Forza Motorsport And Oversaturating - Lightning Problem

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Greetings.
First of all, i started this thread because, i wanted to be seen by some Turn10 workers.

Forza Motorsport games, always been looking great, but great, NOT REALISTIC, they just looked great.
The environment seemed ok, car’s seems perfect, the polygons, the textures, everything looks fine.

BUT.
The Lightning and Color Management is just not right!
It just not looks real, the color’s look like it’s a game, not real life!.
The metal does not looks like metal, the plastic does not looks and reflects like plastic.

Come on guys, in Forza Motorsport 3, color’s were looked great, what happened in FM4, Why did you go oversaturated?.

This is a serious problem, i’mean, really. It’s 2017. I’ve been waiting since 2010 for if they gonna fix the color problem.
You are again and again doing same wrong thing. FM4, FM5, FM6…

This is nothing to do with hardware, its how you do it!
change the color model, lightning model of the game engine!
In gameplay, nothing looks white. real white. everything looks ‘yellowish’ or something.
You CAN NOT fix with 4k, or 16xAA, IT’s completely wrong from the start. This is about the lightning, not resolution or detail.!

Please. Change it. It’s 2017.
The Gran Turismo Sport coming with realistic color and lightning.

It’s 3rd. game of Xbox One, you gonna lose the rivalry if you don’t fix it.

You have been warned.

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While I agree that the Forza games look a lot more “Hollywood” in recent years, visuals alone are not what determines if a game will sell. Car selection, features, first impressions, price and the overall playing experience are just as important, and based on how the games have been doing recently these “Hollywood visuals” aren’t as much of a deal-breaker to the overall player base as they seem to be to you personally.

Like you said, there are alternatives for those that prefer a more photorealistic look to their games. There will also be many racing games worth playing this year. If visuals are a deal-breaker to you then so be it; I look forward to seeing you on track regardless of which racing game you end up choosing.

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Good post mate.

You’ve brought some interesting key points to light - I absolutely loved the lighting in FM2 and 3. The environments looked so natural and beautifully detailed. Then FM4 came and somewhat ruined the look of the game with its supposed “image-based lighting”. I understand the developer wants to make the game eye-catching and encourage more people to pick up an MS console just to play Forza but I’m not sure if this eye-popping, oversaturated animated movie style graphics are really needed to accomplish that.

Let me also leave some quick examples here so that the developers can hopefully look into it and perhaps consider making changes and/or improvements:

Camino, Maple, Nurb GP, Mugello or Suzuka in FM3 for instance had very subtle and natural-looking colors that made driving an absolute joy. You could really see the trackside detail and backgrounds especially very clearly. The colors on the car seemed quite life-like too. Look at the same tracks in FM4, and obviously they had to cut down track detail and a lot of that wonderful background scenery also got cut in favor of more cars, complex physics complications and especially higher fidelity audio. In addition to loss of detail, we had washed out graphics and overall really bright and oversaturated visuals that would force one to adjust TV settings or take a break from the game altogether after a while.

Now fast forwarding to Forza on the current gen; Forza 5 has excellent trackside detail and background scenery detail to begin with. I’m bringing detail in the picture because the lighting model they used really made the detail in and around the track visible. Apart from tracks like Catalunya and perhaps another one, most tracks had superb lighting. Look at the sky in Forza 5 tracks and you’ll know what I mean. In Forza 6, you’ll pretty much see the same thing as what we had going between FM3 and 4 - loss of trackside detail and background scenery to accommodate more cars, night weather etc. Additionally, the FOV was also adjusted so unfortunately, the track environment looks somewhat small and zoomed out. Not just that, but the lighting in the sky makes certain parts of the track look overly bright. Prime suspects are Yas Marina, Spa, Bathurst, Nurb GP, Sebring, Rio etc. These looked fine in FM5 - the sun illuminated the environment realistically. I do understand that T10 prefer sunset/sunrise settings for a number of tracks, but the way more than half the sky is bathed brightly by the sun is not very realistic and even a bit of a strain for the eyes (Bathurst).

I do feel the lighting model should be improved drastically. They were doing it right in previous games. The lighting looks really good in Horizon 1 and 2 as well as FM2, 3 and 5. I believe they can bring back the same level and make improvements from there. What’s more, a photorealistic lighting model will yield better shadows and reflections as well. I really do hope the game finally gets a more life-like look as opposed to a super-polished, super-clean and glossy CGI look.

Forza is very good to look at, that’s for sure. However, subtle adjustments in the lighting model can make it look practically as good as some of the best racing games out there. It would be nice if T10 lets us adjust the saturation just like we can in Photo Mode. And I really hope the lighting model from H3 does NOT find its way into FM7 since they do have a habit of cross-using assets between franchises.

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Forza is not aiming for the sim crowd (they never have) and details like this take an enormous amount of time and effort for very little gain. Most people will see “realistic” colors and think “That looks really washed out” or “It just doesn’t pop”. Forza uses a slightly oversaturated “Hollywood” look because that’s what will get people’s attention. When you’re spending millions of dollars to create a video game, getting people’s attention is the prime concern.

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