Game Needs to be a Major Graphical Step Up

[Seannach]

Farming Simulator is falling into the Call of Duty trap. Releasing what is ostensibly the same game with one or two new features on a release cycle isn't going to cut it this year. FS 2019 looks like a game that came out in the early 2010s. The lighting/shadow quality is sub par. The anti-aliasing is barely functional. The environments are cheap, low-effort, low-poly models that look like a Playstation 2 game. These issues need to be addressed for me to consider buying this new title. All of the new features based on the trailer are mods that already exist for 19.

[Unster]

The dynamic ground in the Runner games definitely isn't just texture manipulation. The ground mesh actually deforms in those games. I don't know how C&C does it, but it's much less convincing and it could be something simpler.

[Unster]

Messaggio originale di elevenfourteen:

The thing with deformable ground... It's not really anything huge different compared to parallax occlusion mapping which is now used in FS22.

That statement is totally wrong. POM gives objects the illusion of depth, nothing more. It's still a static surface whose mesh doesn't change and it has no effect on physics. True dynamic ground is much more than that and it affects the physics as well.

[elevenfourteen]

Somewhere in the focus forum it's actually stated, that it's texture layers. I think they should know it, right?

Ah, found it. It's somewhere in there iirc.

https://forums.focus-home.com/topic/44898/engine-visuals-blog


And POM of course can have physical influences and appearances. Do you think an actual 3d surface magically has physical features that influence vehicles digging through? All just values somehow integrated. Like with the Rea mod in FS19. POM has its own height map, that can actually be modified when driving on it for example. It's also used to simulate areas where water puddles can appear during rain, physically correct in the deep parts of the height map.

And no, my statement is not totally wrong. I've been working long enough with this stuff. But I know you love to start arguments like you do in the SnowRunner forum and accept no other opinion than your own, so I just leave it for the time being. =)

[Unster]

Messaggio originale di elevenfourteen:

Somewhere in the focus forum it's actually stated, that it's texture layers. I think they should know it, right?

Ah, found it. It's somewhere in there iirc.

https://forums.focus-home.com/topic/44898/engine-visuals-blog


And POM of course can have physical influences and appearances. Do you think an actual 3d surface magically has physical features that influence vehicles digging through? All just values somehow integrated. Like with the Rea mod in FS19. POM has its own height map, that can actually be modified when driving on it for example. It's also used to simulate areas where water puddles can appear during rain, physically correct in the deep parts of the height map.

And no, my statement is not totally wrong. I've been working long enough with this stuff. But I know you love to start arguments like you do in the SnowRunner forum and accept no other opinion than your own, so I just leave it for the time being. =)

Wrong link. Nowhere do they talk about ground deformation. Of course there's no "magic" in 3D deformable mesh automatically translating into physics. I'm not an idiot. In fact I'm a game programmer, so you don't need to explain anything to me in this area. I wasn't meaning to be confrontational in any way, I don't even know you or remember you, but if you want to run away, feel free.

[elevenfourteen]

No well, we didn't argue, I just stayed out of those discussions :) I am generally just over there to help with issues, not to discuss the game itself.

So okay. As far as I can rebuild it... Snowrunner's surface is of course not POM, that's not what I wanted to say. It is also not entirely a 3D deformable mesh. A part of it is indeed changing 3d surface for example used for some f the terrains extrusion. Most of it are just some kind of texture mechanics. I am not entirely sure if it's achieved with vertex alpha or tesselation. As far as I know a collision has no effect on tesselation, so... However, most of Snowrunner's 3d terrain is achieved through simple 2D deformation. It's a vertex shader. If theres an effector to a vertice the state of the vertex on the surface is labeled by velocity,internal force yadayada. So first part is your external force - the tire, second part is the new vertex position and normal calculation. It's kind of a combination of both, but it's not just entirely 3d mesh deformation of a 4 km² map. I don't believe a minimum spec PC could run Snowrunner this way.

[Unster]

OK, that I can agree with. Yes I also think it's a combination of mesh deformation with some texture manipulation, obviously. Mesh deformation by itself wouldn't look good and it would stretch the ground texture. It's well implemented, one of the few good parts of SnowRunner, but that's also because they ported that from MudRunner where it was ported from Spintires. So far it's still the best ground deformation on the market to my knowledge.

Regarding FS, I don't really care how they do it as long as it behaves in a convincing way. But as far as I know, this POM is there just for looks. I don't think they're planning to do anything with it physics-wise.

[elevenfourteen]

If they don't do it, it can be achieved through mods - well that's not great, but also not too bad. It's just one of these things that shouldn't be a mod but a base game feature of course. I wouldn't even be mad if it has no effect on physics. It could just be a feast for the eyes and I would be happy.

Anyway... Giant's always achieved a coherent appearance in their games. My only concern with surfacees is if there are finally more terrain angles or if it's again just 0, 45, 90° [...]. This has been an immersion breaker since they had like 16 terrain angles in Ski Region Simulator. I do understand if theres no pretty way to do it with potato dams. But regular crops and corn.....

[Unster]

Agreed, including about the ground texture angles. Would be nice to have smaller increments than 45 degrees. Also would like to see more visual precision when harvesting crops. I don't really like those dancing corn stalks that spawn outside the current crop area.

[elevenfourteen]

Ah yes, the feeder animation. Sometimes with a completely different crop texture than what you see grown on the field. I honestly think nothing will change in this regard. Increments appear to stay the same. But hey, we can create a 4 times smaller map and have just a 25 cm gradation instead of a 1 meter one :D This actually works!

[BDK]

I dont get why they don't do the same as Euro Truck Simulator 2. That game is old, but it's constantly getting new dlc, trucks, audio and graphical overhauls. If they were to release a new game like Farm Sim, it would be Euro Truck Simulator 4 by now - And none of the old dlc would be working. So basically, a waste of money.

[elevenfourteen]

Isn't ETS2 a whole other scale? With all new regions it's way easier to earn some money to create future content or upgrading the engine partially. How would you do that in FS? Release x amount of 4km² maps, while much more interesting map mods are out there? After the 5th dlc pack with tractors and machinery the sails have lost their wind. A whole engine upgrade like we have it for 22 is not just done that easily. Everything has to fit. You can't just keep old maps and old tractor models and transfer them into the new game. Quality would absolutely lack in terms of poly count and overall visuals. Main reason still would be financing. With such a huge modding community, it is sometimes hard to bring exciting new content that people actually want to buy.

ETS2 is a peacemeal of new and old maps, truck models and general visuals. LoD is gruesome on some older parts of the map - even on new maps it is often more than evident how old the engine is - even if upgraded a few times since release. Since DX11 anti aliasing is just pure sadness on nvidia gpus. ETS2 can do it their way, and it kind of works for that game, while it still has some big flaws. That doesn't mean it works for a game like FS, however.

[Unster]

I agree that not every game can just survive for years with DLC alone, but ETS2 and ATS fit that model nicely, since the devs can add new regions and cargo. Regarding anti-aliasing, I thought it was bad too in those games, but the trick is to increase scaling in the options. For a 2012 game (ETS2) with scaling up and graphics maxed out, most areas look really good, I'd say just as good as much more recent games.

[Mondyrocks]

Messaggio originale di Unster:

I agree that not every game can just survive for years with DLC alone, but ETS2 and ATS fit that model nicely, since the devs can add new regions and cargo. Regarding anti-aliasing, I thought it was bad too in those games, but the trick is to increase scaling in the options. For a 2012 game (ETS2) with scaling up and graphics maxed out, most areas look really good, I'd say just as good as much more recent games.

I find myself in total agreement with this comment.
I have a 2080ti and run at 200% scaling.

It looks great with hardly any of the horrible dot crawl or jaggied edges and runs really well :)

[Seannach]

Messaggio originale di elevenfourteen:

Messaggio originale di Seannach:

I find it a bit exaggerated to compare the game with PS2 graphics, however. FS 19 had a quite acceptable poly count for what the engine can deliver. Vehicle models for FS22 will have around double the amount of polygons compared to 19. All the little details like actual 3D tyres (see the Mack truck Screenshot, also look at that poly rich fenders) add quite a good amount to richness in vehicle details.

I just want to be clear, I am not talking about the tractors. Its literally everything else. The buildings, environmental objects, terrain LOD, water, clouds, and skybox/distance scenery. They are all hugely dated. Not an exaggeration. The game simply isn't up to modern standards.

[elevenfourteen]

Sure, especially vanilla maps lack a realistic visual appearance and feel kittenish. I know for a fact, that buildings are going to be improved like we partially saw in Erlengrat. Combined with POM I think it'll make a pretty big difference. Clouds, although voxel-based since FS19 do always look pretty flat. I don't think this will improve, looking at current Screenshots. You're also right with the water. Can't defend the game there. Lighting is for me the biggest flaw since ever.