Racer v0.8.25 released!

[Ruud]

Another one, esp important with the tangents problems (white spots/dark triangles):

Get it at http://www.racer.nl/download/racer0.8.25.zip

Changes:
- Setting racer.ini's textures.compression to 0 had an effect on visuals (no SRGB).
- Ctrl-1 now shows when the force feedback is saturating the wheel (>20 Nm).
- Controller setup screen now removed POV and added horn and wiper controls.
- 'sunny' default was 0, should have been 1.
- standard_bump_f.cg now takes specularity from the normalmap's alpha channel (2nd layer)
- Only 3/4 of the tangents was passed for each objects. White spots and black triangles.
- Baja shader bug fixed (dyn_standard_bump_speca.cg was used)
- ff_damping (in car.ini) was applied to the wrong FF setting (friction instead of damping)
- Small change in spline triangle checking for road surfaces; in Carlswood doing Shift-F
4 times failed to recognize the underlying spline triangle.
- Y offset in viewelt_f.cg removed; dials were slightly moved up a centimeter.
- Using Cg 3.0 toolkit (was 2.2) from July 2010.
- smCor for the 3rd shadow split slightly increased
- Only angular 3D view elements (dials) were painted correctly. Other texts could appear rotated.
- 'show splines' and all debug lines & points were rendered in HDR mode thus dark. Now drawn in LDR
after postprocessing to remain visible at all times.
- Live track envmapping anti-aliased the whole main FBO on each side update (ouch). Faster now
when setting render_once to 0.
- Mirror was anti-aliased twice. Slightly faster now.
- Exposure gradient changed from 0.5 to 0.35 (darker exposures)
- Music & background image handling in all setup screens now supported.
- More live track options in the graphics setup screen.
- Added bestline_v/f.cg for visible rendering of the 'best line' (F3 to toggle bestline)
- Added bestline.tga in data/images as an overlay image (uses alpha channel).
- 'sunny' included in sky shaders (GetSkyColorAtm) for the sun disc
- Undetected controllers would crash the controller setup screen in a few places.
- The lobby was painted incorrectly when using 3 monitors.
- Fixed stack underflow in car selection screen.

 

[Alex Forbin]

The skidmark alpha must be pretty high for it to be visible (not entirely sure why). I've updated the skidmark shaders for v0826 and modified the skid generation a bit so that they're now nicely visible again.

Cool, it will be nice to have them working again.

Alex Forbin

 

[boomer541]

Love the three speed wipers!!!! I can now control them with the w-key, had to change the default contrils.ini file as w-key was used for hazard lights.

Finally figured out how to get fairly good reflections off the water in Surfaces and Sounds. Turned off envmap.spherical and render once now =0. The water*.cg files should be included in the shaders folder so I don't have to load them for each new version. Fiddled with setting in the envmap section of racer.ini and have very good fps and good reflections off cars,etc.

No apparent problems with the vertexcolor shader, Thanks Ruud!!

Thanks Mr. Whippy for the hint to used 4 splits. I use different settings in constants and racer.ini and get what I consider very good shadows!

 

[Alexander Knoll]

...can some one explain me how the wipers work/add? i read about it....but don't get it...

 

[camsinny]

The water*.cg files should be included in the shaders folder so I don't have to load them for each new version.

Why not just add a /cg folder in your track dir and reference them from that? That's much better than pasting them in the "reserved" shaders folder.

IMHO this is how we should deal with custom shaders.
Just reference them in the .shd with:

  vertex_shader
  {
    file=dyn_standard_v.cg
  }
  fragment_shader
  {
    file=cg/standard_reflector_f.cg
  }

For my custom cat's eye shader that doesn't actually work...yet.

 

[ZATRACERDUDE]

...can some one explain me how the wipers work/add? i read about it....but don't get it...

i agree with DF id kove a break down of how to make it work

 

[Alex Forbin]

Ouch, indeed. Some shaders just used expand() on a float3, which didn't have that problem. I still added utils.cg and now all bump shaders reference that (UnpackNormal(float3)) so that alpha is always untouched. Great find.

I found something that you,mitch, camsinny and stereo might find interesting...

http://lorachnroll.blogspot.com/2010/03/mixing-nvidia-technologies-thanks-to.html

Mr. Lorach (low-rock) is pretty sharp and has some interesting ideas on scenegraphs.

Alex Forbin

 

[Some1]

Ruud, I've attached a video showing that the shadow mapping splits don't follow the camera field of view correctly. I've disabled shadow blur (and also upped the other shadow parameters a little), so the bug becomes more apparent, the default shadow mapping settings hide the bug a little. I believe, this is what Dave is also talking about all the time, no?

Notice, how the shadow resolution changes as the camera rotates around the car.
If this bug could be fixed for the next release (and no new bugs introduced) I think we would have a release candidate for v0.9 final!

 

[francomk]

...can some one explain me how the wipers work/add? i read about it....but don't get it...

I´d like to know as well. It is a nice feature
Any documentation avalaible? Tried to search on racer.nl, but no info...

 

[QuadCoreMax]

0.8.25

QLOG
Fri Dec 03 17:03:24 (INFO): [racer/188] DGPUShaderManager::Init() Geometry shading is not supported on this card (ATI?).
Fri Dec 03 17:03:24 (WARN): [racer/188] DGPUShader:Load(data/renderer/fullscreen_shaders_hdr/bloom_shadows_f.cg): The profile is not supported.
Fri Dec 03 17:03:24 (INFO): [racer/188] --- application start ---
Fri Dec 03 17:03:24 (INFO): [racer/188] WorldRenderer: you have an ATI graphics card (ATI Technologies Inc.). Working around some long-term bugs.

plus
- options menu is more complete
- fps increase => engine optimization
- steering wheel feels much better
- cool driveline feature

minus
- something wrong happening in GUI with the rendering (alpha issue => image more black) => randomly happening
- buttons appearance => the mouse over color/alpha value should be used by default & when mouse overing them they should slightly increase in opacity
- cars still not rendered correctly when selecting them => cars white
- auto-detecting without control preset ini file don't work => we need all steering wheel presets
- in replays, looks like Racer trying to connect ?
- Modeler tangents & normals => still flickering planes all over => looks like an ATI issue / even after a "generate Tangents" Modeler function execution.
- show splines should be rendered before car => looks like they flying in the air
- standard_mix2_f scale param seems not working in shader/material only in v/f templates

Ideas for 0.9 release
- audio volume & music on/off in GUI audio
- you need a background box for GUI/menu buttons in case you have a black image => I have 2 black stripes (top & bottom) for menu_overlay.tga. => can't see the button text
- you need a rendering priority => programming => particles as soon as they intersect the car, they shouldn't be rendered => avoid rain/smoke/snow in car
- carlswood would need an update, some collision/physical issues where car flies in the scene unrealistically & other minor stuff
- more blurring in CSM even if we loose some detail => avoid pixelation

logitech_g25_racing_wheel_usb.ini to integrate in \data\controls\presets

 

[QuadCoreMax]

Also, there's some lagging when the car has finished the first lap...or the first/last timeline.

 

[luthobu]

Tried Gizmos trail with 0825.. man, my jaw just dropped to the floor..

The graphics looks amazing, even with my old ATI.. only drawback is
that my FPS sucks big time (between 2-10fps )

PS: I have decided to release a preview of Gizmos with the faint hope
that someone will post amazing and breathtaking screenies of the track
with a fully working 0825

 

[Mr Whippy]

Ruud, I've attached a video showing that the shadow mapping splits don't follow the camera field of view correctly. I've disabled shadow blur (and also upped the other shadow parameters a little), so the bug becomes more apparent, the default shadow mapping settings hide the bug a little. I believe, this is what Dave is also talking about all the time, no?

Notice, how the shadow resolution changes as the camera rotates around the car.
If this bug could be fixed for the next release (and no new bugs introduced) I think we would have a release candidate for v0.9 final!

That's the "half shadow map texture resolution 'behind' the car" feature.

That is great on internal car cameras, but on any other camera where you can see the whole car it just means the shadows look wrong.

So it's a 'feature' that has been implemented partially. It just needs finishing off properly and it'll be worthwhile! Having a big first split distance to try cover it up just makes the shadows look even worse for no actual benefit. As beta testers we are the QC team, and as a dedicated QC'er, the feature needs fixing, or binning. It's pants


Rest is all good though. The fixed steering wheel FF factors are all making sense now. Nice

Dave

 

[boomer541]

I'll put together the info for making wipers and post it later today.

Yes, I can make a cg folder in the track folder but for people that want water in thier track it would be nice to have water cg files in the "reserved" folder.

 

[twister77]

Ruud, many thanks for including live environment map options in the menu, hopefully they can all stay there from now on. FPS improvement is also appreciated..

 

[Stereo]

Did the sound system get changed in this version? Engine noises are a lot quieter (even inaudible) on a lot of my cars, while the kerb noises and wind stay at decent volume.

 

[krsman3d]

An interesting video of rain effects in rFactor 2. Imagine this on a windscreen in Racer.

 

[boomer541]

How to make wipers.

Make the wiper dof's, one for each wiper, pivot point located at 0,0,0 and then locate on car in car.ini file.

Put _wipers.7z code in body section of car.ini.

I like my controls.default.ini (_default.7z) file better than Ruud's, no double keys.

 

[Alexander Knoll]

THX Bob, try it at night....

 

[Mr Whippy]

I'll put together the info for making wipers and post it later today.

Yes, I can make a cg folder in the track folder but for people that want water in thier track it would be nice to have water cg files in the "reserved" folder.

Just release with the shaders pointing at the reserved folder, and then pass the shaders to Ruud to put in the official releases and update where necessary in future.
It's probably the only way to make sure they get re-released/maintained.

Putting them in local folders just makes the content go out of date very quickly, and the author or others then have to maintain the shd file and the shaders in the cg folder etc etc...

Imo, if there are materials you can't get looking right with defaults, then it needs to be in the Racer release folder. Water would be on of them imo.
In theory, most other materials should be ok now though, the defaults are very good

Dave

 

[Ruud]

An interesting video of rain effects in rFactor 2. Imagine this on a windscreen in Racer.

Hm, that looks very much like they're using a couple of images (8?) and interpolate between those based on time. You see repeating effects. So you'd get 8 'normal' images (which deform the FBO in postprocessing) which are tweened as time goes bye. Nice but hope they've made it better by now.