Ever noticed when you drive past for example the starting grid (which is usually full of skidmarks) that it feels like your car gets 20 km/h speed boost? The more stuff goes by your screen the better the sense of speed is. Tracks are great in LFS but they feel like no one has used them before. Making new tarmac textures even with randomly placed skidmarks on them would be very easy way to make tracks look a lot more realistic and also increase the sense of speed. What do you think?

yep.. very true; eric takes too good care of the tracks

Not only that, but in real life racing, track imperfections are often used by the drivers to guage turn in points, or brake points and so on. LFS doesn't have it, and that makes it hard to have very consistant times.

i agree the tracks look too clean. its like a freshly paved track every time we race.

If a groove is simulated then there should be MARBLES.

The tracks are 'painted' using a repeating texture. If that texture had a skid mark on it, it would look wrong, being repeated every 25 yards, so it's not something a painter can add to LFS.

What LFS needs is a few overlays on the track at 'Points Of Interest', i.e. braking points, turn in points, driving lines, run off areas etc.

The downside is that they all work to reduce the frame rates, which can be okay, but could cause problems for the poor people here using 8088s still.

Also, graphical delights are to be saved until S3 (barring a few exceptions probably). I doubt this will be one of those exceptions.

Isn't there already an skidmark overlay on Fern Bay?

Is there?

I am not sure if we really need "prepainted" Tracks. When I race Online on a Server, the Track gets covered with REAL Skidmarks over time. And after a few Laps / Races you can clearly spot where the Braking zone starts (and where somebody went off ). So the Track surface "lives" and I like it very much as it is now.

Whoops, my fault. I actually haven't played FB since S2 Alpha release, looks like they got removed with the track update.

theres is on the drag strip

its just an alpha layer, and thats all we mean (i think); that would make it most realistic looking
or as an option ingame, it should say "cary over skidmarks" or something like that so it keeps all the skidmarks from the last race

Yeah, there's nothing quite as rewarding as making a clean track (or girl) filthy.

Quote from Bob Smith :

Yeah, there's nothing quite as rewarding as making a clean track (or girl) filthy.

hm.. musta been doing something wrong when i threw my sister into the mud and i got dragged into it.. oops lol

What about downloading skidmarks when you join a server?

no, thats not (i dont believe) thats how the skid marks work

they are tracked by your computer, so every time a car slides somewhere, its your computer placing the skidmarks, rather than the server telling your computer where the skidmarks are

If you change the tiredark(I think thats the 1) file in the .cfg text it makes the racingline more visible by darkening the tire marks that are always in game in the corners. Or at least it did in S1, havent tried in S2.

it only darkens them after you go over them however many times; unfortunately it only gets to the normal darkness after about 50 laps :S

(i havent tried that in S2 yet either so..)

In my humble opinion, i feel that the tires leaving some sort of mark in the grass/dirt would increase the realisim/wear look a little more than random skid marks..like ruts in the grass after you drive in it, would make it seem like the dirt is really dirt the sand is really sand ect, rather than just a physics reaction a visual reaction too

Quote from buedi :

I am not sure if we really need "prepainted" Tracks. When I race Online on a Server, the Track gets covered with REAL Skidmarks over time. And after a few Laps / Races you can clearly spot where the Braking zone starts (and where somebody went off ). So the Track surface "lives" and I like it very much as it is now.

Indeed. After 30 laps the track looks totally different but mostly only the corners. But still if you look some real life track it's FULL of skidmarks and other dirt - and not just the corners.

i am sure its all to come..... though i am pretty happy the way gtr did it.. just make the track textures dirty...exp near the grid area..... no need for any fancy code to have tracks gettin dirty...

the way lfs s2 is now will do... i went into the config file and increased the rubber being put down so now the track gets dirtier quicker.. it doesnt look very nice though when it goes totaly black...

btw one thing i find quite odd looking is when you floor it on the grass the green dust thats thrown up behind the car..... didnt know grass can do that
think it needs to be reduced slightly as it looks like dust trails behind a world rally car plowing through a desert stage lol.....

Quote from Madman_CZ :

i am sure its all to come..... though i am pretty happy the way gtr did it.. just make the track textures dirty...exp near the grid area..... no need for any fancy code to have tracks gettin dirty...

That's probably the most useful thing you've said yet.

Quote from Madman_CZ :

btw one thing i find quite odd looking is when you floor it on the grass the green dust thats thrown up behind the car..... didnt know grass can do that
think it needs to be reduced slightly as it looks like dust trails behind a world rally car plowing through a desert stage lol.....

Hah!

Talking about track surfaces I'd like to see more bumpy tracks. After all, the cars aren't setup to drive on the street and cruise an american highway. So we should feel a lot more bumps. Together with the right noise this will propably add alot to the athmosphere in the cockpit.
Perhaps Blackwood should be the first candidate to become a bit bumpy - with all the demo-drivers driving on it...

Vain

want bumpy? lol take XFGTR and go to SO long, you bounce like a ping pong ball all over the place its frightening

The tracks are already pretty bumpy, but if those bumps don't create any sideways forces on the wheels, then you won't feel them through FF. IMO the devs should add some optional, slightly canned, effects for quick up/down forces acting on the wheels. But that's just me.

Quote from Bob Smith :

That's probably the most useful thing you've said yet.

dont make me hurt you bob!!! :chair: