Some wip projects

[AndreasFSC]

 

[AndreasFSC]

Balancing the light reflections.

The edited shaders work best on my own tracks so far (using the "right" shaders the "right" way...) and looks best at sunset.

Also using my simple "blinded by sun" mod here.

There is some nice desaturation on surfaces pointing away from the sun, better seen here when the sun is behind a tree. This feature can probably be better balanced when I learn more.

It is easier to see the difference from the shader edits in motion, but I can only post screenshots for the moment.

I would like to add a tiny amount of depth of field effect, but it is more of a post process thing, and I don't know if that is possible to do.

After the rebalancing of light reflection I think some of the sun color was lost.
I need to isolate that (specular light) in some way.

Other than that I'm quite happy with the looks so far.

And a daylight screenshot for comparison. Needs more sun light and color.

 

[AndreasFSC]

Stcc tracks works well too.

 

[Vanaja]

 

[AndreasFSC]

New finding in game when looking in the code, setting

PlayerSelectable=0

in .car or .inccar file disables a car in the menu

 

[AndreasFSC]

Have found a quite nice lights balance, but the sky is over exposed. My goal is that this update should be possible just to install without any need for track updates. Don't know if it will be possible in the end.
The most important updates are to the most simple materials, so they fit better with the more advanced materials.

Also trying to add a nice specular effect to use where needed, but it doesn't do what I want for the moment.
Also trying to learn if it is possible to depth test the sun light so the specular reflection disappears when the sun is hidden behind something (the same way as the sun flare does).

One of the best things so far is a fix to a materials shading flickering error, where the game was alternating different shaders for 1 texture diffuse material (not the z-fighting).

 

[AndreasFSC]

A lot of ups and downs so far as expected.
I decided to restart almost from scratch, as editing values in different files and different places gave some good results at some tracks, but also many unexpected and unwanted things on other objects.

So I decided to make one big pair of shader files to handle 'everything', step by step.
The good thing is that I only have to edit one place to change all types, but

This is what buildings can look like. Haven't added new shader for the pit road yet.
So far no changes have to be done to tracks, the standard shaders are replaced.

 

[AndreasFSC]

After a HUGE amount of work the first bumpmap is in the big shader.
The problem is that the HLSL code is very sensitive for errors, and I haven't found any way to debug the shaders. Most of them are DirectX 9, but in a little bit different way, so standard debuggers can't analyze it.
So the only feedback is that the game won't start...
I have never worked with shaders before, so it is learning by doing.

The fresnel effect added to everything is useful, it makes it easier to see the bumps in the road, and makes the white lines slightly less pixelated when far ahead. Still have to balance it, as it is too strong here, and need to add the right reflection color from the sun, for the moment it is pure white.

 

[AndreasFSC]

Over all work going well, but some unexpected specular light reflections is the main concern for the moment. It seems to get turned of or inverted sometimes...
But I'm quite sure there will be a solution to most of the issues

As always, some WIP images:

 

[AndreasFSC]

This is a quite bad looking image, but it is still good news.
After making many tiny but still important mistakes and much of yesterday was spent trying to get the shaders to compile I improved some things, isolated and simplified variables, so it is easier to tweak the looks.
Noticed that the normals was missing in the new materials, I think they stopped working somewhere along the way. (I the previous image of Alpine Climb the guardrails were equally lit independent on direction).
Now I have to edit the light levels to be consistent, and also find a way to balance specular (direct) light reflecting materials and non reflective materials. As you can see the guardrails appears to have much more contrast than the tents, ambulance etc.
That is because diffuse materials often gets degraded to a simplified material by the game, from DX9 to DX8, and I have to make that shader (written in another language) to behave the same. The good thing is that I have learned how to do that (mostly) after much trial and error.

Also noticed that many track materials don't have normals or smooth normals at 90 deg edges, so that should be updated to get track shape improvements.

 

[Kenny Paton]

Maybe Sector 3 should offer you a job mate

 

[AndreasFSC]

Maybe Sector 3 should offer you a job mate

That would be something
But I'm about 15 years behind I guess

 

[Kenny Paton]

That would be something
But I'm about 15 years behind I guess

You'd soon catch up, I'm imagining a super touring car pack in RaceRoom

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

You'd soon catch up, I'm imagining a super touring car pack in RaceRoom

Please no. I don't want to spend even more money and time in simracing

 

[AndreasFSC]

This low sun 'tint' doesn't work correctly from all angles yet but it looks nice

 

[AndreasFSC]

After testing some impossible things it was time to have a look at car materials.
Changes are small, but I have added some tiny tweaks and added a new 'top reflection'.

Track materials going quite well, but some errors to fix and some challenges to overcome. The biggest challenge for the moment is to tell the shaders the time of the day, so it 'knows' when to add the low sun effects.

 

[AndreasFSC]

Maybe a little bit too dark, but I like how Snetterton looks
For the moment the grass materials of the Simbin tracks is very dark, need to find the cause, and I also need to find how to tweak the material for metallic paint to be used for cars and track.

 

[AndreasFSC]

Over all it looks nice, solved a few shader errors today. Still some left to fix.
The updated shaders doesn't transform Race 07 to a new game, but they give a tiny bit of a visual boost, I hope.

 

[Kenny Paton]

I'm looking at it on my phone and I know it's only one picture but to me it's RaceRoom standard.
I'll see if that holds when I'm at my pc tomorrow.
So your next touring car track update should be amazing.

 

[AndreasFSC]

The "new" metallic paint.
Now there is one main master shader to handle most of the track related materials (still some materials left to import, and a few might not be updated), and one special shader that handles the 2 materials 'cube map specular map: add grayscale reflect/fresnel (used for cars)'
Both are mainly the same, but the car shader handles more advanced reflections.
There is also one special dx8 backup shader that is used when the game don't want to use the dx9 shader for some multi layered diffuse materials. This shader is simplified and had to be written in an assembly language, but it should behave in a similar way as the more advanced version.

The goal is still that this shaders pack could be used just as it is, with no track or car updates necessary.

If everything works as I hope it will, I might also make some specialized materials that could be added in the track files as options for further improvements. But this would be done later.

 

[Kenny Paton]

I'm stunned by just how good it looks.
I like the natural appearance of Raceroom and this is very similar.