here are today's updates...
today i've tried some wild and meant-to-be-crappy tests of my "S2" -> imperfections and variety.

in all those tests i used as base a mix of fine grain and mid grain, the tecnique adopted was quick and dirt, but the results make me believe that fixing some intermediate process i can make look much better, for now i had to smooth things removing too much depth from texture.

in the first screenie there are also few small cracks, while in all others there are more and also bigger cracks, the result is imho good as start and i think it only needs tuning the crack dimensions, quantity and directions -> let me know what you think...

an last screenies i added effect of tires passed by...at that point i realised eric is a pure masochist...each texture is used sometimes as whole, some other time only parts of it and merged almost "randomly" ...that issue will be "dramatic" when retexturing the whole tracks i really hope devs can disclose such weirdo mappings, otherwise will be a madness to reverse enginer it all by myself

Quote from Gunn :

Also (unrelated to your lag issue) don't ALT+TAB in Live For Speed, use SHIFT+F4 to switch between full screen and windowed mode.

why don't use alt+tab? is there any issue with that?

Quote from DEVIL 007 :

Hi,
Yeh I am using like 8-16xAA and 16AF.I think the problem is that the texture is too much plain.I am not making critics your way but rather suggestions and feedback from testing it.
I welcome every effort making LFS better.

yes i understand it's the same thing i was saying...in other words: don't keep for yourself the bad judgements, because bad judgements (with explanations) is what i need to make it each time better!

Quote from DEVIL 007 :

I cant release it and I even wasnt working on it now due to workload in my job where I spend almost all the time now.
The texture anyway looked very nice for taking such a screenshots but looked bad from wheel/TV view and had some repeating effect.
I would need to put a lot of efforts to make something good looking.I said no way untill there will be some free time for me.

i thought you cannot release it primarily because the author didn't give his permission...if this is not the case, can you at least post the current dds to see it in action? thanks!

Quote from Shotglass :

i kinda like the second pic ... that degree of dinamic with a lot finer graining might look nice ... or not

preference noted ...obviously at the end i will overlay my fxr skin ...no i was just kidding... i will put my xfr skin!!!

Quote from DEVIL 007 :

Hi Honey,
I tested your texture and I have a big issue with it.It looks very artificial and when I am on wheel view in 10 meters there is like no texture but only grey colour across the track.

The white line still need improved.The outlines of the white line looks not like in realife.Something like on my custom texture.
Test texturing

do you use any aa/af? i think it could make it worse, obviously atm the texture is very plain for the reasons i said previously, what i have in mind for my "S2" is firstly mix fine grain with bigger grain and only this will improve it much, then add some low frequency "bumps", effect of tires passed on, etc.
when i think of what i want to achieve, i always have in mind your texture that is the perfect mix of all things, unfortunately due to permission problem, we have to produce something similar from scratch, i know i'm still very far from this goal, but i hope with the contribution of all your opinions to move on that way step by step

Quote from micha1980de :

third screenie was best imo.
could use some more "usage" details but looks good.
desptite the fact that nearly every surface will turn into something gray with some stripes in it at high speeds.
is it possible to ad some bump map with a tiny amount of reflection to the road?

before i get flamed, watch some tarmac/asphalt road when the sun sets down and reflects itself on the street.

but i guess thats some kind of eyecandy to come in future releases?

as i said before critics is what i seek here... i need all your opinions to make it better
i also have to remark that as i planned, this week is dedicated to finalize the base texture that "by definition" must be more plain as possible, next week is dedicated to produce techniques and mixes to add imperfections and variety.
unfortunately bump mapping and shiny tarmac is not possible on textures alone, it must be coded into the executable because it's a directx effect, if possible i would have activated for sure , unfortunately it is not

here are today's new screenies:
1st screenie: simply removed colors
2nd screenie: bigger grain -> crappy
3rd screenie: bigger grain, less depth to compensate bad effect showed in 2nd screenie

Quote from AndroidXP :

1) unfortunately, horrible white blooming/aliasing lines

i found a way to produce raw files compliant to lfs format and make lfs generate the dds, so i'm attaching the same texture version of the dds i posted before, but this one is generated by lfs...please can you test it and tell me if white lines are still there? i'm confident that this was the issue...thanks!

@AndroidXP
about point (2) its my "S2" planned for next week, i know that atm the lack of "imperfections" makes it harder to judge

about point (1) "white lines", i was surprised to read about it, because i take screenies at home on test-copy of LFS and i didn't see any white line...today i tried at work on a crappy pc (with lcd monitor also), they are ugly and huge itried everything on every type of texture i produced til now without success, so at the end i opened the original lfs dds and saved again as dds, guess what? also the original textures resaved, show ugly white lines so it must be something in the saving process i do wrong, btw the lines are not by aliasing, but they appear on texture borders as if the texture is not covering the whole surface...i noticed that also on the original lfs (untouched) on crappy pc this effect is present but hard to see, but also on close look i can see it, also i remember someone complaining that problem about original lfs -> maybe related to graphic card or drivers? maybe the weird texture mapping of lfs (the same texture mapped to different sizes)? maybe something wrong about my converting to dds process?
i think most part is about converting to dds, so i need someone's help here: til now i wasn't able to use the nvidia dds plugin ("program error" message), so i exported to 24 bit bitmap and then i used xnview to convert to dds, i tried to use the lfs raw-to-dds convert feature, but it didn't work (wich raw format?), today i succeded to make the nvidia dds plugin work and tried many settings, but no success -> the white lines are still there (even by opening the original lfs and the resave it untouched), so in the first instance: what i have to do to export correct dds files (maybe here devs' help could be priceless :tilt?

@Shotglass
i have no worries about removing colored point if needed at later stage, btw, next time i will post a test without colored points, so you (and everyone) can judge the result and give hint for the most realistic choice

@TagForce
about (1): all my screenies are taken without any graphic card filter (antialiasing ad anisotropic are off) -> i tried to optimize for it, only the texture i showed on last screenie has this problem, but i posted only to show the extreme detail possible. so no glitter or mipmapping artifacts...btw i posted also the dds for those who want to test it at runtime.
however on next test i will use a bigger grain for comparison. the size i used on last test (for type "1" texture is what it seemed to me to match the correct dimension comparing to cars, btw this may not be the best looking choice, so i guess the trick is to find the best compromise).

____________


later i will produce screenies of decolored and bigger grain i brought from work today, unfortunately today i wasted lot of time about the white lines issue

@AndroidXP
the first one is optimized (i hope) to look good while moving, obviosly it will be better when "imperfections" will be added, btw if you want to test it you can find in the attachement: it will replace the section before first corner at aston cadet.

you're right about the 4th picture i added just for comparison

@Shotglass
the "pink" and "blue" are there because the original photo (i mean photo, not photorealistic) had, if you watch real asphalt you can notice other colors, btw i understand that into the game may end to be better with only black/gray, if so i can at the end just desaturate the texture tile, for now i want to see how it looks like to keep also the other colors.
btw what do you mean by "nasty": is it bad or is it good?

Quote from MAGGOT :

Seems to me that for the most part, the LFS tracks all have a similar shade of tarmac. Nice to have a darker road

yeah! with retexturing we have a chance to add more variety, i always thought that westhill and aston should look more dark.

so, here is the update of my LFS-Textures-S1.
the first 2 screenies it's my favourite texture: i finished its base tile wich is totally aliasing-free (the repetition effect) and if used at original resolution would bring to a 8192*8192 (at least) texture without any image loss.
what i ask you all to judge (and give opinions) is its "depth" and color, which are still to be finalized.
i found that the original depth was too excessive, so i guess photorealistic textures don't work well into games...you can judge the opposite with the 4th screnie wichis the same texture, but more bright and "deep/detailed".

the 3rd screenie is the ugly result of yesterday's tests...yesterday i was simply too ashamed to show that, however as you can see, i already sterted working on imperfections (my S2) to add and give ultimate realism..for now only consumed paintings.

i like it, i like also that is dark...so i say: go on!
i'm also working on asphalt textures so i understand that the first stage is a uniform texture.

the more people work on that, the more experience we can share and with more people giving precious hints i think we may achieve a very good result.

here -> http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=135259#post135259 i already posted my first tests and within few minutes i will post some update, maybe could be better to use the same thread for all works or maybe not () the important is to replace those "ugly" low-res testures

Quote from Jakg :

when do you think it will be released then?

my plans are: stage 1 at end of next week, stage 2 at end of the following week and stage 3 one week further.

i will release only tracks (no kerbs)and resebling lfs again consider it alpha, so after that all opinions and critics i will eventually make another release more refined, maybe...

months ago i tried sometimes with back in black of ac/dc very cute, but i discourage music in lfs because music will excite you and make you belive you can rush into someone else's line at full speed and thatyour tires will stand a 10g lataral force...once you will be into the other poor guy/gal line it's too late when you realize that exciting music can make your tires stand 10g of lateral force...but unfortunately it does nothing against make you roll out the corner taking the other guy/gal with you...

remeber guys: music affect only tire grip not all the phisic variables

Quote from KeMoT :

Such document deserves a movie about it

+1 me too want a video with all secrets and in the meanwhile all the spr -> i hope people who post secrets will attach a spr of it

Quote from TagForce :

I'm slowly starting to realize that anyone creating high-res textures for use on racing tracks in a certain game we all play has serious mental problems (or will develop them soon enough)... But I'm having fun doing it...

my insanity is guiding me since i was a very little child
insanity is fun...insanity is genius...

Quote :

I'm using 4096 sized textures at the moment because that's what I'm using for the originals (which are partly upscaled from lower res textures, including Eric's originals for luminosity layers) and I can't be bothered to downscale them everytime... But there's absolutely no noticable loss in quality when going from 4096 to 2048... Not unless you put a camera straight down at 2ft high, anyway.

well my canvas size is 2048*2048, but inside the source samples are at much "higher resolution"...that is: downsample, tiling etc. allthings are kept and reversible -> if i did the eric's way, if i want to change something in the middle steps would require to start from beginning, in my way it takes few seconds to do mostly any change...
at the end i only select the layers to be visible and save...no resize, no strange things...hence the huge size

im for server side ballast too. it can be implemented quickly, it requires no hotlap reset (devs will reset hotlaps only if they are really forced to...and there are good reasons for that), also server side ballasts if they will not be "de facto" standardazied, it will make car choice and setup choice, much more variable and evening up races -> no more evryone's with the wr setup!

+1 for server side ballast

Quote from Tweaker :

lol

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=kudos

omg that rly meanz something!!!
thankz also 4 da link of da urbandictionary ...kudos 2 u!

@DEVIL_007
i used 2048*2048 and imho no texture should be above that resolution to avoid possible ram problems, btw 2048 is even too much to see very high detail on close views, at the end even 1024 maybe very good, btw atm i'm working at higher resolutions (i'm not eric :P ) -> my psd file of one texture is above 130MB lol -> there's always time to downsize

PS you may be surprised but both types of textures started from real tarmac photos -> even the second it's just too close as tag also noticed


@Electric Kar
i already know and collected few tecniques to add cracks and imperfections, asi said that is my "stage 2" i still have to produce one or 2 types of asphalt at "final" quality, unfortunately i have very little time to work on that because i must do at work and only one workstation has photoshop (and it's not mine ), today i couldnt do anything, maybe monday i will be able to show some progress


@anyone

what does "Kudos" means? i see sometimes this words is used but i don't know what it means...

Quote from DratsaB :

Im really glad you guys n gals are doing this. Its nice to have the option of Hires textures. Im always looking for ways to lower my ridiculous frame rate .

i'm really sorry...but those hi-res textures won't affect your framerate!!! if you want to make it lower, go look somewhere else

Quote :

Tagforce is right about the need to combine your efforts, just so its less confusing for us end users with seperate updating etc and to make sure you dont spend ages fiddling with some thing thats already done.

One negative aspect about the whole hi-res texture thing is that it really does make other textures look ten times worse. Honey's Aston track texture, for example, the rumble strip next to the new tarmac looks very odd. But i guess this doesnt matter if everything gets updated eventually

anyhow keep up the good work

yeah i know what you mean...if everything get update: of course no problem, but also to help those who don't want/cannot update all textures, we'd better define texture packs that are consistent, for example: one pack for all pavement things (asphalt, kerbs, etc.), one pack for natural ground (grass, mud, sand, etc.), one pack for landscapes, etc.
in that way everyone's can choose his/her custom level of detail

Quote from TagForce :

They both look good, but the 2nd one needs at least double the resolution...
It's too rough atm.

yep! you're right! the second is still too "zoomed" at start it was 16x times zoomed than that in the screeny, so when i did it "i couldn't see" that it needed much more work
my doubts are about the types of asphalt and colours, because i think originals are maybe too light, also the first type is my favourite but maybe is too street-like...

Quote :

me thinks we should coordinate the texture creation business a bit, just so none of us is doing work that doesn't need to be done anymore.

umm, maybe would be better...however i'm still testing and i've not decided yet if i will finish it.
btw my goal is to have better asphalt and if i will succeed, better kerbs.
my work is retexturing from scratch and i started testing only after i saw that others were simply upscaling and adding some detail textures (this way it's not worth the effort imho).
i'm separating my work into three stages (S1, S2, S3...lol ): (S1) make best possible basic asphalt textures of few types, that looks uniform and without imperfections (S2) create basic resources (small textures, brushes etc.) and tecniques to create after effects on asphalt (broken asphalt, low freq bumps, rust, sand on track, consumed road painting, etc.) (S3) combine S1+S2 to retexture all LFS tracks aimed to achieve the most realistic result.

today at lunch time i could borrow a photoshopped workstation at work and i made some test for asphalt textures from scratch, they are far from being final (very far), so i consider as "proof of concept" to see what you guys think are the most realistic or better looking for a game.

as you can see there are 2 kind of textures each one from different perspective and one of them with original/new side by side.

i tried to keep the same colour of the originals, every criticism is welcome.
do you think it is worth to continue, or i'd better stop now?

Quote from Cue-Ball :

I mentioned this once before (either in this thread or in a similar one) but never got a response. Does anyone know how big the grass texture is in-game? In other words, is the grass a 5m x 5m square? smaller? larger? I think this factor will have a big impact on how realistic textures look once they're put into the game. If each grass "square" is 5x5m but we use a texture that's 2x2m, then the grass blades will look twice as big as they should. I think this could explain the "big" look of the grass in these shots.

sorry i don't know the answer...i wondered myself too while doing asphalt tests and i answered myself just by eye-look...btw it really doesn't matter since eric maps the textures in a very weird way -> once a square texture is mapped into a square, in another place the same texture is mapped into a very stretched rectangle and sometimes this happens even on contigous regions...

the new grass look perfect to me, even the color is perfect no need to change imho.

Quote from askoff :

How people can taste the bile and eat tons of honey?

wo-wo-wohhh!!!!! ...i'm not that fat!!!!!