FM Vs GT - Discussion Thread (read the first post before you post)

[HBK]

Top Gear GTP sounds like a great idea! I'd watch that.

On the lighting topic, it's a bit silly to think about how T10 hyped up the image based lighting and all that - and seemingly never realized that it juest doesn't look mindblowingly realistic. They'll hopefully focus more on that than technicalities for FM5.

IBL is a very efficient way (resource efficient) to obtain reasonably good lighting effects. But yeah, if there is one point where GT is undoubtedly leagues ahead of everyone, it's the lighting and overall colorimetry. It's not perfect, but it's impressive, and neither Forza 4 nor Forza Horizon is there yet. Far from it.

 

[SuperShouden]

Talk about persecution complex.

I don't think that's a thing. But whatever.

It's also not just Laguna Seca, Scraff. If was just Laguna, it wouldn't be so bad. But, on EVERY track...it's like Turn10 went in and turn the contrast to the max on every track. Every track is too bright. At least when the sun's out. When it's "cloudy" the lighting is actually normal, which makes sense.

And...there are other games with the blown out lighting like Dirt, but in a rally game it almost makes sense and works a little better. For a road racing game...it can be annoying. Especially when the tarmac is shinier than a polished turd. Seriously, take a moment when you're racing on a nice sunny track and look up at the clouds. See how they glow. Look over at the sun and it's massiveness. It's almost like racing on Mercury.

EDIT: I used an outdoor area to adjust my photo settings for FM4 and got the levels to look a LOT more realistic. My changes:

Exposure - 22
Contrast - 27
Brightness - 28

So there's you the issue with FM4's lighting. The Contrast is too high, the Exposure is REALLY high and the brightness is too high. Seriously, turn them down and see how realistic the photo mode looks.

Also, why are we talking about the GTP Top Gear in this thread?

 

[Eks]

Wow! I translated this as "You're an idiot. You're completely right, but you're still and idiot." What is this, Top Gear?

Where it all started.


Anyway, not to mention that it is FM's light engine that makes the models look like plastic. Looking at FM4 renders proves otherwise. 👍

 

[Com Fox]

It's photo mode, I'm not sure if lot's of people care, however I've never used photo mode and couldn't care pess if a car looks pretty on a photo, when it looks amazing while you're driving is more important IMO.

 

[SuperShouden]

No. Outside of photomode, the contrast, exposure and brightness are too high. That's just in general. In Photomode, to get a decent picture you have to turn everything down otherwise you get an overexposed picture 'cause that's what FM4's lighting system is running as for some reason. Maybe that's for "multiplayer" purposes too, I don't know. Only Turn10 really knows.

 

[Wolfe]

Since the dawn of "realistic" 3D graphics I've always run mega-contrast on my TVs, or in the game settings. Blacks and darks are seldom dark enough, IMO, and brightness control can't fix that without turning brights/whites to gray. This all varies from display to display, of course -- and the vast majority of my gaming is on CRT -- but perhaps Turn 10 sees things the way I do, because I think FM4 is their best effort yet. Previous Forzas tended to have harsh, black-shadowed cars on soft, bright, candy-colored backgrounds. FM4 is more consistent across the whole scene and the contrast is good.

You definitely have to be careful with all this when taking photos, though.

 

[HBK]

Forza 4 is definitely a huge improvement over previous iterations in regard to lighting.

But it's still far from being as realistic as the kind of near perfect lighting we usually see in the GT series.

 

[Speedster911]

How realistic the IML model of FM4 looks on your TV, is a matter of setting up YOUR TV properly to *accomodate* FM4.

It's as simple as that. FM4's graphics require quite a bit of tweaking before you can get the graphics to look less saturated and high contrast, and more photo realistic.

Yes, it is doable. But most folks don't bother and just blame it on the game and the lighting model.

Just my 2.

 

[Tornado]

That sounds quite a bit like the "it's not GT5's fault the game sounds bad. It's your audio system" argument.

 

[HBK]

That sounds quite a bit like the "it's not GT5's fault the game sounds bad. It's your audio system" argument.

Quite a bit.

I have high-end audio.

And a good 1080p projector.

GT5 audio (car sounds) is bad. Painfully bad.

And FM4 lighthing is not very realistic (but it looks good, at least).

 

[Speedster911]

The above "bad audio not GT5's fault" argument has practically nothing to do with the IBL in FM4.

*Compared* to GT, it does fall short. On it's on, it hold out pretty well. AS LONG AS you set up your TV to accomodate it.

 

[Tornado]

So I have to set up my TV settings to "accommodate" one game despite other games I play on the system having no problems with overboosted lighting/contrast? And that somehow isn't an analogous argument to "other games may sound fine with crappy TV speakers, but if you set your audio system up properly GT5 sounds fine"?

Can you explain how the arguments aren't pretty much identical?

 

[ImaRobot]

To be honest FM4's lighting has always been weird to me. When taking a photo and uploading it to FM.net the colors, brightness, and saturation was always way off from Console and the website. Its the only game that I had to change my Video settings just so there wouldn't be any discrepancies when uploaded. I had to set up one of my HDMI outlets to "FM4 photomode" pretty much, and my other to "any other game." Wasnt to hard but was bothersome switching back and forth depending on what I wanted to do. Although all that might not have to do with the game itself, but someone should be able to correct me.

That being said though, the settings I would generally use on all my games made FM4 look pretty nasty. I then had to create another set up just for FM4 lol. Luckily at the time I didnt have to many games, and I would pretty much just play FM4.

 

[Speedster911]

Why certainly Tornado:

While GT5's ubber retarded engine sounds can simply not be masked by even the best sound system or patch for that matter, FM4's graphics can be *toned down* to look less saturated and more photo realistic.

I won't dive into a lot of detail, but after *adjusting* the settings, you'll experience less of the bloom effect. I gave somebody named Mike a little feedback regarding this sometime back. And he was very happy after making the *corrections*.

You can give it a go and improve your FM4 experience, or you could continue to whine and/or make a mockery of it.

Your call mate. Cheers.

To be honest FM4's lighting has always been weird to me. When taking a photo and uploading it to FM.net the colors, brightness, and saturation was always way off from Console and the website. Its the only game that I had to change my Video settings just so there wouldn't be any discrepancies when uploaded. I had to set up one of my HDMI outlets to "FM4 photomode" pretty much, and my other to "any other game." Wasnt to hard but was bothersome switching back and forth depending on what I wanted to do. Although all that might not have to do with the game itself, but someone should be able to correct me.

That being said though, the settings I would generally use on all my games made FM4 look pretty nasty. I then had to create another set up just for FM4 lol. Luckily at the time I didnt have to many games, and I would pretty much just play FM4.

Hi,

Can you please post your console's and TV's settings?

Maybe I can help you here.

Happy driving.

 

[Tornado]

Why certainly Tornado:

While GT5's ubber retarded engine sounds can simply not be masked by even the best sound system or patch for that matter, FM4's graphics can be *toned down* to look less saturated and more photo realistic.

So the argument that you need to change something about your setup to accommodate Forza's deficiencies (that you don't need to do for other games) is different from the argument that you need to change something about your setup to accommodate GT5's deficiencies (that you don't need to do for other games) because the results when you do so are more obvious?


Keep in mind that statements like this:

You can give it a go and improve your FM4 experience, or you could continue to whine and/or make a mockery of it.

Don't help your argument when I never did anything of the sort.

 

[Scaff]

You can give it a go and improve your FM4 experience, or you could continue to whine and/or make a mockery of it.

Your call mate. Cheers.

The dig at other members are not required, so please don't do this again.

 

[Speedster911]

Just trying to help.

You don't have to get all sissy and defensive just because our opinions don't match.

In future, I won't.

Cheers then.

 

[Speedster911]

So the argument that you need to change something about your setup to accommodate Forza's deficiencies (that you don't need to do for other games) is different from the argument that you need to change something about your setup to accommodate GT5's deficiencies (that you don't need to do for other games) because the results when you do so are more obvious?


Keep in mind that statements like this:
Don't help your argument when I never did anything of the sort.

There is NO argument. It's an option on the table. You choose if you want to pick it or not.

Sheesh, it's just a forum!

 

[KinLM]

There is NO argument. It's an option on the table. You choose if you want to pick it or not.

Sheesh, it's just a forum!

It's your argument because you're suggesting it as the solution. Therefore it is an argument, at least it seems like one to me.

 

[Tornado]

There is NO argument. It's an option on the table. You choose if you want to pick it or not.

Sheesh, it's just a forum!

It ceased to be simple advice on how to get around it when you said that it wasn't the game's fault but the fault of the people who "don't bother and just blame it on the game and the lighting model."

 

[thelvynau]

It ceased to be simple advice on how to get around it when you said that it wasn't the game's fault but the fault of the people who "don't bother and just blame it on the game and the lighting model."

I am with you on that why should anyone mess about with settings to correct a games shorfalls.

 

[ImaRobot]

Hi,

Can you please post your console's and TV's settings?

Maybe I can help you here.

Happy driving.

There's nothing wrong with my tv settings. While using photo mode, in order to get your photos to be identical to what's uploaded to the website you have to dull down your settings so much that everything looks washed out.

While out of photo mode though, if I tried to use settings that I found to be all around great no matter what I was playing/watching, it wouldn't look to appealing.

 

[Wolfe]

Some of it isn't just settings, but types of displays. CRT, projection, LCD, LED, plasma, etc. If your TV is different from your PC monitor which is also different from the laptop you occasionally use, you're gonna have issues with photomode.

 

[Com Fox]

Hey, I've been wandering something.
I've hardly played FM4 as I don't own a 360 and play it at times at a friends place, so I haven't gotten through the GT500 content, so what do you reckon which one has better GT500 content.

 

[Eks]

Hey, I've been wandering something.
I've hardly played FM4 as I don't own a 360 and play it at times at a friends place, so I haven't gotten through the GT500 content, so what do you reckon which one has better GT500 content.

Cars? Well, GT5 has more GT500 cars. I actually think FM4 has more GT300 cars. I may be wrong.

 

[Scaff]

There's nothing wrong with my tv settings. While using photo mode, in order to get your photos to be identical to what's uploaded to the website you have to dull down your settings so much that everything looks washed out.

While out of photo mode though, if I tried to use settings that I found to be all around great no matter what I was playing/watching, it wouldn't look to appealing.

While I would agree that FM4 does look too bright and contrasty on certain tracks its a step forward from the previous titles in the series and I've not had any issues with either photmode or video.

 

[Northstar]

Cars? Well, GT5 has more GT500 cars. I actually think FM4 has more GT300 cars. I may be wrong.

Depends on how you want to look at it, GT5 does have more, but at the same time apart from the HSV-10(DLC on GT5 so it may not count) and 350Z there are no recent GT500 cars missing from F4 and you can always get the missing schemes and more from the marketplace. Although F4 does have a fantasy Hyundai Genesis that I think was made to GT500 regulations.

As for GT300, GT5 has a slight edge there as it has a Subaru, RX-7 and the Garaiya(x2) while Forza only has the Subaru and a 350Z(x2).

 

[ImaRobot]

While I would agree that FM4 does look too bright and contrasty on certain tracks its a step forward from the previous titles in the series and I've not had any issues with either photmode or video.

Well it's not really that I had a problem with it, I was just really picky with my photos. It wasn't drastic, but before I edited my tv settings when I wanted to shoot some photos, when it came to to uploading them and then viewing from the computer they just didn't match up right. They would have less contrast, brightness, and saturation then what I originally shot.

So what I did was take a photo with completely default settings and matched my tv to the uploaded result so that way it would be a perfect match. Like I said though, it was just me nitpicking lol. Although, I do know a lot of people that do this as well.

Some of it isn't just settings, but types of displays. CRT, projection, LCD, LED, plasma, etc. If your TV is different from your PC monitor which is also different from the laptop you occasionally use, you're gonna have issues with photomode.

I explained most of it up there, but the thing is, no matter what kind of screen I was viewing it from it was still the same washed out bland photo. It is a thing the many many people wonder about over on fm.net. I don't know why it's so different with the upload process but I know that a lot of people have had this happen to them. In order to get away from that without changing your tv settings you would usually have to use some extreme settings in photo mode, in which case it still wouldn't look exactly the same.

I was just a perfectionists when it came to photo mode though lol. I was upset at the slightest problems with it.

 

[SlipZtrEm]

Two thoughts on the matter:

I have to make concessions in both GT5 and FM4 when I'm shooting in Photomode, knowing that they'll look different on my computer. As a general example, GT5 pictures normally look slightly under-exposed in-game, while my FM4 ones look fairly over-exposed. It's unfortunate, to say the least.

As for FM4's graphical shortcomings compared to GT5: I think it mostly just comes down to how the engine deals with saturation. GT5 appears to have less contrast and saturation than FM4, which means it might not "pop" as much to the casual viewer, but it tends to look more realistic as a result. FM4's rendering goes a bit more showy. A good way to see this is to take some black and white photos with each game, since it eliminates the issues of colour. So long as you balance the contrast and saturation properly in both, I find they're remarkably close when it comes to lighting under these conditions. T10 needs to dial back their over-emphasized colours a bit.

 

[Speedster911]

Yeah, aa'second that.

While T10's lighting model may not be the best out there, it certainly is a major improvement over FM3.

Oh it tickles my spine to ponder over the possibilities in FM5!