Race Remaster

[Incredible Hulk]

Is it possible that shaders are track specific so that experimenting with one track doesn’t impact the old ones?

 

[AndreasFSC]

I don't think so, but the aim is to make it work ok for most tracks and make special materials to be added to tracks to improve things.
But things will go back and forth during the development, so no reason for panic.
I can't test all tracks all the time, so just a simple screenshot when things don't work as expected is useful.
This is what nordschleife looks like for me without any changes (I think):

 

[AndreasFSC]

One thing that can make the tree shader look bad is that there is a top limit for how bright the output color can be. I had to do that because of some very bright textures that are used at some tracks.
If r, g, and b colors are limited to the same value it will result in grey color when high values.
So the limits need to be different for the channels, but it requires the usual testing and tweaking to get "right".

 

[AndreasFSC]

This is how it looks with new standard lights and tree materials shanged to tree shader (with adjusted max values).
The trees textures are a little bit too bright for the shader, but let's see what it can look like after editing material color.

 

[AndreasFSC]

Made a specialized glass shader that can be added to cars.
It is much like the car paint shader, but should hopefully reflect light more like glass obviously.
Probably the transparency needs some fine tuning to compensate for the increased reflections.

Made some tests with a multi pass shader to try to sender semi transparent pixels in one pass and opaque pixels in one. Possibly this could help with the transparency drawing order issue. But no luck running booth passes so far.

Also made a tree shader for brighter textures.

 

[AndreasFSC]

This is the tree shader made for brighter tree textures.

 

[AndreasFSC]

I think it might be best to skip the new menu music for now.
I made a version of the original Race 07 theme, and with a lot of work I think it would fit in the remaster, and I also got a cool and nice menu track sent to me, but much more work would be needed to mix and master booth to not stand out too much from the other music. If not done the right way it makes the game experience worse instead of better. And I am not good enough at mastering. So better focusing on the more important things.

Nurburgring is not part of the remaster, but probably part of a tracks pack.
Fixed a few things and replaced some track materials.

 

[AndreasFSC]

This is part of the transparency problem (backside seen through curved windows), the same as when trees have multiple transparency.
I have red much about this and it turns out that this is a difficult thing for all games, and to get it perfectly right is expensive. It can't be seen that often, but I decided to spend some time fixing it for a more solid feel.
The solution is to disable double side windows and add a separate object for inside windows.

 

[AndreasFSC]

Magny-Cours is a challenge. As it is one of the older tracks it is made in a little bit different way.
Nothing wrong with that, but not so easy to make consistent to the style I try to achieve.
Hope to get there in the end.

 

[AndreasFSC]

I don't think there it is possible to add much more to the graphics unless we can access post processing. (maybe access the function that calls the track map post process?) But if we had unlimited possibilities, what do you think the game is missing to look like a (more) modern game?

 

[dwightyone]

Have you uploaded any very recent videos of your work - youtube etc...

Looking at the images the cars and to a lesser entent the tracks have a slightly mattness look about them. PP, reflections even a race07 Sol if you like maybe would help. It looks like the sim' lacks natural effect lighting Of course this is based on the images - could be totally different in game. I know it does TC but does anyone create modern GT and Formula etc... for it.

 

[AndreasFSC]

Reflections is no big problem, but the wtcc cars don't have much. I think it is a choise by Simbin. Some race cars are not very shiny. But we don't have real environment map data available, just cube map textures. No real shadow map either (only for objects one by one), and I think that is the most important thing. There is a register reserved for shadow map but it is listed as 'not used'.

 

[dwightyone]

I might pick this up on steam to try it out as RD gave a glowing opinion of GTR2 anniversary in 2019 and this is newer and more advanced than that - well, than the original GTR2 I'm guessing. I like the idea of this project and tbh I like fiddling as much as racing

 

[AndreasFSC]

About post processing, I have red about how to intercept the directx calls. If we are lucky, maybe we can add some in the future.
But I think the best option would be if we could add a call to a technique (a group of screen shaders) to the game. As I have written earlier there is one technique used in the game to the menu track map textures to change the color.

Then prehaps we could add a tiny bit of depth of field and bloom. Perhaps also a little bit of auto brightness. The important thing is to not add too much.

 

[dwightyone]

Well, that sound a great idea tbh - I think any little amount of visual goodies added that can enhance the visuals is a win win.

Edit: Does the sim' support triple screen?

 

[PiotrGT]

Hi @AndreasFSC could the flickering banners that I once told you about be fixed in Race Remaster? Like the ones on Monza or Macau.

 

[AndreasFSC]

We will try to fix that in all included tracks
Edit: All z-fighting that we can see, I don't think I have any of that in Macau

 

[Bjarne Hansen]

Hi @AndreasFSC could the flickering banners that I once told you about be fixed in Race Remaster? Like the ones on Monza or Macau.

I have pretty much done that on all tracks but have not upload them yet.
As Andreas say it is z-flicker and is fixed by moving the object a little further apart.

The Macau do have some if I recall right it was on the banner ads on the bridges?

You can fix some of the flicker yourself very easy
In the cars you want to drive open the car_name.com file and in the section .
LocalCam=COCKPIT
Change
ClipPlanes=(0.1000, 1500.000000)
to something like
ClipPlanes=(0.2000, 1500.000000) or even make the first figure larger
When part of the cockpit gets cut away it is too big. But have never seen a car that could not be 0.2000

It will not eliminate the flicker but greatly reduce it.

 

[AndreasFSC]

Yes, we work on projects with a slightly different approach, but also much the same, and we share our knowledge the best we can

 

[AndreasFSC]

Latest research:
Ai cars lining up for full course yellow, safetycar tries to get out on track!

Too bad the safetycar driver is stuck in reverse... he also turns the steering wheel. Not sure if the car is not working or if his driving is very bad? But I have never seen any reaction from him before, so this is interesting.