About rain / wet asphalt

You guys ever thought about the rain and wet asphalt in earlier Gran Turismo games?

I remember back in the GT3 days. The wet asphalt looked so good. And when rain finally came to GT5, the asphalt looked the same dry as it did wet.

Which brings me to this. Which one of you guys would like to see more realistic rain and wet asphalt, and which one of you want the whole rain thing disappear in GT6?

I dont know if they look the same wet and dry



I would like to have puddles and shininess like in photomode however

syntex123

You guys ever thought about the rain and wet asphalt in earlier Gran Turismo games?

I remember back in the GT3 days. The wet asphalt looked so good. And when rain finally came to GT5, the asphalt looked the same dry as it did wet.

Which brings me to this. Which one of you guys would like to see more realistic rain and wet asphalt, and which one of you want the whole rain thing disappear in GT6?

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Try Eiger Nordwand with weather set to 100% and water on track set to 100%. The rain and wet ground look especially good on this track in GT5.

The main issue with rain is there is too much grip on RS tyres, and it is hard to aquaplane even on slicks. Hopefully GT6's new physics model will fix it.

Dmarc_Atl

I dont know if they look the same wet and dry
(large image)
(large image)
I would like to have puddles and shininess like in photomode however
(large image)

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Puddles would be awesome.

Rain thing to dissapear? HAIL NO.

If they can improve it they should. In GT5 when the ground is wet, it does not look wet, its not shiny.

I must admit that I haven't played GT5 since spring of 2011, so I don't remember how its rain was in great detail, but I believe I had found it pretty underwhelming. Other games like Codemasters F1 2010 had such fantastic weather, and then GT5 came along and seemed so crude by comparison.

Rain in PGR4, released way back in 2007:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB1tOurDFg4

I don't recall whether GT5 really did any better than PGR4, but PGR4 was released 1) on Xbox 360 and 2) three full years before GT5, not to mention that it isn't a genre-leading franchise that sells ten million copies of each release.

F1 2010:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjbrsZ9a_i8

Codemasters set the bar extremely high.

The wet effect in GT5 vary from track to track depending of the resources. PGR4 was a 30 fps game so is much easy to reproduce those hungry processor effects. PS4 will solve all that at 60 fps.

NFSCARBON1

The main issue with rain is there is too much grip on RS tyres, and it is hard to aquaplane even on slicks. Hopefully GT6's new physics model will fix it.

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Set the grip option to "real" and you will have a realistic behaviour depending of the tyres. RS tyres are unplayable in that mode.

Well that last pic shows GT wet asphalt at its best, I still find it very dull. As mentioned earlier puddles and stuff would be great. And the F1 series has always shown good rain effects, yes. It would be great to see some improvement

And yeah, RS is really hard when set to real. So the realism is kinda there, but the looks needs some improvements

The wet effect in GT5 looks great only at SSR7.
On the other track it doesn't look wet at all.



Compare to Project Cars

You wanted to say "compare PS3 with PC".

Well, it has its flaws, and if its not corrected we might just aswell live with it, just as with the no metallic paint. No metallic feel at all. But back to topic. It would look better with puddles and stuff.

I want to see the line that the cars make ahead.and the rooster tails from the race cars.

Agreed.

syntex123

Well that last pic shows GT wet asphalt at its best, I still find it very dull. As mentioned earlier puddles and stuff would be great. And the F1 series has always shown good rain effects, yes. It would be great to see some improvement

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F1 is also a 30 fps game. Is unrealistic to expect the same effects at 60fps with GT5-6 graphics. Fact is that GT5 is the only car game in consoles with rain effects at 60fps and sometimes does things that even PC games are not doing like the real-time rain drop physics and volumetric rain clouds.





PS4 will show all the realism which Polyphony is capable without the actual hardware restrictions. They know how to do it right.

Looking at it like that makes the rain look OK, but I'm speaking of water on the asphalt. Not on the windshield
- Speaking of which I kinda hope they improve how the wipers wipe away the rain, looks awful, the rain isn't where the wiper wipes at all lol. You can see the edge clearly, looks weird

Zer0

F1 is also a 30 fps game. Is unrealistic to expect the same effects at 60fps with GT5-6 graphics. Fact is that GT5 is the only car game in consoles with rain effects at 60fps and sometimes does things that even PC games are not doing like the real-time rain drop physics and volumetric rain clouds.

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Except GT5 does not maintain a locked 60fps with rain, rather rain is one of the things that will see that frame rate drop, in the example in the link it never hits 60fps and can drop as low as 30fps. That's without a cockpit view and the rain effects that come with it hitting the performance harder still.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-gran-turismo-5-tech-analysis?page=3
Rain effects in GT5 are without a doubt impressive, but its not a 60fps game when they are in use.

Zer0

PS4 will show all the realism which Polyphony is capable without the actual hardware restrictions. They know how to do it right.

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We all hope so.

I think if they can simulate wet track better (maybe reflections and a more overall wet look. Not sure about puddles etc) and allow the spray effects to actually hit the screen properly, it would be great. I also think that is possible on PS3. Any more and it would tax the system too much.

Yes better weather effects would be nice. Especially when we go to take a pic of the cars in the rain. They are currently dry in GT5.

PGR4 still has some of the best weather effects I have seen in a game. Dirt 3 also has some nice weather effects along with F1 2011 and F1 2012. TDU2 also has some beautiful weather effects too.

Scaff

Except GT5 does not maintain a locked 60fps with rain, rather rain is one of the things that will see that frame rate drop, in the example in the link it never hits 60fps and can drop as low as 30fps. That's without a cockpit view and the rain effects that come with it hitting the performance harder still.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-gran-turismo-5-tech-analysis?page=3
Rain effects in GT5 are without a doubt impressive, but its not a 60fps game when they are in use.

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I don't expect much credit from you but that's an old mantra Scaff. Are you aware of the GT5 progress?

First the framerate was not as bad as that.

At game launch.


After the 2.03 update.



But if you prefer:

Zer0

F1 is also a 30 fps, 720p game. Is unrealistic to expect the same effects at a maximum of 60fps unlocked/1280x1080 with GT5-6 graphics and still being playable. Fact is that GT5 is the only car game in consoles with rain effects rendered at those specs and sometimes does things that even PC games are not doing like the real-time rain drop physics and volumetric rain clouds.

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Zer0

I don't expect much credit from you but that's an old mantra Scaff. Are you aware of the GT5 progress?

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I'm more than aware of the progress, but onto that in a minute.

Zer0

First the framerate was not as bad as that.
At game launch.

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So the source I posted just made it up and the video was a fake then?

You link contains a fair bit less traffic, doesn't state what res its running at and still doesn't hold a locked 60fps (which was the point I made).

Zer0

After the 2.03 update.

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Yes, following the removal of trackside detail above a certain car count which was a smart move to help keep the frame rate up (and one that I have mentioned in other threads as an example of how PD are able to optimism the engine).

However it does lack one slight detail that would make it relevant to this topic.......rain.

Ouch.

LOL, I was just talking about this very thing with my friend today. I remember when I was amazed back in the day when GT3 came out and they had the wet pavement effects on the Special Stages.

I would think with how much more power the PS3 has, they could simulate that look on "all" the tracks that have weather. I could be wrong though.

I am very aware of the GT5 progress, the rain actually looked better (especially the rain on the windscreen) in the early stages. But anyway.

Yes, @MattZR1, that was amazing. That's the kind of water effect on the asphalt I want back!

Scaff

I'm more than aware of the progress, but onto that in a minute.


So the source I posted just made it up and the video was a fake then?

You link contains a fair bit less traffic, doesn't state what res its running at and still doesn't hold a locked 60fps (which was the point I made).



Yes, following the removal of trackside detail above a certain car count which was a smart move to help keep the frame rate up (and one that I have mentioned in other threads as an example of how PD are able to optimism the engine).

However it does lack one slight detail that would make it relevant to this topic.......rain.

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It has nothing to do with optimising the engine. In fact, if they were optimising the engine, they wouldn't have to remove entire sections of scenery in the first place! This is simple scene management - a quick check based on the car count / online can easily be used to load in / dump the particular models and textures to / from memory. As such, this should be filed under "dirty hack", far from "optimising".


My take on rain is that the Premiums took so damned long to make that feature creep set in as prototypes that were perhaps initially intended for later games started to mature. But, rather than put them in a game specifically designed from the ground up to support it, it's shoe-horned into, or perhaps painted over the top of, the existing engine.

The fact that GT6 has already had an overhaul of the grahpics pipeline should mean all tracks can support day / night and weather (as appropriate) and also that the effects will be built into the engine, or rather the engine will be built to accommodate them. At least this is the sensible, and not at all unreasonable, hope

Previous games have had to severely limit the amount of "stuff" being rendered at the same time as the rain / standing water effects (GT3, GT4) - GT5 was the first to allow full-size grids, with some obvious detriment to performance a lot of the time.
I suspect that PD suspected they could optimise that from the bottom up somehow, given they were likely working on it "top down" just before release, if we remember Kaz's comment about forgiving them for standing starts in the rain and their attendant frame rate.

Zer0

The wet effect in GT5 vary from track to track depending of the resources. PGR4 was a 30 fps game so is much easy to reproduce those hungry processor effects. PS4 will solve all that at 60 fps.

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Driveclub developers opted for 30 fps because they wanted "deformable guard rails".

I'd like for the physics when driving in the wet to be different from the dry regardless of tire.

MattZR1

LOL, I was just talking about this very thing with my friend today. I remember when I was amazed back in the day when GT3 came out and they had the wet pavement effects on the Special Stages.

I would think with how much more power the PS3 has, they could simulate that look on "all" the tracks that have weather. I could be wrong though.

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Most of us would have thought so...


BUT

He went on to discuss the power of the PlayStation 2, and how it was able to outperform, in some ways, the PS3:

“When the [PlayStation 2] came out, one unique characteristic of that system was that the screen fill rate was very fast. Even looking back now, it’s very fast. In some cases, it’s faster than the PS3. There, we were able to use a lot of textures. It was able to do that read-modify-write, where it reads the screen, you take the screenshot, and you modify it and send it back. It could do that very quickly.

“I don’t know if anybody remembers, but when the PS2 first came out, the first thing I did on that was a demo for the announcement. I showed a demo of GT3 that showed the Seattle course at sunset with the heat rising off the ground and shimmering. You can’t re-create that heat haze effect on the PS3 because the read-modify-write just isn’t as fast as when we were using the PS2. There are things like that. Another reason is because of the transition to full HD.”

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I really really REALLY really! hope that they've optimized the game's engine enough to recreate this effect.

HKS racer

Driveclub developers opted for 30 fps because they wanted "deformable guard rails".

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And? What does that mean? Should Gran Turismo developerS opt for 30fps for THAT?

Connoissuer

I'd like for the physics when driving in the wet to be different from the dry regardless of tire.

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I'm not trying to be a smart aleck like I was to the other poster, but how do you mean?

another_jakhole

I really really REALLY really! hope that they've optimized the game's engine enough to recreate this effect.

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I wouldn't count on it though.

another_jakhole

And? What does that mean? Should Gran Turismo developerS opt for 30fps for THAT?

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It means that PS4 is not a magic bullet that is going to solve all our problems. PS3 struggled for 60fps because of PD trying to push so much stuff through it, and there's no guarantee that PS4 won't be the same. The bar is raised once they're on next gen, just having PS3 quality graphics running at a solid 60fps won't be enough.

Imari

It means that PS4 is not a magic bullet that is going to solve all our problems. PS3 struggled for 60fps because of PD trying to push so much stuff through it, and there's no guarantee that PS4 won't be the same. The bar is raised once they're on next gen, just having PS3 quality graphics running at a solid 60fps won't be enough.

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But the PS4 with its different architecture and higher RAM will be able to handle those effects far more easily. There is no surety that GT7 will be going the 30fps route - but I agree that the bar will have been raised.

The TT LMP challenge on Tsukuba in GT4 looked very wet. I'd like for that style to return.