LFS Development Discussion

[AOR Nova]

RC-Maus and his silly stalky eyes

What's coming next... who knows.

[Borja]

Scawen Wrote:Hi, thanks for the support in this thread and your patience.

I confirm this is a full time job for Eric and me. There were some quiet years due to life changes but I can tell you we are really on the case now.

In the past year I have made a lot of updates to the graphical systems and there is much better support for different types of specular reflection including the shine on the road. The shaders are completely rewritten and structured better now as over the past few years I have got to grips with shaders (that was first stimulated by the VR support).

The lighting system is now done in a "gamma correct" way, i.e. processed linearly within the graphics system and only converted to sRGB at the output. Gamma correct rendering is an interesting subject if you are interested in that kind of thing and want to read up about it.

The specular reflections don't just appear automatically. Eric must visit each track and do an update to take full advantage of the new shaders. He is working hard updating the existing tracks and the results are very nice.

I've also recently been working on a new shadow system based on cascaded shadow maps.

So you should see a much better looking Live for Speed within a reasonable time frame. I won't speculate on how long it will be but Eric and I still have quite a few things to do, so don't hold your breath!

Scawen Wrote:Well, since you ask about the physics, I might as well say, although I am very well aware and should point out that plans may change.

I'm really working as hard as I can on the graphics but taking care not to go into mental fatigue. The reason is that Eric should have the best version to work with, so his work looks the same as it will end up.

To explain what I mean... for example, right now he doesn't have the new shadow code because really it needs to look right in the track editor, and the old shadows have disappeared at this point. But currently the shadows only work in game because it uses a special draw mode. So I need to make that draw mode work in the track editor. So there's the work for the week, as each time he moves an object it needs to update the object on the GPU so the shadows can appear.

What point am I making... well every graphical change has lead to repercussions, other things that should be updated to make the most of the new stuff. It's quite exciting and that's why I've been very motivated to do a lot of work recently.

Anyway, as some of you know, due to a separation in the code when the new tyre physics was to be released may years ago, there are two separate versions of LFS, the development version with the new tyre physics and the public version with the old tyre physics. The trouble is that updates (to graphics, interface, etc.) in each version need to be merged into the other version. It has been like a chain around my neck attached to an iron ball and one that I want to get rid of. At the moment there are just so many changes for the new graphics, it would be a bit of a nightmare to try and merge that into the public version. The only way to avoid that tedious merge now is to get the physics complete to a point where it is good enough to release. So the development version can be finally released to you and LFS will be back to a single version again.

So my intention is to keep on this graphics stuff as much as Eric needs right now, then get that physics suitable for release while he is finishing the remaining tracks.

That's how I see it right now, it's an exciting thought that LFS development could be kind of back on track again and that's why I am hoping to be able to do. But in reality as we have seen, there are sometimes unforeseen things that come up and change the plans. I hope it will all go as planned! Smile

[Owl]

YASSSSSSSS ALL ABOARD THE LFS HYPE TRAIN

[[TC]►Ash◄]

You'll be waiting a long time at the station for that train Owl...

[Ghutra]

Until it goes off the abism.

------BACK ON TOPIC------
Can't wait for the update once it comes out (or at least a Test Patch), but gotta "take it with tweezers" still. I'll not be convinced until a Test Patch/New Version is out.

I wanna guess they will update (and fix) the cars too (probably not in this update), right? Excluding XFG-XFR and XRG-XRT-XRR, It'd be nice to see how they would look updated.

[Jappe]

It's just good to see they are still actively working on this. And i sure can believe unforseen things happen in real life. I have been patient with LFS and i will still be patient.

It's better to take the time and finish it with good results, rather than finishing it quickly so everyone will lose their interest in lfs.

[GT4tube]

ZzZzzZzzZZzZzzZzzZzz

[[TC]►Bez◄]

Words are just words. I wish they would show work in progress pictures... They have this let's keep it a secret until test patches bullcrap. Yawn.

[[TC-R] Sam]

What Bez said, I don't understand why most of you still trust the utter rubbish he talks.

[SIMOX]

I've seen untrustworthy developers and Scawen is Far from it. Ofcourse progress is going to be slow with one man coding and the other one doing graphics things. But they are not a greedy company that is rushing updates half-finished, putting DLC's and micro-transactions into the game.

Pictures would be nice yes, but people are way too impatient already when you check the forums. It won't change anything really. And i guess Eric is focusing more on doing what he does other than creating a time consuming blog. In the end the most loyal fans will still play the game and others will find something else to do in the meantime.

[GT4tube]

Best Slowest Developer Award 2018

[AOR Nova]

Lol I'm one of the strongly worded people on the main forum along with a few others who despise the way Scawen mouths junk and doesn't walk the talk.

He's been giving verbal "updates" since JFK died and out of all the times he says "we're doing something" only half the time something actually precedes.

It's sick and tiring listening to one dude ramble about how its our life, we're back on track, we're working on it... blah blah. Pictures, screenies, some form of actual concrete evidence crap is being done. That, or it isn't.

Leads me to think not much is actually being developed at the moment lol.

Not pleasing your customer base won't sit well and it sure won't invite others to buy the game if its not being updated as expected. Or at least listening to what we want. Since when was a graphical update on our top priority list? Jeez

[Borja]

Finally we see something...
Small version

Spoiler (Click to View)

See the pics, they're working on new light system

Long version

Spoiler (Click to View)

Scawen Wrote:

nacim Wrote:Did you converted all the textures to sRGB or do you convert to linear on the pixel shader?

I use D3DSAMP_SRGBTEXTURE so we can use standard sRGB textures without needing to convert them in the pixel shader. Then all the processing internally is linear and finally the output is converted to sRGB using D3DRS_SRGBWRITEENABLE.

nacim Wrote:Nice, I was waiting for this one for a long time! Will you still use vertex color to bake indirect lighting/ambient occlusion? I simply hope we don't loose indirect lighting, it would downgrade a lot the sense of depth on tracks.

Yes there is still an offline render for the ambient lighting, but now it is a single offline ambient render shared between all lighting configurations. For anyone who doesn't know what I am talking about, this is the thing mainly concerned with sky lighting, so for example you can have two different places that are not lit by the sun, but one of them might be a lot darker than another because the sky is obscured.

See in the attached images, the first two have all direct (sun) lighting switched off. The first one is simply default ambient lighting without the offline render. The second one has the offline ambient render applied. Finally the realtime direct lighting and shadows are applied in the third image.

NOTE: This is the original South City track with the old textures and no specular lighting added. This is simply a plain conversion of the old South City into the new system and Eric hasn't had a go at it yet.

denis-takumi Wrote:@Scawen, as I noticed, you say that the merging of the graphic code into the version with the new physics of tires is a nightmare for you. Why not in 2006 do not make version code with a branching, this would reduce your time to merge different versions of the game.

At the time, I believed the new tyre physics was about to be released and had done a significant amount of work in the new version. It was difficult to avoid clashes in the code because of the number of changes so I deleted the old code out, thinking it was finished other than any emergency patches.

If I had known at the time I would be going for over a decade with two versions, I would have taken a different approach.

---

lfsrm Wrote:But it's still a little bit problematic in case of night/day transition, as you cant use the indirect lightning in real time conditon ?

Yes, because the indirect lighting has "amount of sky visible" and "artificial light colour" stored separately. So the sky colour / brightness can be varied and the ambient lighting can vary in real time.

I have tried to design it to be able to handle changing lighting (day / night transition) although that is complicated and seems lower priority than the physics updates and a lot of other things I need to do and finish, so I don't know when that will appear.

lfsrm Wrote:Also is the new dynamic shadow also can be rendred inside the car interior ?

Yes, inside the cars too, cars do cast shadows on themselves.

Keiichi_Tsuchiya Wrote:Any plans on non directional sun light bounce?

Yes, there is also a component of ambient lighting contribution from light reflected on nearby objects.

The ambient vertex lighting consists of: sky light, artificial light, light from nearby objects.

[cargame.nl]

Ye;

(2017-12-28 14:34)cargame.nl Wrote:  But.. What.. If... A true day and night cycle is being created?

That would be a great graphical improvement. Actually that would be on top of my list. If it's going to be anything else I would be disappointed. Which probably leads to another ban, but ah well..

So far it looks satisfying. Also the comments about finally finishing off the tyre physics.

This is a lengthy process, I would be surprised to see a new LFS version this year but if it is I am targeting on somewhere after summer.

In the meantime just waiting, got used to it by now anyway.

[◄Chuck►]

(2018-02-27 18:12)cargame.nl Wrote:  ...
So far it looks satisfying. Also the comments about finally finishing off the tyre physics.
..

Just lol. It's like saying "I definitely gonna pay you pack tomorrow, I swear." for the last 10 years.

[[TC]»Pete«]

(2018-02-28 06:38)Chuck Wrote:  

(2018-02-27 18:12)cargame.nl Wrote:  ...
So far it looks satisfying. Also the comments about finally finishing off the tyre physics.
..

Just lol. It's like saying "I definitely gonna pay you pack tomorrow, I swear." for the last 10 years.

Haha.

His lighting progress is nice but he's way too distracted again.

[[TC-R] Sam]

OH WOW LIGHTING IMPROVEMENTS IM REALLY GLAD WE ALL WAITED THIS LONG, SUCH A LOT OF FEATURES ANNOUNCED

This is sarcasm, Scawen is a joke.

[Getrag]

Im dissapointed they only did that after a year.

[GT4tube]

xD Just Scawen Things.

[[TC-R] Adam]

it looks like he has hit the textures with a paint brush in photoshop. i also dont know which one is new and which one is old, that can't be good