Paul Jeffrey
Premium
Codemasters have released some interesting images that showcase the improvements to the lighting model coming to F1 2019.
Credit where credit is due, the Codemasters franchise of games have always been pretty strong in the graphical department, even going as far back as the original F1 2010 that kick started the series under Codies control some nine years ago.
However, having stated they took a full two years to develop and deliver the latest version of the long running series, it looks like Codemasters have been pretty hard at work improving the visual experience of the game.
Here we see some interesting back to back images of the upcoming F1 2019 against its predecessor, F1 2018. Using night locations as the theme for these images, you can see for yourself how the changes have improved the title considerably since the last game.
"Night lighting was one of our visual update priorities for F1® 2019" said Stuart Campbell, Art Director for F1 2019. "We took the atmospherics system that we introduced in F1 2018 for day time lighting, and further developed this for the night tracks.
We now have full atmospheric haze on night circuits, giving a true sense of depth. There’s a lot of dust in the air on those circuits and, at night, the particles really interact with the strong trackside lighting. The atmospherics help pull the whole scene together and give a greater sense of realism. We have added volumetric lighting to the trackside lighting, which results in the cones of light falling off from the light sources – another key factor in making night lighting look more realistic. Finally, we added night time specular. This was not present at all in previous games and made the night time scenes look rather flat, and the surface materials ambiguous.
The specular additions have made a huge improvement to the quality of the track materials at night. The extra surface information provided by this allows you to see all the surface details that were lost previously. The vehicle paint in particular looks amazing on the night circuits, and picks-up highlights from all those track-side light sources making it look incredibly close to TV footage of the sport itself."
We now have full atmospheric haze on night circuits, giving a true sense of depth. There’s a lot of dust in the air on those circuits and, at night, the particles really interact with the strong trackside lighting. The atmospherics help pull the whole scene together and give a greater sense of realism. We have added volumetric lighting to the trackside lighting, which results in the cones of light falling off from the light sources – another key factor in making night lighting look more realistic. Finally, we added night time specular. This was not present at all in previous games and made the night time scenes look rather flat, and the surface materials ambiguous.
The specular additions have made a huge improvement to the quality of the track materials at night. The extra surface information provided by this allows you to see all the surface details that were lost previously. The vehicle paint in particular looks amazing on the night circuits, and picks-up highlights from all those track-side light sources making it look incredibly close to TV footage of the sport itself."
With these visual enhancements, a revised force feedback model and the inclusion for Formula Two for the very first time, Codemasters certainly seem to be on the right track for a very solid release indeed.
F1 2019 is due to release on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC June 2019.
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Catch the latest news and discussion at the F1 2019 Sub Forum here at RaceDepartment - join in with your fellow community members and share some of the F1 2019 love!
Like what we do at RaceDepartment? Follow us on Social Media!
