http://www.drivingitalia.net/a ... hp?sez=software&id=55


must say looking pretty good :eek:

My assumption, gut feeling, tells me the physics will still be miles behind lfs..

and the graphics seen there look very fake, like boxes with pictures on them, rather than lfs of renders meant to look real, fleshy, but the textures need work. I think the graphics engine has way more potential than what I am seeing there.


Then again, im the most lfs biased person alive

Well, they look good, but it also looks like they bathed a bit too much in the sharpen filter.

I noticed the effect on many games where when you see the screenshots you're all 'whoah', and when you finally see it in motion... its more like 'meh'. Anyways, the physics will decide if the demo stays on for more than an hour or not.

Some aspects look very nice... others quite cartoony.

Anyway, screenshots are only of a mild interest, the truth is in the driving, which according to (the always very optimistic) AutoSimSport drives very good indeed.

Being another privateer project I suspect it should be the closest competition to LFS yet. Now here's looking forward to another race sim I might actually bother to play.

a bit off topic ... there are a few words on the license system of netkar in the latest development diary:
The licence is personal and will follow the driver and it will be generated against the driver/PC combination.
So yes, if you are 2 brothers sharing one PC you'll need 2 licences, and yes if you have 3 PCs u'll need 3 licences.
That's a shame and quite an hassle I know, but I didn't invent software piracy and I need to deal with it somehow, it's funny how honest people have to pay the price everytime for that too, but that's another story.

theres also a bit of follow up discussion about this and specifically about what happens to your license if you change your hardware ... its in italian though (and i dont speak italian and my spanish is rusty at best)
could anybody please translate this for me ?

Well, in all honestly, that kicks ass.

In all honestly, that's very impressive work provided that Netkar is just a part time developed project.

In all honestly, I WANT VISUAL TIRE DEGRADTION LIKE THAT!!

In all honestly, I wish LFS to look somehow like that, even just in screenshots.

And as I remember, Netkar feels and drives pretty well.

Maybe it's just a kind of inspiration/competition LFS needs to be a step better,I mean, can you say no to THAT?

Quote from JJ72 :

In all honestly, I wish LFS to look somehow like that, even just in screenshots.

those shots all look like a bunch of boxes with (good looking) high res textures on them (except the cars)

There isn't much to look at. They are only showing off a few pretty car models. Have to admit, that tire wearing texture thing does look good. If they would wan't to impress people, they should post a movie showing off the physics. I just HOPE, that game isn't based on the GTR game engine.

I think it's entirely Stefano's engine.

My biggest fear about that netkar is that it has the same floating physics as every other racing sim wannabe. LFS feels like driving a car, not hover ...ehm... vehicle...

As long as there is a demo without adware I'm going to give it an objective hyperactive testing

Quote from Shotglass :

those shots all look like a bunch of boxes with (good looking) high res textures on them (except the cars)

I can't really tell how that that impression came from, as all you find in the screenshots is the car and the track surface. If you are referring to the pitboxes, then I would agree that the shading seems a bit flat and exaggarated. However if "bunch of boxes" is referring to the 3d modelling of the building then I think most of the pitboxes looks that way, which doesn't matter alot since you only see them once in a lap. However don't you think the car is beautiful?

If they can make the car look that good (especially the tires), then the building in comparison is a minor flaw, which can be easily improved. (and it's quite early to comment before they release more shots of the racetracks.)

But I'm quite confident to say if you put the current blackwood model into this graphical engine it will look ten times better then what they presented here.

I don't find those screenshots THAT good-looking or better looking than LFS.

Too bad that it will contain only three Formula cars. Because my lack of interest in real life F1 championship I don't find driving formulas interesting at all... not even in LFS. :|

How about the sounds in NetKar Pro? Resampled or generated?

Quote from deggis :

How about the sounds in NetKar Pro? Resampled or generated?

Both

Kunos/Stefano is experimenting with a synthetic sound engine but unless it's significantly better than a sample based one, they'll ship both and give the user the option.

For anyone wondering about the physics, nKPro is an evolution of what was basically a hobby project a few years ago before the developer decided to go full time on it. The old version is still available, free and you can download it from locations found here:

http://forum.rscnet.org/showthread.php?t=220656

In those days, each car had slightly different physics so some drive better than others but in my humble opinion, despite being a few years old, the single-seaters are still by far the most accurate simulation around. They're truly awesome to drive. Some of the other cars are a bit nuts - the Ferrari GTO and Zonda are worryingly unstable

Anyway, it's a free download so I'd recommend you try it for yourself but if you do, make sure you spend more than a few minutes with it because they're a bitch to drive on cold tyres, and it does take some time to get used to how nK drives.

There is a half-decent multiplayer option with Namie but it was new and the lobby system wasn't working properly. It takes a lot of effort to get it up and running, and can be a bit unstable at times, but it's fun when you get there.

Remember that it was basically a hobby back then so there are obviously bugs and issues with it but when out on track and driving you should see the quality.

And nKPro will be a full product, so consider Namie and then multiply

Nothing DX9 shaders can't do for LFS IMO. And LFS is on its way to becomming a simulation of a bizillion different types of racing - Road Cars, GTR cars, Single Seaters on Normal Tracks, Ovals or Rally. The engine covers all those areas pretty closely if there are a few known bugs floating around. The one thing I do have to congratulate the nK Pro dev's on is the interiors... WOW. Still if you take those out of the equation... LFS S2 can have equal if not better graphics with DX9 shaders, more racing posibilities and a rigerously tested physics engine (thanks to the testing from thousands of people and their input while LFS is still WIP) by the time nK Pro comes along...

Very True Axus. The cockpits do look nice. And I like (as I've said before) the tyre textures. Not sure about the sidewalls though...

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, so I'll wait until I get to drive NetKar before I hype it up or slam it down. But I can't see it beating LFS my much really. Competition is good anyway. It'll make Scawen work 20 hour days again. So much for kitchen improvements.

Looks pretty good, but they really gotta cut it out with the sharpening, it is so obvious. Maybe they want to really bring out the 'detail' of the shots....

If that is what it actually looks like, well then that'd be pretty hard on the eyes.

Also note, the first picture on the page, the skies are not seamless or whatever, you can see the mirrored sky right above the car, just a half sky texture. Carbon fibre looks horrid too.

The tire texture is nice too, seems pretty simple to have done, I can't see why LFS doesn't have that .

Lots of people say 'cartoony', but I have to disagree, it is something else (still just as bad as cartoony). If you want cartoony, play MotoGP in cartoon mode, that is cartoony. This graphics engine looks halfway decent for the most part, but it is highlighted and glared far too much to be believable. I remember one review on LFS noted that our graphics look pretty darn good even with shaders or what not... something like "Not too colorful, not too saturated" (from AutoSimSport review iirc). If you look at a few other new 'shader' games, you will note that some developers get it right, some don't. Halflife 2 has looked the best in my opinion, maybe there are better looking games, but Doom 3 looks the worst, all shiny and crap, just way too excessive. I could compare a lot of the new simulations to Doom 3 (rFactor and this NetKar). I have yet to see a more believable graphics engine, hopefully LFS will be the one. I just cannot stand playing games that are so 'glossed up'... it just spoils the feel of making it look real. Just look at photos of race tracks, or goto one and see how different it looks compared to these 'bling bling graphics' in these games. Amazing how a good sim is so infatuated with silly graphics enhancements.

Dunno - the tyres seem to reflect WAY too much light. Compare those tyres with the ones on the cars here and it almost looks like nK is out of a cartoon. The degredation model is nice - I must admit. Have they simulated the different types of tyre degredation though? I was reading an interesting article at some stage - there is graining and two other types I can't remember which all have different effects on grip. Each of the three ware types makes different changes to the tyre's grip in a straight line (mainly under braking and out of slow corners), the tyre's grip around corners and the tyre's slip angle to grip curve. That would be impressive and nice to have in LFS... but only once the current tyre model is sorted.

I think of suspect they tuned up the contrast and sharpened the screenshot quite a bit before releasing cos the sharpness looks quite aftertouch-ish to me.

We need a video to do it justice.

Only other problem i see with the tire wear texture... it is ALL one texture on the tire, rather than inner/middle/outer. So basically, it seems now they only have it wear for one area, rather than make it appear worn more on the edges, as it should. I may sound picky because it doesn't have that... but hey, if you attempt to simulate visual tire wear differences, why not do that? Hopefully they do get that done.

Quote from axus :

Dunno - the tyres seem to reflect WAY too much light. Compare those tyres with the ones on the cars here and it almost looks like nK is out of a cartoon.

I don't think they are too reflective, but for argument's sake, new tyres are shiny, that's why the parts of the F1 tyres not scrubbed-in (the grooves) in your picture are reflecting a LOT of light, more than is reflected in any of the nK pictures in fact.

Anyway, as with any title, I'll wait and see. The ingredients are certainly good, far better than those that have gone into LFS (to my knowledge anyway) i.e support from an F3 team and access to the car, AVON tyres cooperation etc.

Some slicks can be super shiny, but nowadays all I see on fresh cut slicks is a more foamy look, and they are hardly as shiny as some games represent these days. All this shiny tire stuff looks terrible. It is like too much bump mapping and reflection detail. Hardly looks like how a slick would look like in reallife.
Just look at some of these photos:

http://81.173.98.2/uploads/nie ... rd_startronde1_170705.jpg
http://www.pittalk.nl/uploads/ ... ix_fford_vuik1_170705.jpg
http://www.pittalk.nl/Fotoserv ... FPaas/medium_DSCF8665.jpg
http://www.jamotorsport.co.uk/ ... 1o_the_championship_1.jpg

No sparkly slicks there Nor a sparkly track surface.

Quote from Tweaker :

Some slicks can be super shiny, but nowadays all I see on fresh cut slicks is a more foamy look, and they are hardly as shiny as some games represent these days. All this shiny tire stuff looks terrible. It is like too much bump mapping and reflection detail. Hardly looks like how a slick would look like in reallife.
Just look at some of these photos:

http://81.173.98.2/uploads/nie ... rd_startronde1_170705.jpg
http://www.pittalk.nl/uploads/ ... ix_fford_vuik1_170705.jpg
http://www.pittalk.nl/Fotoserv ... FPaas/medium_DSCF8665.jpg
http://www.jamotorsport.co.uk/ ... 1o_the_championship_1.jpg

No sparkly slicks there Nor a sparkly track surface.

That second pic would be a good one to show the people who whine about the dirt being too severe.

.. is it just me, or do the tires on the formula fords look WAY to skinny?

also; the tire wear looks pretty interesting, would love to see that in action

some of his textures look great too; just looking at the one picture of the F3000 leaving the pits showing off the rear.. that looks great

the skys look amazing; to dark for the lighting ingame, but texture wise they look great!

lol as for his carbon fiber F3000.. looks kinda funky i like it.. kinda funny because thats what it really looks like without paint

what i notice about netkars' textures well.. let me just say this; we need to buy eric a digital camera for "the holidays" (since its politically incorrect to say christmas...... thats crap lol) if you look at his trackside pictures
(this one in particular: http://www.drivingitalia.net/i ... 800&dir=/software/55/)
..they're real pictures, thats why it looks great
LFS could look like that if it had photorealistic textures

Quote from 5th Earth :

That second pic would be a good one to show the people who whine about the dirt being too severe.

And a good one to show that we want different dirt patches for inner, middle, and outer contact patch.

Video from some GT '70 mod for nKpro... altough it's from summer 2004: http://70gtmod.no-ip.com/index ... amp;type=post&id=2417

Italian home page for the mod: http://70gtmod.no-ip.com

Quote from Tweaker :

I just cannot stand playing games that are so 'glossed up'... it just spoils the feel of making it look real. Just look at photos of race tracks, or goto one and see how different it looks compared to these 'bling bling graphics' in these games. Amazing how a good sim is so infatuated with silly graphics enhancements.

Blame consoles. These over-exaggerated bloom/blur effects started from console games. Now we have them in every game just with different name. In HL2 it's High Dynamic Range, in some games it's called post-processing etc. Usually it's like playing a game after eating a bag of LSD pills. In HL2 it looks pretty good but still a bit too over-exaggerated though.