Quote from Bmxtwins :

Not to be a downer, but why don't we focus on getting s3 content done and then worry about petty cruising features.

South City is not the next plan after WestHill
Later, later ...

Quote from Scawen :

The thing is that I really need to support those "flag lights" that are positioned around some of the race tracks, the ones which have blue, yellow, green, red flags (I guess, without looking) for race control - because they may be more visible than a flag.

I exactly thought this a few days ago while racing on Blackwood! These indicators would bring some life to the tracks

Going back to the shader stuff, everyone is just talking about car reflections, and that's not the only thing shaders can do. Here's an interesting list of what could be done with shaders for LFS:

1.- Road shine: With the road shine effect we can get the sun position to create a position and a rotation to recreate the sun on the pavement.
2.- Motion blur: Sometimes, I find the blur effect really annoying, specially in third-person games like NFS. But if you just simulate the blur that camera causes, it can help to improve the speed feeling.
3.- Bloom: This isn't a very realistic effect if you make the bloom more visible than in real-life is. In real life, the bloom is slightly visible, and this effect is a processor eater to make it slightly visible in a game but meh, it is cool anyway.
4.- Particles, 3D objects distortion and environment objects (well, this depends on how the game interacts with DirectX)
This is the part I like. With this, developers can recreate the actual particles to make them look better, and even, make certain parts of the car go out when the driver crashes. It is also possible to simulate paint deformation and dust.
In the environment, dynamic clouds, dynamic sun, make working car lights and maybe the possibility of night support, but all this is the very hard part

And a looooooot more... Your computer hasn't to be high-end to do all this, excepting the Bloom effect but meh, all this can be always optional :P.

I see the discussion in here is not strictly regarding Westhill, so i'll post here my suggestion.

I've played lots of race sims/games and i noticed a little thing that makes a big impact, in my opinion. That thing is fully animated hands and feet of the virtual character. Maybe it's just me, but the first time i saw a virtual character change gears with the shifter and toe-and-heel, i was amazed beyond reason.

It's one of those synergetic things.

If Eric would want to tackle this he could use a Kinect to input the motion. Or other multi-camera based open source motion capture solutions.

Maybe create a new thread to see if other people feel the same way i feel about this...

I always disable the bloom effect in every game I play, because I don't like it and my computer can't handle it well, anyway. IMO every other improvements are welcome, as long as they are done really well.

Quote from diegofkda :

3.- Bloom: This isn't a very realistic effect if you make the bloom more visible than in real-life is. In real life, the bloom is slightly visible, and this effect is a processor eater to make it slightly visible in a game but meh, it is cool anyway.

Just a heads up on this but the very nature of a bloom effect will by it's very nature kill the AA unless Scawen also switches over to a deferred rendering system, which will probably mean a few months downtime for LFS, so don't go putting ideas in his head yet mkay :P

I'm actually quite keen to play around with a few artistic styles too, I enjoy playing with shaders and I'm hopeful that a "shader mod scene" might spring up around LFS.

If we're talking about shaders...
Shadow mapping and realtime fresnel reflections! That's a must-have of a DX9 LFS
(+ some other minor stuff)

By the way, Keiichi, great shaders!

Quote from Scawen :

The thing is that I really need to support those "flag lights" that are positioned around some of the race tracks, the ones which have blue, yellow, green, red flags (I guess, without looking) for race control - because they may be more visible than a flag.

They are just sitting there at the moment but obviously should be animated. If the code is implemented to make them work well, looking like lights that can be switched on or off (in a more general way than the existing start lights, which could also be improved in the process) then it seems quite a simple leap to implement some traffic light logic, for a crossroads etc. (if we were in the process of updating South City).

Or you can just disable the "green light" and with the "non-glued-to-ground" insim object support, you can add similar to chalks, colourful balls and server/insim owners will be able to place them as lights at the traffic light

Besides anything, not mentioning about fully open South City what it would benefit:

Street racing - why to danger everything, when you can safely do it in software
Hide and seek - yes, it works, it is fun and with right coded insim it would benefit a lot
Cops and robbers - no exceptions
Movies - yes, think about it
More racing sequences - anything can be included:
Hidden sector racing
Find and follow the leader
Double or even triple or even more racing at same time
More more and even more
Stunts - no exceptions
Not mentioning about the drifting
Real cruising - well, in real life this would be better, but why not here as well


that is only small % about what it can benefit

That's why I love LFS. Based on hard racing, but sometimes have to relax so you can race hard again! ( relaxing means you can do something else with same software, cruise for example )

I have to mention ( basically a suggest, but actually includes on this post ) that LFS needs more race types. With loose coding only needed, the rest makes the community itself

EDIT: ( yes, I did read it is on low priority. That doesn't stop me to say something "useful", if it even is any)

Keiichi_Tsuchiya Shaders + small adjustments

Perhaps this has been a bit surreal, but I liked

i like it Henricat2006 lol

Only downside when using improved shaders, some cars look really low poly. XFG is an example. RAC on the other, looks quite nice.
Nevertheless, I am very curious to see what can be done with the possibilities shaders bring.

Can't believe this is still LFS, some raw screens:



More Here!

Click on images to get 1920x1200 versions.

One comment I have to make about the custom shaders I have seen, they seem to overdo the Fresnel effect.

The Fresnel effect says that the reflection is decreased on polygons that face you, while increasing to near 100% when the polygon faces nearly perpendicular to your view (the ones near the edges of the object).

But the normal thing in the custom shaders seems to be to remove reflections altogether when the polygon faces you. But just look in some glass or the side of a car. You could use it to shave... proving that the reflection does not go down to zero when the polygon faces towards you.

Note, the default reflections (environment map textures) are made a lot darker than the sky, so that the highlight can be strong and the reflections are at a reasonable level for a non-fresnel shader. This means that the reflection should be multiplied quite a lot (maybe 4 times or so?) in order to reach 100%.

I guess I'll implement a basic Fresnel effect into the default shaders. My vague thoughts are to implement, as a first stage, three shaders for cars: paint / matt / glass. These are easily detectable for all cars without needing to start getting detailed in the editor.

Quote from Scawen :

The thing is that I really need to support those "flag lights" that are positioned around some of the race tracks ...

In F1 they are using some sort of LED displays right now, so they can display there pretty much any picture they want, including black/white flashing triangles or blinking "[SC]" graphics like this:



edit: Ah.. here is some kind of description:
http://www.aesys.com/LED-signs ... ems/electronic-flag-panel

Quote from Scawen :

One comment I have to make about the custom shaders I have seen, they seem to overdo the Fresnel effect.

The Fresnel effect says that the reflection is decreased on polygons that face you, while increasing to near 100% when the polygon faces nearly perpendicular to your view (the ones near the edges of the object).

But the normal thing in the custom shaders seems to be to remove reflections altogether when the polygon faces you. But just look in some glass or the side of a car. You could use it to shave... proving that the reflection does not go down to zero when the polygon faces towards you.

Note, the default reflections (environment map textures) are made a lot darker than the sky, so that the highlight can be strong and the reflections are at a reasonable level for a non-fresnel shader. This means that the reflection should be multiplied quite a lot (maybe 4 times or so?) in order to reach 100%.

I guess I'll implement a basic Fresnel effect into the default shaders. My vague thoughts are to implement, as a first stage, three shaders for cars: paint / matt / glass. These are easily detectable for all cars without needing to start getting detailed in the editor.

Most of the stuff you've discussed is waaaayyy over my head. but this part, "three shaders for cars: paint / matt / glass."
Are you saying you can have cars with matte finishes? Like a primer or something?

Yeah, I don't understand half of what you've described, but I'm pretty sure I won't be disappointed with your results. You still need to put a train in So. City. though. Maybe the old Soul Train train?

Quote from Taavi(EST) :

Can't believe this is still LFS, some raw screens:



More Here!

Click on images to get 1920x1200 versions.

Could someone please make a thread for this Shader thing. I dont know how to implement this or where to get these shader settings.

Thanks

Quote from Racer Y :

Are you saying you can have cars with matte finishes? Like a primer or something?

No, it would just load up a different shader for the paint (anything shiny - mainly outside) and the matt surfaces (anything not shiny - mainly inside) and another for the glass (anything transparent).

This allows shader writers (including me) to give different visual properties to those objects.

The shaders I write will be on the efficient side, like not having "normalize" and complicated vector computations in the pixel shader. For me frame rate is a lot more important than an extremely subtle effect that you can't see unless you examine comparison screenshots.

Quote from Scawen :

No, it would just load up a different shader for the paint (anything shiny - mainly outside) and the matt surfaces (anything not shiny - mainly inside) and another for the glass (anything transparent).

This allows shader writers (including me) to give different visual properties to those objects.

The shaders I write will be on the efficient side, like not having "normalize" and complicated vector computations in the pixel shader. For me frame rate is a lot more important than an extremely subtle effect that you can't see unless you examine comparison screenshots.

Yeah, that's another big plus with LFS. the efficiency. It seems a lot of game developers just go all out and hope their potential market will also be
willing to spend the extra $$$ on upgrades to play their game.

"vector computations in the pixel shader" LOL I do know a little about those. A big problem most people have with vectors is they don't minimize the node count (a welded square having eight node points instead of just four)
That can increase file size and make the computer work harder to translate it.
Especially in a video game when you have a zillion shapes done that way.
Usually when some half wit designer/architect won't provide me with client artwork and I have to get it from a cloud, it usually means the idiot did just that and the file size is too big for them to e mail.

Id like to say thanks for all the recent work you have done scawen(been quite a lot) , im not fortuante enough to have an oculus rift as of yet but will be getting one shortly and ive tried it with standard 3d glasses and it was fun

good luck and im looking forward to the rest of your updates

bish

Quote from Scawen :

No, it would just load up a different shader for the paint (anything shiny - mainly outside) and the matt surfaces (anything not shiny - mainly inside) and another for the glass (anything transparent).

This allows shader writers (including me) to give different visual properties to those objects.

The shaders I write will be on the efficient side, like not having "normalize" and complicated vector computations in the pixel shader. For me frame rate is a lot more important than an extremely subtle effect that you can't see unless you examine comparison screenshots.

What about the specular lighting? Looks like it's also using those complicated computations, but the effect is better e.g. in interiors using specular lighting, in my opinion.

But from what I've tested, the impact on frame rate seems to be negligible, at least on my laptop. With a grid of 20 AIs on South City, I had 30 FPS regardless of the shader I used (compared Keiichi's with original). Maybe the impact is different on some older systems?

Quote from Scawen :

Note, the default reflections (environment map textures) are made a lot darker than the sky, so that the highlight can be strong and the reflections are at a reasonable level for a non-fresnel shader.

I completely forgot about it.
Anyway, if the environment textures require rework, maybe it can be replaced with cube maps? It can also be converted into a RGBM(http://graphicrants.blogspot.r ... /rgbm-color-encoding.html) format to lay the foundation of HDR features.

I wrote a post about some graphic opportunities and techniques
https://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=86111

ive tested with each shader and not noticed any difference in performance also, i am using a fairly good system though

Quote from Becky Rose :

Just a heads up on this but the very nature of a bloom effect will by it's very nature kill the AA unless Scawen also switches over to a deferred rendering system, which will probably mean a few months downtime for LFS, so don't go putting ideas in his head yet mkay :P

I'm actually quite keen to play around with a few artistic styles too, I enjoy playing with shaders and I'm hopeful that a "shader mod scene" might spring up around LFS.

Don't know exactly what you mean with AA but well, it is just a list of possible cool things with PS 2.0 and higher. ENBSeries worked well these DirectX 8.1 years also, excepting for reflections. So it is worth to give it a try (just a try, as your eyes start to hurt after a while ).


Going to reflections, some games have been, for years, just copying the the actual rendering screen (deleting the 'focused' car on it) to the environment map texture per each frame, and looked very well (also ENBSeries did this in GTA:SA, but for some reason those reflections never worked in LFS).

Quote from Flame CZE :

What about the specular lighting? Looks like it's also using those complicated computations, but the effect is better e.g. in interiors using specular lighting, in my opinion.

But from what I've tested, the impact on frame rate seems to be negligible, at least on my laptop. With a grid of 20 AIs on South City, I had 30 FPS regardless of the shader I used (compared Keiichi's with original). Maybe the impact is different on some older systems?

Well I have not experimented yet so don't really know. It may depend on the materials.

Finding the light intensity at the vertices can give some good results, I guess depending on exactly which type of object or material you are rendering. For example, a windscreen is a nice smoothly curved surface and I'm guessing that lighting at each vertex (to find the fresnel value, colour and so on, like it has always been but with some more detail in the vertex shader) and interpolating those results over the polygons will look just as good (or very nearly as good, so much as to be undetectable) as actually interpolating the normal over every pixel, then doing a complicated fresnel calculation involving square roots (normalize) and powers (fresnel) on every pixel. One clearly uses many times the number of instructions than the other. When I see sqrt and pow in a pixel shader, I'm nearly falling off my chair with the shock. But maybe I am just a relic from the 80's.

You are saying that screenshot is "better"... but... better than what? We need to compare the "same" lighting effect, in one case optimised by doing most of the calculation at the vertex, and in the other, doing all the calculations at each pixel.