The problem with GT's lighting engine

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Now this has really bothered me since GT5 but the current video on the news page perfectly illustrates just far off PD is at understanding how shadows work. Their shadows are simply way too harsh and not even close to real life.

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Obviously here the left is real life and the right is the game at the same spot.

I mean, what were they thinking? Broad daylight and you can't even see the track. It's as if it's night time under the trees... This makes Goodwood ridiculous to drive, especially the tight corners where it's so dark and you need to maneuver very closely between the walls. Just look at these harsh shadows all around the track:

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Ridiculous. And this is not the only track, but it's a perfect example of how wrong the shadows are because the trees are so close to the road.

It's the same thing in the interior view as well. Broad daylight and you literally cannot even see the instruments right in front of you, or even the steering wheel... In what car have you ever had interior visibility like this in the daytime?

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I know there are so many other problems in the game and this is just another one added to the massive pile, but come on. How does this pass quality control? And please don't tell me I should be focusing on the road and not the interior because you are completely missing the point. There's just no excuse for this.

And don't even get me started on driving in the night with how the headlights (fail to) light up the track.
 
Goodwood should really depend on the time of day, the later in the day it is the darker and larger the shadows become is my understanding, although Goodwood's lighting never really bothered me beyond the interior lighting you point out as an issue, and with that I agree.

I think the main issue with the interior lighting is the new HDR lighting they have in GT6. In GT5, the interior lighting was fine at all times, but GT6 caused an awkward darkness when switching to the interior view, I don't know why this is but I think it has something to do with the HDR lighting and how it shades light into the cockpits. Headlight dispersion has also improved greatly over GT5, improving nighttime visibility on all courses except Willow for some reason. I don't find an issue with the headlights myself except on Willow.
 
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I don't use Interior View often - maybe one lap out of every 100+ I drive, but I have noticed and thought to myself "Wow...This looks terrible as I move through the sunlight. The dashboard has become unrealistically lit beyond belief!" The headlights, however, is something that absolutely drives me out of my mind. You drive on any track with high beams on and it looks like you've got an old Mag-Lite duct taped to the hood of the car pointing at a slight angle toward the track. The illumination is awful.
 
Overall, I have kind of a mixed view of the lighting engine. Sometimes it's beautiful, other times it's annoying.
 
Nobody said GT6 is perfection... this is the case of you having let your high expectations get the better of you

Because this game is still evoluating and improving...
 
CTznOfTime
Nobody said GT6 is perfection... this is the case of you having let your high expectations get the better of you

Because this game is still evoluating and improving...
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This is not a problem of "high expectations." I'd simply like to see the road and my interior, rather than having them covered in unrealistic shadows to the point that I can't properly see.

And while there are still features to be added, the game's engine is not still evolving. This is the same issue that was present in GT5 from day one.
 
I dunno... Shadows can vary in extremity depending on position, material, and time of day...

image.jpg image.jpg image.jpg
image.jpg image.jpg image.jpg
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...However, I would agree that there are times where shadows are too dark/too extreme (I.e. trees, fences, and other small/thin objects), but I wouldn't say it's as frequent as you're making it out to be.
 
I agree with you on the exposure, it's really ruining the driving in the cockpit view...
 
The exposure/brightness is too low in the cockpit view, it seems. The view out of the windscreen looks too dark as well, but sadly, increasing the exposure makes the lighting look too "bloomy" and washed out.
 
Are you all running Colour and gamma calibrated monitors/ screens.?

i.e
sRGB colour profile (or Cinema-Warm)
turn off all the deep colour, extended range garbage.
Gamma set/ adjusted for 2.2

Do you have a link to the video ?
 
Overall it is great but the shadows quality is very poor. GT5 everything was exposed. GT6 is much better but in cockpit view GT5P was probably the best. The game looks best in early morning, evening settings and overact conditions. Willow springs though looks awesome in any conditions. GT7 on PS4 they will be able to fix PS3 limitations
 
To properly recreate light bouncing around in dark areas in real time requires an awful lot of processing power. Other things would have to give to achieve this, if the PS3 would even be capable - particularly at the resolution and frame rate that PD aim for.

As pointed out already, you can also get very dark shadows on a bright sunny day. The only issue I would point out with the lighting engine, also mentioned already, is the decreased gamma in some cockpit views. What's odd is that you can temporarily brighten up the cockpit view by tapping the rear view button in some cars.
 
My screen doesn't look anywhere near that dark. You need to adjust your equalizer on your tv and contrast or exposure in the game's main menu. The lighting engine is not perfect, but it is nowhere near as bad as that. Everything is clear as hell on my screen and it is not to notch. Day or night driving.
 
I've had most of the same lighting issues I see posted above. I simply chalked it up to the limitations of the PS3. I know it's not my tv because I've downloaded various direct capture videos from other games and played them with the same settings and they look much better. I think you'll see dramatic improvements in the next generation, at least in some games.
 
OK tested fullscreen on my monitors and I agree it IS too dark, but I can still see reasonable difference between the dark road and the grass.

But this still does show the problem,
GT's lighting system IS producing a real world image that you would get with an in-car video-cam or still camera.
Which does NOT have the same dynamic range as our eyes do.

And the GT system appears to be metering the light to preserve detail in the sky and bright areas. (black crush)

the real in-car cam is metering to expose the darks/ shadows, while sacrificing the bright details (white crush)

I guess it's a matter of changin the lighting engine to show a higher dynamic range, or making a decision on which way to crush?

Personally, I'd rather see the track than the sky


dark.PNG
 
Robbks
OK tested fullscreen on my monitors and I agree it IS too dark, but I can still see reasonable difference between the dark road and the grass.

But this still does show the problem,
GT's lighting system IS producing a real world image that you would get with an in-car video-cam or still camera.
Which does NOT have the same dynamic range as our eyes do.

And the GT system appears to be metering the light to preserve detail in the sky and bright areas. (black crush)

the real in-car cam is metering to expose the darks/ shadows, while sacrificing the bright details (white crush)

I guess it's a matter of changin the lighting engine to show a higher dynamic range, or making a decision on which way to crush?

Personally, I'd rather see the track than the sky


View attachment 182402
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Interesting observations, makes sense. I'm not sure GT replicates exactly what a camera with limited dynamic range would see -- if it did the interior would be fairly clear and outside would be way overexposed, or the outside clear and the interior dark; instead we get a darkened view of both... But that is a good comparison as it seems to work something like that. The real time calculations in the lighting system are simply inaccurate like a consumer digital camera with automatic settings.

But I would agree with that exactly for night racing in GT5/6. The game appears to simulate the light/dark as if you're watching some onboard footage at Le Mans. Of course you can't see details in those real videos because it's a simple onboard camera, but the drivers in those cars can clearly see the road. Not nearly as well as the daytime, but enough to see the road properly.
 
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Oh yes, terribly dark shadows. Especially onboard shadows are way way too dark. This is the issue I noticed on the first day of playing GT6. And the thread was born:

https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/threads/pd-fix-onboard-shadows-its-too-dark.293489/

Together with unrealistic top speed physics, these are the two biggest issues in GT6 (which can be fixed).

It seems that things they advertised as new and improved ('better lighting model', 'better aero model') actually are worse than in GT5. By making some changes they made it worse.

And please, no excuses, because if you can't see dashboard during the day - this is completely wrong!
 
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Streeto
Seriously?

It's like your headlights are tiny LED spotlights with a dimmer at the lowest setting.
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They certainly do light up the road, not ridiculously far, but good enough for visibility at night. Willow's the only one I have issue with. I am serious.
 
In all honesty, I think a lot of people would disagree with you.

The premium headlights on full beam are acceptable, but all the standards are pretty damn awful.

Not that it stops me though, I love night racing/drifting.
 
Premium headlights on full beam are great, standard cars don't seem very different.
 
Oh gosh don't get me started on the horrible dark interior view on some cars.. I hate how the lighting shifts and changes depending on the view you're using. I don't know if it's supposed to be simulating "reality" but I've never been in a car in sunlight where the shadows are that crushed and the windshield is that dark. Even if it was that dark your eyes would adjust and things wouldn't be so unusually dark.

Also, it's def not my television, no other game I play on my PS3 has a crushing darkness about it like the GT games have. It's straight up bad. The worst thing, is if I adjust my television for the brightness to make the interior less dark then any other view I use will be blown out with brightness because of the shifting brightness! If you adjust the EV settings to brighten up the interior view in the game the clouds and stuff in different views go supernova bright. I wish they wouldn't simulate lighting like it's coming through a video camera & instead make it more like the human eye. Very very frustrating.
 
Well of course it's dark, the new lighting model in GT6 has 50 times the amount of contrast than in GT5, which was one of the communities biggest complaints about GT5. I'm just so glad that PD re-wrote the lighting code so we could have 50 times more contrast, all the complaints about the lack of contrast on GT Planet were getting out of hand. It's so nice to know that they listen to us & are able to get their priorities straight.


NOT! :sly:
 
And just to show how simple it could be by just adjusting the exposure by half an F-stop.
Without playing with colours, contrast or brightness to tidy it up.
I've adjusted only the GT6 image from the above and (although pixelated, junk screen capture) look at how less harsh the shadows are.

dark.jpg
 
I think the main reason for terrible onboard shadows is that Kaz himself drives using bumper-cam (or how do you call it, cam without body, only with general and boring dials). If he would use onboard view, he would find this dynamic lighting really irritating
 
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I can't stand bumper-cam or onboard,
neither of them give you perfect vision on where the front corners are.
Hood/ Roof view for me always.
 

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