Reflections on the car in GP4

Hi everyone, quick question, probably easy, but this is bugging me for some time now.

Can somone shed some light on which parameters control the reflectivity of the car itself in GP4? Obviously this is partly due to the alpha channel of the textures but there seem to be more paramters. E.g. it seems to be track dependent. At certain tracks (Barcelona 91 or Jacarepagua come to my mind) cars have almost a mirror like surface with a bluish hue, on other tracks they appear less reflective. Iirc there also is a value (or multiple) in the f1graphics.cfg controlling this but so far I could not find out wich one it is.

Thanks in advance!

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used to be GPGSL's Nick Heidfeld

I could be well off, but I think the blue tint (as well as some other things) are controlled by the 'weather.wdt' file in a track's .wad file.
For example, from F1 Virtual's Quattro Raceway which I think has this tint.:

version 2
         1.000		;DirectionalFogScalar
         0.240		;AmbientConstant
         0.750		;AmbientFogConstant
         0.250		;AmbientFogScalar
         0.480		;AmbientLevelRebalance
         1.500		;DirectionalLevelRebalance
         0.500		;MinFogBright
         1.000		;FogWetScalar
         0.000		;GreyBlueRampSplit v2
         0.000		;GreySkyScalar v2
         0.000		;Blue_R
       102.000		;Blue_G
       255.000		;Blue_B
       201.000		;FarBlue_R
       235.000		;FarBlue_G
       255.000		;FarBlue_B
         0.300		;FogBlueSkyLerpFactor
         0.600		;NearFarBlueSkyFactor
         0.000		;SkyColourCentreDeltaX
         0.000		;SkyColourCentreDeltaY
         0.000		;SkyColourCentreDeltaZ
        -1.000		;SkydomeHorizonHeight v2
      -1000.000		;SkydomeDomeHeight v2
         0.000		;SkydomeHorizonHeightForReflections v2

Compared to 2001 Monaco:

version 2
         1.000		;DirectionalFogScalar
         0.250		;AmbientConstant
         0.750		;AmbientFogConstant
         0.250		;AmbientFogScalar
         0.500		;AmbientLevelRebalance
         1.500		;DirectionalLevelRebalance
         0.500		;MinFogBright
         1.000		;FogWetScalar
         0.000		;GreyBlueRampSplit v2
         0.000		;GreySkyScalar v2
        89.000		;Blue_R
       175.000		;Blue_G
       255.000		;Blue_B
        89.000		;FarBlue_R
       175.000		;FarBlue_G
       255.000		;FarBlue_B
         0.300		;FogBlueSkyLerpFactor
         1.200		;NearFarBlueSkyFactor
         0.000		;SkyColourCentreDeltaX
         0.000		;SkyColourCentreDeltaY
         0.000		;SkyColourCentreDeltaZ
      -150.000		;SkydomeHorizonHeight v2
       750.000		;SkydomeDomeHeight v2
         0.000		;SkydomeHorizonHeightForReflections v2

I'm not sure what a lot of that means, but I'm guessing that the larger 'Blue' values of Quattro are pretty important here.
I'm hoping that a track wizard could chime in and explain what they know about these values.

Most of the reflection related things in the F1Graphics.cfg are 'What gets reflected?', 'How much?' and 'From how far away?' I believe.
(Static/Dynamic reflections, Number of reflections to draw at once, Reflect static objects within X metres)

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F1 Graphics Swapper --- Lensdump - Renders and Screenshots --- GP4 Performance Generator



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/05/2016 01:15AM by AUS_Doug.

I have a guess, but I'd like to see some screenshots

EDIT: Big track-wise differences in reflections are mostly caused by no.3 in vesuvius's post below.


My unfinished tracks: [www.grandprixgames.org]
Send bug reports and track editing questions to f1virtualblog@gmail.com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/05/2016 04:52PM by Prblanco.

Several things affect to the car reflections:
1. f1graphics.cfg (if you have dynamic reflections it will be more reflective)

0 ; Reflect effect (0 => none-very sharp reflections), 1 => mipmapfilter, 2 => overdraw(best), 3 => hardwareboxfilter, 4 => swmungefilter(2nd best-best for 16bit), 5 => jitter(GP3 stylee) v3
1 ; [MAIN VIEW] Enable static environment reflections (0=>off 1=>on) v3
300 ; [MAIN VIEW] Enable dynamic environment reflections to X metres (for advanced carshader only) v3
1 ; [MAIN VIEW] Max number of dynamic envmaps to use (1 to 22(!), 0=>off - for advanced carshader only) v3

2. weather.wdt has some affect as well

3. clouds reflection from .gp4 track file

this is the reason why some track has more blue (sky refllections) than others. from inside .gp4 track file use the search to find clouds and check if the object name is HORIZON_clouds or MISCTSO_clouds.

MISCTSO_clouds will give you more reflective cars blue(sky reflections).

4. Alpha Channels

white alpha channel=more reflective black alpha channel=no reflections



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/05/2016 10:15AM by vesuvius.

Thanks a lot for the input so far! Screenshots... should have done that right from the beginning lol. Here you go (car is the 93 Benetton @ Jacarepagua (top) and Imola (bottom))
I will experiment with some of the settings you mentioned asap. I guess what I would like to achieve is a more or less consistent look.

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used to be GPGSL's Nick Heidfeld

Hi friends.

Sorry for my bad english.

I have the problem of the screenshots. The asphalt reflects in excess the light of the sun. Y test changing the tarmacmap.tex and a lot of configurations but without solution.

Some can help me in this problem.

Thanks a lot for any help.

Greetings.

Prblanco schrieb:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have a guess, but I'd like to see some
> screenshots
>
> EDIT: Big track-wise differences in reflections
> are mostly caused by no.3 in vesuvius's post
> below.

I see, thanks again for the help guys, much appreciated.

@superman77m, I think you need to switch off bump mapping in the graphics options

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used to be GPGSL's Nick Heidfeld

Thank you n00binio. I think it,s a good solution. I understand it.

Greetings