTube run it on some low settings, but it seems to me that the only upper hand iR has over LFS are dynamic shadows. Smoke effects are just plain crap, textures ain't that hot either, any hi-res LFS texture pack is at least on par with them. Same goes for the circuits, one would think that when they have a license for god knows how many of them, they'd try to make them look natural and "alive". Instead they don't look any better than AS or KY.

Really, if LFS had better shadows and real reflections, it'd look better than iR or any other serious sim there is...

Quote from MAGGOT :

LFS is the best looking simulator out right now

I really do not want to insult personally but I really dont know how to say it in any other way. You lost your glasses probably. I have to laugh really releasing such a statement...

In that case, I've probably lost my glasses too.

I'm interested in better-looking sims though, mind showing me some? Not making fun of you, I really am interested.

Quote from MadCatX :

I dunno if all those guys who post iR videos on YouTube run it on some low settings, but it seems to me that the only upper hand iR has over LFS are dynamic shadows.

Really, if LFS had better shadows and real reflections, it'd look better than iR or any other serious sim there is...

Look at some iRacing videos from this user.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... ST5to&feature=related

I think they show much better how iRacing looking in some aspects better over LFS but I agree with you in generally. I like more differences in track textures in iRacing. LFS needs better full dynamic shadows including inside of the car and few effects. Then it would look more realistic. I do not want something to be over done but improvements would make it up to date and add more immersion.

Also more highres textures as even the low models have now like 512MB of memory minimum. Even most of the old graphic cards people might use here will have at least 256MB of memory. Obviously there is demand for better looking graphic if people create their own hi-res attempts. It seems it was not realized with dev team.

iR has nice dynamic shadows and reflections, but other than that it has nothing more to offer than LFS. The track and grass textures in some hi-res texture packs for LFS beat the crap out from those you can see in iR. The car and circuit models look pretty much the same to me...

Those hires textures should be by default included in LFS.

Quote from DEVIL 007 :

Those hires textures should be by default included in LFS.

Either that or some of the best hi-res packs and reflection updates should be linked as "Additional downloads" on the main website. I don't think anyone would object against that. I guess a lot of newcomers would appreciate that.

"WE need to completely rebuild of the LFS"

with a title like that i don't think the devs are gonna take this very seriously.

Quote from kieran20 :

i am afriad he is right. all the very loyal lfs players however sweet it may be, need to wake up for once.

-

lfs just does not offer this, and although its a great game, its loosing touch and needs a rethink, not on how to be a great game, but on how to lure everyone back into actually playing it to allow it to develop properly! the concept is not one that will win over the majority of sim racers.

Quote from Xobeohs :

"WE need to completely rebuild of the LFS"

with a title like that i don't think the devs are gonna take this very seriously.

It is logical that they will not take seriously.
perhaps not read what our friend said ...
The team of developers of LFS is too small! there is no possibility of leaving the game fast ...
Unless they were experts ... and reportedly only one of three programmers working on this new lfs LFS physics
The truth is: They need help ...
If I had contact with the developers because I would do anything for the S3 launch, even give money or anything else!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love this simulator... :lovies3d:
It was the first game that I downloaded .. there many years ago

its this..

Quote from MadCatX :

As for the "trading physics for graphics" idea, I really don't see how it would improve anything at this point. Current state of DirectX is kind of unsuitable for making a switch now. You can go with well supported but rather antiquated DX9, DX10 is just an extension to DX9 with no really interesting features. DX11 is the way to go, but today there is just a handful of people with DX11 hardware. Rewriting the whole DX engine would take some time and developing more of them (DX9 and DX11 for example) would take even more of it. In the end there'd be the SAME GAME, only with a prettier face.

Umm, you missed one, DirectX12(Win Vista and 7)!
Very great graphics compatibility.

Quote from logan2611 :

Umm, you missed one, DirectX12(Win Vista and 7)!
Very great graphics compatibility.

Was the post really that important to bump a half-year old thread?

Quote from logan2611 :

Umm, you missed one, DirectX12(Win Vista and 7)!
Very great graphics compatibility.

Besides the holy bump, there's no such thing like DX12 yet, and even when there will be, it will have the same problem as DX10+, which is no XP compatibility.
Just BTW, anybody else thinks that MS made a very bad move by not backporting DX10 on XP? About 40 % of Windows users are still running XP which makes the developers' job particularly difficult as they just have to support DX9 even though it doesn't make much sense today.

Quote from MadCatX :

Besides the holy bump, there's no such thing like DX12 yet, and even when there will be, it will have the same problem as DX10+, which is no XP compatibility.
Just BTW, anybody else thinks that MS made a very bad move by not backporting DX10 on XP? About 40 % of Windows users are still running XP which makes the developers' job particularly difficult as they just have to support DX9 even though it doesn't make much sense today.

Last time I checked there was a DirectX12. Try again.

Quote from logan2611 :

Last time I checked there was a DirectX12. Try again.

when you say "checked" do you mean "pulled false information out of my ass"

Quote from logan2611 :

Last time I checked there was a DirectX12. Try again.

Now that's weird, there's no card supporting it yet, Windows update doesn't offer me to update, there's no mention of it on MSDN, the only thing Google returns are a few fake videos on YouTube and a couple of forum posts full of delusional speculations. This is one hell of a secret API, did NSA took part in it's development?

What was the point of you mentioning it anyway?

Why talking about dx12 when they plan DX11.1 until 2013 for windows 8?
Btw there are still load of multi-platform games running on dx9.