Headlight Dispersion Issue Has Been Fixed! Poll!

[eran0004]

Its not to do with the surrounding area at all, its to do with how the throw of the lights doesn't always light up the road right in front of the car and how when you go up hill the lights pretty much disappear. Road car light don't work like that.

I do drive in the 'middle of nowhere' on a regular basis (and grew up driving in those conditions) and GT5 doesn't get the lighting right in that regard at all, so I for one actually welcome developments along these lines.

That you can live with it doesn't make it correct, nor does it mean it shouldn't be fixed.

I've also spent a lot of time in the 'middle of nowhere' and the lights in GT5 doesn't seem very off to me (at least for the road cars, haven't got any experience with race cars). The main difference is that the markings on the road doesn't reflect light, which it does in reality. Of course, if you spend a lot of time driving in the middle of nowhere, you'd want some extra lights:

These do a huge difference, but sadly they're not an option in GT5, and probably won't be in GT6 either.

 

[Lain]

Its not to do with the surrounding area at all, its to do with how the throw of the lights doesn't always light up the road right in front of the car and how when you go up hill the lights pretty much disappear. Road car light don't work like that.

Actually, they kinda do. As you start to go up a hill, the light will be hitting the slope of the hill and thus the illuminated area will be shorter.

Of course, this is only just as you start to go up. Once all four tires are on the slope, then yes you're correct... the light should appear exactly as it would when driving on perfectly flat road.

Now as for going downhill, as you start to go downhill, your lights briefly won't even be pointed towards the road at all. No illumination whatsoever. But once all tires are going down the slope, as was the case with going up, your lights will return to being pointed at the road and illuminate as normal.

I do drive in the 'middle of nowhere' on a regular basis (and grew up driving in those conditions) and GT5 doesn't get the lighting right in that regard at all, so I for one actually welcome developments along these lines.

That you can live with it doesn't make it correct, nor does it mean it shouldn't be fixed.

I wholeheartedly disagree. Driving at nighttime in the middle of nowhere is just plain dark, even with your high beams on. Well, let me clarify that... driving at nighttime in the middle of nowhere in a place where the road is surrounded by countless trees on both sides and is thusly swamped in shadows is dark. Terrifyingly so. Obviously if you're driving on a dusty country road with nothing on the sides, you're going to get illumination from the moon, the amount of which is dependent on how overcast it is.


I think GT5's night racing is mostly spot-on and doesn't need to be "fixed", maybe just refined. It's the most impressive and realistic nighttime racing I've seen in any videogame. Honestly I think just the increased dynamic range of GT6 would be sufficient for improving the night racing experience.

 

[CoolColJ]

Yes we had these arguments back in GT5 before.
I just know when I turn on my foglights on my SUbie on, and high beams, it is really bright. I don't get that feeling in GT5, even standing still...

Plus the fact there never seems to be any global illumination - moonlight, starlight, and light bouncing off surfaces etc

I remeber back in GT5, in online rooms in that night time tunnel track. I just couldn't see well enough to not overshoot into walls all the time. Same with the Lambo touring event!

At EV +0.4

SS5 - Nice and bright here

What the hell happened?
You can see the HUD is bright as it should be, but the game environment itself is not

Using videos as examples is kinda a bad idea, since video has terrible dynamic range compared to our eyes.
Having said that - there is much more light here than in GT5
In real life the interior of the car would be perfectly visible, instead of a big block of black in the video.

 

[Samus]

Yeah I was going to say the difference between all of these videos and what the human eye sees is very different. GT5 seems to replicate what you see in a video and not what you could see with your own eyes. Even then it's still just dull, look at those 787B shots. The immediate surroundings should be covered in light.

 

[glassjaw]

The fact that something is being discussed is not proof in and of itself that there is something wrong with it.

What I meant by that more specifically was that I've never heard complaints about the strength of headlights at night in any game until GT5 released. If the discussion didn't exist before and it does now, I'd consider that proof.

The strength of the headlights (or lack thereof, rather) is the main issue, but it goes beyond that. As somebody mentioned before me, light always seems to bounce off of trackside objects well ahead of the point along the road in front of you where the headlights stop working. Trackside sources of light that should brighten the circuit are literally nonexistent (take the Nurburgring GP course at night, for example). And turning on the high beams is hardly useful either. They project farther of course, but they lack the intensity of the low beams. None of this is true in actual night racing. Even in the real videos posted above, general visibility is much higher than what you'd see in GT5 - which is why I laugh when anyone considers GT5's lighting "realistic." It's clearly not even close.

 

[PepeMickey]

I'm sorry, I just took a 599 to La Sarthe and it was so bright it was cartoony looking, then took a SuperGT GTR to Nurb (normal layout without the people) and it was bright enough, I'm going to take some pics when I get back home, they would be off-screen though so the exposure is going to be messed up but It'll be like night and day between what I see and what those photos show. Clearly there's something wrong with my TV/game or you guys just have horrible contrast/brightness settings.

 

[CoolColJ]

The output above is what I screen capped from the game, so it's untainted by the TV/Monitor settings - direct from the PS3.
The Selby Cobra vid was capped by Taxigamer, directly from the PS3 as well.

 

[Samus]

I'm sorry, I just took a 599 to La Sarthe and it was so bright it was cartoony looking, then took a SuperGT GTR to Nurb (normal layout without the people) and it was bright enough, I'm going to take some pics when I get back home, they would be off-screen though so the exposure is going to be messed up but It'll be like night and day between what I see and what those photos show. Clearly there's something wrong with my TV/game or you guys just have horrible contrast/brightness settings.

Or you do. My TV is properly calibrated and the above images is how it looks.

 

[Scaff]

Actually, they kinda do. As you start to go up a hill, the light will be hitting the slope of the hill and thus the illuminated area will be shorter.

Of course, this is only just as you start to go up. Once all four tires are on the slope, then yes you're correct... the light should appear exactly as it would when driving on perfectly flat road.

Now as for going downhill, as you start to go downhill, your lights briefly won't even be pointed towards the road at all. No illumination whatsoever. But once all tires are going down the slope, as was the case with going up, your lights will return to being pointed at the road and illuminate as normal.




I wholeheartedly disagree. Driving at nighttime in the middle of nowhere is just plain dark, even with your high beams on. Well, let me clarify that... driving at nighttime in the middle of nowhere in a place where the road is surrounded by countless trees on both sides and is thusly swamped in shadows is dark. Terrifyingly so. Obviously if you're driving on a dusty country road with nothing on the sides, you're going to get illumination from the moon, the amount of which is dependent on how overcast it is.


I think GT5's night racing is mostly spot-on and doesn't need to be "fixed", maybe just refined. It's the most impressive and realistic nighttime racing I've seen in any videogame. Honestly I think just the increased dynamic range of GT6 would be sufficient for improving the night racing experience.

This is pretty much what I get as well...

...on a correctly calibrated HDTV and that's not like illumination in reality (regardless of the number of tree at the side of the road).

 

[Zer0]

At EV +0.4

That blackness for that exposure is not representative of the tv image... I remember playing with something in between the above and this with the default exposure:



Gaming captures always appear darker than in reality. They need some gamma correction for an accurate view in a pc monitor.

 

[Samus]

That video is clearly unnaturally bright, unless the night sky looks bright blue to you.

 

[Zer0]

That video is clearly unnaturally bright, unless the night sky looks bright blue to you.

What I said:
"I remember playing with something in between the above and this..."

Was an example of the other extreme, probably the tv brightness is maxed on that vid.

 

[Scaff]

What I said:
"I remember playing with something in between the above and this..."

Was an example of the other extreme, probably the tv brightness is maxed on that vid.

It almost certainly is.

What I can say is that on a calibrated set GT5 looks a lot closer to the dark image than it does the bright one.

 

[Conquerer]

Yeah I was going to say the difference between all of these videos and what the human eye sees is very different. GT5 seems to replicate what you see in a video and not what you could see with your own eyes. Even then it's still just dull, look at those 787B shots. The immediate surroundings should be covered in light.

100% this. This is something I was going to touch on earlier. Watching onboard night footage at Le Mans or Nurburging it's often hard to see everything, but the iris of a camera can in no way replicate what the eye can see. Still, there are some videos that have been shown where the visibility is great, yet GT5 still doesn't match that. It's possible that PD is focusing on watching some of those onboard videos and using them as a reference without taking the human eye difference into account.

And before anyone says Kaz has raced in the night and has experienced what it's like so he'd make sure it's accurate, please explain why drafting is so terribly exaggerated like you're using Fast & Furious NOS when behind another car. Surely Kaz's racing experience would tell him that is not even close to accurate?

Give me a break, racing in GT5 is predictable and after many laps at the Nurb you SHOULD know the track like the back of your hand. Racing at night ISN'T a problem, maybe race cars should have brighter headlights but the game is playable and it's not that difficult to see.

Fallacy argument. Just because you should be able to predict where the road is doesn't mean it's right that the visibility is inaccurate. As I said in my post, after enough laps around the Nurburgring at night, it's really no problem because you become so used to it -- but you still can't properly see in a few spots. The fact that you've memorized where to turn doesn't make it acceptable.

 

[NOSWaster]

And before anyone says Kaz has raced in the night and has experienced what it's like so he'd make sure it's accurate, please explain why drafting is so terribly exaggerated like you're using Fast & Furious NOS when behind another car. Surely Kaz's racing experience would tell him that is not even close to accurate?

Set the draft to "Weak" online. This is more indicative of how draft really is.

Grip: Real
Draft: Weak
Tire wear: Normal
Tire Restriction: Racing Hard
TCS: Allowed
ABS: Allowed

Those are some of the settings I find to be realistic because as far as I know, some racing cars and real cars have traction control.

Back on topic, the game doesn't take into account how the human eye really sees. You have to put the brightness on the screen up to easily see at night, which ruins realism for me. I calibrate my PC monitor to have accurate brightness in the daytime. I wish this would have carried over to the night time, giving me accurate visibility with the head lamps.

Hopefully the lighting changes in GT6 address the issue.

And yes, I have driven on narrow roads covered in trees and regular roads without street lights. The brights on a car (which are what the game defaults to at night) make it incredibly easy for me to see where a corner is coming because all I have to do is see a shift in the reflection from the surroundings. Granted, I do slow down going up and down hills to account for the headlights not coming in contact with the road far ahead.

 

[PepeMickey]

Or you do. My TV is properly calibrated and the above images is how it looks.

No matter how you put it, you're the one complaining. GT5 is a dissapointment but this is just plain whining, it's ridiculous, the game is more than playable at night, much better than what other developers have ever done.

 

[Tornado]

Set the draft to "Weak" online. This is more indicative of how draft really is.

Grip: Real
Draft: Weak
Tire wear: Normal
Tire Restriction: Racing Hard
TCS: Allowed
ABS: Allowed

Those are some of the settings I find to be realistic because as far as I know, some racing cars and real cars have traction control.

Draft on weak is still way too strong. NASCARs can easily draft up to 250+ mph with max downforce with weak on, which is ridiculous.

No matter how you put it, you're the one complaining. GT5 is a dissapointment but this is just plain whining, it's ridiculous, the game is more than playable at night, much better than what other developers have ever done.

 

[Samus]

No matter how you put it, you're the one complaining. GT5 is a dissapointment but this is just plain whining, it's ridiculous, the game is more than playable at night, much better than what other developers have ever done.

How did you get complaining out of my statement? Not everything ever said in a negative opinion is complaining you know.

 

[Scaff]

No matter how you put it, you're the one complaining. GT5 is a dissapointment but this is just plain whining, it's ridiculous, the game is more than playable at night, much better than what other developers have ever done.

So you're ok with it so let's leave it as it is, good job that's not the attitude that PD take with developments to the series our we would be expecting GT6 to just be a pretty version of GT1.

What others have done (and your claim alone is false in that regard) is beside the point, night racing without correct levels of illumination is an issue and if PD cab resolve it then it's a big plus.

 

[ShiftingGears]

And before anyone says Kaz has raced in the night and has experienced what it's like so he'd make sure it's accurate, please explain why drafting is so terribly exaggerated like you're using Fast & Furious NOS when behind another car. Surely Kaz's racing experience would tell him that is not even close to accurate?

If there are benefits from Kaz racing, I haven't seen them.

 

[NOSWaster]

Draft on weak is still way too strong. NASCARs can easily draft up to 250+ mph with max downforce with weak on, which is ridiculous.

Ah. I didn't know it had that much of an effect in NASCAR vehicles. I only race road courses and on weak draft, you can barely get a run up on anyone, even if you're under half a second behind. You maybe get 5-10 MPH extra, which is soon chipped away after leaving the draft. You're lucky if you can get by cleanly instead of going into the next corner side by side.

 

[IceMan PJN]

How many times have you heard people say, "Headlights in this game suck!"? I have heard this countless times and I could not disagree with them any more.

That's because you didn't play the game at release. They later fixed the headlights, but at first they didn't work correctly, and while some fanboys argued otherwise, I had pictures taken in-game that left no room for argument. Plain and simply, the beams were horizontal no matter what direction your car faced, so even going uphill at a thirty degree incline, your headlights didn't angle uphill accordingly, but rather straight into the road.

 

[CoolColJ]

I think it looks much brighter now - headlights that is

 

[Griffith500]

It seems like opening up the dynamic range has meant the headlights can occupy a more realistic spot on the scale (e.g. from the surface of the sun to a total absence of light), rather than having to be compromised in not being too bright in the daytime and too dark at night - they ended up being "thin", I think, to do both in GT5. This looks much fuller.

 

[CoolColJ]

👍

 

[NOSWaster]

👍

Now THAT is more like it. Granted, that's an SLS GT3 with headlights designed for racing, but that is WAY more playable than GT5 currently is.

 

[glassjaw]

Indeed, very happy to see PD recognize this issue and fix it. Now I can actually race at night again and enjoy it.

 

[Magic Ayrton]

Looks like I will wait for Gran Turismo 8 on the PS4.. simply because the second outing on a console has all the features that you should have had in the first one!

Of course I am getting GT6.

 

[SVT Cobra GT]

The headlights in GT6 looks a lot better. I didn't race too much in the dark in GT5 but I did think it looked good in that. Looking forward to racing at night evenmore now.

 

[SavageEvil]

Lol, this thread is funny. I have had problems with headlights on that Toscana course as well going up hills the lights seem to disappear into hills, I mean it was annoying as hell but I still defeated the challenge without doing a thing to my settings as I quickly realized how the road turns and compensated by using memory. Lots of people crying as if the game is unplayable at night which it is not. I specifically drive at night especially on two of the darkest courses Nurburgring and la Sarthe and I have zero lighting issues.
What I think it is might be a car and course combination, some cars have poor light spread for whatever reasons, but I have also driven on SSR5 which to me is the crappiest night course because the lighting is jacked up for odd reasons, it has has ambient light all over the place yet it's dark in weird places where there is a lot of light sources. That track is rubbish for lighting or night driving. Lighting from cars work for the most part, some cars have issues where their light spread is kind of wrong and doesn't illuminate very well. GT5 by default is rather dark even on daylight courses hence why you have a gamma control in game since different TV's were going to give you different levels of output.
I hope GT6 fixes the oddities in headlights for all cars so the lights go farther and actually illuminate the car ahead of your correctly, but to say that night driving in GT5 is unplayable is pure and utter nonsense. Nurburgring and le Sarthe are the only two courses in the game that actually use an actual system for lighting, if you don't believe me take the original karts out at 11 pm on either course, without the course side lighting it's literally pitch black out there. Perhaps Kaz needs to add reflections to the side lines on road courses. I'm about to go drive at night right now, 787b I will use since I saw that video of the 787b with terrible spread. I absolutely must try it out. I tend to drive mostly street cars and their beams have better elevation that most race cars. I will return with some findings.
I do recognize the Toscana issue, that's been there since the game launched. I remember it well as it was my first time experiencing time shift and going nuts that my headlights were borked.

[Edit]
Drove the 787b a exactly 12am and noticed that low beams are pretty bad it illuminates directly in front of the car, but high beams work rather well it illuminates a wider and higher area than the low beams it also reaches farther into the distance as well. Darkness presents it's own challenges as even if you know the course lower light makes it as hard to see as you would expect if you actually drove this place at night. It's a little brighter than le Sarthe at night, but up and down hill sections benefit from being in the dark, some light fogging would work wonders for atmosphere. It was time trial with setting set to simulation ABS 1 and real grip levels, my controller is garbage so handling the car was a bit of a pain but I was able to get around with a couple of off road excursions 6:41 was my lap time. Crap I forgot my gamma settings on my LCD, but it was completely drivable in the dead of night in that 787b with the bad head lights.