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Whether you have HDR or SDR - the brake lights in the game look funny for most cars. They're don't emit the right level of brightness and bleed/glow, especially at night and low contrast racing conditions.

E.g., in overcast and low contrast conditions you have brake lights looking almost flat white or bright orange with a strange glow/halo around them.

Here's one discussion I found on the topic:

https://www.reddit.com/r...ut_forza_7_in_hdr_brake/

Read one of the last few comments where a guy posted an image to show everyone an example of what I mean:

https://i.imgur.com/3GHcKw8.jpg

So many updates - why hasn't the T10 team calibrated the game to run properly on all TVs? Brake lights look really ugly and need to look the right shade of red, with correct illumination and glow, depending on time of day and the car you're driving (older brake lights vs more modern and brighter LED brake lights).

So no fix for the super-bright orange brake lights or overly dull ones with no bloom/ appropriate glow effect? "If it's broken, leave it broken" it is!

Can't understand how something like proper colour calibration and testing can be taken lightly - in a racing game that has different times of day.

Here are some shots to get yous guys thoughts on it:

Skyline coasting
Skyline braking

458GTE parked
458GTE brakes on

Funny looking Carerra GT brake lights

Alien brake lights on 520S

I have never seen such odd colors on brake lights in any of the Forza games played. Maybe a few odd cases here and there in FH3 but it's now more common in FH4 - but especially hard to ignore in FM7. when lights are not bright orange and washed out, they look just plain dull red with no depth or hues; what happened to the brake light glow/bloom effect from FM5 and 6?

My screen is SDR but Forza 7 and FH4 are the only two games I have problems with. Shadow of TR and GOW4 for instance display all colors as expected.

I have tried limited RGB, full RGB, YCC 422 on and off. Makes no difference. It's not a TV calibration issue because all my games and movies look great with colors as life-like and accurate as you would expect.

Edited by user Thursday, August 8, 2019 10:03:26 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Anyone??

SDR screen owners? HDR screen owners?

Deal with it

Edited by user Saturday, August 17, 2019 2:35:02 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

That's not orange, that's yellow.

Okay, great - thanks for pointing out the correct color to me. Helps a lot, really.

My point is, you've underplayed the incredulity of it. Orange isn't red. Yellow is definitely not red. Maybe Forza 8 will be greyscale. Colors are too mainstream for T10.

I took a look at the 1997 Nissan GTR V-Spec and your point is valid about the brake light colors being incorrect when compared to a factory car. I'm seeing the same yellow-with-orange-halo brake lights, but they don't glow annoyingly bright as shown in your screenshot. I also found the following Youtube video of the same car in FM3 as a reference, and there's clearly an inconsistency with the taillights in FM7: 1997 Nissan GTR V-Spec in Forza Motorsport 3

Personally I'm not bothered by the incorrect taillight colors. People modify their cars in various ways IRL, so that's one way to look at it. However, I'd be distracted if the taillights I saw in the game glowed as bright as what you're seeing on your screen. Since I'm not seeing that happen, it would be difficult for T10 to justify a wide-sweeping change to brake light intensity based on one user's experience.

Another curious thing is that your photo is based on FM7's Camera Mode. Since you're having issues with brake light intensities on a live system, you shouldn't have been able to capture that "glowing effect" on file unless it were something that was hard-coded. In other words, I went into Camera Mode and could not reproduce that hazy, particulate glow that you've posted in your photo no matter what adjustments that I made to camera settings. Did you modify the original FM7 photo with a photo editor to show us a dramatic effect of what you're seeing on screen or is that the actual file that was outputted by FM7? If you modified the original photo, then it would probably be more helpful to take a photo of your TV screen/monitor using an actual camera to show us the problem. If you didn't modify the original photo, then it's possible that your video drivers might have some post-processing effects running in the background, and if FM7's Camera Mode simply takes a frame from the video buffer, then that could explain why the effect is being written to file. One last thing is that FM7 could have some video enhancement settings that you might be able to adjust if you're playing the game on a PC. I'm running FM7 from a console and I don't recall there being any settings that can simulate that glow effect. If you have access to some of those controls, then I'd look there to see if you can get rid of the excessive glow from the taillights. Aside from that, the only thing that I can confirm with you at this point is the colors of the brake lights.

Anyhow, it might be useful to list your hardware specifications and model of your monitor so that T10 has some real world data of how the game looks outside of their test systems when developing FM8. You might also be able to get some feedback from others with similar hardware who are having a completely different experience than you -- and that could be a hint as to a hardware issue. (One thing that comes to mind is that I once had a defective video cable that affected the way things looked on one of my computers. However, I would find it extremely peculiar if a defective video cable would be so specific as to affect the intensity of brake light glow in a video game for a select number of cars. But you never know.)

I'm on a One-X, using a 1080p TV that isn't HDR. The photos are completely untouched - took them under the default settings and posted them here.

The orange-yellow glowy brake lights are more noticeable on certain cars. But cars that do not exhibit this weird orange or yellow colored brake lights have a flat red color. As in, completely flat - no glow, no halo or bloom effect. Remember FM5 and 6? The cars had this really satisfying reddish glow to the tail lights and the colors never looked off.

BTW, the brake lights take this funny bright yellow/orange hue mostly in low contrast daytime conditions: fog, rain, overcast, cloudy, late afternoon/early evening/ early morning etc.

At night in pitch blackness, ALL cars have red tail lights. But there's no real glow or bloom to them. Just flat red.

You think its the auto-exposure in the game's lighting model not working as it should?

It is a bit of an issue for me as it bothers me while driving from chase cam or watching replays.

Apparently this topic is also being discussed in another thread, but to recap it appears as though the game is incorrectly outputting HDR content to SDR screens for some assets. That would make a lot of sense since we're both using SDR screens and the other person claiming correct taillight colors is using a calibrated HDR screen. Also, I'm using a first generation Xbox One while you're playing on an Xbox One X, which probably explains why you've got glowing taillights and I don't. Interesting.

His screenshots show yellow brake lights too.

Yup, they are indeed yellow. If I'm not misinterpreting what @EpicEvan777 was saying, the in-game colors look "correct" per his HDR TV:



I'm guessing that his screenshots are showing yellow taillights because it was meant to be viewed on his HDR TV. I think that's what he was implying by the following comment:



I'm not really sure, but that's my interpretation of it. Anyway, this thread should probably be merged with that other one to keep things tidy.

I was playing the game on a first-gen xbox one myself before getting the X. Same problem there - glowy and bright yellow or orange tail lights. they are almost never red. And at night, they do look red, but no glow or bloom effect at all, none.

FM7, FH4 and FH3 are literally the only HDR games in my collection which have this problem. Colors in all other games are fine. PCARS2 actually looks odd at times too (brake lights) but I think thats how the game engine is.

You might be right though - the game attempts to use HDR assets for SDR screens - that would explain the tail lights looking funny. I don't understand why they haven't taken the trouble of fixing this.

I saw the screen shots you have uploaded, they look terrible. My money 💰 is on your TV being faulty or not set up correctly to communicate with your console.

Turn 10 knows better than to release a game with such a gigantic glitch and even if they did make this mistake, they would have fixed it immediately with the first update.

Have you tried connecting your console to a different brand of TV to see if the issue follows or stays with your old TV?

Perhaps you did not read all the posts above - Forza 7 is the ONLY game with a weird looking color on the tail lights. All games look beautiful on my TV - they are HDR games: SOTR, GOW4, ghost recon wildlands, wolfenstein, etc.

I have noticed washed out brake lights in FH4 at night but never bright yellow or orange. Also, in PCARS, I seem to notice that brake lights look nearly white and never deep red like they should.

Again - for the record: ALL my games look fine except for the Forza games that are in HDR (F7 being the biggest culprit).

I have seen shots of people with this bright yellow brake light problem on HDR Tvs - it typically shows in overcast or low contrast track conditions - night driving looks okay. I even attached a link to a photo of a 458 someone posted with bright yellow brakes (I think its in the other thread).

Just so you know brake lights do not appear so bright or ugly on my TV when I am playing the game. I will take a few screenshots of brake lights and upload them so you guys can see. Also your screenshots are consistent with dynamic contrast / contrast enhancer being turned on or a higher value of gamma the recommended. Maybe other games look okay but for Forza its a no go . I wish I could be of more help.

Safe to assume your TV is HDR?

Yeah, would love to see the screens.

And nope, no dynamic contrast here. I play with enhancements off. And there's no gamma setting either on my TV or in the game.

Right, tell me about it - it's annoying, Forza 7 is the only games I'm having issues with. All other content including YT vids and Bluray movies look fine.

Yes, 4K HDR .

I will take screen shots of the same cars, at the same track and at the same time of day as you have, as soon as I get back home.

That's fantastic!

Thanks for taking the trouble to look into this, appreciate it bigtime.

Yes you're completely correct. Unless you're viewing it on a professionally calibrated 4K HDR TV, the pictures I post won't show anything because you're viewing it in SDR.

For example, looking at the pictures on my phone which is SDR looks different to looking at them on my TV which is expected. So unfortunately, unless you guys get your hands on a professionally calibrated 4K HDR screen to view the pictures on there's nothing I can do to actually show the true difference.

If people remember, this was a problem with Forza 7's gameplay reveal as well. A lot of people complained the game looked washed out when it was just YouTubes HDR to SDR conversion. If anyone remembers that, it's essentially the exact same thing that's happening here.

Your insights are truly appreciated - you are a gentleman, Sir!

I have the same problem with the yellow/amber/orange taillights. XBOX X connected to an older 1080p plasma TV. Maybe a related problem, I get a terrible bloom on all white cars in the sunlight.

Terrible bloom on all white cars can dramatically be reduced if you had a HDR display but considering you don't, unfortunately there's nothing you can do.

Don't get rid of your plasma though. I always loved the older plasma TV's because of their fluid display and if you look after it, it'll last you a long time. When I upgraded to a 58 inch €3,000 (thankfully I didn't pay anywhere near that price) 4K HDR Panasonic, I chucked the old Samsung 720p Plamsa I had into my room. Must've had that for 12 years now and is still got life left in it.

Like Evan said, plasma TVs are bomb! They are classic TVs that IMO are among the best for seamless gaming. Hold on to it for as long as you can.

As for the bloom, actually there is something you can do. Does your TV support Full RGB? Mine does interestingly even though it's a decade old Sony LCD TV. So I adjusted the TVs contrast and brightness to compensate and Forza 7 looks gorgeous - almost HDR like colors - very deep and rich, practically no color banding (you might get banding on SDR with range set to Limited). But, there's nothing I can do to get rid of those hideous orange/yellow tail lights. Many HDR screen owners are getting too, but many, like our good man Evan, has been able to dial it down to quite an extent.

If your TV supports Full RGB, then you're in luck. Toy around with the HDMI black levels or gamma if your TV has it (if you need to), and you're golden.

I hope this helps. But I'm still kind of mad at T10 for not color calibrating a game properly, that otherwise looks really lovely, to be honest.

Try the YCC 4:2:2 setting - which may or may not reduce bloom depending on how your TV handles limited chroma sampling.

The lighting in Forza, sadly, has never been right. they should take inspiration from games like PCARS2 and GTS. FH4 actually has really good lighting - although the tail lights there can look off too, unless you have an HDR screen I'm guessing.

You are absolutely correct about inaccurate brake lights.

Each screen shot you have posted is how brake lights Look like on MY TV with HDR being on. I am shocked 😮 at myself for not having noticed this problem before making reckless comments here. The only tiny excuse I have is that while braking I am too focused on hitting the apex correctly, I never paid attention to the brake lights at all.

This game has a major problem with inaccurate graphics. I am embarrassed 😞 of myself for defending it in my earlier comments.

Anyway, here are screenshots of how brake lights should look like.
Unfortunately, I had to turn HDR10 off from settings to get the brake lights look accurately, somewhat.


Ferrari 488 GTB brake lights On (FIXED)

https://imgur.com/TCEjPhc



Skyline brake lights on

https://imgur.com/icFhHDC


McLaren brake lights off @ night

https://imgur.com/f3fzwcc


McLaren brake lights on @ night

https://imgur.com/mD84N35

Edited by user Monday, August 19, 2019 12:28:21 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified