PD - fix onboard shadows! It's too dark!

[YZF]

So has this been remedied to any extent with 1.03 or a small "update" since?

No, absolutely no changes to the flawed onboard shadows since 1.03.


Basically the idea of whole lighting engine is good, they just added very dark (black) shadows which cover dials. These shadows cover dashboard depending on your position on the track and depending on the time of the day (For example in the morning you'll have shadows covering dials at one corner, and in the afternoon - at another).

The best solution for this problem would be making shadows ~10 times lighter (more transparent).

In real life you also have them, they are just very 'weak'. And in this game they are very 'strong'. It's an easy fix.

Actually if you have variable weather track, and it happens so that the day is 'cloudy', meaning the sun is not so strong - then suddenly you can see dashboard more or less clearly the whole lap! However you can't choose when you'll have this type of wheather and usually you get very sunny day and as consequence - very black shadows.

 

[grog]

No shadows are still pitch black in the interior view. What they changed was the brightness of what you see out the windscreen. Some cars got either brighter or darker when switching to interior view before the update.

So the gauge clusters are still as hard to see as ever.


I hope they come up with some way of treating shadows differently. A range of brightness in the shadow would be best, right now its either black or white.

I've been driving on tracks with time change and setting the time to very early morning. This way the gauges are illuminated until 7:00 or so.

 

[Ferrari458Italia]

It's a matter of programming: just change onboard graphics so that the dashboard would be visible all the time (the whole lap). Is it possible to do that? Yes of course, look at all the other racing games.

Basically remove cockpit shadows and problem solved.

I agree. this is what it needs to look like IMHO

 

[YZF]

I have made a video which emphasizes the problem:

 

[Morgoth_666]

The shadows are too black but I guess it doesn't bother me as much as some people since I find most cars' dials tend to be very difficult to read anyway, even in 1080p. Plus I'm rather forced to use the HUD most of the time since my gas pedal has a not-quite-right accelerator sensor which means I always have a speed readout. It would be great if they would fix it though, or at least leave the dash lights on all the time so you could see things.

The dark view out of the windsheild in most cars is what drives me more crazy, it shouldn't be more than a tiny bit(if at all) darker than any other view. Makes the game always look very blah and dreary.

 

[YZF]

The shadows are too black but I guess it doesn't bother me as much as some people since I find most cars' dials tend to be very difficult to read anyway, even in 1080p. Plus I'm rather forced to use the HUD most of the time since my gas pedal has a not-quite-right accelerator sensor which means I always have a speed readout. It would be great if they would fix it though, or at least leave the dash lights on all the time so you could see things.

And that's, the other problem we have - some (or most) cars have lower resolution dashboard dials. If PD would focus more on making them higher quality, we wouldn't need HUD at all and we would feel one step closer to 'reality'...

 

[poumpoum]

I think that their light engine is good and relevant but the problem is : "Even the best TV can't match the eye contrast !" It's impossible to see at the same time a really bright environnement and a dark speedometer on a TV but it's possible in real life...

In this particular case, they should forget about matching reality and do something to make the speedometer and tachometer "shadowproof".

I love driving premium cars wit no HUD and this is a real problem IMO. I hope PD will see this topic...

 

[shawtyoner]

The best fix is to allow us to run daytime lights (or low beams) on all cars. Then the darker the shadows, the better it will look.

 

[YZF]

The best fix is to allow us to run daytime lights (or low beams) on all cars. Then the darker the shadows, the better it will look.

But this won't be real. Because you don't get night time lighting during the day in your car, do you?

The gauge clusters should have lights on during night not in the middle of the day

 

[shawtyoner]

But this won't be real. Because you don't get night time lighting during the day in your car, do you?

The gauge clusters should have lights on during night not in the middle of the day

I don't get your point. Why can't I have my gauge clusters on during the day? It doesn't have to be night time to turn them on does it? My old Infiniti G35 gauges were illuminated all the time automatically.

 

[YZF]

I don't get your point. Why can't I have my gauge clusters on during the day? It doesn't have to be night time to turn them on does it? My old Infiniti G35 gauges were illuminated all the time automatically.

Well techincally you can have them ON all the time, but what's the point? At midday if you turn them on, your dashboard visibility won't change because day lighting is much stronger than dashboard lighting and you will see dials clearly anyway.

You don't have such inky black shadows during the day IRL to begin with....

"Fix the cause not the outcome"

 

[shawtyoner]

Well techincally you can have them ON all the time, but what's the point? At midday if you turn them on, your dashboard visibility won't change because day lighting is much stronger than dashboard lighting and you will see dials clearly anyway.

You don't have such inky black shadows during the day IRL to begin with....

"Fix the cause not the outcome"

I can agree with that, however having the option to have gauges illuminated anytime you want would also be a good thing.

 

[Griffith500]

I have made a video which emphasizes the problem:

Yep, direct lighting only. When the sun is "facing" the dials (even though the roof is technically in the way, it's not actually checking for that occlusion), they're visible. When the sun is behind them (i.e. in our eyeses), obviously no light gets to them. There's no "ambient" level, though - unless it's below the "black level" for that HDR exposure - so they look pitch-black instead of just "in shadow". It'd be interesting to know if that's the same for all cars with an interior.

It's strange because they use the dynamic environment maps for (specular) reflections in the interior, they could use them to help with the lighting, too. (In theory, I have no idea if their pipeline would first allow that, or even if they have the spare power to do it. They'd need some processing, too - e.g. blurring, otherwise it'd just look like you're projecting the scenery onto the interior).

They might have to ignore parts of that map, though - i.e. the bottom face of the cube (assuming it's a cube map), and perhaps the lower parts of the vertical faces, and the top one if there's a roof. It'd be weird if the dials took on a red glow every time you got near a rumble strip, for example - or green if on or near grass.
They could automate that "masking" per car, as a pre-computation, for best effect. But every time you add a mask, a map (or blurred copy of an existing one) or texture (e.g. ambient occlusion) or buffer in general, you use more memory, so...

 

[YZF]

Yep, direct lighting only. When the sun is "facing" the dials (even though the roof is technically in the way, it's not actually checking for that occlusion), they're visible. When the sun is behind them (i.e. in our eyeses), obviously no light gets to them. There's no "ambient" level, though - unless it's below the "black level" for that HDR exposure - so they look pitch-black instead of just "in shadow". It'd be interesting to know if that's the same for all cars with an interior.

I think it's much more simple than that. I would even say it's a '5 min fix'... What they need to do to the code is to change shadows transparency from 0% to ~90%. Problem solved.

 

[RedBaron]

In replay, they could mess with HDR how they like and simulate low dynamic range cameras, but not in race when it's important to see what driver's eye can see in reality. I don't know any car where it's impossible to see instrument cluster perfectly when driving.

 

[O.G]

Doesn't anyone know the real reason behind darkened interiors? Some say that 1 person drives our cars all at the same time... He's called the Stig... His helmet's view is blackened out as he relies on his tinkling sixth sense to race around the track.

 

[YZF]

Doesn't anyone know the real reason behind darkened interiors? Some say that 1 person drives our cars all at the same time... He's called the Stig... His helmet's view is blackened out as he relies on his tinkling sixth sense to race around the track.

I purchased and 'installed' helmet without visor. Try guessing if it made any difference

 

[Griffith500]

I think it's much more simple than that. I would even say it's a '5 min fix'... What they need to do to the code is to change shadows transparency from 0% to ~90%. Problem solved.

I'm not convinced that's all it is, it does look like typical "backface" lighting to me.
But what you say could fix the issue if the only shading the interior receives is from the shadow maps. But that is highly unlikely to be the case.

EDIT: in fact it is clearly not the case, as you can see the shadows sweep over the dials and they're still readable. Then when the car faces the sun (the dials face away), they're totally black. Just like backfaces (from the point of view of the light) with direct lighting and no / too low ambient term.

 

[Connorman95]

Ikr. So annoying. What i do is turn the brightness up, but that's a pain.

 

[YZF]

I'm not convinced that's all it is, it does look like typical "backface" lighting to me.
But what you say could fix the issue if the only shading the interior receives is from the shadow maps. But that is highly unlikely to be the case.

EDIT: in fact it is clearly not the case, as you can see the shadows sweep over the dials and they're still readable. Then when the car faces the sun (the dials face away), they're totally black. Just like backfaces (from the point of view of the light) with direct lighting and no / too low ambient term.

Do you mean that shadows are non-transparent and it's not possible to look 'through' them? I don't think so. They have different levels of darkness, and if you look closer, sometimes you'll see the transition from 100% transparency to 80% to 40% and to 0%. It goes very fast (like in half a second) but still there are differnet 'levels' of darkness.

So it's just a matter of setting min transparency to, lets say, 80% (not lower) and it's all good.

 

[Griffith500]

Do you mean that shadows are non-transparent and it's not possible to look 'through' them? I don't think so. They have different levels of darkness, and if you look closer, sometimes you'll see the transition from 100% transparency to 80% to 40% and to 0%. It goes very fast (like in half a second) but still there are differnet 'levels' of darkness.

So it's just a matter of setting min transparency to, lets say, 80% (not lower) and it's all good.

No, I mean that the shadows are visible over the dials at times (e.g. right at the start of your video), and the dials are still perfectly legible, whether occluded or not. So even if you remove those shadows, there would be little impact in those specific situations.

The problem appears to be when the dials are facing away from the "sun" (the car is facing into the sun, low level sun). Again, the shadow maps are not the only shading the interior receives. Because most of the interior is curved, that direct lighting behaviour isn't too problematic, but for planar surfaces like the dials, it's very easy to get total blackness with the right alignment.

 

[RSnider]

The problem is your eyeballs. Everyone's eyeballs, to be precise. When you're driving a real car and glance down at the radio or the instruments, your pupils seamlessly dilate to take in more light, so it doesn't seem dim. The game can't do this because it has no way of knowing where you're actually looking at any given instant, so it just assumes you're looking out the windscreen. The only way to correct this is to artificially brighten the interiors, which would require a major overhaul of the lighting engine.

I for one, would be perfectly content to settle for illuminated dials in all vehicles, regardless of real-world accuracy. At least that way you could see when to shift.

An even simpler solution would be to give us the option to use the regular tach/speedo display in the cockpit view. This would be a piece of cake in terms of coding.

Of course, none of this agrees with Kaz's idea of what Gran Turismo should be, so don't count on it.

 

[research]

The problem is your eyeballs. Everyone's eyeballs.... The game can't do this because it has no way of knowing where you're actually looking at any given instant, so it just assumes you're looking out the windscreen.

No, sorry bro. It's not up to "the game" to decide such ridiculous things. It's the programmers and testers who must figure this SIMPLE problem out. This is as easy as it gets. Call the fix 'artificial' or whatever you want, but right now the dials go black. Even old nintendo developers would know better than to allow this.


I'm really starting to think that the 'respectful' japanese culture is just killing us here. Example:

PD Tester cannot see his tachometer because it is black.
PD Tester is too 'respectful'.
Hands disk back to programmer. "Looks fantastic"
GT6 is stamped. Shipped.

Consumers take beating.

👎

 

[Griffith500]

No, sorry bro. It's not up to "the game" to decide such ridiculous things. It's the programmers and testers who must figure this SIMPLE problem out. This is as easy as it gets. Call the fix 'artificial' or whatever you want, but right now the dials go black. Even old nintendo developers would know better than to allow this.


I'm really starting to think that the 'respectful' japanese culture is just killing us here. Example:

PD Tester cannot see his tachometer because it is black.
PD Tester is too 'respectful'.
Hands disk back to programmer. "Looks fantastic"
GT6 is stamped. Shipped.

Consumers take beating.

👎

That's very simplistic. Games are a bit more complex now than what those "old nintendo developers" were making, no disrespect intended whatsoever. What's more likely to have happened is not that this effect was "allowed", rather a specific interaction of complex systems has caused a phenomenon that has slipped through the net. Or, it's known and is tolerated because of the complexity of fiddling with a finely balanced system (the entire lighting component of the game) could just make everything worse.

Short of redesigning the whole lighting engine to catch these fringe cases, or combing through each car to fiddle with normals or material properties or something, it might just be a case of waiting for a proper fix, instead of expecting some SIMPLE hack or other.

Although, I've just thought of a possible, maybe even slightly elegant hack, and that's to sample the reflection map every frame, average the "brightness" of these samples over several frames, and use that as the ambient term for the interiors (then, when it's night, the ambient term will be dark, rather than something excessively bright that only works well at dusk.) This "ambient term" represents the darkest any face could be - which in this case would be anything facing away from the sun, and being shaded by the real time shadows (which should be a redundant condition, but real time shadows always do weird things) - i.e. these problematic interiors.

For now, what you need to avoid are situations where the sun perfectly lines up with the dials in 3D - change the time of day, avoiding a very low sun, and it's "fixed". I'm not saying that's ideal, it's a workaround.

 

[YZF]

Today we got fourth patch (1.04) and nothing has changed. This issue is still not fixed, and we still have black shadows covering dials and you can't see anything through them.

PD - we don't NEED NEW CONTENT. Fix existing bugs and issues!

 

[YZF]

Thanks to famine for fixing broken thread (missing first post)

PD should take an example how to fix bugs

 

[Swagger897]

Has anybody here tried to drive the BMW e92 GT2? Yeah... LCD display and we still can see the read outs. I think that the Diablo (or whatever Lamborghini it is) GT2 has the best cockpit exposure, where the BMW takes the cake for forward exposure. Runner up I think would be the c2 corvette (premium) look backwards and tell me that isn't a standard carry over..

 

[YZF]

Today we got patch 1.05. This issue is still not fixed ...

 

[research]

ugh

 

[poumpoum]