Any good settings to see this in action?
I've been too busy capturing and writing! That makes sense then. Loading multiple sets of shadows wouldn't work, I guess.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Next-gen Racing Graphics Face-off | (Next-gen means current-gen)
- Thread starter Gestault
- Start date
Also mind there are several timelapse videos on youtubes although I always thought these were just changing weather conditions instead of an actual tod change.
JackAubrey
Member
Choosing a night track in freeplay is a good place to see this happen. But as you can't exactly choose these things it's hard to replicate to order. You can pick a daytime clear weather track several times in a row and get different times of day and different cloud conditions.
I hope a future update gives us more control of this as we already have with weather. You have more control of weather - being able to pick three weather slots in a race plus probability percentages.
Even without player control, it's still a neat attractive feature compared to the static times of day from the previous games.
You can see the transition to night in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4vhzGegO1A
eso76
Member
I believe it doesn't even have different sets of shadows, but i don't have the game so i couldn't check.
Looks to me like shadows are always in the same place regardless of where the sun is but look into that as i'm not 100% sure
I couldn't find any videos from overcast to clear midday sky but here's a video from sunset to complete night. The track looks overly dark even at sunset so it doesn't appear like the track has to account for any shadows during this time change.
https://youtu.be/v4vhzGegO1A
From my experience with the demo (The full game doesn't work in my main windows account
) I think that changes in the TOD only apply when you pass the track point where is defined to change. I mean, you will never see the change if you stop the car. Everything in Forza looks like a theatrical representation.Ah, so my plan is foiled then. :\From my experience with the demo (The full game doesn't work in my main windows account
FlutterPuffs
Member
That's an interesting way to implement TOD.
From my experience with the demo (The full game doesn't work in my main windows account
That would explain why most of the timelapse videos on yt only show dynamic weather instead of dynamic tod.
For a racing game?
FunkyDealer
Banned
I don't think FlutterPuffs meant that sarcastically. It certainly is an interesting, and rather clever way to tie changes to progression. Of course, being able to do a full day-night cycle would be cool. But very few races would believably require this.
it doesn't exactly seem believable the way it's doing it either though really, to just arbitrarily connect the progression of time to track progression. but then sped up time progression seen in most games doesn't make a ton of sense either really.
i think for it to be considered legit dynamic TOD though you should be able to do timelapses.
FunkyDealer
Banned
Yeah, as you say, there's not really any truly believable dynamic TOD systems in games. Even Animal Crossing requires certain actions to trigger changes (enter/exit buildings).
Tying TOD to progression ensures a dynamic change throughout normal play and it's almost certainly done to reduce the performance-hit. Which is cruical for a game targeting 60FPS. It's an understandable "sacrifice" in this case.
What bothers me is that is doesn't effect every track the same way.
No luck there either. It simply does not change in real-time. It does indeed seem to be as others are saying - connected to your driving. Its pretty much faked.
So then GT6 has a feature that both GT Sport and Forza 7 are lacking - it had real-time ToD transitions with moving shadows on several tracks. Was really cool at the time.
FlutterPuffs
Member
Yep. The only thing bad about it for me is I can't make timelapses.
I wish Polyphony does a version of it, for mock 24h races.
From my experience with the demo (The full game doesn't work in my main windows account
LOL What?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9piJ4adciM
Nothing like this in gran turismo 5?
From my experience with the demo (The full game doesn't work in my main windows account
As part of the solution, I wonder if they've identitified stretches on each/most tracks where there aren't obvious cast shadows for that time-shift. That a neat, if otherwise obvious, trick.
If it doesn't require this, I don't follow why the time transition couldn't just be run on basically a timer. I think matching the time to race progress isn't so different from the setup in Project Cars for weather slots to correspect to race progress rather than a timed progression.
Its true. I just tried it on three tracks by capturing at 5fps for 45 minutes or so for each. It doesnt change at all.
I'm pretty sure you can make time lapses, you just have to use the free cam in replay mode. Time progression is linked to race progression (kind of like NFS) so that's the best way to see it change in real time.
Lmao. There should be a thread for this... just for the hilarity.
Oh, thats a good thought.
Or maybe they have chunks of the track and they change the TOD in the chunk were you are not yet.
JackAubrey
Member
All games are faked to some extent. You can't drive out of the track to the nearest town. It's just like the movies. Maybe those store fronts in the wild west town are just flat with no interiors.
When people "lol what" about what happens to the graphics when you don't play the game - iei just sit there doing nothing - they are missing the point. With a 16ms rendering budget developers do what they need to to create a compelling experience. Why put time and effort into what happens when you don't race.
You can find things in every racing game that break down the realism or immersion when not actually racing. But creating convincing worlds for someone to sit in a gravel trap and watch the world go by is an edge case not worth supporting with development time and rendering budget.
I find graphics comparisons more compelling in this thread when we talk about what we see when we play the game as intended, not hover around a tree or measure the level of a police station. These things might please the "lol what" crowd, but it ignores the realities of game development.
FlutterPuffs
Member
Let us not. All it would do is to encourage stupid and toxic arguments.
I think there's a free cam in replay mode lol. Verify that before spending another 45 minutes.
Edit: There's not. Surprisingly.
#BringBackDroneMode
odd comparison, since these games aren't saying they have that feature. but you'd think a game touting a dynamic TOD would actually have a legit dynamic TOD. faking things to an extent is expected, as you say, like i wouldn't expect accurate star mapping in every location, or every single object to cast a shadow, but i don't even think you can call what forza is doing dynamic at all. what the maximum laps you can set? if you did lap after lap in time trial do we THEN get a full day/night cycle? or can it only ever transition between 2 static times of day?
The thing is, I don't think what you tie the transitions to, has much meaning from a technical standpoint, beyond the why you'd choose to. We've seen that you can view the transitions from anywhere on the track as a result of the replay mode. The main limitation with FM7's time of day is that it can only transition within a limited range, as a result of the baked lighting/shadows. Due to this, having the transitions be tied to time makes less sense, because no matter how much time passes, it would never be able to progress past the range of time it supports. Race progress however has a defined start and end, that you can map the range of the time passage to, which would never be exceeded.
EDIT: Or not, if there's no free cam in replays.
JackAubrey
Member
I don't think there is a free cam. I've just been looking at a saved replay and couldn't find the option.
Unless someone wants to tell me where to find it?
I don't see one either. I've seen FM7 time lapses. How did they do it?
JackAubrey
Member
Were they just weather timelapses? You can rotate the camera away from the car in some replay camera options. And some cameras don't show the car at all.
I believe the weather will continue without your car moving. But TOD will not. Or at least I've not seen it do so, But I wouldn't want to make a definite statement on that. I also wonder whether this is tied to race progress as a whole, or player progress.
That explains it. Well I took lots of pictures at Daytona showing time progression from night to sunrise. I'm waiting for them to upload to live.
When you create a custom race with the "rain" option you can choose a starting, middle race and end condition and the % of it to happen.
So it's somehow tied to either a certain time passing or how far advanced you are in a race.
You could test it on a short track with rain and set the laps to 3 and then see if the weather changes after a certain time or only when you enter lap 2.
So it's somehow tied to either a certain time passing or how far advanced you are in a race.
You could test it on a short track with rain and set the laps to 3 and then see if the weather changes after a certain time or only when you enter lap 2.
100% agree
Couple more weeks until Xbox One X releases for some goooooood pics/gifs
Whose trying Forza Horizon 3
100% agree
Couple more weeks until Xbox One X releases for some goooooood pics/gifs
Whose trying Forza Horizon 3
I'll try it... and then I'll almost certainly go back to playing it on PC for the 60fps
Hopefully they'll patch HDR into the PC version at some point.
So without a free cam this was pretty much the best I could do lol.
So at least the shadows of the cars are dynamic?
Hawk269
Member
It does change while racing.
Pretty sure they are for any night races. Headlights cast shadows on walls and stuff. I don't think the sun has any bearing on car shadows though, just the trackside lights.
Lighting is actually pretty different in night vs day in Forza.
wumster3000
Member
You just argued against creating a thread for this. Wait until Digital Foundry do their analysis and then maybe create a thread based off of that.
JackAubrey
Member
So without a free cam this was pretty much the best I could do lol.
There we go then. It's not just a cheap change of sky colour, the sun actually rises.
100% agree
Couple more weeks until Xbox One X releases for some goooooood pics/gifs
Whose trying Forza Horizon 3
Here you go, lol. (4k downsampled shots I took in-game (not photomode))
immortald3ath
Member
Damn at those FH3 shots above. FH3 remains as the best looking racer.
So without a free cam this was pretty much the best I could do lol.
and what happens beyond this? can you make races long enough for that sun to reach high noon or does the sun just stop there?
Also there is some kind of (dynamic) tree shadows?
What makes these dynamic, and how would a screenshot be showing us?
I don't know, but I don't think it will reach noon. I think the start and end points are probably the same, and that the time it takes to get there varies depending on race length.
Here you go, lol. (4k downsampled shots I took in-game (not photomode))
And I said gosh dang