Thought I'd share a curios set of screenshots with you guys ...

I installed all the hires textures for LFS, the sky textures by KiD and Don, ads (from the LFS database, could check the creator - site was offline) and the more detailed (and amazing looking) tracks by Electrik Kar (all can be found on the textures section of this forum and the LFS database). Because the game looks a little flat on my LCD panel, I ran a batch for all the textures to lower their dynamic range, much like what I use for my photos, it gives a more 'edgier' look to the images - in result the game got more of a video look:

Unedited screencaps (only resize)









Also, one effect came to mind that would give a certain edge to the visuals - the glow/blur effect that's used on many games today (like Lego Star Wars II first coming to mind). Then the track would look like this:




Do these look more real to you or just plain odd?

Good screens apart from the last two because some saw edged lines, now if you would just remove the mirror!

Yuh, sorry about the mirror. :-D

looks very cool

Wow, that does look fantastic! Care to get permission and upload your modified textures, or let us know what the settings where you used to modify them so we can do it ourselves? The high-res Aston texture I have installed needs this especially.

Photoshop I presume?

MAG

Electrik Kar mentioned that he might upload the finished tracks in a combined bundle .. I might ask his permission to put online a modified pack of his textures.

The edit is fairly simple, using Paint Shop Pro X, the script just makes the luma go a bit steeper.

You can get the script here.

One method to do this is by layers, making a grayscale copy and blending it with the original using Hardlight mode:

1 - grayscale copy of background (Blendmode Hardlight)
2 - background

Looks very good on those Screens. But all of them are from Incar View with the Camera very low over the Tarmac. Aren't these Textures a bit too rough when viewing from TV view?

Quote from Highsider9 :

Aren't these Textures a bit too rough when viewing from TV view?

Dunno. They look fine on my monitor, but I have no idea what they would look like on other peoples monitors, or a video projector for instance - might be too dark. But then again I made these just as a tweak testing, I wanted to learn the .dds format. One note on these textures - they take forever to load, the .dds format I used might not be the optimal one. Have to tweak some more ... :-D


Alternate views:

Quote from Loadus :

Dunno. They look fine on my monitor, but I have no idea what they would look like on a video projector for instance - might be too dark. But then again I made these just as a tweak testing, I wanted to learn the .dds format. One note on these textures - they take forever to load, the .dds format I used might not be the optimal one. Have to tweak some more ... :-D


Alternate views:
Pic

Oh, DAMN! I love that angle.
I don't have PSP, just PS7 now. From what I understand, it's just a greyscaled road, overtop of the origional set to 'hard light?' Seems pretty simple, and PS is capable of the exact same thing. I'll give it a try.

Thats the track texture I created and gave it to Electrik Kar to use for his track texture replacement.I made it from scratch in PSP.

I think he dont use it anymore and made his own.

Quote from DEVIL 007 :

Thats the track texture I created and gave it to Electrik Kar to use for his track texture replacement.I made it from scratch in PSP.

I think he dont use it anymore and made his own.

The texture looks beautiful, good work.

This texturepack was downloaded from the LFS Database just few days ago. I thought that it was the latest pack?

Here's Blackwood with those mod textures:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIjL1ihvBs8

... I do keep having troubles with those mirrors.

Quote from Loadus :

...

Those look sweeet!.. It really makes the car stand out from the road..

as from the video, the video quality is kinda bad, it ruins the vision of the textured road. Try uploading a Highres version instead?..

Keep it up

This is not higher resolution, but better compression than the &#!/%# Youtube FLV:

http://www.loadusfx.net/lfs/lfs.mov

A little continuation to this texture thingy ..

I wrote a pixel shader (for another project) and I wanted to test it on LFS. The shader makes any video/game look more "gritty" with the same method I used on the textures. The result was kinda interesting, so I decided to put the test online:

- The audiolevels are kinda loud, so better ease on the volume before loading -
http://www.loadusfx.net/lfs/lfs_wh.mov

It's a small size video, but you get the idea from it.

Now if someone could tell me is there a way to load a postprocessing pixel shader to LFS? I've seen the motion blur tweak that Kegetys made, so it should be possible.

EDIT:
Here's a screencap from the grid. The tones are really rough and washed out. I know some people might not like them at all.
http://www.loadusfx.net/lfs/grid.jpg

Quote from Loadus :

...

That vid looks great IMO.
More realistic then the current look, while keeping the crisp look of LFS.

What's the progress on a test release?
I'd love to see what it looks like first hand.

looking good

Where'd all the colour, vibrancy and realism gone? Might as well just turn down the saturation in control panel. Doesn't look gritty to me either, but that might be due to the tiny video (the screenshot doesn't look gritty either. Just looks like hi-res textures and decent AA/AF).

The grass look veery nice The tarmac looks a bit too sharp or grainy or rough though. Thye kerbs look very used and old...

Maybe the same trick doesn't work well to all textures? Without seeing those textures in-game I'd say that the effect does good for very rough textures, like grass but doesn't look too hot on smoother textures, like asphalt ...

Quote from tristancliffe :

Where'd all the colour, vibrancy and realism gone? Might as well just turn down the saturation in control panel. Doesn't look gritty to me either, but that might be due to the tiny video (the screenshot doesn't look gritty either. Just looks like hi-res textures and decent AA/AF).

This is obviously a matter of opinion so I'm not arguing by any means.
To me LFS is a bit too vibrant and too colorful compared to what RL looks like, so the vid is really something that helps in that department.

As none of us neither see things the same way nor have exactly matching screens, this is a simple matter of prefference.

As I can't and/or dont wish to change any settings on my monitor (it's calibrated on a weekly basis as I use it as a backup for image editing and desing [my bread and butter]) a pixel shader or tweaked textures are my cup of tea.
One benefit with a pixel shader over textures is the fact that not only does the look of the track change, but everything in the game including cars and reflections.

Quote from Hyperactive :

The grass look veery nice The tarmac looks a bit too sharp or grainy or rough though.

Actually the effects work pretty well on all textures, and if the work is done via a pixel shader then there's an easy way to edit the strenght and tonality of the effect. The tarmac is very rough and worn on that stage, it's much smoother ie. in Kyoto.


Implementing the shader shouldn't be a huge task - sadly I don't know where to start ...

EDIT:
And about the colors ...
It's overcast on that track, so it's a very gray day.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=178_1189665658

I did the same thing, but I did it with my graphics card settings.
I called it fake HDR because thats how older games faked it.
Lowering the dynamic range, if done right, can give the apearance of an increase in depth.
most games that had this called it either "Emulated HDR" or "Enhanced contrast"

If you have a monitor with an image editing mode on it, turn it on and things will look even better.

Not as enhanced as yours but look at this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxpLxsOMr9c

Pretty cool. Yeah, you can emulate the effect doing a S curve on the LUT table of your card, the shader itself is just a little more complex, but not much - the principal is almost the same.

Here's a quick cruising tour on Kyoto. I don't think the AI liked me driving on the same track with my shiny UF1 ...
http://www.loadusfx.net/lfs/lfs_kyoto_edit.avi

Oh wow @-@ thats amazing, it looks better than the GranTourismo HD concept (plays better as well)
you have to release some sort of DX8 dll replacement that implaments that shader untill the devs can add there own.

edit: at some points the video looked like a real race.

edit 2: just looked at your art on your web page @_@ no words can discribe how impressed I am.

Quote from DragonCommando :

edit 2: just looked at your art on your web page @_@ no words can discribe how impressed I am.

>Thank you< very much.
...

I'll ask around about how to implement a pixel shader to LFS. I vaguely remember reading somewhere that it's not directly possible. Hmm. Time will tell.