Lighting is the environment.
If you have no lighting all you have is a car model. The E3 demo on the PC had everything woten was going on about, but it got removed.
Just like GIL got removed from UE4 because those consoles CANT DO IT.
You guys dont read.
People are throwing around the rather silly term “pre baked” as if it would speak to the quality of lighting (actually shadowing).
It means the process of pre-rendering shadows and “baking” the result onto the geometry, essentially its a texture like any other. The result are entirely **static** shadows. Its easy on performance since it is not realtime, but doesn`t really work for motion, which makes it useless for certain things like day/night cycles.
The quality as such is no better or worse than dynamic lighting though; if you want call it a matter of taste.
The cars on Forza have been lit using image based lighting since Forza 4, everyone can google that.
Of course the car shadowing is dynamic, pre-rendered shadows wouldn`t move across the cockpit properly.
So ye, Wotan has it right.
Reflections are an entirely different matter. I dont really know what Forza is using there, but I guess its based on environment mapping.
One way or the other they fake reflections based on an image of the surroundings, it looks a bit like a top-down projection.
Most games fake reflections to a certain degree, mixing realtime with shaders, and/or leave objects out.
Quick note on the posted screenshots … Yes, Forza adds AA and probably postprocessing in Photomode, but the final image isnt that far from what we get while we play. PCars shots ...erm, ye... thats not even close to what I see while playing, on PC. Not to mention consoles (I don`t have it on console, but well…).
Either way, action shots from racing games are not very informative anyway, they sometimes looked almost real even 10 years ago, given the right angle and a bit of blur.
forzas cars dont even cast shadows onto other cars.
You do realise its the track that moves and not the cars right? And go google IBL all you like, its not real time either so.
lol … alright, you keep believing that moving shadows in cockpit view or on the road are prerendered, that IBL on cars in games means prerendered, and that lighting and environment is the same thing.
Turn10 should hire you, you could solve all their problems inventing animated prerendered shadows.
DigitalFoundry about IBL
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-tech-analysis-forza-motorsport-4?page=2
(edit: removed sarcasm from the DF part, worried about misunderstandings)
They are, but keep on keeping on dude.
See you in 6 months time with disappointment all over the forums when nothing changes.
That wasn`t exactly the theme on this page since all the lighting talk started but ok.
If people after seeing PCars still expect 1080p+60fps+day&night+weather then yes, chances are pretty high for disappointment.
it wasnt the theme no, but seeing as everyone thinks its real time when it isnt.
Where my car shadows and reflections at?
why are the sides of the car facing the camera in the dark when the light is coming from that direction?
The light is being cast down the cars (see the car sideways, yet shadows come from the side).
as I said, keep on keeping on.
Because between the sun and the camera are high buildings that throws the shadows on the car.
Man, you really want to do this.
The green is light being cast onto the cars, complete with contradictory side shadowing.
The red is the supposed shadows being cast by the buildings.
2 suns, amazing.
On that picture above…
Like you would expect. Also the lights need to look better, even GT6 can beat you on that. The screens look way too dainty and like they are afraid to be touched… racing isn’t that refined. The people don’t look that good and I saw about ten different types and that was it… and they were all white.
way to completely miss the point of those pictures. Its not about which looks better.
It demonstrates how forza is prebaked cake fakery and at times, completely wrong.
So tell me what’s wrong with the picture. In Forza 5, the sun is is directly facing the right trees. Resulting in smaller shadows. Just logical.
Beside of this, pre backed shadows have nothing to do with fake. Forza 5 has no dynamic day/night cycle, so there is no need to compute “environment” shadows at runtime. They are every time the same, because the sun (lights) does not change, does not need to change at all. Computing these shadows offline (pre packed) is no fake. It’s often the opposite, because dynamically computed shadows often have a lower resolution, because of resources constraints. If you can pre backed, you can compute the shadows at a high resolution, because it don’t hit runtime performance in the same way.
the sun is in the wrong position.
I know prebaking improves performance, that was my entire point, and why you cant technically compare the 2. So now you finally admit its prebaked. Thank god for that.
Regarding to the shadows the sun is in the right direction. I don’t know why you are comparing 4 different games with 4 different light setups. How lighting is depends on daytime and weather, atmospheric particles etc. Not that this is computed from any of the games, but it’s up to the content creator.
Don’t know what you are talking about, but i’ve always said that environment lighting is pre backed. But not on the cars 
Sorry, seeing as we are pedantic. The sun is geographically positioned wrong.
You want to add ray tracing to the list, you may as well.
We’re done here.
Well, you are quoting wrong things to back up your arguments. I’ve always said that environment lighting is pre backed, but the lighting, shadowing and reflections of the cars are realtime rendering.
NO THEY ARE NOT.
Im not quoting anything wrong, you have no clue. if it was real time rendering this wouldnt happen!!!
Sure, they are. You see the “current” environment based on your current location reflecting on your car. This includes environment and other cars. You can’t pre backe such reflections, because it depends on your current location, lighting and the other cars. You can certainly argue about the quality of reflections like resolution of the render target. But at least Forza 5 does some distort. For example, if you are playing in hood camera mode you see the complete environment and cars reflecting. But there is a small distort considering that the hood is not a plane surface. In PCars it simply mirrors the current frame on the hood.
If it’s reached the point where you have to freeze a frame and draw arrows and circles to point out the graphical errors of FM5, and even then it still isn’t that obvious what, if anything is wrong. Then perhaps it’s simply the case that there is in every practical sense nothing wrong at all. I doubt in the great scheme of things that very few players care how shadows are created and they look more than acurate enough in the example frame. Let’s face it, the object of the game is to take that corner at speed while downshifting and avoiding other cars. You’re not really supposed to stuff the barrier because you’re watching how shadows are cast. If this is the key difference (graphically) between Forza and PCars then I’m afraid Slightly Mad may have wasted a lot of time and more importantly resource doing something that has such limited impact and value. Dust, you talk about “pre baked” like its some terrible crime or abuse. I’d call it a logical use of resource and T10 appear to do it extremely well. T10 are in the business of making an XB exclusive racing game and to date they’ve managed to out perform the competition. This may not always be the case but the competition will have to do a great deal more than a slightly more acurate tree shadow to steal the crown.
Its not a terrible crime. I never said it was. I never said one looked better than the other.
I said technically you cant compare the 2 because one is pre baked the other is not. Compromises are made in both cases.
If you cant see the fault in that image regarding how real time lighting works vs pre baking (artists placing light sources/shadows manually), not really my issue and doesnt invalidate any statement Ive made. If it was real time, there would be one light source, the cars would all cast shadows the same direction and be lit from the same direction, not 2.
This goes back to my original arguement.
Look at both threads.
They (excuse the generalisation) want day/night, weather, all the bells and wistles AND at 1080p AND at 60fps.
Thats a tall ask for any developer on these machines is what I have been saying all along.