F1 2019 F1 2019: Lighting Improvement Preview Images...

[Paul Jeffrey]

Codemasters have released some interesting images that showcase the improvements to the lighting model coming to F1 2019.

Credit where credit is due, the Codemasters franchise of games have always been pretty strong in the graphical department, even going as far back as the original F1 2010 that kick started the series under Codies control some nine years ago.

However, having stated they took a full two years to develop and deliver the latest version of the long running series, it looks like Codemasters have been pretty hard at work improving the visual experience of the game.

Here we see some interesting back to back images of the upcoming F1 2019 against its predecessor, F1 2018. Using night locations as the theme for these images, you can see for yourself how the changes have improved the title considerably since the last game.

"Night lighting was one of our visual update priorities for F1® 2019" said Stuart Campbell, Art Director for F1 2019. "We took the atmospherics system that we introduced in F1 2018 for day time lighting, and further developed this for the night tracks.

We now have full atmospheric haze on night circuits, giving a true sense of depth. There’s a lot of dust in the air on those circuits and, at night, the particles really interact with the strong trackside lighting. The atmospherics help pull the whole scene together and give a greater sense of realism. We have added volumetric lighting to the trackside lighting, which results in the cones of light falling off from the light sources – another key factor in making night lighting look more realistic. Finally, we added night time specular. This was not present at all in previous games and made the night time scenes look rather flat, and the surface materials ambiguous.

The specular additions have made a huge improvement to the quality of the track materials at night. The extra surface information provided by this allows you to see all the surface details that were lost previously. The vehicle paint in particular looks amazing on the night circuits, and picks-up highlights from all those track-side light sources making it look incredibly close to TV footage of the sport itself."​

With these visual enhancements, a revised force feedback model and the inclusion for Formula Two for the very first time, Codemasters certainly seem to be on the right track for a very solid release indeed.

F1 2019 is due to release on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC June 2019.

Catch the latest news and discussion at the F1 2019 Sub Forum here at RaceDepartment - join in with your fellow community members and share some of the F1 2019 love!

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[CreamyCornCob]

And still, every track, day or night, looks like you're getting gassed out in white smog while visiting downtown China. And the lighting just magnifies it. Someone in a thread in another F1 2019 story pointed out the color spectrum being very out of wack with this white wash effect.

Looks hideous imo.

 

[Alex72]

I love to see this fog (and the way the lights work at that condition) in those near the sea tracks at night under the lights, i always was like why the surrounding air is so clear at night in Bahrain/Singapore/Abu Dhabi?
Can't wait for career to make McLaren great again

Indeed. Strong lights like that in sports arenas etc cast shine. I see it at my football pitch at nights by my house. It does not look like 2018. Much closer to F1 2019 images.

 

[CreamyCornCob]

Like I said above. This is why it looks so dreadful and macabre.
This was from user Large Style:

Why do the videos have messed up tone mapping? I guess it's an ambient / volumetric lighting attempt, but tonally it's a mess...

... then Auto Toned in Photoshop...

 

[aka2k]

It's okay!

 

[Michael Lowe]

New lighting. 30 quid please.

 

[Leonardo Chaves]

Looks great, now do a force feedback with less spring and more tire forces and you'll have a great game.

 

[Fernando AS]

I want to see another track with sun.

 

[VirtuaIceMan]

Wet weather at night looks phenomenal, you can hardly see!

 

[Leonardo Chaves]

Ahh but does it include properly working HDR?

We have 1000nits monitors now available, so no excuse Codemasters, for titles (especially multi-platform titles) not to have this included.

2018 has the option, i don't see why they would remove it.

 

[GeForce06]

looks nice so far

 

[Stig_F1]

I'm super excited for this game, an issue I didn't like in 2018 was the motion blur, it just didn't give the full fast effect, here it looks promising with giving the immersion that 2018 was missing. Can't wait! Gonna stream it on twitch too!

 

[Leonardo Chaves]

Under sunlight there are improvements but not as noticeable.

 

[Arconian]

Wet weather at night looks phenomenal, you can hardly see!

Water spray looks like smoke on the TV cameras.
Looks great overall though, some views are very realistic.

 

[liby88]

hmmm could be first f1 game since f1 2012 for me but still missing the good old GP 3 & 4

 

[JonnyCombat]

Great graphics don’t make a great game. That’s not to say the last F1 game was bad but this years iteration is looking a lot like a glorified patch.

They never did fix the multiplayer or the difficulty spikes/slumps in the last game so I’m remaining somewhat sceptical on this one.

Happy to be proved wrong of course.