Racer v0.8.23 released!

Ruud

RACER Developer
An important one.
Troubles expected with this one:
- linearity of the steering wheel (you for one now need to specify the wheel lock in the setup screen before starting to judge things)
- a new parameter ('sunny') in most fragment shaders (any typos?). For a simple 'overcast' type of thing where you allow less sun to shine through.
- dbg_car.flip_tan=1. Perhaps a major breakthrough on the physics end. Where I always used a tan(SA), it might have needed to be atan(SA). Ouch, we're going to test this on our high-end sims later today, see how it feels (easier to do than with a G27).
- steering controls are now in degrees, rather than normalized. How about center_squeeze (and related) for Mz reduction near 0? Haven't looked at that yet.

The download: http://www.racer.nl/download/racer0.8.23.zip (67Mb)
Then get the latest exe flip_tan bugfix (only exe): http://www.racer.nl/download/racer0.8.23b.zip
(5Mb)
*after some testing, it appears than dbg_car.flip_tan should be 0* (the older situation)

The changes:
- Steering revised quite a bit - the controls for steering left/right now use degrees, instead of being
normalized. This changed some things inside the physics engine to use rotation more directly.
The idea: set your controller's lock correctly. With cars that have a steering lock that is smaller
or equal to that of the controller lock, the steering is direct (1:1). If a car has more lock defined
in its car.ini, linearity will be applied on the controller's steering output (now in degrees) to let it
use the full range of the car's steering wheel (linearity=controllerLock/steerLock).
This all targeted a bit for 900 degrees where you no longer then have to tweak for a lot of cars.
The controller setup screen is being worked on to visually check the lock (press F5 twice in the setup
screen to show the 'Wheel' page).
- Controller lock is now saved in the setup screen.
- A new important physics tweak is available: dbg_car.flip_tan. Defaulting to 0 (the v0.8.22 behavior),
setting it to 1 modifies the slipangle calculations for each wheel to use atan() rather than tan().
The tan() has been in there for a long time, to stabilize high slipangles. But, tan() makes values
worse as they grow, instead of flattening them like atan(). So, this needs to be investigated;
probably it has quite an influence on slipping behavior (with big slipangles).
- bloom_shadows_f.cg accidentally had bloom turned off
- Flare Cg shaders tweaked for nicer looks (alpha changes)
- log file position group added 'lap' (ASCII format)
- Added motion_blur.stencil option - use 1 for the old projected shadows, 0 for shadowmapping (faster)
- Added dev.nvidia_perf option that will try to access nVidia PerfSDK counters if installed.
Install an instrumented driver for this to work.
- Added a profile debug page (Ctrl-6, may have to press twice for the 2nd page) to see some nVidia performance counters.
I must say it bluescreened my XP machine more than once, so be careful with instrumented drivers.
- Added envmap.live_track.frames_per_update for more live track mapping control
- Fixed some tough render engine bugs that messed up Z-buffer usage (mirror on made the screen flicker)
- Generic models weren't transforming; fixed.
- Added wiper modes (off/interval/normal/fast), use 'w' to switch to the next mode (see also Ctrl-4 for the current mode)
- dyn_standard_bump_reflect_f.cg now also lets bumpmap alpha affect specular (next to reflectiveness)
- Sky_f.cg and sky_daynight_f.cg modified so clouds=1 now gives the normal effect (and does not raise
cloud regions to 175 klux!)
- A track's exposure in special.ini is now correctly used as the initial exposure (no more starting
with white, then coming back to a normal exposure if you set this one to a nice value; like 0.02?)
- Fixed a bug in the fresnel calculation in dyn_standard_bump_reflect_v.cg, which gave bad looking
reflections.
- Selecting Bloom/Shadowmapping from the menu gave problems with undefined 'gammaFactor' errors.
- Surround Gaming mode camera aspect fix (director mode)
- A surface's 'grip_decline_driveline' now defaults to 0 (was 1). Fixed issues with grip declining by default.
- Panorama shader's extinction now uses 'scale' Cg parameter instead of hardcoded value (5). Add 'scale' to
your track.shd file.
- Backfire would sometimes not work. This and a bunch of other uninitialized data fixed.
- 2D elements in the render engine could mess with motion blur blending (OpenGL state cache).
- When bloom was on, the aliased buffer was anti-aliased twice! (for bloom and at postprocessing)
- blur_alpha didn't work; the fullscreen shaders didn't output correct alpha. Using a bit of blur_alpha now
by default (0.3).
- Auto exposure sampling did an anti-alias pass; now it uses a previously anti-aliased result (faster).
- Dropped config.exe for now - anybody using it actively? Most should be settable ingame.
- Added 'sunny' in special.ini (tracks); 0=totally overcast, 1=super sunny. For ground objects.
Needs to be added to all fragment objects though. Also adds script cmd 'sunny <x>' to set it live.
 
Hmmm...

Anyone else care to just try the atmosphere shader from 22 vs 23 on a decent sized track... turn clouds off too, or to 0.001 or something.


Set 20:30 on Carlswood, use the 23 shader, then rename it and drop the 22 shader in the folder, and use 'reload shaders' in Racer to reload the 22 shader... the difference is clear.

Minty green sunset, or orangey sunset.


It's different even with the green tint adjusted down from 0.9 to 0.8...

Easy to test, just swap shaders and "reload shaders" to see at various TOD's... doesn't make much difference on Carlswood where you can't see far, but it's much more noticeable on an open track with significant landscape... also if you have tweaked mie/ray for an interesting sunset (bumped them up a bit for some fogginess etc), then it's not just a hint of mint, it's full on green fog :D


More testing tomorrow night.

I fear this is something to do with this:

22:
RayleighColor.rgb=color*xyz

23:
RayleighColor=float4(colour*xyz)

As much as anything...

float 4 vs rgb (float 3 in essence)?

Alpha related?

Clouds related!?


Hmmmmmm :D

Dave
 
Set 20:30 on Carlswood, use the 23 shader, then rename it and drop the 22 shader in the folder, and use 'reload shaders' in Racer to reload the 22 shader... the difference is clear.

Minty green sunset, or orangey sunset.

It's different even with the green tint adjusted down from 0.9 to 0.8...

That was subtle. :) I had to use Photoshop but I didn't start with your time example. It's 'v3InvWaveLength' being used in the ray sample loop. That makes it different. I attached a fixed atmosphere.cg.
 

Attachments

  • atmosphere.zip
    3.3 KB · Views: 168
Why do the car headlights go almost completely out (off) when going thru 24 hours?

Because headlights are less visible in daylight vs night. That's the whole point of the klux lighting model. :) v0.8.24 btw lets you set the light color, so you can increase the light output (right now it's fixed at 4 klux, not too much).
 
That was subtle. :) I had to use Photoshop but I didn't start with your time example. It's 'v3InvWaveLength' being used in the ray sample loop. That makes it different. I attached a fixed atmosphere.cg.

Yay, thanks Ruud.

I hoped I wasn't going mad :D

It is very subtle, I can't really tell on most tracks, but I've been tinkering a great deal with very distant objects and how they appear (panorama), and it's those that showed the big change.
Also, the dusk/dawn transitions were very green, the bigger give away on Carlswood :D


Thanks!

Dave
 
Ok , my first problem with racer. Everytime when I'm trying to open select car , racer close.

OS-Version: 6.1.7600 () 0x100-0x1

0x00549B6F f:\dd\vctools\crt_bld\SELF_X86\crt\src\INTEL\memset.asm (line 127): memset()
0x004E7F70 d:\source\trunk\dev\src\libs\qlib\qstring.cpp (line 202): qstring::Resize()
0x004E80F2 d:\source\trunk\dev\src\libs\qlib\qstring.cpp (line 372): qstring::operator=()
0x00428F72 d:\source\trunk\dev_racer\src\lib\rglobal.cpp (line 117): RGlobalInfo::FindAllCars()
0x004DEA1D d:\source\trunk\dev_racer\src\ui_public\selcar.cpp (line 567): rrSelectCar()
0x004D607E d:\source\trunk\dev_racer\src\ui_public\menu.cpp (line 1717): Do()
0x004D623B d:\source\trunk\dev_racer\src\ui_public\menu.cpp (line 1840): RMenuRun()
0x004035BA d:\source\trunk\dev_racer\src\mrun.cpp (line 1652): Setup()
0x0040390E d:\source\trunk\dev_racer\src\mrun.cpp (line 1909): Run()
0x00401504 d:\source\trunk\dev_racer\src\main.cpp (line 222): main()
0x00401573 d:\source\trunk\dev_racer\src\main.cpp (line 229): WinMain()
0x00549E0B f:\dd\vctools\crt_bld\self_x86\crt\src\crt0.c (line 263): __tmainCRTStartup()
0x76CF1194 [kernel32]: (filename not available): BaseThreadInitThunk
0x76EAB495 [ntdll]: (filename not available): RtlInitializeExceptionChain
0x76EAB468 [ntdll]: (filename not available): RtlInitializeExceptionChain
 
The racer_nocg.exe seems to handle steering lock differently to racer.exe - I can't say exactly but it seems to be about 1/10 the lock on some cars. Making it kinda hard to steer, except by powersliding.
 
A picture is worth 10,000 words. The shadow was darker on the track than on the grass, fixed with shader settings.

Now about that vertexcolor shader problem...

shadow1.jpg
 
I haven't really tried, versions are updating too often to keep 3rd party shaders working right. In principle it should still work fine, just need to modify it so it outputs the shaded/unshaded colours.

I've been focusing more on the window glass shader, can't really get it working to my satisfaction. Need to find a good set of test images or something, cause I'm just twiddling knobs right now. I know it feels "wrong" with clouds but I can't say exactly why.
 
I haven't really tried, versions are updating too often to keep 3rd party shaders working right. In principle it should still work fine, just need to modify it so it outputs the shaded/unshaded colours.

I've been focusing more on the window glass shader, can't really get it working to my satisfaction. Need to find a good set of test images or something, cause I'm just twiddling knobs right now. I know it feels "wrong" with clouds but I can't say exactly why.

OK no problem, I will keep working on it.
I have been using the metallic shader that Tiberius made with a smooth "noise" texture for glass and it worked great. I started to update it to shadows but since your noise is procedural it maps without issues.

Alex Forbin
 
I've tried to update my shader for the newer versions but ny textures look greyish and washed out. I know that many things have changed, gamma and such but what am I supposed to do to get the car looking right? Also, the interior dials look really bad since that shader was added and they seem to have changed their position. Has anyone else noticed this too?
 
I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but skidmarks only work when sliding sideways.

I've mentioned that the tiresmoke should ideally be hooked to some sort of tire heating calc. such as SA*time=smoke amount. I think that the amount of smoke generated should be fairly consistent with the heating mainly affecting the alpha.
Any thoughts?

Alex Forbin
 
Confirmed, straight line burnouts are all smoke & no fire...

And while we're on smoke, I haven't worked out why this happens, but occasionally the smoke seems to blow away very quickly & unrealistically.
 

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