[360] Forza Motorsport 3

infinity4 said:
Does anyone feel that the game is a lot easier?

I turn off all options and I dont seem to be spinning or under/over steer as I was in Forza 2

Feels arcade...
Click to expand...

I'm surprised no one else has mentioned this, imo the game does feel a little more 'arcade' even with all the driving aids off. You can floor the GT3 in 1st from a stand still and it won't spin!?
 
Smak said:
I'm surprised no one else has mentioned this, imo the game does feel a little more 'arcade' even with all the driving aids off. You can floor the GT3 in 1st from a stand still and it won't spin!?
Click to expand...

Yea, it seems easier, but then nearly every car in F2 would oversteer and wheelspin.

I don't think they could have intentionally dumbed down the physics, it is a sim.

I think over at GAF some people were attributing it to using the autoclutch. I haven't played the demo enough to notice it.

Ostepop said:
Garage mode ^^
(i dont remember if PGR4 had a garage mode, but PGR3 did)
Click to expand...

There is, I remember walking through my friends PGR4 garage, to get to the Geo Wars arcade machine hidden at the back :smile:
 
Smak said:
I'm surprised no one else has mentioned this, imo the game does feel a little more 'arcade' even with all the driving aids off. You can floor the GT3 in 1st from a stand still and it won't spin!?
Click to expand...

You may want to read my impressions on the physics a few posts back. In general, plenty of people on several different boards have mentioned this - yes, the cars in the game are easier to control. But what happened, basically, is that from being harder than it should be through a weakness in the physics engine, the game now seems to have become easier than it should be through a weakness in the physics engine.

Other than that, I have some additional thoughts about the graphics. They're not about the LOD models - when che confirmed to us that the shots released were all from photo mode, that's all the information I needed. I think the LOD of the cars is still decent enough in-game. The problems lie elsewhere. As I wrote on Gaf:

When it comes to that, the most important differences I can see are in the lighting and reflections. Under bright circumstances where the car has real-time reflections calculated in, Forza 3's cars look quite good. Forza seems to use the 360's 10bit HDR mode I think though, as there's a limit to the color depth. Also, the lighting is not dynamic - no contrast change or other HDR effects. For instance, if you look around from your car you'll notice that the sky keeps the same intensity no matter how you look at it (from the shadows, cockpit, with more or less sky obscured by the environment, etc.). There are no tunnels in this game so it's not possible to see if they have this affect for tunnels, but if they do it's clear that this then would be basically hard-coded for the tunnel, as there is nothing dynamic going on there. Overall though it still looks quite decent.

As soon as they have an angle where there are no reflections however, or when the cars drive in the shadow, the Forza 3 cars really don't look great. I came home with my son yesterday and looked at my car and noticed how the reflections and lighting are really quite similar to when the car is in the sun - you still see a tonne of reflections and so on, even at low light conditions. But in Forza 3, the reflections on cars seem to basically disappear in the shadows. This ruins the illusion - the car's material no longer resembles its real-life counterpart, and it starts to look like some kind of matte plastic. It's strange, because I get the impression that this could be something that is relatively easy to fix - just make sure that there are always reflections visible. I wonder if maybe there's not enough resolution in the shading model for this in the graphics engine, or whether this is just a plain oversight?

Anyway, especially this latter issue is my biggest complaint about Forza 3. It's making significant steps forward. However, in terms of the internal consistency of the graphics, this is the biggest standout issue (cockpit view lighting is also a bit weak, but I'm grateful for the cockpit view nonetheless and it's less important).

Otherwise I feel that in the demo there's been a good balance between cars and environment and the overall impression of the graphics is pretty decent. To quote my lovely wife who has absolutely no clue about graphics, "the lighting isn't as good [as Gran Turismo], but the vegetation looks better" :lol

It would be nice to have some input on these thoughts from the graphics experts.
 
Arwin said:
As soon as they have an angle where there are no reflections however, or when the cars drive in the shadow, the Forza 3 cars really don't look great. I came home with my son yesterday and looked at my car and noticed how the reflections and lighting are really quite similar to when the car is in the sun - you still see a tonne of reflections and so on. But in Forza 3, the reflections on cars seem to basically disappear in the shadows. This ruins the illusion - the car's material no longer resembles its real-life counterpart, and it starts to look like some kind of matte plastic. It's strange, because I get the impression that this could be something that is relatively easy to fix - just make sure that there are always reflections visible. I wonder if maybe there's not enough resolution in the shading model for this in the graphics engine, or whether this is just a plain oversight?
Click to expand...

And in GT5 is the opposite, in shadow the cars have over bright reflexion like the "reflection" model only apply a "grey" filter. And also in GT5 shadows, the cars fly above the road. ;)

But don't surprise you preferred GT5 visuals, they're more "esthetically" but they're not realistics… they're over toshoping realistics. It's matter of taste. ;)
 
A f$%^&, you're response made me realise that my post was a copy from a comparison thread on another forum. I've edited my post.
 
Arwin said:
Forza seems to use the 360's 10bit HDR mode I think though, as there's a limit to the color depth.
Click to expand...
I'd have to say their art style is the issue rather than the framebuffer format.

Though I will say it is somewhat curious that they'd use a lot of alpha to coverage, considering such is a bandwidth concern and as we all know, the eDRAM has plenty of it. And at the same time there are not very many alpha blended effects in the demo.

Just food for thought on what might be the actual format. ;)


Also, the lighting is not dynamic - no contrast change or other HDR effects.
Click to expand...
This is something else I've noticed, no tone-mapping. Whilst as a post-process it isn't necessary, the other consideration for HDR is maintaining detail in the darker spots whilst still having bright points - minimizing washing out.

Although I'd argue a consistent brightness might be easier on the eyes during gameplay instead of tone-mapping at every change in angle. *shrug*


But in Forza 3, the reflections on cars seem to basically disappear in the shadows.
Click to expand...
I'd have to check out the demo a bit more before I can speculate there.

edit: I'm not sure what you mean. I'm seeing reflections whilst behind the mountain just on the first bend.
 
AlStrong said:
This is something else I've noticed, no tone-mapping.
Click to expand...

It's there, but subtle. After you pick your car, just sit back and watch as the camera pans around the track before the race. You'll catch tone mapping at the part where the camera is panning over the lake and goes under the bridge.
 
Yeah, I just went back to play. In replay or "4xMSAA mode" it's veeerry subtle. Can't say I noticed it much while playing it although the sky does change brightness here and there. The sky is just so bright where the sun is located :p
 
AlStrong said:
edit: I'm not sure what you mean. I'm seeing reflections whilst behind the mountain just on the first bend.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've been investigating closer - it doesn't seem to happen with metallic cars. What I mentioned seems to happen only with non-metallic cars (my own car is non-metallic white).
 
AlStrong said:
Yeah, I just went back to play. In replay or "4xMSAA mode" it's veeerry subtle. Can't say I noticed it much while playing it although the sky does change brightness here and there. The sky is just so bright where the sun is located :p
Click to expand...

Tone mapping is there in game as well, it's just subtle as it should be for that particular track. Many games exaggerate effects to get oohs and ahhs, like amplifying ambient occlusion 5x, or making tone mapping blatantly apparently when it shouldn't be. Realistically, when you are walking around outside, how often are you suddenly blinded by light (aside from looking at the sun)?

There is a section right near the start of the track where the road is all in shadow. Drive to that area, and try to get a chunk of the screen to be the shadowed mountain. You'll see the tone mapping take effect. Use the default 'behind the car' camera.
 
Yeah, that's where I saw the sky lighting change the most. :) I agree, I think it's fine. I certainly don't need to be blinded in the game as I turn a corner. :LOL:

But I did also notice that there was tone-mapping occurring in replay mode on the car itself right at the start of the race that I didn't see while playing (behind view).
 
 
Arwin said:
Yeah, I've been investigating closer - it doesn't seem to happen with metallic cars. What I mentioned seems to happen only with non-metallic cars (my own car is non-metallic white).
Click to expand...

After even more investigation, I realised that my 360 has to be set to Expanded, corresponding to Full RGB on the PS3. This solves the problem I was having to a large extent. Now the effect I mean mostly only happens in certain shots, like if you take the Lancer, and then watch the old ferrari (I think its driver is generally Dan Greenwalt :D) ...

If the Tone Mapping is really there, and not just the occasional effect (like the replays have screen edge darkening, and at some point when you let it pan the track, there's this really weird moment where the sky blanks out over the bridge, it's mostly too subtle for me. There's also this one really rare moment where the car seems to be lit up by the sun - happens only in very rare cases around the top of the hill after the long turn near the beginning I think.

Anyway, Expanded definitely helped.

Also, I'm quite happy with the hotlapping - I'm at 221 out of 192,519 with the Lancer now, for instance, with a lap-time of 1:10:422.
 
Yea, I definitely noted the lack of reflections in certain lighting conditions that make the cars look like plastic.

But there is still the issue of the low poly models they're using for replays/ gameplay. The fact that the showroom/pre race models are so good only highlights the disparity betweem the two sets of models.

Btw does anyone think the mountains in the demo track use tesselation? They are really detailed, possibly the best looking element of the demo.
 
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