Hello Racers.

We know you would like to know what we have been working on, so we have prepared a new progress report.

It is a bit technical but may be interesting for some people. Anyway there are some nice pictures too.

Scawen

Great job! Keep going.

Great job! Keep going.

Obligatory comparisons:

https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky201907/01
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky201907/02
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky201907/03
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky201907/04

https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky201907/05

https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky201907/07
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky201907/08

https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky201907/09
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky201907/10
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky201907/11
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky201907/12

https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky201907/13
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky201907/14
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky201907/15
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky201907/16

https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky201907/17
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky201907/18
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky201907/19
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky201907/20

https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky201907/21
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky201907/22
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky201907/23
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky201907/24

Quite a few aren't so useful this time - lots of changes and filled in gaps

Great job! Keep going.

Quote from Degats :

Obligatory comparisons:

Thanks!

Really good job, guys! Physical sky, SH lighting, HDR, ect...
You took a deep dive into graphics programming. LFS is looking really good. Can't wait to play!
One thing I noticed — I didn't saw any bump mapping. Is it work in progress or You are happy with it at current state?

For cloud rendering solution, are you want to go for fully dynamic volumetric system or something simple pre-baked?

2020 ?

Quote from GT4_PL :

2020 ?

Posted at 20:20.
Anyway, amazing stuff!

oh wait a second, is that a holes?

Seeing this progress is making me more and more excited, nice work.

Published and translated to Chinese on SRFC √

Nice work~

Are there plans to make the position tower actually interactive with the game state?

@Evo Lol haha!

Quote from Keiichi_Tsuchiya :

Really good job, guys! Physical sky, SH lighting, HDR, ect...
You took a deep dive into graphics programming. LFS is looking really good. Can't wait to play!
One thing I noticed — I didn't saw any bump mapping. Is it work in progress or You are happy with it at current state?

Yes, one thing really leads to another as you mentioned in your post in the February report. The blended skies had certain issues that were solved by these realtime skies whose code has kindly been made available on the internet with a permissive license. But it took a while to get them in and they resulted in a lot of changes to how the system works.

About bump mapping, Eric has asked for that a long time ago but I am not keen to develop it now, with the extra shaders and more data for every vertex, and increased data bandwidth and GPU usage for the pixel shaders. I'm very interested in trying to keep the frame rates high and see how it goes with the current version, that is already a lot heavier than the old. Also for me it doesn't seem totally straightforward to implement, when starting to think about helper functions for the normal maps and new material types to support the maps. There's too much in my mind already and I don't want to get bogged down so for now I really think the other things have a higher priority. In my mind the bump maps can be done after this release as I think Eric has made very good use of the current system with the updated tracks. Then various materials could be updated to take advantage of bump mapping.

Quote from Keiichi_Tsuchiya :

For cloud rendering solution, are you want to go for fully dynamic volumetric system or something simple pre-baked?

It's a good question and I don't know the answer but I'll try to do something simple at first and see how it looks.

Quote from valiugera :

oh wait a second, is that a holes?

Yes there are still some holes, Kyoto is not yet finished. Eric was doing so many adjustments of corners and so on, he wanted a break to do something new so he has moved onto South City for now where he can get some more visible results in a shorter time.

Quote from kagurazakayukari :

Published and translated to Chinese on SRFC √

Nice work~

Thank you!

Awesome news, great work on updating all the tracks Eric as I know how much work it can take modeling and tweaking textures for assets!

Scawen would it be possible to sync dedicated servers on local time for dynamique time of day ?

Quote from Keiichi_Tsuchiya :

Really good job, guys! Physical sky, SH lighting, HDR, ect...
You took a deep dive into graphics programming. LFS is looking really good. Can't wait to play!
One thing I noticed — I didn't saw any bump mapping. Is it work in progress or You are happy with it at current state?

For cloud rendering solution, are you want to go for fully dynamic volumetric system or something simple pre-baked?

Yea, I wonder how Scawen will tacle this feature.

Thank you Scawen and Eric for your great jobs!

Scawen: Thank you for the latest progress report. I'm happy that you people make such a sim happen. Many thanks!

It looks amazing - Can't wait to drive, too.

Cool stuff. Love the fact that youre going to use more cpu cores, it might mean that LFS will not be much more cpu intensive.

One quick question, when tracks get updated, old tracks will be gone forever? I still sometimes wake at night and cry for old westhill. Would be cool to somehow still have old tracks to race on them too. Maybe I'm just creature of habit, but i like the existing old tracks all more than updated westhill and blackwood.

Running engine does not cool

Quote from NumberTwo :

Cool stuff. Love the fact that youre going to use more cpu cores, it might mean that LFS will not be much more cpu intensive.

One quick question, when tracks get updated, old tracks will be gone forever? I still sometimes wake at night and cry for old westhill. Would be cool to somehow still have old tracks to race on them too. Maybe I'm just creature of habit, but i like the existing old tracks all more than updated westhill and blackwood.

Don't update the game through the game, download it again from the website. I've kept the old westhill at least that way.

Thanks for the detailed report full of technical description. While I don't fully understand all of it, it's always interesting to read it through. Also, it gives a slight insight of what you guys are doing behind-the-scenes and working hard on: something not everyone has a clear image of. Good luck with the development, keep it up!

Quote from Scawen :

About bump mapping, Eric has asked for that a long time ago but I am not keen to develop it now, with the extra shaders and more data for every vertex, and increased data bandwidth and GPU usage for the pixel shaders. I'm very interested in trying to keep the frame rates high and see how it goes with the current version, that is already a lot heavier than the old. Also for me it doesn't seem totally straightforward to implement, when starting to think about helper functions for the normal maps and new material types to support the maps. There's too much in my mind already and I don't want to get bogged down so for now I really think the other things have a higher priority. In my mind the bump maps can be done after this release as I think Eric has made very good use of the current system with the updated tracks. Then various materials could be updated to take advantage of bump mapping.

Oh, I see. Take your time.
About performance and gpu bandwith, though: Your lighting is already in pixel shader, one more function not really gonna hurt, vertex data for binormal calculation weights nothing in todays term. Only perfomance sensitive part is GPU memory filled with bump maps, but that I think can be configurable. Anyway, once you nail the physical based shader with all basic texture inputs (albedo,metalness/spec,roughness,bump,AO), you're golden for another decade I think. PBR was going strong for almost a decade in current gen, and there no signs for it to change in next gen at least from texturing/material definition standpoint. From that point you could only add bells and whistles to your renderer without any additional work from Eric.

Quote from Scawen :

It's a good question and I don't know the answer but I'll try to do something simple at first and see how it looks.

Let us know, if you'll find something interesting. I've been looking for good cloud rendering system too, and didn't find good compromise yet in terms looks/performance.

The reason why old Westhill was strongly wanted for comeback is it's unique design compared to physics we have today. As it could be driven nearly full speed all the time and cornering with some cars with full speed required some understanding, skill and risks. People loved it that way, and that's why it is constantly asked for a comeback.

Solution would obviously be something similar or better in new shape.

I will be missing Fern Bay corners, where you could do some 2wheeling...

Going back to over 7 years, one more time... it did and still is looking something like this

_________________________________________________________

Edit: To the actual topic, I got interested about if all of those "holes" will be blocked, and as we can see, tracks being updated to modern aspects... Would this mean we would see even further updates? Extensions? Because WE and BL are already at that state, but have left some pieces... even plausible, official configurations.

Quote from GT4_PL :

@Evo Lol haha!

You need to fix your list - Kyoto Ring is not finished!
See comment from Scawen.

Quote :

Yes there are still some holes, Kyoto is not yet finished.

Quote from Degats :

Obligatory comparisons:
...
Quite a few aren't so useful this time - lots of changes and filled in gaps

Every time a very cool compare. - Thanks