/shrug. I can nay be bothered yet, it's your call if you want to try them - i'm not selling you anything . I've only done track and kerb textures of 1 track so far. When i've got more done i'll do comparison shots, but it has it's own thread anyway. It's important to point out though that I havn't only stretched the base texture, if I just did that there would be no advantage. I've added a detail layer.
as i said in the other thread too, your work proved to be better and with zero impact on performance, now it makes evident that hi-res textures are a must imho actually the problem is not much the texture size bui rather the image detail...but the latter of course would mean real and hard work by Eric.
I agree, and can't understand how some people can take such a drastic critical stance against rF graphics and hold up LFS as great (I saw it in the rF info thread too). The only part of rF's graphics I find 'cartoony' are the original cars and cockpit graphics. The tracks weren't bad and have a lot of highly detailed parts but some of the stock textures around the track (such as adverts) were quite low res.
One thing with rF (and I find the same with GTR and GTL) is that cars sometimes don't 'move around' quite right. It's not really the graphics or the 3D models and is hard to explain, but I'm never as convinced the cars are 'there' as much as in LFS, despite the graphics often being 'better' in many ways. It's hard to define and isn't really shown in still shots but could be somehow related to some people's comments to the cars looking a little 'stuck on'. Still, it's more a feeling than something I can fully put my finger on...
You've got (paid?) hi res textures which look very nice indeed. I prefer performance over graphical loveliness so I turn rF down to 1280x800 (preserves 16:10 ratio), so I'm not sure they'd buy me much, but your screenshots are not particulaly high res and look pretty damn good. One effect that is quite nice (but usually only slightly overdone in rF and GTL) is the light shining off the track.
Whenever I spend any extended periods in rF or nKp, and then switch back to LFS, the graphics take a little getting used to, as they definitely do suffer from not using any modern effects. LFS could probably gain the most from drastically improved driver arms, and some of the cars dashboards could do with being a little higher res (they are the biggest things in my view). I like having the arms/hands modelled (even if low res) and sort of miss them in rF and nKp.
As it stands, I can run LFS at 1920x1200 with every setting set to max, with only minor drop off in fps at 'busy' moments. Even busy start grids don't drop the fps enough to have an effect on playability. rF is a little more demanding, and at 1920x1200 (even with some settings dropped to medium), I get enough impact on fps to occasionaly affect gameplay, hence I run at 1280x800 (and set video settings back to high). In both games I only really notice low res texture issues in replays. Scenery pop-up (or dramatic LOD changes) piss me off way more than texture resolution. Theres a few times in LFS and rF I wish I could force the game to keep details/scenery textures for a greater distance. Having said that, pop-up isn't bad in either (except the Lienz mod, which had terrible pop-up problems).
OT: Which rF mods are in the pics? The most recent mod I've tried was the Megane, which has been the best rF mod I've tried, but the porsche and GP2 mods look like they might be worth a try.
well, what about making better models and textures for the desired points by ourselfes?
we keep them in open formats like psd,raw,dxf,3ds and send some dashes "in" for approval.
If some of this community work is accepted, well, then it shouldn't be asked to much to be mentioned among the "early contributors".
I don't want a complete moddable Lfs, but i don't see why we can't try to help our devs in the process of perfecting a great sim?
When i look around, i see bright ideas of good work, some wanted, some too early, some really helpful.
spare me flames about not getting mentioned here, most of you will have at least 3 examples of "add-ons" for lfs which aren't in the "default" package.
So, why souldn't we stand up for our sim? And act...?
I don't have anything against rF but I'm yet to play it for various reasons, anyway I'll just comment on what I find cartoony about those pics but first off the sky textures look great.
First pic looks pretty good overall but the car itself, specifically the rims and tyres look hand drawn which I don't particularly like and looks a touch cartoony to me. Trees look great, track looks basically the same as LFS.
Second pic, again the tyres look hand drawn. The road is shiny which to my eye just doesn't fit and the grass area looks hand drawn. The car in front also looks like a black square shape at the rear but I wouldn't say that it looks bad overall.
Third pic is much the same things, tyres and rims blah blah but the thing that stands out is the flashy effect on the road in the foreground which just doesn't look right.
Last pic there isn't much to fault but the car just gives me that slight hand drawn impression but I think it's probably just something that I personally don't like. It's like the highly detailed cockpits I've seen in other sims like GPL, I tend to prefer the LFS ones despite their deficiencies purely because the others look more like a drawing or painting than the real thing.
Overall I don't think rF looks bad but I honestly prefer the way LFS looks, looks more natural to me.
Anyway- I didn't buy the ][ textures... they we just screenshots I found.. It is also true that in LFS you can turn up the AA and AF higher on the same system than in rF so in that sense you can turn on more eye candy in LFS which has the overall affect of a better looking game.. (which even though my PC is kind of fast, I still can run a LOT more AA and AF and resolution in LFS.. so it is a trade off)
Anyone saw the screens of Nordschleife in nKpro already? The textures look amazing and it's not these are very hires... just add some effects (bumpmapping) and to me it looks fantastic
yep nkpro looks damn nice...but it's mainly because of texture resolution and graphic detail, you can see it on crappy games like nfsumw and toca: adding effects the asphalt looks more realistic but you can still see the crappy low res textures behind those effects.
adding graphic effects will require devs to do some work, pack hi-res textures as an additional download will require them almost no time, i see no reason for them to not give it to us, it will also can be an advertisement itself as long as reviewers can test lfs at its best.
It's simple really, when making games it's much easier for me to work at the final resolution, getting as much detail in to what is usually quite a limited area I have become inclined to avoid three things.
I dont want my pixel work ruined and distorded when rescaling, I dont want to waste my time putting in detail that will never be seen after resizing and finaly if the texture features transparency then resizing it will create a nasty edge (more often than not I use a croma colour rather than true transparency for engine reasons).
Most importantly though it's about not creating extra work for myself, I can google up a lot of images but not at 2048^2. Digital cameras are useless at those resolutions too.
LOL, I tend to agree. The ROAD looks a bit better than LFS, for sure. The rest is no better, in fact maybe worse?! Not sure why anyone is totally crazy about that, save for the road.
Meh, don't know what all the hype is about here TBH. LFS doesn't look amazing, but it definitely doesn't look poor in any way either. Great things can be done in DX8.1, look at the Source engine in DX8.1 mode - it looks excellent, in fact it's quite sufficient for LFS to use DX8.1 for now IMO. They're not using it to anywhere near it's potential right now.
If you use cockpit view they really do look fine.. Also if using the custom view where you are very close to the road surface, it should be moving very fast anyway when actually driving...
I'm currently uploading my high quality tarmac+kerb texture pack for all tracks but it will take me some time as it's over 40mb and my upload speed is not brilliant.
I'll announce it in the unnoficial mods section later on when it's finished uploading. ( I could probably slap it on my pen drive and get a train to the data centre in quicker, even with London between us ).
Because retexturing the whole game from scratch would be a HUGE undertaking, especially when we have no idea what will be changed from patch to patch.
As an example, I had planned to make new crowd textures for the stands because the old ones were....well....horrid. But Patch U included some new textures that were much improved. They're not *great*, but they're a damn sight better than the old ones. Even the dashboards and driving suits, which are generating the most complaints, don't get many new textures. It's just a lot of work to do for an "alpha" program when it could be made outdated at any minute when the next patch comes out.
I think this is one reason a lot of people would like so badly to know what Eric has up his sleeve.
. I've only done track and kerb textures of 1 track so far. When i've got more done i'll do comparison shots, but it has it's own thread anyway. It's important to point out though that I havn't only stretched the base texture, if I just did that there would be no advantage. I've added a detail layer.
.
