rFactor 2 WIP HDR comparison screenshots

[ZeosPantera]

To compensate i turn my monitor to minimum brightness in an attempt to match the average luminance of the environment (grass, road aren't backlit, for example). That does limit the brightness of sunlight in-game of course, but hey, what can ya do within 256 shades?

I wonder if there is some fundamental adjustment around the yellow/green wavelength that should be made when displaying an image on a backlit medium like a monitor, in an attempt to neurtalise/naturalise it?
Any thoughts anyone?

Just calibrate your display to the best of your ability. Don't guess or just turn your monitor down to spite itself. Use these calibrate.

http://i.imgur.com/406m4.png http://i.imgur.com/97VkS.png

I use a CRT here (GDM-FW900) A crt's tech is much different then an LCD's in how it actually lights the image. An LCD turns a pixel on and off allowing light through. It gets that light from a set of Cold Cathode Florescent's or LED emitters to shine through a polarization layer to light the image from behind. A CRT shoots electrons at the glass which is covered with a phosphor. The phosphor itself glows and the pixel generates its own light. I have looked far and wide and no LCD has yet to be as impressive as this particular CRT. Making my view of these shots completely different then most.

[Beemer]

it's not about monitor calibration if lighting intensity is too high ..it will burnt white/lite colors awyway...and make shadows too dark.

[Lazza]

LCDs are great... but there's a reason graphics pros use CRT or more expensive options. You can throw a lot of these 'contentious' HDR shots on screen, and turn them from 'too dark' to 'too revealing' simply by moving them to the top or bottom of your screen - or move your head so you're viewing them from a different angle

On the other hand, I believe it's a mistake to try and recreate what you see with your eyes in real life. It's simply impossible to put all that color range in 8-bit displays of our monitors.

It's all the same fairly hopeless striving towards 'realism' whether it's graphics, physics, track detail, wheel/seat feedback, or anything else isn't it? Even if you had a screen capable of reproducing exactly what you would see when looking at a specific object (or point on that object) from a specific place at a given time, season, etc etc, it'll be wrong as soon as you look 10 pixels to the right because the image won't adjust like your eyes would. So then what? Eyeball tracking so the image adjusts realistically based on where you're looking, obviously also compensating for your ambient lighting and its effects on how you'll see the screen...

No matter the area in the sim it's always a representation of reality, not an attempt to replace the real world with a computer program. Doesn't matter how it looks, some people will say it's unrealistic because we'll all have our own idea of what's actually 'correct' (bearing in mind correct isn't even possible to produce!)

The glass-half-full viewpoint is that we should be happy we're getting to the point of arguing such fine details when it comes to judging whether a generated image looks real; a far cry from the days of solid polygons, sprites, or (gasp!) wireframe...

[K Szczech]

If you had a minotor capable of displaying real values you wouldn't have to adjust anything - you would simply output values you rendered onto screen.
There would be hovewer problem with what's around monitor. When game takes place at night, user would have to play the game at night with lights turned off, so his eyes would adjust to what's displayed, not what's around monitor.

And there would be of course risk, when game crashes and goes back to desktop, suddenly smashing user in the face with blinding light
Anyway that's not the case here, so let's not go to far off topic.

Of course I wasn't saying renderers shouldn't aim for realism - they of course should. What we can't do is to present that rendered image to user in it's original form. That's why HDR implementations use dynamic exposition to adjust to that image before displaying it on screen and that's why they use bloom to give impression of something very bright.

What I'm saying is if you take a photo of something, you may see that colors, brightness, contrast etc, do not look spot-on like the object you just photographed, but that doesn't change the fact that what you see on the photo looks realistic to you.
That's why I don't find it to be some "holy thing" to try and display exactly what you rendered. You may process it in order to make it fit better onto limited display devices.

I gave an example here: LINK
Image on the left attempts to display exactly what has been rendered, while image on the right introduces non-linear exposition to simulate effect of taking a photo of what's been rendered.
Contrast drops, saturation drops - yeah, sure - but does the image one the left look life-like? Well, it tries to display true-to-life values, but fails because it's impossible on our monitors. Image on the right doesn't try to look like real life, just like a photo, and succeds in that.

That's my point. In my opinion it's better to succeed in making photograph-like graphics, than fail in creating life-like graphics.

[mclaren777]

Just calibrate your display to the best of your ability. Don't guess or just turn your monitor down to spite itself. Use these calibrate.

http://i.imgur.com/406m4.png http://i.imgur.com/97VkS.png

Any chance you could re-post these pictures using Minus.com instead? Imgur compresses them.

[Pandamasque]

For those who complain about HDR making things too dark at dawn/sunset:

[O11]

Though I have no interest in joining the HDR discussion I have to say that what cameras show is something entirely different than the eye sees in real life.
Ít's a stylistic choice that has to be made. Do you choose realism (what the eye sees) or percieved realism (what the cameras have shown racefans for decades and they now percieve as real).
The problem is that the "realism" choice can be experienced by the users as "unremarkable". It's just bland because it's what we know from everyday life. Putting emphasis on contrast and lighting effects can spice things up and give the users more of what they expect in terms of excitement.


Same with sound. The interior enigine sounds of racecars in games have way too much exterior exhaust note in them a lot of the time. Because that's what the fans know and love. There are ofcourse cars that DO sound epic from the interior.

[Pandamasque]

Though I have no interest in joining the HDR discussion I have to say that what cameras show is something entirely different than the eye sees in real life.
Ít's a stylistic choice that has to be made. Do you choose realism (what the eye sees) or percieved realism (what the cameras have shown racefans for decades and they now percieve as real).
The problem is that the "realism" choice can be experienced by the users as "unremarkable". It's just bland because it's what we know from everyday life. Putting emphasis on contrast and lighting effects can spice things up and give the users more of what they expect in terms of excitement.

Is it even possible to depict what you actually see while staring directly at the sun? I don't think our eyes and brains are capable of seeing normally in such conditions. It's like trying to simulate hallucinations.

[O11]

Yup. Haha, I think there's some kind of paradox here.

To simulate what the driver sees we show them what we see in real life, but shown on a screen that's not what you see in real life.

[ZeosPantera]

The only way to avoid doing any HDR would be to have a monitor capable of brightness equal to the sun so that looking at it in-game causes our real eyes to open and close our iris.

Since I like these in-car video's I will post two that I have been holding back on.

First is a Ferrari F40 LM showing what a real driver goes through. Look at that man drive.


Here is a very recent lap of the Nurbergring Nordschleife done by the 580HP Chevrolet Camaro ZL1.


This on-board video is a very good one because the camera seems to be mounted to a flexible stabilizing arm and moves almost like a real head. Kind of like the head movement in rFactor emulates.

[Carbonfibre]

Do you choose realism (what the eye sees) or percieved realism (what the cameras have shown racefans for decades and they now percieve as real).
The problem is that the "realism" choice can be experienced by the users as "unremarkable". It's just bland because it's what we know from everyday life. Putting emphasis on contrast and lighting effects can spice things up and give the users more of what they expect in terms of excitement.

Here I was thinking that the camera is "realism" because our brains are so easily fooled.

So really, we endeavour to calibrate cameras to what we interpret as real...

You know what, I'd rather not get unnecessarily philosophical either because it's such small feature. If people want a temporary "white-out" when coming out of a tunnel and that's a feature people want, then it should happen.

Instead ISI's top priority should be shaders.

Just look how much more real the latest batch of shots from C.A.R.S is, based on how much better their graphic engine materials are responding to light.
I cherry picked that for lowest light conditions.

[LRT24]

I think you are right - the shaders, the reflections, the textures, the shadows all need to be really sorted before you start messing around with things like HDR.

[Alesi]

Here I was thinking that the camera is "realism" because our brains are so easily fooled.

So really, we endeavour to calibrate cameras to what we interpret as real...

You know what, I'd rather not get unnecessarily philosophical either because it's such small feature. If people want a temporary "white-out" when coming out of a tunnel and that's a feature people want, then it should happen.

Instead ISI's top priority should be shaders.

Just look how much more real the latest batch of shots from C.A.R.S is, based on how much better their graphic engine materials are responding to light.
I cherry picked that for lowest light conditions.

yeah!! they makes only 10% (finished in 2012, started not long ago), but there u can find more videos then ISI does (we still looking on some WIP pictures after 3 years). they (C.A.R.S) every weeks making game, its a new build every weeks, they asking for opinion on customers.. what about ISI? nothing, only wip pictures...and new (old) videos, that can makes anybody who can use video programs((( this game will kill iracing, rfactors, and others. And u may continue makes your game, maybe someday u finally finished it, but there will be 2014.. and graphics will be too poor and too old.. WELL DONE!!

[Woodee]

yeah!! they makes only 10% (finished in 2012, started not long ago), but there u can find more videos then ISI does (we still looking on some WIP pictures after 3 years). they (C.A.R.S) every weeks making game, its a new build every weeks, they asking for opinion on customers.. what about ISI? nothing, only wip pictures...and new (old) videos, that can makes anybody who can use video programs((( this game will kill iracing, rfactors, and others. And u may continue makes your game, maybe someday u finally finished it, but there will be 2014.. and graphics will be too poor and too old.. WELL DONE!!

Don't buy RF2 then.

CARS Vs RF2 ..... Apples Vs Oranges

CARS is a community/commercially funded simulator. ALOT different to what ISI has created. You can't compare the two so why bother?

[Beemer]

Actually peoples misunderstand what HDR really is...HDR is summary from those effects (SSAO, Bloom ..etc) C.A.R.S use hdr as well to force lighting , but now
released version using effects very neutrally...everybody who purhased , can push the button and start adjust effects and hdr types..and realize it using HDR ..

[Alesi]

Don't buy RF2 then.

CARS Vs RF2 ..... Apples Vs Oranges

CARS is a community/commercially funded simulator. ALOT different to what ISI has created. You can't compare the two so why bother?

ha.. its not about me. its does not matter C.A.R.S, trucks or else! what i say its true. they have nothing to show us, after many years.. cars its just an example of how u should work if u want to do something.. apples vs orange? ha... from rf2 u only see some pictures (in my opinion not good quality with graphics couple of years ago) even doesnt know about physics rf2 (only their words about it) - in c.a.r.s u already may tray it... its not my complаin. I said what it really is (and looks like) I do not give out desired (what we wish) for actual

[K Szczech]

I think you are right - the shaders, the reflections, the textures, the shadows all need to be really sorted before you start messing around with things like HDR.

First you need to develop a solid lighting system (including shadows of course).
Then it doesn't matter if you go for HDR or for shaders/materials first. It's only important to get both right.

Sometimes it's also helpful to have HDR working before you get on with serious work on textures. Especially when you're using non-linear tone mapping that can change appearance (brightness, contrast and saturation) of objects.

Actually peoples misunderstand what HDR really is...HDR is summary from those effects (SSAO, Bloom ..etc)

I can see that you don't understand what HDR is either

Rendering things using HDR means you're unrestricted in terms of lighting, reflections and blending. SSAO has absolutely nothing to do with HDR. Bloom also has nothing to do with HDR in fact.
SSAO and Bloom are postprocessing effects while HDR is all about freeing rendering engine from restrictions of 24-bit color palette and then fitting it onto screen at the end which may (but doesn't have to) include postprocessing techniques like tone mapping.


In other terms - in HDR you no longer think of colors, but of light intensity. For example - in classic rendering you would say that sunlight is white (RGB = 255, 255, 255). Nothing can be brighter than white and that's it. In HDR however, you can say that sun has the intensity of (0.8, 0.8, 0.8), but you can say that it has intensity of (5000.0, 5000.0, 5000.0).
So as you can see, the whole point of HDR is to get rid of unnecessary restrictions and calculate lighting in real-life values.


Another example - when you turn on your headlights during sunny day, you'll find that they don't light things up that much, but during night they of course make huge difference. To get that without HDR game would have to weaken headlights during day which is a workaround, not realism.
With HDR you can make sun produce light intensity of 100.0, moon produce 1.0 and headlights produce 10.0 during both night and day. When camera (eye) will adjust to current brightness of the scene, then you will get the impression that headlights are weak during day, but the actual value of their light intensity is the same.


That's exactly what HDR is for - to work with real values of light intensity.

[Ernie]

In other terms - in HDR you no longer think of colors, but of light intensity. For example - in classic rendering you would say that sunlight is white (RGB = 255, 255, 255). Nothing can be brighter than white and that's it. In HDR however, you can say that sun has the intensity of (0.8, 0.8, 0.8), but you can say that it has intensity of (5000.0, 5000.0, 5000.0).
So as you can see, the whole point of HDR is to get rid of unnecessary restrictions and calculate lighting in real-life values.


Another example - when you turn on your headlights during sunny day, you'll find that they don't light things up that much, but during night they of course make huge difference. To get that without HDR game would have to weaken headlights during day which is a workaround, not realism.
With HDR you can make sun produce light intensity of 100.0, moon produce 1.0 and headlights produce 10.0 during both night and day. When camera (eye) will adjust to current brightness of the scene, then you will get the impression that headlights are weak during day, but the actual value of their light intensity is the same.


That's exactly what HDR is for - to work with real values of light intensity.

Great explanation. Thanks.

[Beemer]

like i said , there isn't just HDR...it's many things summary which you see in ya displayed image ..when talking about "HDR" ..below you can take a look Valve's
method.

http://www.siggraph.org/chapters/sig...01d-technology

[mclaren777]

I wouldn't be surprised if C.A.R.S. had a development team that was five times the size of ISI (100 vs 20).

Comparing the products made by each studio is somewhat unreasonable.