Quote from Degats :

This isn't strictly speaking test patch related, but since 0.6K (or maybe even before), I haven't been able to see the Anti-aliasing option in graphics settings. The option for mirror AA is there, but not the global one.

Sounds like the post-processing shader is enabled in Misc options?

Quote from cargame.nl :

K3 handbrake warning bug.

I don't know what that message is doing there, maybe Wilk used the handbrake a couple of times .. I am sure it wasn't me because my screen was minimized

I didn't think of that appearing for remote cars online! They are probably not using K3, and they are using a handbrake on a single seater, which is no longer allowed (except for parking).

Quote from PeterN :

I just got my car stuck in a hole on Rockingham, seems to be some of edges slightly away from the track are not solid, especially the little green tarmac patches leading to paths.

Please can you post a screenshot or replay of this, so Eric can see where the hole is. Sometimes it is correctable by adjusting some of the track segments a bit. We just need to know as accurately as possible where it is.

It's only the Rockingham ones that would go OOS, because it's only Rockingham that will be updated in this patch - we aren't planning a car physics change at the moment. I've edited the original post to make that clear.

Many different types of change that Eric could make might make the replays go OOS. Most obviously if he changes any road surface.

I don't think we will archive the 0.6K replays in that case as one month isn't a long enough era to archive the results. But maybe a timing archive would be a nice to have when the new tyre physics update is out.

Quote from Mr_Lonely :

Since there has to be more finished s3 content lying around that arent affected by the new tire physics.

No, there isn't finished content lying around. There are tracks which are driveable but without the scenery completed, that kind of thing. If you imagine from Eric's point of view, the great thing now is that he can decide to work on a track, big or small, and when it is complete, we can release it. There's no more need to try and complete X tracks and Y cars, then when you are ready to release, realise that the tracks already need updating...

I think one at a time is a better way to do it, in such a small team, with the required level of detail being so high these days.

Quote from nacim :

...
However, I'm disapointed that there were no test patch before official release.
...

We did consider this!

But just on this one occasion, we couldn't really do a test patch. Because we would have had to sell licenses only for a test patch without any official version to support them.

So we did some good testing with a small group of beta testers and decided that would be the best way forward, although we do prefer full public tests.

There is the possibility of an update, e.g. in January, if there are enough issues to make it worth while, though incompatible updates are a bit annoying. If it's not needed, I guess Eric would like to get stuck into finishing some other content after the holiday.

Last edited by Scawen, Sun 20 Dec 2015, 20:14. Reason : "another track" -> "some other content"

Quote from nacim :

I thought you were trying to future proofing a bit more LFS on the graphical side while you catch up with modern graphical engines ?
...

Quote from Keiichi_Tsuchiya :

...
I don't know the way you going to push LFS graphics, I'm just trying to point on things that already used in game industry. Anyway, keep it up, Scawen!
...

Thank you for your comments and I just want to say that I don't have anything against cube maps (and other, more than 1 hemisphere methods). I am interested in doing things like that in future, possibly starting with doing that for the nearest car, and using hemispheres for the other cars. It seems to me that for the case of a car (or any shiny painted object standing outside on dark ground) the hemisphere method is just a good optimisation, because the ground is dark and the sky is bright. The sky reflection is important for the general look of a car in many circumstances.

I would say that omnidirectional environment mapping has a lower priority than a better shadow system, reflections on roads and some methods of blending textures that Eric has been waiting for. Along with the shadows I am interested in going for physically based lighting if possible and perhaps a generated sky which paves the way for changing weather. Aside from graphics, I am keen to get the tyre physics done so I can escape the curse of working with two separate versions and merging the changes. That will allow the possibility of separate graphics and physics threads and so on which would be inconceivably complicated to implement into two separate versions.

I sent an update to Eric today and this evening I was able to test the Vive.

It's not really too hard to set up. The instructions are pretty clear and it's just a bunch of wires to plug in. I used a tripod to mount a base station in a location where it can see the floor and my seated position. In my office room there isn't really space for room scale VR so for me it is fine to use only one base station. Lucky that because the first one I tried seems to be faulty. The base stations are very "pre-production" and there is quite a bit of noise / vibration from the base station (mounted on a tripod on the left desk - maybe the desk is amplifying it). A continual hum that is much noisier than my PC, for example. I guess these will be miniaturised for the production version.

For some reason I had to stop and restart the hardware and software several times to make it work, and eventually it started to work. I can run a VR demo where you can just walk around a bit, or in my case take a step in either direction.

The screen resolution seems good in the demo. I can still see the pixels as in the Rift but my first impression is this has higher resolution than the Rift DK2. However it is not really comparable until I can see the same thing in each headset (e.g. LFS). One other thing is better in the Vive - you can turn right around and the tracking stays for much longer. Presumably this is even better when you have two base stations. I have no idea how to access any other Vive software. I'm not too bothered about that, as LFS is my main concern. I plan to have a better look at the OpenVR SDK tomorrow.

Yes, I have received the socket adapter. I am finishing off some functions for Eric and then I will test the Vive. If it works then I'll have a deeper look into Valve's OpenVR SDK. I am hoping it will all work in a similar way to the Rift without too many nasty surprises! As we have some other priorities at the moment, I don't want to get involved if it's going to take more than a few days. One good thing about OpenVR is that it is supposed to support a variety of headsets, not just the Vive.

Got a reply from Valve. Looks positive so far, will let you know if I receive a Vive. I hope it'll be easy to code for.

It's good to support these things. VR and simulators go together very well.

For all the LFS users who aren't too interested in VR, don't worry. Eric and I have been continuing to work on some good updates.

No, this current update does not give shadows to layout objects. I agree the concrete objects look strange and unrealistic without shadows. It's tempting to dive right into a totally new shadow system that gives shadows to all objects in the world. That is something I want to do.

But I can do that at any time. Right now, Eric needs some new multiple texture blending features and it's important to give them to him with the highest priority, so he can complete a track we plan to include as S3 content. I was just surprised to find such a frame rate increase, right now with the current shadow system converted to HLSL and brushed up a bit.

I've been updating the vertex shaders for the track drawing system, so now they are in HLSL. At last I've been able to delete the old DX8 assembly language shaders. I'll be able to add some new texturing features for Eric to use in the editor. So far I have not added new features, but improvements and simplifications in the car shadow code and shaders have resulted in improved frame rate, specially when many cars are close together. Important on the grid or at Turn One.

That'll be fun to release and see a few people getting annoyed that we improved the frame rate again!

It's very important to improve the efficiency of the drawing system. For a start, many people did have problems at Westhill and can now enjoy it a lot more. I want to add dynamic reflections on the cars because it looks nice when the car is near high objects, trees, buildings, under bridges and so on. This depends on drawing an reflected image of the world as seen from each car. Clearly this will give the CPU and GPU more work to do, so it needs to be as efficient as possible.

Quote from Amynue :

https://developer.oculus.com/blog/upcoming-oculus-pc-sdk-0-7-compatibility-changes/

Thanks, they sent an information email about this. Our current official version will no longer work with the new Oculus runtime when it is released on 20th August. It seems to me the best plan for LFS is to finish the few remaining bugs and make the current version official as soon as possible, e.g. next week. Our Rift support in the test patch is based on Oculus 0.6, so it will work with the new runtime. Then I'll get on with the track shaders that can help Eric with the initial S3 tracks.

Quote from valiugera :

@Scawen, I found a mistake on Fern Bay. The wall is in the air, but Z is 0. Can you add ground level check the for new objects or add option for -Z?

I had to make that decision, to disallow Z values below zero, in order to reach the highest altitudes at Westhill. The autocross object data is highly compressed, to allow them to be passed quickly to joining racers. There is only one byte in the object data for altitude, so it can't go below zero. There are very few places in LFS which are below zero so this is the best decision. Maybe in future the sutocross object size will be increased, allowing more flexibility.

I don't think we can do that kind of thing. Eric's busy on the S3 tracks. I'd like to just get this improved performance + Rift support patch finished and released so I can get on with some other things that need to be done for the S3 update.

I am actually interested in releasing a track editor and providing a system to automatically download track updates when the creator updates their track and textures. I think the download would be a low priced paid service (like premium skins) even if the tracks are free (paid tracks are another thing entirely). But this is absolutely impossible to supply to S2 licensed users, unless we want to discard any possibility of making money. So it would have to be an S3 thing. This type of possibility is one of the reasons why Eric and I are working hard to get to the S3 license, because it will allow us to produce and release cool things for S3 licensed users.

Quote from nacim :

After using G3 for a while now, I still don't have problems to report, waiting for next test patch.

There's not much left for the compatible version apart from a couple of minor fixes. I've been focussing on the incompatible things for Westhill. In the last couple of days I implemented the custom start positions in the autocross editor, for the start grid and pit start positions (mid race join, etc). These allow you to make race tracks anywhere. Eric and Victor and I have done some online testing in the new Westhill and it's going well. I think another full version would just slow us down and annoy people. We're on the case finishing things and I have a couple more autocross things to do. We had fun testing online. There will be a public testing stage before the final release. We still have things to finish before that.

Hi, thanks for the comments! That compatible test patch (without Westhill) is getting quite close now!

On Friday I did editor updates to help Eric. Also I was pleased to finally get DX9 debug output out of the development version of LFS. Previously I only got it from the public version. I actually had to list the specific LFS.exe in the DirectX control panel, in a place that looks like it only applies to DX10/11. Very strange, but good to see some debug output!

Edge3147, it's true I don't often put 110% into this. I'm not really into that expression, but I suppose 110% means somewhere higher than a sustainable effort. Well that can happen right before a patch and when I'm really on something, do some late nights and so on, while ending up tired. But I prefer not to do too much of that and I do have my cycling now as well (and a short trail run each week and a little swimming in the summer). As for work, I prefer to cruise along at an enjoyable rate. After all, work is a massive part of life and life should be enjoyed as much as possible.

Actually after 3 years of cycling I don't have a bad back any more. After too many years without proper exercise, and after carrying something too heavy on one occasion, I ended up with a problem where something in my lower back kept slipping to the wrong place and often gave a lot of pain! So it turns out that running and cycling increase strength and bring great benefits!

Today I'll be looking into the hidden object files and seeing what else can be sorted for the compatible test patch.

Working on it

On 24th January I gave quite detailed info about what I had to do, to release the compatible open paths test patch.
https://www.lfs.net/forum/post/1880248#post1880248

I just came to have a look here and I'm a bit disappointed to see old style groaning and moaning. It really is a bit 'old'.

Yeah, LFS needs updates and we are working on it. Are the moaners and groaners working on their personal issues? Get a hobby, ride a bike up a hill, just do something. Try another sim if you like, or something in the 'real world'. Just don't come here and moan and groan! It doesn't make us work faster. It wastes your time and ours.

For the people who 'believe' that we are working on something...

Referring to my post of 24th January...

1) I've completed the hidden object removal system for the external TV cameras which are now done a much better way, with individual draw lists per camera, instead of switching the visible objects in a path-related way. So the hidden object removal system is near complete. There is one more thing to do with that, on open configs, something about seeing start lights on the selected 'X' config, when you are on the path from another config.

2) I've completed, yesterday, the lighting on the cars, so that they use the path lighting data when they are on open configs. So, for example, the car goes dark when in a tunnel. This involves creating lighting textures per path. Seems to work well.

The biggest remaining thing for the compatible test patch is to create a way to save hidden object files for the existing public tracks. After I've done that last thing in (1) then I'll look at generating those files. I also do editor updates for Eric, as he's still going round Westhill finishing things, making sure there is good collision detection on everything, etc. There are some other things to look at for the compatible test patch.

P.S. 1) When I said we don't use the help of others, I obviously meant in the sense of my work and Eric's work. We have a great deal of help from forum moderators, translators, community testing, hosting and support in so many ways.

P.S. 2) I never called cargame.nl a talentless fool. He runs a great server so there's no way I would have said that. I was referring to simple trolls who just pop up and make trouble every now and then, revealing their own issues.

There is really too much of this heavy stuff going on and it IS a waste of time. We are working on LFS and bringing the new track up to a new level. I could talk so much but it's all the same as I've said hundreds of times, so I will not. We all want physics and graphics updates. At the moment it's a really big graphical and functionality update and I've been right on the case, continuing the momentum from the graphical updates caused by the Rift DK2 which is a new experience and has inspired Eric as well. All graphical updates are now checked in the light of the 3D world inside the DK2. Something you seem to be very cynical about, cargame.nl, but you are simply wrong. The Rift is important, this is not the VR of the 1980s. This is VR that works, and works well with LFS.

There's no point in people coming here and throwing insults around. We'll just ban them, and get back to work. So what if I called some people talentless fools? If a person really has nothing better to do with their life than going on a forum and insulting people, then I am quite sad for them, and they really need to try to find something constructive to do with their life. Being a talentless fool may be temporary, or so I hope.

Again and again I say, we are working on this at the pace we like. We don't use the help of others because we like it this way. Just don't expect things out quickly. If you want more variety than is available in LFS, go and race in a different sim for a while. That is fine! Come and race when there is something new to try out. We sold you a license without time limits and you get free updates a few times a year, so we don't really need to be attacked for that.

And cargame.nl, please do stop coming here and insulting people. Your server provides some of the best racing and we don't want to kick you out. But you really do waste a lot of our time by insulting random people who ask an innocent question. The posts are reported and we have to come and deal with it. It's pointless. If you are in a bad mood, please keep away from here. I'd be grateful if you would change your avatar. A constant personal attack on me seems quite unfair really. Yes... it's personal, it has my name on it.

Quote from Amynue :

Scawen can you please tell us how that shadow experiment went?

It's a variation on the existing shadows + ambient lighting system. Still using vertices and splitting triangles to create shadows, but as it splits them a different way, it can go deeper, splitting the already split triangles, without them becoming pointy shards like broken glass. Also there is a process of test-splitting them to see if there is a shadow between two vertices, then backing out again if there is not. So it's better at detecting shadows and reducing the size of excessive shadows on large triangles. There's still more to be done. I need to store in pairs of triangles the info that they are part of a rectangle, so it can be split more sensibly. For example, a long thin rectangle that is part of an armco barrier. If one end is in shadow and the other is not, then it is split 'along' as required, but also 'across' which is very wasteful. It's worth finishing this because the shadows are improved (to some extent, although still flawed) without going deep into some alternative shadow system.

Quote from racerss :

Quote from CZE :

Hello.Any new progress with westhill??Last post about how its going is old around one moth...

He said that the ETA Is few weeks, (8 nvmbr)it's 9 december now and still nothing. i'm just waiting for the paths system =D

Yes there is progress. I have received updates from Eric, tested them, found things that could be improved with some code support. Also some editor requests from Eric to help with things. So he's been on the case and I have continued to support it.

Basically we are working together and it's one big graphical push. To our way of thinking it's worth carrying on with that, so we get to a level we are happy with for now. For once, Eric has had a long session with my coding support and hasn't been rushed to a deadline. So that's a good thing. The functions and features I have been working on will help with updates on other tracks and the ones we have not yet released.

Quote from nacim :

Quote from Flotch :

Do not you think they plan to release the damn thing before xmas ? ^^

I'm still hoping a test patch for Xmas.

Unfortunately if I look at the date and look at my lists of things to do, Westhill will not be out by Christmas. Maybe I can get the new paths system test patch released. I'll see if I can prioritise those tasks. Though it's good I didn't rush that out, as I just came across a change that needed to be made to the TV camera selection system.

Quote from UnknownMaster21 :

This might be not so much related about this Westhill Progress, but I was thinking what was the decision to make new westhill, but unable to release Rockingham or other tracks?

It has been long enough I last time looked these things seriously, so I bet I do not remember "enoughly" about what I thought before.

Sure, the thing is this is nothing compared what will come on future, I am pretty sure about it. But question is, why this way? What actually changed mind? It all started on as oculus rift, then Direct X 9 thing, I bet this new westhill is actually a test to see how things would look and go on upcoming updates.

Or is there a post claimed about the decision?

Yes, we did post before.

Actually the idea was to do the quick "two configs" update on Westhill, in time for Christmas 2013. It has turned into something more.

Rockingham is nearly ready, that's true, but we don't think one track is enough to justify an upgrade to S3.

The plan was to get Westhill out as a quick update, then this year I would have done the tyre physics while Eric finished Rockingham and at least one more track, ready for S3 release.

Obviously, plans change and this time, they changed! Westhill became a much bigger thing so Eric has been on the case for an extra year on it.

A 'quick' 3D update turned into support for the Oculus Rift DK1. Then an overdue conversion to DX9 led to me finally learning how to do HLSL (for pixel and vertex shaders) so I was able to make the car draw a lot faster by using a single pass to draw each car instead of three passes. There is great potential for improvement of the car draw and the world, by updating the drawing system and taking advantage of programmable shaders. The Oculus Rift DK2 came out and that was seriously worth supporting. I don't want to hear what a waste of time that was, from anyone who hasn't tried it, because they can't imagine something better than looking at a monitor. The Rift gave us a very close look at the graphics and we were able to do the very significant update to get rid of many of the "alpha test" textures, most noticeable as an improvement to trees. It has been a productive year, though many people just forget the good things, because they still haven't got what they are waiting for, and also because they want something different, not just an improved version of what they already have.

Hope that explains why we are doing a Westhill update, until the next person asks the same question!

Last edited by Scawen, Fri 21 Nov 2014, 11:07.

Quote from Flame CZE :

I've cleaned up this thread from off-topic. I had to cut it off at some point.

Thanks!

Quote from DANIEL-CRO :

3rd pic : I cannot stand to not notice that power line is interrupted, where da powar goes???

Well, clearly this is something that isn't finished.

Work is still continuing. The last couple of days I've been rearranging some code so that the modeller objects can be included in the lighting render. Previously, modeller objects that were in a shadow appeared to be glowing.

Obviously we are well aware that there are big problems with shadows, but this is still an important graphical thing that Eric has waited for, for several years. It followed on from the repeating objects system, which allowed the repeating modeller objects to be included in the lighting with the segment.

It's one of those coding things where one thing leads to another. Some people like to criticise and mock this approach, because they have nothing better to do, but it's how things get done eventually.

As usual, all good but taking longer than expected, which is as expected... things are being crossed of the lists.

That's just a small progress report, for people who like them.

I'm aware there are other people who are just lurking around waiting to attack, get angry that we are still working on things and so on. They can keep their comments to themselves, thanks! If they know so much better than us how to make a racing sim, they are welcome to make one!

I definitely do want to change the shadow rendering system! And as you can imagine, Eric would like nothing more than that! My last century rendering system puts shadows where there shouldn't be any and misses shadows where there should be some. But I think it is of a lower priority compared with releasing the Westhill update.

Hello Racers,

We have been continuing to work hard on the new Westhill. As many of you know, we have gone to a new level with the new track. There is a new National configuration and an International configuration which is similar to the old Westhill. Eric has made the scenery highly detailed and driveable, which makes the open configurations a lot of fun.

The high level of detail resulted in some loss of frame rate, specially in open configs, so we have worked on a new system where open configs can use 'paths' (and change between paths as needed) so LFS knows where you are and what you can see from your location. This keeps the frame rate high by avoiding drawing too many objects. I worked on a new hidden object removal system which doesn't miss objects like the old system did. I plan to release updated hidden object files for the existing tracks.

In the last few days I made a new system that allows for higher detailed fences without increasing the number of objects. It is a flexible system that allows a repeating model to be placed along any of the 'segments' that are used for tracks and fences in LFS.

This has been used now to improve the appearance of some of the fences and barriers in the new Westhill and allowed the removal of some 'alpha test' textures (which do not work well with multisampling AA) because geometry can now be used for repeating supports. I was able to write some auto-repair code that saved Eric from having to manually edit thousands of fence segments.

Eric is finishing some models and has been filling some of the distant landscape scenery. I still have a few things to do left on my lists. After the weekend I'll need to examine my notes and get them together onto fewer sheets of paper and I'll know where I stand then. We are trying to get the release done as quickly as possible but with high quality.

We hope you enjoy these screen shots that show the new fence and barrier system.

Hi, just a quick message so you know we are still working hard on the update!

I took a few days just now to make a new system that allows for higher detailed fences without increasing the number of objects. It is a flexible system that allows a repeating model to be placed along any of the 'segments' that are used for tracks and fences in LFS.

This has been used now to improve the appearance of some of the fences and barriers in the new Westhill and allowed the removal of some alpha test textures, because geometry can now be used for repeating supports. I was able to write some auto-repair code that saved Eric from having to manually edit thousands of fence segments.

Eric is finishing some models and has been filling some of the distant landscape scenery. I still have a few things to do left on my lists. I'm not really sure how challenging some of them will be. After the weekend I'll need to examine my notes and get them together onto fewer sheets of paper and I'll know where I stand then.

Yes, we are still working on the Westhill updates. Eric sent me a test version with most of the new paths done. This brought up some more editor improvements I needed to do. I've been looking around the track. Eric is still finishing some things and fixing some issues. I've been trying to get the remaining things off my list. This stage seems to go on a while. Some things take longer than expected and other unexpected things come up. But it's all about making improvements to LFS so it's all good, apart from the wait.