Assetto4Seasons 4.1

Release Highlights
- ENHANCED "WET" TRACK MOD SUPPORT
- SUPPORT FOR DYNAMIC LIGHTING TEST BUILD
- IMPROVEMENT OF GRIP ALGORITHM
- VISUAL FIXES
- OTHER MINOR CHANGES/TWEAKS/FIXES

ENHANCED "WET" TRACK MOD SUPPORT
Now when a WET track is selected, Assetto4Seasons will automatically craft a weather scenario coherent with a wet asphalt (overriding the A4S weather simulator engine); you will either get a stormy scenario or a foggy one depending on the wind speed setting you chose. Remember also to set a value for the air temperature that fits the situation.
At this moment when a WET track is selected, A4S GRIP alorithm is disabled to avoid too harsh driving conditions (this may change in the future), and will provide the AC racing engine with "GREEN" grip settings. Obviusly you can override this by manually chosing different grip settings from the "TRACK" (top/right) menu in CM.

SUPPORT FOR DYNAMIC LIGHTING TEST BUILD
Now A4S support both the latest official release (v.1.22) and the latest test build (v.1.23 R5) of the Dynamic Light Shader, by bringing specific lighting tailoring; for this reason in the archive you will find 2 folders with the 2 versions of A4S (one for V1.22 and one for V1.23). Chose the one that applies to you.

IMPROVEMENT OF GRIP ALGORITHM
More rigorous implementation of SESSION TRANSFER parameter (previous implementation was a placeholder) and improvement of INITIAL GRIP/LAP GAIN algorithm

VISUAL FIXES
- fixed a bad exposure setting along with other lighting settings for clear/mostly clear weathers; much better and natural impact and removed the possibility of road pitching too dark at dusk (daqn/sunrise)
- fixed a bad lighting setting which lead in some cases to have overexposed clouds at night
- improvement of cloudy/hazy scenarios
- adjustement of DOF in low daylight

OTHER MINOR CHANGES/TWEAKS/FIXES
- implemented a fix for handling the case of Content Manager not providing the GEOTAGS, which could lead (in very rare cases) to an application error
- implemented a fix for handling the case the user does not select the date of the race (in QUICK RACE mode); in this case A4S will simulate the weather of a random day of the year; please remember that in A4S since release 4.0, unless you are in Chmapionship mode, you have to select the date of the race!
- tweaks to the weather engine to make more likely to happen some specific weather scenarios
- wet effects are now back by default (for specific scenarios); if you want to disable them (performance drop?) then edit the "tyre_smoke.lua" file and set "WATEREFFECTSENABLED = false" in the "USER A4S TWEAKS" section

If you just updated A4S to 4.0 you may skip this subrelease since it is just a minor update bringing 2 tiny patches.
If you haven't yet upgraded to 4.0.0, please read the 4.0 RELEASE CHANGELOG, it is important (4.x is significantly different from 3.x).
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Content of this patch release
- it disables the WEATHER DEPENDENT GRIP feature when a "WET TRACK MOD" is used;
- it fixes the washedout sky appearing in some cloudy scenarios at specific latitudes

Hi all, here comes the version 4.0, pretty close to the vision I had for this mod, an enviromental (visual and functional) extension of AC.
Please read the whole changelog before installing.
YOU NEED THE LATEST VERSION (0.8.1837.34607 or above) of Content Manager (CM) TO USE Assetto 4 Seasons 4.0.
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RELEASE HIGHLIGHTS
- FULL YEAR CALENDAR; now you can choose any day of the year from the new CM "CALENDAR" feature (this feature is not available in CHAMPIONSHIP mode)
- WEATHER DEPENDENT GRIP; now A4S adapts the GRIP (track state) of the track to the race characteristics and enviromental conditions
- ENANCHED HEADLIGHTS; Now A4S manages Headlights light even during the day
- ENANCHED TRACK GEOLOCALIZATION; A4S now use the GEOTAGS provided by CM to craft the race enviroment
- OTHER VISUAL ENANCHEMENTS; improvements of some cloudy/stormy scenarios (with finetuning of headlights)
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Below a short "tutorial" video on how to use the WEATHER DEPENDENT GRIP and FULL YEAR CALENDAR feautres

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MORE ON FULL YEAR CALENDAR
The calendar feature is available in QUICK RACE mode but not in CHAMPIONSHIP MODE. This means that in CHAMPIONSHIP mode you still have to select the season.
In QUICK RACE there are no "seasons", not anymore; just select "4Seasons" weather from the A4S menu and select a day of the year from the CM calendar feature (where is the "CM calendar feature"? Watch the video!)
The folders (and A4S weather menu) structure now is the following:
4SEASONS (for QUICKRACE)
SPRING - CHAMPIONSHIP DAYTIME (for CHAMPIONSHIP)
SPRING - CHAMPIONSHIP NIGHTIME (for CHAMPIONSHIP)
SUMMER - CHAMPIONSHIP DAYTIME (for CHAMPIONSHIP)
SUMMER - CHAMPIONSHIP NIGHTIME (for CHAMPIONSHIP)
AUTUMN - CHAMPIONSHIP DAYTIME (for CHAMPIONSHIP)
AUTUMN - CHAMPIONSHIP NIGHTIME (for CHAMPIONSHIP)
WINTER - CHAMPIONSHIP DAYTIME (for CHAMPIONSHIP)
WINTER - CHAMPIONSHIP NIGHTIME (for CHAMPIONSHIP)
With the FULL YEAR CALENDAR feature, you can finally witness the day/night and SUN trajectory changes as well the progression of the weather as you chose different dates from the calendar.
Furthermore, this feature will make life easier for you in finding the weather you are looking for (remember anyway to set the proper temperature/wind parameters).

MORE ON WEATHER DEPENDENT GRIP
Along with the road temperture now the mod adapts the GRIP level to the acutal race conditions, by calculating:
- the INITIAL GRIP of the session
- the LAPGAIN, e.g. the rate by which the GRIP increases during the session
- the GRIPTRANFER, e.g. the amount of GRIP transferred from a session (Practice/Qualify) to the next one (Qualify/Race)
The WEATHER DEPENDENT GRIP feaure is available for all race modes (including CHAMPIONSHIP)
To enable this feature you have to select "AUTO (set by weather)" the TRACK state on the CM menu (topright menu in QUICKRACE page).
I highly recommend to always use this feaure when using A4S, IMHO it is a REAL GAME CHANGER.
For those curious about how it works:
- for the algorithm, I'm using a pseudo-Gaussian ditribution for calculating the INITIAL GRIP while for the LAPGAIN I've chosen a function linked to the first derivative of such curve (the higher the GRIP on track the lower the GRIP GAIN).
- before the AC race engine is launnched, the feature "simulates" the race in order to evaluate the GRIP transferred across the race sessions
The algorithm takes in consideration the following variables:
WEATHER
- air/road temperature
- air humidity
- wind (in dusty circtuits, windspeed is used, in conjuction with airtemp and humidity, to evaluate the impact of dust/sand on the track grip)
TRACK CHARACTERISTICS
- track lenght (used in conjunction with the number of cars to evaluate the number of Laps per session)
- asphalt typology (roadtrack/circuit old/new)
- track conditions (clean/dusty/sand)
RACE CHARACTERISTICS
- Race typology (Weekend/practice....etcetera)
- Sessions duration
- Number of cars

MORE ON ENANCHED HEADLIGHTS
Now headlights look nice, credible and balanced also during the day. And no annoying breaklights.
Headlights are automatically switched on in low daylight conditions.
Also, headlights are automatically (SMARTHEADLIGHTS feature) switched on when:
- Time acceleration is over 10x
- when racing close to sunset or sunrise
If you want to disable this setting, open weather.lua and set "SMARTHEADLIGHTS = false" (default value is TRUE)
On the contrary, if you want to have headlights swtiched on always during the day (as I personally do), open weather.lua and set "HEADLIGHTSALWAYSON = true" (default value is FALSE)
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INSTALLATION
Please DO A CLEAN INSTALLATION
- backup the previous (A4S 3.x) mod release
- delete the previous (A4S 3.x) mod release folders
- install current 4.0 release
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Enjoy.

POST RELEASE UPDATE
Just noticed that there is a GRIP issue when using WET TRACK MODS, such as "Feldbering Wet". The fix is easy, but for the moment I recommend to set TRACK to "OPTIMUM" instead that "AUTO" when using wet track mods.

Major change of the Weather Engine; now it simulates the propagation of waves of air pressure/clouds/humidity around the globe. Beside that, now the engine takes in consideration also the longitude of the track, and the altitude profiling has been improved. Now longitude/latitude/altitude are taken in consideration.
Improvement of track profiling; added track tailoring for some new (and nice) recent track additions (such as LA Canyon, Porto-Piana etecetera)
Some visual improvements; improved some cloudy scenario during the day and the night; improved the sun glare.

Overall the main topic of this release is the change in the weather engine:
- it secures that climatic conditions in tracks in close regions are consistent
- it provides more variability
- it profiles much more accurately the seasonal conditions to the actual track

Lastly, in the archive you will find a reshade profile I use.

HIGHLIGHTS
- Weather Engine improvement; changed the weather variables patterns to increase the chance of getting different climatic conditions.
- Fixed a bug that in some very specific conditions could lead to improper lighting
- Added a new color pattern for day scenarios (now you have two different dawns/sunsets clour schemes with equal probability to occurr)

Day scenarios have been reworked:
- much better cloudy setups
- better color temps
- slightly colder sun (when angle is above 30°)
- improved tuning of contrast/saturation/brightness to reflect variable climatic conditions.
Overall I'm very, very pleased now with the day scenarios.

Minor adjustments on Night scenarios to secure a bit more diffuse light. Also the stars should appear a bit brighter in most occasions.

Minor "under the hood" changes needed for next major (4.x) release.

Hi all. Release 3.0 represent a significant move forward, both functionally and visually.
Before updating I suggest to backup previous release.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Full implementation of astrophysics rules
- Full day/full night span lighting design
- Other fucntional/performance changes

Full implementation of astrophysics rules
Now the mod implement fully the position of the sun at any given time of any day of the year for any latitude (both Boreal and Austral emisphere).
- sunset and sunrise time are now accurately calculated on dayoftheyear and track latitude basis, with credible duration of the night and day
- trajectory of the sun during the day is based of the actual elevation for the day of the year and latitude (please note that anyway some limitation still stands due to the Kunos choice of clamping the sunrise/sunset angle). Below a video to depict the concept comparing two extreme conditions; winter and summer day development at Highlands (59°N latitude). Pleas note that the actual lighting/color curves of the video are not the actual ones of Release 3 (recorded the video 1 week ago), so the video is just to demostrate the "real sun path" feature (elevation of the sun and duration of the day) not the lighting design of the mod.

[NB] The mod actually now is based on the day of the year, not the season. This means that it will work with any day of the year, so in case in the future CM will allow to choose the day/month of the race the mod already support it. For the moment the day of the year are fixed for each season (15 days after the relevant eqionx/solstice)

Full day/full night span lighting design
Night and Day scenarios have been completely redesigned in order to comply with the real sunpath feature and to be more future proof in light of a "possible" day/night transition (if it will ever come)
- day scenarios span from sunrise to sunset

- night scenarios span from sunset to sunrise; stars fade in and fade out

- more precise colortemps

Other fucntional/performance changes
- added more regions, including regions for the boreal emisphere
- added "Time Multiplier Compensation" feature; this simply allows to use the time acceleration while still having clouds moving at the intended speed
- water/wet effects are now disabled by default for performance reasons (stuttering still persist); if you want to enable them you have to enable theme by setting "WATEREFFECTSENABLED = true" in the tyre_smoke.lua file

Last words
Still there is space for improvement (the stormy scenarios is not yet what I have in mind, plus other minor things).
As already stated the grip code adaptation has been developed few weeks ago, I'm just waiting for the CM support.
The night can be a bit darker than what you were used to. I'm still investigating how to leave more residual light (there are different ways to do it).
In any case these are my recommended settings for Dynamic Lighting feature "lighting_fx.ini":
BRIGHTNESS_MULTIPLIER=1.5
HEADLIGHTS_SATURATION_MULTIPLIER=0.7

Uploading small update.
In the rush in 2.2.0 I messed up 2 line of codes of the new feature (season/region dependent sun trajectory)

Should you update? Yes.
I'm aware that 2.1 was uploaded just three days ago, but there is a reason why I'm pushing this update in advance to the usual schedule (weekend). This release fixes two big bugs happening at deep night (you may have encountered already or maybe not, but they are there in 2.1) and also significantly improves some night scenarios involving the moon which should appear in these days depending on the season (if you do not see a moon but you see a brighter sky/clouds, it means the moon is there somewhere and may appear during the race or if you select a different time of race).

Highlights
1) Bugfixing;
- fixed a bug that at deep night (in specific conditions) could lead to a ugly scenario with a black sky and huge bright clouds (it was not a bad design choice, but a bad copy/paste in the wrong code section, sorry).
- fixed a scenario at night (cloudy night) where clouds were too bright with no motivation (this was a design/testing error)
2) Improved night scenarios with fog/haze especially when the moon is involved
3) Improved water effects; the new settings seem to be visually more balanced and also slightly more performance friendly (I observed something like 2FPS gain and more importantly the stutter is more rare and less severe). Also improved the water effects algorithm to have more consistence across the day and night.
4) Now the sun azimuth is the one set by the track author; when no lighting.ini is present a Mod defatult value is set.
5) Now the sun will have variable trajectories depending on the season and track latitude (region); this will allow a more credible experience in terms of sun lighting/shadows. Such effect will appear more evident as you move to high latitude tracks during winter and summer.

As always do a clean installation:
- backup old release
- close CM and AC
- delete previous release folders
- install new release

HIghlights
1) Support for smoke and improved water effects
2) New region
3) Redesign of dawn scenario
4) Fixed a lighhting issue at evening when hazy
5) Fixed an issue that lead to improper lighting under some particular circumstances
6) Added few performace tweaks (option at code level)
7) Other things
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1) Now the mod supports both smoke and water; you'll have the standard smoke when it is dry and water effects when humid. The water effects have been (IMHO) improved and feel more "natural" (e.g. the water effects are less continous and could affect both or only one wheel depending on the inclination of the car). You don't want water effects at all? See point 6.
2) Added a new region to gather tracks location close to 50° of latitude. This means that locations such as SPA, Silverstone etcetera have a slighly longer summer daytime and slightly shorter winter daytime.
3) Redesigned the dawn scenario (when the sun is present). Previous implementation could lead to bad visula epxerience during a race. The new one is much better and consistent (you can drive for hours and as the sun changes position the lighhting is still credible).
4) At early evening when hazy the sky could appear grey; that was not the intended design. Now it is much better.
5) Bugifx: when driving just after sunset or just before the dawn in a season/track with a very late dawn or very early sunset the lighting sometimes was non the proper one. Now it should be ok.
6) You can adjust "manually" some tweaks in order to improve performances related to water effects (FPS drop or stutter). In order to this, open the "tyre_smoke.lua" (there is one in every directory) with a text editor and look at the top of the file for the following lines of code:

WATEREFFECTSENABLED = true

PERFORMANCEPROFILE = false

If you want to improve the performaces (loosing a bit of quality) try to set
PERFORMANCEPROFILE = true
If still the performances are not adeqaute you can try to set
WATEREFFECTSENABLED = false
which will disable water effects but will keep the smoke effects.
Alternatively you can get rid of "tyre_smoke.lua" and "tyre_smoke.ini" (remember both the files), which is quite radical but will do the job as well.
7) Developed the code for adaptive GRIP. Apparently the values it provides (INITAL GRIP, GRIP GAIN, GRIP TRANSFER and RANDOMIZATION) are credible and consistent. They take in account all relevant weather variables as well the duration of race sessions, numbers of car on track and the typology of track. Hopefully I can test it for real once CM will provide the interface.

FInally, remember to make a clean installation:
- backup previous installation
- ensure CM and AC are shut down
- delete previous release
- install the new one

It is quite a long changelog. I recommend you to read it all.
Main change: support for Custom Championships; now you can you use Assetto 4 Season also in custom championships (below more details and instructions for use).
Visual Improvements:
- much better moon and improvement of hazy nights sceanarios with moon.
- rework of summer/spring clean dawn scenarios
Functional improvements:
- finetuning of temperature coefficient (relation between air temp and road temp). The temperature coefficient takes in consideration time of day/night, humidity level, the current season, level of exposure to sun (clean/cloudy) and altitude (in case you are driving on a mountain track).
- patchcode to cope with a small bug of Content Manager when calcualting road temperature in very specific conditions
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Details on using A4S in Custom Championship.
Content Manager still does not support natively some features needed by the "standard" A4S, anyway with this release you will be able to use A4S for Custom Championship with very minimal limitations.
Once installed A4S (in the usual way) you will have 12 (not 4) options in the CM "WEATHER/A4S" submenu:
-SPRING
-SUMMER
-AUTUMN
-WINTER
-SPRING - CHAMPIONSHIP DAYTIME
-SPRING - CHAMPIONSHIP NIGHTTIME
-SUMMER - CHAMPIONSHIP DAYTIME
-SUMMER - CHAMPIONSHIP NIGHTTIME
-AUTUMN - CHAMPIONSHIP DAYTIME
-AUTUMN - CHAMPIONSHIP NIGHTTIME
-WINTER - CHAMPIONSHIP DAYTIME
-WINTER - CHAMPIONSHIP NIGHTTIME

Use the first 4 options (as usual) when in the quick race menu.
Use the other 8 options when setting up a custom championship.
How to setup a championship with A4S
It is quite simple (remember that still CM only support the interval 8-18 in the menu);
- when configuring a "round" in the Custom Championship menu in the time frame 8-18, select the "<Season> - CHAMPIONSHIP DAYTIME" of your choice, set the time of race (between 8 and 18) and then the other parameters, then save.
- when configuring a "round" after 6pm (18), select the "<Season> - CHAMPIONSHIP NIGHTIME" of your choice, set the race time with 11 hours offset; in other words if you want to run at 20:00 please set the time at 9 (since 9+11 = 20 = 8 p.m.), if you want to run at 4 a.m then set the time at 17 (since 17 + 11 = 24 +4 = 4 a.m.). Then set the other parameters and save. You need to do some math ;-).

Let's make an example of a short 3 races championship happening between August and July. Let's imagine I want to race at:
- Imola (ITA) at 14:00, where it is summer
- Yas Marina (UAE) at 20:00, where it is summer
- Bathurst (AUS) at 22:00, where it is winter
This is I would setup the championship:
ROUND 1
TRACK: IMOLA
TIME: 14
WEATHER: "SUMMER - CHAMPIONSHIP DAYTIME"
ROUND 2
TRACK: YAS MARINA (NIGHTRACK)
TIME: 9 (11+9=20)
WEATHER: "SUMMER - CHAMPIONSHIP NIGHTIME"
ROUND 3
TRACK: BATHURST
TIME: 13 (13+9=22)
WEATHER: "WINTER - CHAMPIONSHIP NIGHTIME"

Hope it is clear.
When setting up a championship, I recommend you to save frequentely and before starting the race, secure the championship races have the proper "weather conditions" (by scrolling all the races), because sometimes CM "loses" the settings (but in my experience it happens occasionally and only before the championship has started.
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A4S Limitations in Championship mode:
- you cannot select the wind (do not worry the mod has a Wind pattern in the weather engine), everything will work fine; just remember that the wind speed you will see in the menu likely will not correspond to the real race wind speed
- you have to do some math in setting up the championship
- you cannot race between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m.
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OTHER THINGS TO KNOW
Still the actual time shown in the race menu is wrong; it will be fixed with the coming Dynamic Lyghting add-on (I tried a test build and it works).
CM developer is aware of the issue of the annoying rear brakelights in daytime, and it will be fixed soon.
CM developer and I reached an agreement on how to implement the the adjustment of the "track state" (which influences the grip) in a way that reflects the actual weather conditions.

Enjoy. Now I have to update the overview page.

Sorry guys, in release 1.0.0 I messed up a few lines of code.
As a result, the sky at early evening (and at some extent at late night) was far from the way it was supposed to look like.
Also, in Summer, you could have got the Sun at night. Sorry.
Now it should be OK.

Rework of all day scenario; all day scenarios have been reworked; now they look appealing and credible across all seasons and climatic conditions and with color temperature settings to reflect the lighting carhacteristics of the seasons/regions.
New heat shimmering; new filter for heat shimmering coming in two flavours depending on temperature.
Improvement of weather engine:
- New climatic zone; new region comprising the tracks at very high latitude (Scotland, Scandinavian countries and Canada).
- Mountain tracks; now the weather engine takes in consideration (both for lighting and climatic variables) also if the track develops across a mountains area
Lighting; now the color/white temperature is adjusted according to the actual climatic region
Night Scenarios; small tweaks and adjustments (especially at evening and before the dawn)
Headlights; decreased a bit the luminance of headlights to reduce the brightness of rear brakelights

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[NOTE] I'm aware that the reflection of brakelights is excessive at night and annoying in day scenarios, but it has nothing to do with the mod. I hope it will be fixed in one of the future DynamicLighting releases

It's been quite a busy week. This release is a significant upgrade, focussing on the improvement/enrichement of night scenarios, the upgrade of the weather simulator plus some new features. Next release (likely 1.0.0) will address the daylight and other improvements.
Before installing the new version I suggest you to backup the previous release (to be on the safe side) and then delete it.

It is quite a long extensive changelog, I recommend reading it entirely to get the most out of the mod and avoid misunderstandings.

New hazy night scenarios; changed the appearance to make them more credible and "immersive". The new ones deliver a more consistent result across all tracks and situations. Previous ones were "atmospheric" but were prone to break the dark settiing of the night; they might come back as a variant (likely before the dawn and after sunset).

New early night setting; much better overall, and coming also in the foggy and mild haze variations.

General improvement of night sky; fixed occasional "artifacts" of stars in replay and now clouds feel more credible. Still minor work to do (porbably too many stars and some stars should be less bright). Changed some colour settings at deep night.

Patch of Dynamic Light (DL) for Formula cars; DL (up to 1.20) projects lights also for cars without headlights. DL version 1.21 now fixes thi issue, but in case you are using an older DL release, this feature switches off the headlights of Formula cars.

Supports of Formula cars in NightTracks; made light adjustements to support the use of cars without headlights in the following Nighttracks: bahrain_night, forliring, acu_singapore and night_acu_yasmarina. You can use F1 (or other formula cars) at any time of night. Please note that Forlì Ring is not actually a track designed for night use (reflection level of surfaces is too low) but it featured a lot of reflectors; I did my best to bring a fourth alternative for F1 night driving, but the result is not optimal.

Improvement of headlights at night; now headlights at night are nice and quite credible, featuring also a bloom effect which makes the projected lights (DL) look more natural and at the same time delivers a much better visual impact in foggy/hazy nights.

New weather simulation engine; the engine now takes in cosideration five variables (atmospheric disturbance and pressure, humidity, wind speed and temperature), which follow credible patterns. The new engine is much more flexible and provides not only conistent weather conditions at different hours of the/night, but also provide consistency between different days (a feature you will apreciate when the mod will be fully susable in custom championships)

Track depended weather; a large amount of tracks (115) have been categorized on the basis of their latitude in "climatic" zones; so now even at the same time of day/night, same season and same wind/temperature settings you may have a different weather depending on the actual track location.

Added Winter and Summer seasons.

New version of heavy foggy night.

Fixes Sun/Moon position at Moonset and Sunset in some seasons.

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Next week release will focus on headlights tweaks and some diffuse light adjustments in some scenarios.

Bugixing
Solved a problem (typo+commented code) that prevented most of weather conditions from happening.
New scenario
Added the Moonless night; now, when the sky is clear, you have 50% chance of getting the sky without the moon. In the moonless scenario the stars have never been brighter. Still in doubt is adding a cloudy moonless sky.
New Season
Added the Autumn season.
Other
Minor adjustement to headlights (I plan to make more adjustements later on).
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Below a sample comparison of the two seaons (Spring and Autumn) using the same parameters (wind speed and air temperature) at Brands Hatch.
If you use the mod today (I mean today, the 4th of June) you should get the same outcome.