The Big Forza 2 Thread *

[Graham]

Nope. Gamespot video was also a replay. The only gameplay video seen has been off-screen which can hide detail and cover blemishes. I have to agree that it's concerning that the only good captures/videos are coming from Turn10. Here is what gameplay looks like as captured by Teamxbox from the media preview build. This isn't what I would call a second generation first party game either. I guess we'll all see for ourselves soon enough.

Thats not what I said.
It was an AI race, it was produced by turn10, but gamespot screwed it up by reencoding to 30fps. It used a camera that cycled between in car and replay camera. It was not a 'forza replay' though, as there were no extra post processing effects, and the video was 60fps when recorded. You can see this in the gamespot 30fps cut, as each frame is 50/50 of two frames, but there is no DoF or motion blur.
You can find che's posts on the ginormous gaf thread about it. Says it has an activated dev mode option that cycles the camera, and makes a random AI drive the car.
So technically it *was* a directfeed in game video. And it looked just as good from the non-replay views.


But... well. nevermind, because there are 'real' screens out now:
http://www.jeux-france.com/news20036_forza-motorsport-2-images-maison.html
and they look really good too

 

[Arwin]

But... well. nevermind, because there are 'real' screens out now:
http://www.jeux-france.com/news20036_forza-motorsport-2-images-maison.html
and they look really good too

Wow, those shots are ... terrible! Except for an occasional lighting effect and a slightly higher resolution, it looks a lot like that Xbox GT game by Sega. Joshua's words ring painfully true in these shots. Hopefully this is partly because of lousy screen capturing, and I'm sure the game looks better in motion. At times it seems to almost look worse than the original Forza.

I don't understand. Probably it'll be better in motion though - look forward to trying the game for real.

 

[Silent]

But... well. nevermind, because there are 'real' screens out now:
http://www.jeux-france.com/news20036_forza-motorsport-2-images-maison.html
and they look really good too

Define "good" ? They aren't that bad but again I don't know why allot of people go orgasmic about this when they set such high standards when reviewing 'other' games.

Then again my main problem with forza on the xbox was the driving model. I'm very eager to find out how the cars handle in forza 2.

 

[scooby_dooby]

I don't understand. Probably it'll be better in motion though - look forward to trying the game for real.

It's really pretty simple, the shots from the 5 week old preview build that went out to the media are not that great, same goes for the teamxbox shots, and the gamespot shots, and IGN shots...and whoever else decides to do some direct captures from their preview build.

I'm not sure why people are confused here, how many times has this been repeated?

If you want to see how the game looks now, look at the direct feed, 60fps footage released on FM.net last week, it's gorgeous and it's not from replay mode.

These are the latest forza screens:
http://images.xboxyde.com/gallery/public/5294/847_0012.jpg
http://images.xboxyde.com/gallery/public/5294/847_0013.jpg
http://images.xboxyde.com/gallery/public/5294/847_0015.jpg
http://images.xboxyde.com/gallery/public/5294/847_0016.jpg
http://images.xboxyde.com/gallery/public/5294/847_0017.jpg

 

[Fu3lFr3nzy]

Some of those screens irk me with their unecessary use of reflection(not to mention the overbright still exists).

this and this irritates me, because of the reflection of the roof is somewhat out of place, and why is the rest of the car pitch black with zero reflections? uhh wtf :|

this one annoyed me aswell. If the car is still in the shadow and not out where the sun can directly hit it, then wtf is that relection effect doing?

Im probably looking at these screens wrong, but imo, they certainly look ugh to me

Someone correct me plx

 

[Altivec]

Some of those screens irk me with their unecessary use of reflection(not to mention the overbright still exists).

this and this irritates me, because of the reflection of the roof is somewhat out of place, and why is the rest of the car pitch black with zero reflections? uhh wtf :|

this one annoyed me aswell. If the car is still in the shadow and not out where the sun can directly hit it, then wtf is that relection effect doing?

Im probably looking at these screens wrong, but imo, they certainly look ugh to me

Someone correct me plx

I don't think you understand reflections. We aren't talking about specular highlights, which wouldn't make sense in the shadows.

Imagine a room that's black, representing the environment.
And there's a mirror in the room, representing the car.
And there's also a bright light on the roof of this room, representing the bright sky.

so as you move this mirror around, its not going to reflect the dark room as much as it will the bright, bright light with the same exposure setting of the 'camera'

Its almost 2 am where I am, so I hope I make sense. But I don't see much wrong with those reflections.

 

[Tap In]

Che's feelings on peoples' reactions to the cheesy looking (unfinished build) Gamespot screens...

Anyway, Forza 2 looks like what it looks like, and it's easy to make the game look pretty blah if you take in-game buffer screen dumps because you lose all sense of motion (no blur or depth). I don't expect that the game will be all things graphically to everyone, but there's a whole lot of GAME going on in FM2 which makes riding out these pre-release screenshot debates kind of hilarious. When photomode, livery editor, auction house and tournaments are unleashed in a month, the screenshot wars should subside and hopefully the stealth trolling too.

 

[Tap In]

Che's feelings on peoples' reactions to the (unfinished build) Gamespot screens...

Anyway, Forza 2 looks like what it looks like, and it's easy to make the game look pretty blah if you take in-game buffer screen dumps because you lose all sense of motion (no blur or depth). I don't expect that the game will be all things graphically to everyone, but there's a whole lot of GAME going on in FM2 which makes riding out these pre-release screenshot debates kind of hilarious. When photomode, livery editor, auction house and tournaments are unleashed in a month, the screenshot wars should subside and hopefully the stealth trolling too.

 

[ihamoitc2005]

Next step

I agree on that, it`s pointless comparison until GT5 shows up (one month before release) . . . personally, I don`t care about accurate trees reflections or some details around track IF cars look photorealistic (just my graphical preferences in driving games)

I also do not care about silly technical "claims" what is important for racing game graphics is most realistic look. But one thing that is not so great even for GTHD is tires do not have good rubber flexibility showing when the car drives on bumps. I feel this is an important next step for racing game graphics to have real look and physics.

 

[Altivec]

I also do not care about silly technical "claims" what is important for racing game graphics is most realistic look. But one thing that is not so great even for GTHD is tires do not have good rubber flexibility showing when the car drives on bumps. I feel this is an important next step for racing game graphics to have real look and physics.

YAY! I can say it again! LFS has this.

It really does add to the look of the game in my opinion, but really isn't essential

 

[Rockster]

If you want to see how the game looks now, look at the direct feed, 60fps footage released on FM.net last week, it's gorgeous and it's not from replay mode.

I'm sorry Scooby, but that's not correct. The FM.net videos are replay and that is the point. Gameplay videos are easy to spot because the HUD is viewable. You'll notice a big difference in quality in every HUD vs. no-HUD (ie. gameplay vs replay) shot. This is true even of the 5 week old preview build you refer to. I'm hopeful it's something correctable. Many of the gameplay shots have bad aliasing along what I'll call polygon seams which are visible. And I don't mean around object edges but within objects. Like look at the black line across the track here. Also notice the aliasing (white dots) along the top edge of the concrete barrier at the left front of the car. This picture also has a similar seam visible on the left side of the track. It also appears during gameplay at least the trees and a few other objects are being dithered for transparency as opposed to blended. Make the screenshots very noisy but probably would be okay when everything is running along at 60fps. Like I said, we'll see for ourselves soon enough.

 

[Fu3lFr3nzy]

Things can still change, but the game goes gold in a week.

Correct me if im wrong, but isnt it the demo that goes gold next week not the final game?

~

I get what youre saying, but imo, the roof reflection still stands out for me. Watching the GTHD videos and seeing FM2 pics certainly made me question some things

 

[scooby_dooby]

I'm sorry Scooby, but that's not correct. The FM.net videos are replay and that is the point. Gameplay videos are easy to spot because the HUD is viewable.

I never said it's gameplay, I said it's 60fps which means it's not replay mode, and doesn't have any of the post-processing effects that photomode has, in other words it's essentially gameplay gfx when viewed from an ingame camera view.

This is just a guess on my part, and I could be wrong, but the lack of motion blur and 60fps tends to support this assumption.

 

[Mmmkay]

The FM.net clip in question may have been captured at 60fps but was of a replay running at 30fps. Che subsequently replaced the video with one captured at 30fps because it caused problems for many users. He did say that they sent out a 60fps gameplay clip to one of the games media sites, but it seems they haven't put up the clip yet.

 

[scooby_dooby]

The FM.net clip in question may have been captured at 60fps but was of a replay running at 30fps. Che subsequently replaced the video with one captured at 30fps because it caused problems for many users. He did say that they sent out a 60fps gameplay clip to one of the games media sites, but it seems they haven't put up the clip yet.

Thx for the clarification :smile:

The PR for this game has really been all over the map...at least as far as online and print publications goes.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

If the car is still in the shadow and not out where the sun can directly hit it, then wtf is that relection effect doing?

It's pretty simple... the reflection is there in shadows, too. It's not just the sun itself that's reflected from the car...

 

[iceberg187]

Thx for the clarification :smile:

The PR for this game has really been all over the map...at least as far as online and print publications goes.

PR for this game blows chunks. I don't get it.

 

[Fu3lFr3nzy]

It's pretty simple... the reflection is there in shadows, too. It's not just the sun itself that's reflected from the car...

Ah, I see . Thanks for clarifying that :smile:

 

[NovemberMike]

Looking at some vids, it looks like there is going to be a fair amount of popin with the reflections. Doesn't look that bad though, and hopefully it will be better in replays (they still look like they are full speed, so that is a good tradeoff).

 

[Cyan]

Extra! Extra! Brand new pics from Forza 2.

Another french website has published some new photos. (click on links below)

Che has already confirmed (well, most likely) final specs. The basic and main characteristics of the game includes:

- FSAAx2 in-game
- FSAAx4 during replays
- 360 fps; in other words, the game computes 360 Physics Processes (such as your car's aerodinamics, tracks' surface, tires compound, car's weight, etc) over a second for highly realistic physics
- AF values are, imo, beyond average on the X360. Maybe the best AF filtering in any X360 game to date
- HDR
- Telemetry, paint your car with 4000 layers -now with real fonts- of decals and logos, good AI, drivatars, real-time reflections, amazing draw distance, etc etc.

That being said, I'd like to add that I love Forza because it's all about proportionality.

http://www.gamekult.com/articles/A00000573592/

My favourites (in no preferential order except the first):

Faint lighting, while some clouds had formed over the distance mountains, casting shades over them, and a damaged car *standing in the shadows*. Yes, very evocative
http://img2.kult-mag.com/photos/00/00/82/46/ME0000824628_2.jpg

The aforementioned AF
http://img2.kult-mag.com/photos/00/00/82/46/ME0000824641_2.jpg

Beautiful textures
http://img2.kult-mag.com/photos/00/00/82/46/ME0000824694_2.jpg

Good textures
http://img2.kult-mag.com/photos/00/00/82/46/ME0000824663_2.jpg

Cool lighting
http://img2.kult-mag.com/photos/00/00/82/46/ME0000824666_2.jpg

Reflections
http://img2.kult-mag.com/photos/00/00/82/46/ME0000824683_2.jpg

http://img2.kult-mag.com/photos/00/00/82/46/ME0000824607_2.jpg
http://img2.kult-mag.com/photos/00/00/82/46/ME0000824623_2.jpg
http://img2.kult-mag.com/photos/00/00/82/46/ME0000824634_2.jpg

Nurbungring? I guess so
http://img2.kult-mag.com/photos/00/00/82/46/ME0000824644_2.jpg

http://img2.kult-mag.com/photos/00/00/82/46/ME0000824650_2.jpg
http://img2.kult-mag.com/photos/00/00/82/46/ME0000824664_2.jpg
http://img2.kult-mag.com/photos/00/00/82/46/ME0000824693_2.jpg
http://img2.kult-mag.com/photos/00/00/82/46/ME0000824698_2.jpg

Those bushes give a nice touch to this sleepyy landscape
http://img2.kult-mag.com/photos/00/00/82/47/ME0000824700_2.jpg

Drafting school
http://img2.kult-mag.com/photos/00/00/82/47/ME0000824716_2.jpg

Very detailed alloy wheels
http://img2.kult-mag.com/photos/00/00/82/47/ME0000824719_2.jpg

http://img2.kult-mag.com/photos/00/00/82/47/ME0000824721_2.jpg
http://img2.kult-mag.com/photos/00/00/82/47/ME0000824731_2.jpg
http://img2.kult-mag.com/photos/00/00/82/47/ME0000824732_2.jpg

Cheers. Good evening