Hello Racers.
Four weeks since our announcement about the Westhill update that is coming soon, I thought it would be good to give you a short progress report.
Things are going well but, as expected, taking longer than expected.
On my side, as some of you know from other threads, I made a quick 3D mode for red-cyan anaglyph glasses, the kind that can be bought very cheaply, e.g. 4 pairs for £1. Interestingly, it needed a simple pixel shader to make it work so finally I learned to program pixel shaders, which you can do in the HLSL shader language in DirectX 9 (which LFS uses since 0.6F).
Pixel shaders open up a world of graphical possibilities, so it's a good thing to be able to do, and one thing I had to do, for the Westhill patch, was improve the "optimiser" which pre-computes which objects are visible from your position on the track path (except in open configurations, which is why the frame rate is lower on them). This used to be done in a rudimentary software render, but by using pixel shaders I can use the DX9 render which makes the optimiser work better.
With my new found excitement about these shaders, I knew the render of the cars could be done more efficiently. In the current public version, each shiny surface of the car is rendered in 3 passes, using 3 vertex shaders. One for the direct light (affected by the lightmap) one for the ambient light and another for the environment map that makes the cars shiny. I have now made a single vertex shader and pixel shader that render every polygon only once instead of 3 times and this saves a lot of frame rate. I expect to release this in an intermediate test patch next week, along with the anaglyph view mode, and some other updates, listed at the bottom of this post.
On Eric's side, he has been completing the areas between the parts of the track and the access roads. The scenery is at a new level of detail compared with our other tracks. This is partly for the fun of driving in those places in the open configs, and also for a more realistic look and feel of the place as you drive around on the track where you are supposed to be!
It's looking very nice. Eric still has some holes to fill and I still have a list of updates, for editor functions that will help Eric and a few minor things that can go in this incompatible patch. The physics will still be compatible so we don't have to delete all the hotlaps (except Westhill) but the multiplayer will be incompatible.
So, still a few weeks before the Westhill version goes into public testing, but it's all going well. Thanks for your patience and we look forward to releasing it!
Changes from 0.6F to Test Patch 0.6F2
(intermediate, compatible update before Westhill version)
[EDIT : (as already stated above...) I expect to release this next week]
Two new 3D formats in TV / monitor /projector mode :
- red-cyan anaglyph
cheap red-cyan glasses are required
more expensive glasses can correct red (left) eye focus
colour perception is reduced and different in each eye
do not use this mode for a long time
- cross-eyed view
no equipment needed
the 3D world appears small
right eye looks at left image / left eye looks at right image
this is difficult for some people (with normal vision)
stop immediately if you feel any discomfort
do not use this mode for a long time
Skin downloading when watching a replay :
If a car or helmet skin in a replay is not available at LFS World
when you start the replay (with low or high res skins selected)
but you already have the skin in the other resolution then that
skin in the other resolution will be used instead of a plain car
Fixes :
Crash when using a wheel button assigned to /rift toggle command
Crash when pressing e.g. F8 when /press F8 was assigned to F8 key
Graphics :
New car shaders giving higher frame rate when many cars on screen
FIX : Car lighting momentarily vertical as car entered a shadow
Four weeks since our announcement about the Westhill update that is coming soon, I thought it would be good to give you a short progress report.
Things are going well but, as expected, taking longer than expected.
On my side, as some of you know from other threads, I made a quick 3D mode for red-cyan anaglyph glasses, the kind that can be bought very cheaply, e.g. 4 pairs for £1. Interestingly, it needed a simple pixel shader to make it work so finally I learned to program pixel shaders, which you can do in the HLSL shader language in DirectX 9 (which LFS uses since 0.6F).
Pixel shaders open up a world of graphical possibilities, so it's a good thing to be able to do, and one thing I had to do, for the Westhill patch, was improve the "optimiser" which pre-computes which objects are visible from your position on the track path (except in open configurations, which is why the frame rate is lower on them). This used to be done in a rudimentary software render, but by using pixel shaders I can use the DX9 render which makes the optimiser work better.
With my new found excitement about these shaders, I knew the render of the cars could be done more efficiently. In the current public version, each shiny surface of the car is rendered in 3 passes, using 3 vertex shaders. One for the direct light (affected by the lightmap) one for the ambient light and another for the environment map that makes the cars shiny. I have now made a single vertex shader and pixel shader that render every polygon only once instead of 3 times and this saves a lot of frame rate. I expect to release this in an intermediate test patch next week, along with the anaglyph view mode, and some other updates, listed at the bottom of this post.
On Eric's side, he has been completing the areas between the parts of the track and the access roads. The scenery is at a new level of detail compared with our other tracks. This is partly for the fun of driving in those places in the open configs, and also for a more realistic look and feel of the place as you drive around on the track where you are supposed to be!
It's looking very nice. Eric still has some holes to fill and I still have a list of updates, for editor functions that will help Eric and a few minor things that can go in this incompatible patch. The physics will still be compatible so we don't have to delete all the hotlaps (except Westhill) but the multiplayer will be incompatible.
So, still a few weeks before the Westhill version goes into public testing, but it's all going well. Thanks for your patience and we look forward to releasing it!
Changes from 0.6F to Test Patch 0.6F2
(intermediate, compatible update before Westhill version)
[EDIT : (as already stated above...) I expect to release this next week]
Two new 3D formats in TV / monitor /projector mode :
- red-cyan anaglyph
cheap red-cyan glasses are required
more expensive glasses can correct red (left) eye focus
colour perception is reduced and different in each eye
do not use this mode for a long time
- cross-eyed view
no equipment needed
the 3D world appears small
right eye looks at left image / left eye looks at right image
this is difficult for some people (with normal vision)
stop immediately if you feel any discomfort
do not use this mode for a long time
Skin downloading when watching a replay :
If a car or helmet skin in a replay is not available at LFS World
when you start the replay (with low or high res skins selected)
but you already have the skin in the other resolution then that
skin in the other resolution will be used instead of a plain car
Fixes :
Crash when using a wheel button assigned to /rift toggle command
Crash when pressing e.g. F8 when /press F8 was assigned to F8 key
Graphics :
New car shaders giving higher frame rate when many cars on screen
FIX : Car lighting momentarily vertical as car entered a shadow
In that case there is no need for Eric to edit current rallycross tracks.