Controlling reflection

A few years back I put together a carset for 2006, and I've been trying to use it today, but I have reflection issue on some cars, and on helmet: everything seems to be over bright, as the screenshots shows:










In the screenshots above, it's mostly cloudy and raining in some parts of the track. On the few cars that are not over reflective, you can see the difference between the helmet and the car.

I tried changed the reflection strength value ( I was using 70%, I put 0 to use game default), it didn't seem to change anything.

Does anyone have an explanation to why some (but not all) cars seem to be over-reflective ? Helmets are all impacted. I figure it must be some kind of attribute on the mesh or on the material attached to it, but looking at the material in GP4builder, I couldn't find something that would explain the difference. I saw some difference in illumemmissive (?) values between the cars, but it's not consistent with the brightness difference.

Any help is appreciated, i'm a bit lost here.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/07/2021 10:50PM by zifox.

Looks like the cars need some alpha layers

Alpha Channels of the cars are too bright, so you need to edit them to be darker grey.
Or you could also choose Static envmapping instead of dynamic envmapping so that the cars wouldn't look too reflective.

And if we go further on details, then we can change the tracks ligtning things with gp4builder, such as clouds using horizon_clouds instead of MISCTO_clouds object which will give it brighter reflection and then there are also tracks illumemissive color that can be made darker.

Thanks for your answers, i'll look at the alpha channel of these cars: some cars are ok, so it's definitely not a track issue. I'll have to change the helmets as well.

I'm a bit puzzled about your remark on static vs dynamic envmapping: one is stronger than the other, meaning textures have to be created for one or the other type ?

You can also try playing with this setting in the f1graphics.cfg

7 ; Set 0 => no 8bit alpha (all stencil - yuck) 8 => all 8bit alpha (no stencil - nice) else 1-7 as cut off

---

used to be GPGSL's Nick Heidfeld

i had the same problem with the 2012 mod and i put 0 on the first line:

0; f1graphics.cfg controls all settings (default 0)

it worked for me

zifox Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thanks for your answers, i'll look at the alpha
> channel of these cars: some cars are ok, so it's
> definitely not a track issue. I'll have to change
> the helmets as well.
>
> I'm a bit puzzled about your remark on static vs
> dynamic envmapping: one is stronger than the
> other, meaning textures have to be created for one
> or the other type ?

dynamic env.mappings make cars more reflective, this can be changed from f1graphics.cfg (can be open with wordpad or similar tool), check these lines from f1graphics.cfg:

1 ; f1graphics.cfg controls all settings (default 0)
1 ; [MAIN VIEW] Enable static environment reflections (0=>off 1=>on) v3
0 ; [MAIN VIEW] Max number of dynamic envmaps to use (1 to 22(!), 0=>off - for advanced carshader only) v3

also from in game, check the following from graphics menu:
advanced lightning : ON
environment maps: STATIC
reflections: off, low or high

n00binio Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You can also try playing with this setting in the
> f1graphics.cfg
>
> 7 ; Set 0 => no 8bit alpha (all stencil - yuck)
> 8 => all 8bit alpha (no stencil - nice) else 1-7
> as cut off


MarcoNIN Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> i had the same problem with the 2012 mod and i put
> 0 on the first line:
>
> 0; f1graphics.cfg controls all settings (default
> 0)
>
> it worked for me

Both options are already at this value.

vesuvius Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> zifox Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Thanks for your answers, i'll look at the alpha
> > channel of these cars: some cars are ok, so
> it's
> > definitely not a track issue. I'll have to
> change
> > the helmets as well.
> >
> > I'm a bit puzzled about your remark on static
> vs
> > dynamic envmapping: one is stronger than the
> > other, meaning textures have to be created for
> one
> > or the other type ?
>
> dynamic env.mappings make cars more reflective,
> this can be changed from f1graphics.cfg (can be
> open with wordpad or similar tool), check these
> lines from f1graphics.cfg:
>
> 1 ; f1graphics.cfg controls all settings
> (default 0)
> 1 ; Enable static environment reflections
> (0=>off 1=>on) v3
> 0 ; Max number of dynamic envmaps to use (1 to
> 22(!), 0=>off - for advanced carshader only) v3
>
> also from in game, check the following from
> graphics menu:
> advanced lightning : ON
> environment maps: STATIC
> reflections: off, low or high


Ok, i'll keep this solution as a backup option, since some of the cars are ok, i will first try to fix the alpha channel of shiny ones to have something more coherent.

vesuvius Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And if we go further on details, then we can
> change the tracks ligtning things with gp4builder,
> such as clouds using horizon_clouds instead of
> MISCTO_clouds object which will give it brighter
> reflection and then there are also tracks
> illumemissive color that can be made darker.


I checked for other tracks, and you were right to mention this: I don't have the same behavior, of all the tracks I have in my 2006 install, magny cours is the worse.

Example with the ferrari with Hega's 2001 version of A1Ring:


Still a bit too much bright for my taste, but much better, and the helmet as well (despite a full white alpha layer). So i'm going to fix the cars, then have a look at the magny cours track I have. (and also check the envmap of other tracks in which there is no reflection at all)
Disparity on the car is really huge, the McLaren is at 12% while the Honda is at 69.

I tried chaning to static envmap, but it doesn't affect the brightness / reflection issue.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/08/2021 10:49PM by zifox.

After some work in photoshop and some time spent fixing texture compression (i realized after fixing the alpha layer that 3/4 of my helmet texture were in dxt1, no alpha...), I have something homogeneous, but a bit too reflective / shiny to my taste.

What do you think ?

@Monaco, without helmet fix


@A1Ring without helmet fix


@A1Ring with helmet fix




Compared to Hega's 2001 cars, these are really shiny. I'm wondering if I should match his cars, or find something between the two ?

Now I'm going to fix the tracks, at least 3 of them (MagnyCours, Montreal & Nurburgring 2006) have too strong reflections and 3 others seem to have none (Barcelona, Silverstone and my fictional Jerez 2006)


I'm wondering why this issue didn't strike me when i put together the carset a few years backs. There must be something in the rendering parameters that has changed, but i don't know what...

There is another option (on top of all that has been mentioned above) and that's to delete the sky dome from the tracks - that's really the big culprit for super shiny textures, I personally prefer the dynamic reflections

I'm a bit puzzled by the end of your sentence: is there a link between sky dome and dynamic reflections ?

I will compare the tracks I have and see if there are differences between them regarding the sky dome. I suppose it has attributes that can control the amount of light the cars will receive ?

The skydomes just get reflected way too much, so it's a quick way to reduce the shininess of the cars.
The dynamic environment maps are unrelated, I just prefer them and I can run them nicely with tracks without the dome. Just trying to offer a slightly different opinion to above, it's a preference thing.

fongu Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The skydomes just get reflected way too much, so
> it's a quick way to reduce the shininess of the
> cars.
Ok.

> The dynamic environment maps are unrelated, I just
> prefer them and I can run them nicely with tracks
> without the dome. Just trying to offer a slightly
> different opinion to above, it's a preference
> thing.

I do too prefer dynamic env maps. Thanks for the tip, it completes the other answers and give me anyther way to tweaks things.

I've re-released a whole 2006 helmetset, with special helmets, were I've fixed the alpha layers on every one of them. That might help aswell


-------------------------------------------------
Ice Hockey is my Religion!

Ok, it's the same helmet pack i'm using (Arai shape), i'm going to download your pack. It seems you've bundle the same cars I did, maybe your alpha fixs will be useful to me.

I've started to look at the track dome/cloud issue:
fongu: I've removed the main cloud object as your mentionned, and yes, the reflection issue is solved, but i've lost the sky.
So that's the source of the issue, but removing it is not the correctly solution for this track, i guess i'll have to play with material values.

Vesuvius: i'll try renaming the objects as you said. In which objects do you reckon I should modify the illumemissive values ? The clouds ? Is there an overall value somewhere ?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/2021 09:10PM by zifox.

These are the settings I use for skydomes, hope these work for you.




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

Thanks for the tip.
I tried you settings (which are not far from what I had), but it had no effect. I tried to completely change the values, it had no effect on the cars or the track illumination. I replaced the texture used by the dome (cloud-07), by another darker one, and the magic happened ! Finally !


Vesuvis: i check your updates, the alpha textures you fixed are darker than mine, especially on helmets. I need to make some tests...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/2021 09:16PM by zifox.