WIP Parramatta Park 1952 GP 2 Mile Circuit

[ed_jza80]

ok, we are 90% the way to a full wet slippery track with nasty rainspray and glossy track surface

huge thanks to elgh33 who thanks to the power of skype, weve been both working and tweaking with this track. trying out new stuff i hadnt thought of, and with some extra 3dsimed skills that i dont posses, hopefully we'll have it looking really good

hopefully well stop getting distracted with fun stuff and actually finish the main circuit in a moment, but for now, slip sliding away!

screen shots shortly

cheers
ed

 

[ed_jza80]

ahhh, well, its really hard to capture the water spray on anything other than the main stright... which is a boring photo and youve seen it all before...

so this will do for now, ill try for a better one tomorrow

cheers
ed

edit. deleted attachment as it was crap
better one below

 

[ed_jza80]

better screen grab below

this REALLY tests out your graphics card though... not sure its a good thing. im getting under 30ps now for most of the track

cheers
ed

 

[Emery]

And now you know why good rain effects are generally left out (GTR2 rain is passable, but I can't call the effect good).

Now I don't mean to discourage you as having the option is worthwhile. Better video cards and processors are always available in the future and a 2x improvement there will do wonders!

 

[ed_jza80]

shame really. as the effect is really atmospheric even at a sh1t framerate, is incredible to drive

actually, even as a solo car on the track its pretty cool. its jest when 10 cars ALL have a water spray it becomes unmanageable
ill include it at a n option because its so good, just be wary!

still... wre having trouble with the road reflections. if anyone can help, please let us know, and well forward you so files

cheers
ed

 

[Kris Vickers]

What system do you have?

Just so we know what kind of benchmark your setting with the effects....

 

[ed_jza80]

yeah sure, um P4 D Dual Core 3.0 with 4Gb Ram and 1Gb (low profile, tiny card!) ATI 4650 gpu

cheers
ed

 

[ed_jza80]

ok, here she is in her latest incarnation...

we havent done anything to the dry track (yet) but are happy to show off what weve been playing with on the wet track.

below is a download of BOTH tack versions/events, bundled into a single Locations folder for rFactors.

I REALLY look forward to hearing how people find the wet track. we gave up on the refections, however i worked on trying to customise the textures to really make it look and feel like a wet dark day with water on the tarmac. its not supposed to look like its raining. its just supposed to resemble driving on a wet road in inclement dark foreboding weather.

Warning - wet track is VERY GPU intensive, so dont expect much from teh wet track if your GFx card isnt up to the task. I generally drive under DX8 as i like the textures from that a little better, and after cleaning up a few thing, i can now sustain 30fps without too much traffic, but get several AIs into the picture and im down into the low 20's (these FPS on near maxed out detail settings! can happily sustain 40-50FPS with customised settings, still mostly on high)). It would be very worthwhile to note, and perhaps adjust your graphics detail settings in rfactor to maximise your FPS. please let me know what results you get, and what your setup etc is

ENJOY:

http://www.v-eight.com/multimedia/ParramattaPark1952.zip

78Mb, two tracks, one location.
Simply Extract DIRECTLY into locations folder. Please Delete or Overwrite any existing Parramatta Data

Cheers
Ed

 

[William Elgh]

dont say we hawe "give up" on reflections we only need some help

 

[ed_jza80]

another screenshot, just cause i love the skybox

Correction From Above... Im a numpty, and had my graphics setting in rFactor close to maxxed out, hence my atrocious frame rates with the wet track. I just took the opportunity then to knock some of the settings down a notch, and VOILA! perfectly playable 40-50FPS even with other cars and the water spray.

so maybe not as disasterous as i had thought, and very much worthwhile giving th track a go. might be prudent to adjust the graphics performance settings though, but all very worthwhile! goddamn difficult track to drive in the wet! lol!!! :tongue:

 

[Emery]

Wet track: Low point was 47 fps at the end of the tunnel of trees. That compares with 58 fps in the dry, same point. Going past the pits is now the other low point, but it's at 60 fps.

The tone is very, very dark. Dark enough that I'm driving with the headlights on. Apart from the wet reflection, I feel like there's something missing; maybe it is just the wet reflection? Or maybe the textures need some highlights and shadows baked in, more contrast for the highlights? Or... maybe the headlights just don't do justice to the textures without reflections?

[added]

Yes, it's too dark IMHO. The AI are tuning on their headlights! I'd set the light about halfway between where you have it and normal daylight.

 

[ed_jza80]

interesting, and thanks for your 2c. ive actually lightened it up a touch from where i initially had it! upped the lit intensity, and brought the session times earlier into the afternoon.

ill have a fiddle with the main terrain texture, and see if i can bring some more depth into it that way?

i also drive with headlights, and i gotta say was a little disappointed in the way they lit some objects up. not all trees seem to take the headlight well?

what about the occasional streetlight/other light source? im trying to keep the feel as one of those foreboding australian afternoon thunderstorm type moments. either just before or just after if you get my meaning. we'll keep working on some kind of reflection. 3dsimed doesnt seem to cut it, and i/william dont have 3dsmax.

good news about the frame rates though. that with AI or solo?

and overall, would you vote for keeping that track option in there, or junk it and stick to bright/day only?

cheers
ed

 

[ed_jza80]

haha! youtube didnt screw with my resolution finally! trick was encoding at 800x600 and let youtube do all its own conversion and post processing.

 

[Emery]

The sky will carry the tone. If you really examine the outdoors on a rainy day, there's still a fair amount of ambient light making the highlights, but the shadows aren't getting any fill and the colors are muted. The dark level that you've set is more like an hour before sunset when the storm comes in.

I had 10 AI, but they weren't on screen except going past the pits. The rain spray effect is just right.

Streetlights would not help. If you watch the camera from the pits, you can see the headlights light up trees in the distance and street lights would be a similar distraction. Their only use, IMHO, is when it's nighttime and you NEED light to see anything at all. If the houses had window lights, that'd be cool (assuming they're occupied).

Of course you should keep the wet track as an option! In the long run, people will vote by using it or not using it.

 

[ed_jza80]

if you want to try it youself, have a look in the .scn file of the wet track...
find section below (near top of file) and adjust the 'intensity' of the light up from 0.8 to some arbitrary higher level, and see how you like it?


cheers
ed

GroupMethod=Dynamic AmbientColor=(126, 116, 106)

//reduced visibility means far off shadows won’t be seen anyway, so no point rendering them.
MaxShadowRange(100.00)

//fog to give reduced visibility
FogMode=LINEAR FogIn=(0.00) FogOut=(550.00) FogDensity=(0.6)
FogColor=(185,190,195)

//decreased intensity of light due to cloudy conditions
Light=FDirect01
{
Type=Directional Dir=(0.338743,-0.883505,-0.323532) Intensity=(0.8) Color=(200, 190, 185)
}

 

[Emery]

I'll give it a go! It's raining here in Oregon today. Grey, though, unlike the dark storm clouds (we had those two weeks ago).

Just now, I finally got around to loading Team Players 1955 F1 and tried the dry track. That's when I realized you're missing haybales to complete the atmosphere! Aaargh, didn't mean to send more work your way, LOL.

 

[Emery]

I liked 0.9 with the current sky or 0.98 with the skydome contrast turned up (e.g. edit the texture). The need for headlights goes away and it creates a nice highlight around the rainspray.

 

[ed_jza80]

i tried the .9 setting, not too shabby. as you say, just enough to keep the lights off, though i was too busy trying to keep my new outrageously powerful car on the track and forgot to look for the angelic glow of the rain spray ill tweak the textures maybe tomorrow and see what we spit out. thanks emery.

random screenshot and my first real photoshop

cheers
ed

 

[Lee Knight]

Gday Ed, thought Id drop my 2c on the wet parra your've got goin'.
Loved it even with headlights on. It may be (read more than likely is)my anccient system,but I had no rainspray
happening-then again it could've been the car mod I was use'n(historic rally)-but it very much put me in mind of "on dusk after
the storm",the only thing that I felt was missing was that late last burst of the setting sun UNDER the clouds.
I dont mean to cause anymore work for you,I just figured you might be interested.
Enjoying your track very much & looking forward to see how you choose to finish it off.
Keep up the excellent work,
BLeeK.

 

[ed_jza80]

ok, with some regret, but also with some hope that the collaborative briliance of this forum might be able to help, ive released the full guts of this project into the 'open source' subsection with the hope that with a few little tweaks etc, it can make it to final release.

after a several thousand downloads of the BETA off my server, and awesome feedback from both you guys, and the random threads i found off-site where it was being played and discussed, i figure its worth a shot at getting it done. so check out the link below if youre interested in being involved!

http://www.racedepartment.com/bobs-...n-source-uncompleted-projects.html#post782644

cheers
ed