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).

100% agreement ... imho it looks terrible

as in this comic real is brown ... or gray
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/images/070119.jpg

nice textures!

This is interesting in a sort of "low quality camera" look or such which might make sense for post-processing but I couldn't play with those color settings. The sky and the trees for example in the last video look outlandish (well, the trees look dead actually). Would be fitting if we had a sci-fi post-apocalyptic racing tournament though (now that's an interesting idea for an rFactor mod).

EDIT:
Oh, about applying a custom shader - you'd have to hijack DirectX to do anything like that, there are a few tutorials floating around the web about doing that by using your own custom d3d8.dll like Kegetys did.

Quote from Loadus :

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

By the way, what are your camera settings in the vid? Definitely gives LFS the realistic feeling of an onboard camera. I guess you used a narrow view angle (around 70°?) at first, but what are your settings for the "Acceleration shifts viewpoint"?

Thanks in advance + cheers

Quote from smove :

By the way, what are your camera settings in the vid? Definitely gives LFS the realistic feeling of an onboard camera. I guess you used a narrow view angle (around 70°?) at first, but what are your settings for the "Acceleration shifts viewpoint"?

Thanks in advance + cheers

I normally play with a view of 55° but in the video it's in the tightest setting ... 30°(!).

Here's the full config .. nothing special really:
http://www.loadusfx.net/lfs/tilt.jpg

Quote from Loadus :

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?

Or does this picture look odder?

If you see closely you'll find what is known as the "ray of light" (edited by me)

Hmm...never knew there was sun rays in there......nice to see a pictures that shows something you never would've looked at before...

I liked some of the first set of screenshots, mainly the strained look of the tarmac and grass but I'm not sure about doing it to everything. I'd like at least one track to be made to look a bit more tatty in LFS, gives it character and a real feel.

As for the pixel shader video it looked just like real TV footage, in other words pretty crap, not bringing the colours and details out. I don't see why you'd want this seeing as it isn't what real life looks like.

I think the TV footage look could be cool, it's like the film grain shader in DOD:S, I was so exited to play DOD:S in monochrome and have the film grain effect. Unfortunately, they only use it when you are dead.

It doesn't look to unrealistic to me, infact it looks more realistic. you are watching it on a screen after all, its not like you will ever get the colors to match the real thing, in order to do that you'd need real HDR and a real HDR screen. Thats the only way you'd ever get it to look real, regardless of shaders or graphics quality.

on a side note, HDR effects can be achived by clipping the bottom and top of your contrast by lowering brightness and then pushing up the contrast untill you get even cliping on top and bottom. This is basicaly what most games do anyway to get that effect since your monitor can't display real HDR anyway. It lacks the contrast ratio to display the full contrast of true HDR which is around 100,000:1 or something if I remember correctly.

I am aware that there is more to HDR like in Source and that, but it's mostly more to the rendering of transparency and that, not colors and contrast, that is basicaly the same as clipping the crap out of it.

the last westhill screen in the first post looks like armageddon i want rain