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In low contrast track conditions, it suddenly gets very dark when you switch to cockpit view as if the windows are tinted. This was an issue in Horizon 3 as well.

In overcast track conditions or tunnels, brake lights on a number of cars look very bright orange and almost glow, instead of the usual red. Furthermore, there are cars like the 599XX that have only two small dots at the rear bumper as brake lights, yet the road below lights up as if it has big crystal LED brake lights.

I have a standard TV - is that why brake light glow bright orange in darker track conditions (not night) when I brake?

Is the game lighting engine ONLY supposed to work properly on an HDR-capable TV? I'm very curious now.

I don't think HDR would fix this problem.

Tunnels are too dark when driving with cockpit cam. Unfortunately, to compete you must switch to chase cam.

The game's lighting isn't as terrible as some people say but it would definitely benefit from a little tweaking.

The games lighting is fine. Pretty much every racing game struggles in low contrast lighting, it's a trait amongst all of them. In real life, low contrast weather sucks too and games unfortunately compound that. The cockpit view having tinted windows isn't a flaw, it's realistic. You're allowed up to 30% tint on the windscreen where I live I believe. The tunnels are as dark as they should be. What Turn 10 does wrong there is not having the headlights come on when entering them. As for brake lights, they cast a generic light onto the floor I believe.

The lighting system could be improved but I doubt it will until Forza 8.

I experience this as well on Xbox One X on a 4k HDR TV.

@nightdriver


Well, tough luck; I was hoping HDR would do the trick. I do not believe the lighting is terrible - if anything it's markedly better than both Fm5 and 6. It's actually photorealistic and I absolutely love the late afternoon/early evening lighting on the non-night tracks. Just not a big fan of the bright orange/glowy neon brake lights in overcast conditions.

@Evan


If you believe the cockpit tint thing is realistic, then why do only some cars exhibit this? Go to the chase view and none of these cars have tints on the windscreens so the contrast level suddenly dropping in cockpit view is quite unrealistic IMO. As if the driver suddenly put on a pair of medium-shade dark glasses.


I hope they will at least look into the brake lights glowing to an overly bright orange shade in overcast conditions. Not sure if it's due to weather and lighting conditions alone or car specific as well, but just looks odd.

@KTVDS

That's a shame - didn't think these issues would pop up on a One-X + HDR TV. Looks like these are flaws in the lighting engine. I'm sure others might defend this including the developers, but a few aspects are definitely off. I'd be happy if they could look into it.

Different cars do have different levels of tint. We own a 1998 2.8l BMW Z3 and that has 0 tint yet my grandfather's 2008 Ford Focus has considerable tint when compared to my Z3.

Dan Greenawalt once said that the lighting system is unique to each track, it's not a system like other games that applies to every environment. So they tailor it and the result is very contrasting from track to track. Some tracks I never visit to make photos because the lighting is just way way off. Same in Horizon and I think it's here to stay. Unfortunately.

I have noticed in 4k HDR that certain tracks bonnet view is like turning the brightness up compared to cockpit. The Ford V8 supercars especially seem to have a 75% tint on the window.

There's also the randomly yellow/brake lights on certain tracks.

Edited by user Monday, June 4, 2018 8:16:38 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

I think the lighting and contrast in the environment is absolutely terrible in FM7. I don’t know what it is but everything just looks fake, I feel the lighting has taken a hit even from five and six. It just doesn’t have any atmosphere, and I am playing on an Xbox one X in 4K with HDR. I feel FM6 looks better all around even not being in 4k, There is a clear graphical downgrade which is disappointing. I think the Forza tech engine is starting to show its age, and as much as I wish they would re-vamp the lighting to make it look more real I doubt they will do it in this iteration. The motion with the cars also feels off, nothing seems planted or feels like its moving fast.

Random yellow brake lights!

It's not just me, phew - I discovered this post of yours while looking for the issue on Google. The brake lights just look really odd. I've posted screens in another post. Have a look.

I'm told that you're going to see the weird bright orange brake lights whether you have HDR or SDR. It was just fine in FM5 and 6. Don't understand how they managed to break it.

You know, I was pointing this out just the other day to fellow car fanatic friend of mine who also owns Xbox One-X and a powerful PC. He said pretty much the same - that the lighting doesn't look convincing, the colors are odd (including brake lights) and the cars do not move correctly. He compared it to his real world driving experience and especially PCARS2, iRacing and AC which he plays on his PC.

I mostly play PCARS2 on my One-X and honestly believe the lighting and overall modeling/look of the game is as photorealistic as it can get in a console simulator. And the cars move so beautifully on their suspension and chassis. Forza cars look really odd in replays.

I think the reason the replays look odd is because they’re not replays, the actions of all on track cars are catalogued and re-run with Ai cars
At 30 FPS and simplified “pre-rendered” physics to keep the graphical fidelity high, which is why some of the cars reactions look janky sometimes. Also since the update that broke some shadows and other lighting things (which was mostly fixed) the rear view mirror in bonnet and bumper cam has really broken lighting that’s either over or under exposed and borderline useless. Also breaklights are too dim especially at night.

I do also love the assetto corsa replays, the suspension really looks good at 60FPS, too bad it only records like 5 minutes of footage with a full grid

Well, I;m not too bothered about the replays, really - and can understand how the console may not be powerful enough to simulate the same car movement and behavior in replays as you see while racing.

But the weird brake light colours definitely bothers me because they have not calibrated the game properly in all lighting conditions - for HDR and SDR displays.

The brakes looked fine in FM6 and 5 - so why break something that was perfectly fine?

And I agree, brake lights are unusually dim at night. Purposely done to preserve resources? I understand the glow or halo around brake lights might require slightly more processing power - maybe enough to break the 60fps cap.

The bright orange brake lights during the non-night races are extremely annoying though. Feels like I'm piloting an alien ship. (I've recently updated a post of mine in this regard. You can see photos.)

Edited by user Friday, August 9, 2019 5:02:54 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

It's just a laugh to me how some people can say the lighting is just fine. But then it doesn't seem to help to try and point out the trouble spots in tje game as Turn10 doesn't seem to listen. Oh they do to a point. But why can't the light be balanced better? I would think they have beta testing which takes the game through the full range of the game play. Maybe not.
The worst part of the lighting is the extreme difference in shop/home lighting, track/race lighting and the pathetic lighting quality in the paint shop. And after they dis the attempt to upgrade the paint shop lighting they actually made it worse. It's so much more different now from the game lighting now it's almost impossible to tell what your car is going to look like when finished.
I would love to be on the beta test group for FM8/FH5.

As I've said many times, most of the lighting issues is down to really poor HDR and SDR calibration. If you have a HDR display, you can fix this:

Go to the calibration settings and max out both 'HDR Gamma' and 'HDR Brigtness'. Then all you need to do is reduce the brightness and your TV or monitor so that the 'HDR Gamma' black Forza Motorsport logo just disappears. This fixes the poorly illuminating brake lights, reduces the bloom of lights in general and cars with white or yellow paint, introduces far more detail into the sky box, especially clouds and sun and makes the game look far more natural in general.

Also if you run a HDR or SDR display, make sure you get it professionally calibrated. This will make any game, video or movie look instantly better.

Unfortunately if you have an SDR display, you're screwed. That's the sad reality. You'll have to deal with terrible lighting. Professional calibration will help a little but the in-game SDR calibration is horrific.

There's also ways to get better reflections on your cars if anyone is wondering, though I'll explain that in a separate comment because that requires the paint shop and I don't want to confuse people.

Stuff like this makes no sense to me, surely the majority or at least a significant amount don't have HDR displays.

Yes, I'll second Evan's comment - it makes no sense to me either because that's not really a solution, and absolutely no excuse at all. Why does the game that's on a One-X have bright orange/almost white brake lights? This is not a SDR vs HDR thing - I'm playing close to 2 dozen games on my One-X made for HDR displays, and I have no lighting issues at all in any of those games. The colors look as expected and about as natural as you can expect from a game.

We don't need explanations but rather the developers doing something about it. It comes down to laziness and not performing enough testing. That should not be "a thing" in this day and age and downright unacceptable.

It's the same in FH4 under certain lighting conditions and night driving - the brakes are just washed out. I can never seem to have that satisfying deep red glow that you see in FH2, FM5 and FM6. None of those are HDR games by the way....




Evan, I admire the insights and advice you provide everybody in regards to issues with the game. But it sounds to me like you;'re partially blaming the TV for the lighting problems in this game. Let me point out again: I have zero issues with any game in my collection or TV shows, OR movies for that matter. The blacks, whites and greys look as they should. The reds, blues and greens look as they should. My screen is not 'professionally' calibrated because it doesn't need to be and does not have as many options for calibration as many modern TVs do. However, I have calibrated the heck out of it, using professional calibration software (like Avia II and the like, among others), as well as patterns available on YouTube, AND the display settings internal calib app. I'm getting about the same results with all of them and quite satisfied. It doesn't get any better on my TV and I do find the colors jaw dropping in every game I play - GOW4 or SOTR e.g. - downright amazing.

This is not a calibration issue or a TV issues but 100% an issue with the game's lighting engine - I've played enough PC games to know that. I'm dead certain it's some kind of auto-exposure feature not working properly which looks the brake lights on nearly every car look so wildly inconsistent in a variety of track conditions.

To reiterate: ZERO issues in any of my games, most of which are HDR.

Edited by user Saturday, August 10, 2019 8:12:50 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

It's essentially because the calibration is just bad and poor no matter the display. The only difference is that HDR displays have the option to calibrate it in-game whereas SDR displays don't. That's the difference. They're both calibrated terribly but you can fix it on a HDR display, not on an SDR display.

yes I agree, but the game should have been calibrated properly out of the box. It's not someting that would have been too time consuming I think. And, T10/MS assuming that everybody has an HDR display is kind of irresponsible and reckless (which it seems they did).

I drove the Ford Hawk II on Brands Hatch in cloudy conditions, one of the career races. There are multiple places where in chase cam, I could barely tell the car from the ground unless I took my eyes off the road ahead. In cockpit cam the wheel almost disappears into the dashboard. Supposedly this is daytime or late afternoon. The effective visibility is more like night.

I posted recently in the support forum about my HDR settings with a new Samsung tv. It took me forever, I had to almost ignore the calibration sliders' instructions in-game, and I had to adjust lots of my TV's settings (not really Turn 10's fault). Lighting is great now, but I wish they made it much easier. FH4's instructions worked perfectly for me the first time.

I have an SDR monitor. This is what I use to check monitors, TVs, phones, etc.

My monitor has a strong "IPS glow". I can see between 3 and 5, depending on viewing angle.
http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/black.php

Every screen I've tried shows the checker pattern on 254.
http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/white.php

I personally feel there is a too-dim theme in almost all of the racing conditions in this game! Racing scenarios should be more lit with sunlight than being dim and overcast all the time. Also, is Sonoma Race always GREY and over cast??!!! Let there be more LIGHT in online career racing scenarios!

Offline too, the whole game is dim.