If it is not too hard to program, maybe in the weather selection area for the tracks where u can select Bright, Cloudy etc, there is an option for Light Rain, Heavy Rain and Storm?? that will be cool, coz with the water on track it will make racing more fun. The reflections, and water sprays will be an extra eye candy. With lightning and thunder going every now and then, it will be cool! Also, if the rain gets heavier or lighter or even stops for a while during the race it will be cool too, coz that will change ur tyre choice and driving style, dry patchs/racing line will appear. This will add a bit more realism espeically to endurance races.

Also, maybe we can choose to race at Night as well as Bright, Cloudy, Dusk etc. And if there is a real time change or accelerated time from day to night, it will be nice too.

we know.. there most likely will be weather in S3..

this has come up thousands of times before (im sure before S1 too)

Do we know that, XCN? Has this been confirmed by the LFS three? Or has it travelled from the land of "Oh that would be so cool we all really want this" to the place of "Yeah, S3 will have dynamic weather"?

(It really would be most cool)

i have to go along with vendettas' discovery here

that and we do have .. did .. have rain tires (or does MRT still have rain tires?)

http://forum.rscnet.org/attach ... d=252119&d=1102303950

lol and apparently tristan knows where scawen said it

Quote from tristancliffe :

we already have, and Scawen already has. That's why it's planned for S3.

:tiltnow how he found that.. lets see )

Quote from drift_apprentice :

If it is not too hard to program.

Whoah, are you mistaken there.

Dynamic wheather will probably be one of the hardest things Scawen has ever had to implement, I think.

i dont agree with that. independant dynamic weather code cant be that hard to write or implement.

That bits relatively easy. But making the cars react to it (aquaplaning, more grip offline etc), and change the surface (drying lines) is the very very hard bit. Also, the graphics engine may or may not need an overhaul. As well as setups (do we have wet/dry settings in each setup, or just double or triple the setups in one list?). Server options to make them implementable, in a fiar way.

Then checking for bugs. Then reducing the processor/graphics hit for all these improvements...

I have no idea about how much programming that needs to be done to implement this sort of thing, but I do know that I would really like to see it
Most important to me is day to night transitions, since this would ad a lot of feeling to 12 and 24 hour endurance races. This even exists in SCGT these day (with clever use of animations) so I guess it's not as hard to do as dynamic weather.
Having dynamic weather and all that comes with it would indeed add to the feeling of this sim. The possibilities are endless if one had to race in a constant spray from the cars in front, suffer from malfunctioning windshield wipers, always trying to drive in the "dry line" and so on. But... Day to night first please

it would definately add more variation to the game. i didnt think about how it would affect the cars handling, which i can see being a little harder. i dont think the graphics engine would need much of an overhaul. just some additions, like rain drops, windscreen splashes and reflective road surfaces for when its wet. oh and working window wipers in cockpit view and 3rd person view!

Yes the graphics engine will need LOTS of improvement **IF** we really want a good visual effects like track reflection, spray, w/screen splatter etc. But I dont wanna see too much effort been put in that area coz it will turn into an arcadish driving sim, eg. NFS Underground -> all looks, little realistic handling. Just some simple indication of rain drops will be fine, and the sky gets very dark and cloudy etc. Spray can be just the standard white smoke effect all the time. Keep track reflection simple i guess. Oh, glowing brake discs in the rain will be ultra cool though!

Grand Prix 3 and 4 had changable weather, and dry patchs, so I dont think it is too hard to program. The drying racing line will be a bit hard but not that hard, just pre-program the racing line on the track with more grip values after the rain stops for x amount of time. And then always double or triple the grip values on the line than the overall grip values of the whole track as the track gets drier. You programers may know what I mean...

Day/night time transition wise, i am not sure. LeMan 24hr has that feature. Lighting, sky, animation, shadow wise, I think it once again comes to graphics overhaul. Just keep the effects simple, effective is the key i guess. But, i do realise that LFS does not utilise ur Video card capabilities much, maybe in S3, it should use some Direct X features for time transition and wet racing effects?

Setup wise, it does get more complex. But face it, setups have to suit different situations, we dont wanna use slicks in the wet with stiff suspension and stupid brake force/bias rite?? I remember in British Touring Car series, they always face rain/sun changes, and always gambles by using semi wets or full wets when the track is drying but more rain is still coming etc. U know what I mean, this is what we need to put in S3, more intense racing atomosphere by incorporating realistic elements in life, not too much eye candies.

Quote from drift_apprentice :

The drying racing line will be a bit hard but not that hard, just pre-program the racing line on the track with more grip values after the rain stops for x amount of time. And then always double or triple the grip values on the line than the overall grip values of the whole track as the track gets drier. You programers may know what I mean...

I hope that it isn't done on a preprogrammed line! I think it should be a bit like the 'line' we have now, i.e. varies depending on what lines are actually driven. Of course, for something like drying track, marbles, dirt on track etc this needs to be a server side 'line', as otherwise each person will have a different dry line, which would cause some weird racing and local updates when lagging.

Well, we already have a dynamic rubber line with varying degrees of rubber intensity, so I doubt it would be hard to implement a dynamic grip level around that line. What's really hard is all the different tyre behaviour in a wet environment, like aquaplaning. Also the puddle generation Scawen surely would implement isn't a 5 minute program job.

And all this is leaving out the graphics updates needed additionally...

Quote from AndroidXP :

Well, we already have a dynamic rubber line with varying degrees of rubber intensity, so I doubt it would be hard to implement a dynamic grip level around that line. What's really hard is all the different tyre behaviour in a wet environment, like aquaplaning. Also the puddle generation Scawen surely would implement isn't a 5 minute program job.

And all this is leaving out the graphics updates needed additionally...

But the line we have at the moment is local, i.e. yours can be different to mine, and it makes no difference to either of us.

However, if the line causes more/less grip (dirt, rubber lay, drying lines, puddles etc) then we all need to have the same 'line', i.e. it must be a server side thing, not a local thing!

Well, it shouldn't be too hard to maintain a serverside line either...

of course there is only 1 perfect racing line. If u go away from it u will slow down, so i think it can be done on the server side.

Personally, I don't see why so many people are clamoring for night racing and rain. I'd venture to say that most people have trouble keeping their car on the track for 10 laps in the dry. I sure as hell don't want to race these folks at night in the rain. A race would never get finished.

I would much rather see the devs spend their time tweaking the tire/grip model, adding support for solid rear axles, putting in more tire compounds, adding cars, adding tracks, improving the in-game sound, and about a million other things.

Even if rain/night were put into the game, I probably would never use these options because they just wouldn't be as fun as racing in the dry.

i think cue-ball hit the nail on the head.

without actually "feeling" the g-forces of the race car it's tough to know how much grip you actually have. i've done a LOT of kart racing in the rain and love it, but in a video game you can't "feel" with the seat of your pants the same way.

if you want to simulate rain just put knobby tires on for a lap or two.

speedfreak227

The cool thing about rain is that it's a challange that everyone on the track has to compete with. It's about who adapts the best to the new situation.
Also, and this is important, there are people who can drive better on wet tracks than others. Someone who lost 0,2 secs per round on the leader when it was dry can now be 0,5 secs faster and all viewers and drivers will have a race full of tension.

Vain

For S3 I would love to see changable weather and night racing. For me changable weather has never been implemented properly in a game since Grand Prix 4. I've had a shot of rFactor and running a long race starting off at day and gradually going dark is great fun and adds a bit more atmosphere to long endurance races. The weather side would add so much to races with the chance of it starting to rain.

Keiran

...and the point in this poll?

There isnt any implementation of wet surfaces yet, but it will be just as hard to program as dirt tires were.

Quote from tristancliffe :

But the line we have at the moment is local, i.e. yours can be different to mine, and it makes no difference to either of us.

However, if the line causes more/less grip (dirt, rubber lay, drying lines, puddles etc) then we all need to have the same 'line', i.e. it must be a server side thing, not a local thing!

We do have a dynamic line? I've never noticed it lol, is it visual only or does it actually affect grip?? Hooray for being out of the loop

Visual only at the moment.

You have to turn on "Update Path" to user or all cars in Options->Misc, then the line gets darker the more you drive on it.

Quote from wheel4hummer :

There isnt any implementation of wet surfaces yet, but it will be just as hard to program as dirt tires were.

I doubt it, the dirt tires are a rather inaccurate way to get some idea of the penalty for getting wheels on the dirt, if the wet tire grip is implmented it will have to be a lot more detailed.