I just read the news through a link on reddit. I followed the links to the technical papers. Pretty cool. Very impressed with your commitment to technical accuracy. I studied computer vision (due to AI/ML and robotics) at the graduate level, so I know how hard it is replicate, or be close to, the results of a CS technical paper, let alone getting it to work in a commercial application.
As far as I know, PBR obligatory include some sort of bumpmapping (normal map, displacement map to control tesslation), but normal map is really essential if you want to create materials which simulate hard edge details like rocks or sands, to not wasting triangles on details.
From what I can see LFS only has albedo, specular map and some sort of reflective material for glasses (for building windows/cars), but I think if the base albedo is right, Eric can include normal maps pretty easily afterward when the engine will support it.
Speaking of tracks, once everything is finished; is there a chance that we may be able to create our own custom tracks like in Gran Turismo for example?
Thanks Scawen for the report. Really appreciate it - and looking forward to any upgrades in the future (although enjoying LFS as is). My 6 yr old son is now into LFS and AC, think he prefers LFS at the moment since we use the editor and build small layouts! Keep up the impressive work!
How the heck are you doing these shots from exact same points ? Do original shots have GPS coordinates ?
Anyway, looking at the comparisons, the work that Eric is doing is tremendous . It's already difficult when trying to replicate a real track, this is one step further since it involves also (believable) design. Chapeau !
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"Blah, blah, blah, looking pretty......."
(IMHO: No point really if there is no online racing and the AI is the AI, enough said for single player)
Actually interesting stuff....
"Other development topics include getting the new tyre physics up to a good standard for release, and hopefully a system to allow the physics and graphics to run on different threads, making use of the multiple CPU cores."
YAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm seriously looking forward for this to happen. Actually, just the tyre physics would be an awesome priority.....
I try to keep my criticism on point and focused. And, as I've been waiting for this physics update for 'a little while' I'm keen to see it released, and hopefully, allow me to actually race this sim on line again.
Just making it look pretty is not going to achieve that.
Damn this is the best so far, I love it! Any chance of getting a look at the track map for this? It looks quite a bit different so it would be cool to see it from above.
Thank you for doing these! Not only do I personally enjoy these comparisons, but they, along with ScaViEr's progress reports, are also valuable when I (once a year) get in touch with the sponsors of liveforspeed.se. Showing them these comparisons and a summary of the progress since the year before is an effective way to show them that LFS is still very much alive and it's worth keeping the website online.