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On my TV, both are the brake lights and the reflection is red. There's a slight difference between the color of the two but that's something you'd expect with the refraction of the light and color on a wet surface. I'll take a few more pictures showing the difference between the standard HDR calibration and my HDR calibration so you can see the difference.

Unfortunately it looks like Forza converts all images back to SDR no matter what, so I'll see if an Xbox screenshot captures it in HDR

Ah, so those images are indeed SDR - no wonder they looked so similar to the ones I'm seeing! ;)

I was once under the impression you were going to take a picture of your monitor with a camera.

I was going to and I can but I'd rather get much better quality. If I have to resort to that I will however.

Can't wait to see more photos. I'd like to see what you're seeing, verbatim!

My TV and PC monitor are SDR...

That's the problem I've come to realize. No matter what I do, even if I take a 4K HDR capture, unless you view it on a professionally calibrated 4K HDR screen, you won't be able to see what I'm seeing unfortunately.

I can describe it however:

Forza's lighting model suffers from over-exposure and excessive bloom. This is the main problem which effects all areas of the lighting model which causes:

1. A loss of detail in the skybox, namely over-exposure making clouds less visable and reducing detail. It also increases the brightness of the game in general and makes the sun abnormally large which covers up most of the sky. You also lose color detail in the sun as it becomes more white without the yellow / orange ring you get when you look at the sun in real life.

2. Excessive bloom on any white or yellow object, mainly cars, though this can effect objects like walls.

3. Lack of road and object detail either hidden by the general darkness of the game or by the over-exposure and bloom.

4. Over saturation of colors making the game look slightly artificial.

5. Excessive white highlights on car paint making it look artificial.

The reason a HDR display fixes this is because you can calibrate the display yourself to reduce these issues. Maxing out the HDR Brightness and HDR Gamma, then reducing the brightness of your display reduces the overall bloom and exposure of the game which fixes for the most part problem one and two, though not completely. The game still suffers from an over-exposure and bloom issue though it can be dramatically reduced when you calibrate the display yourself. Problems three through four are pretty much completely fixed with an alternative HDR calibration however.

So to summarise, here's the issues I believe Forza's lighting model has:

1. Poor HDR and SDR calibration.

2. Excessive bloom and over-exposure (which probably causes the brake light issues you're experiencing).

3. No volumetric lighting and a two-point spotlight system.

4. Excessive refractive index in paint on cars (which can be fixed manually).

5. Lack of objects casting shadows or blocking light, mostly trees.

6. No pre-baked ray tracing (though this is tough with a dynamic lighting system).

Now most of this can be chalked up to hardware limitations. To achieve a native 4K resolution a locked 60 FPS, 24 cars on track at once and a dynamic weather model on the One X, issue three, five and six are more than likely hardware limitations. However issues one, two and four are things Turn 10 can resolve easily.

Case closed - thanks to Evan!

*Standing ovation*

Thank you so much mate for taking the trouble to explain this logically - in the back of me mind I knew the auto-exposure was blowing things out of proportion. Things looked fine in H2, FM 6 and 7 - I don't know why they have to tinker with things that are perfectly fine. It wasn't until FH3 that these exposure problems and 'brake lights not looking right in low contrast conditions' issue popped up.

HDR or not, it looks like we're stuck with it. Would it have killed them to make such a lovely looking game and take shortcuts with the color calbration? Who can figure out MS/T10, really?

Thanks again - everybody's getting this it seems, no matter what their screen. They just haven't been as vocal, and that's understandable.

Yeah, you're not going to absolutely fully solve the problem but a professional calibration to a HDR TV (which you should do anyway as out of the box picture setting are designed to eb eye-catching not accurate) and a different in-game setting HDR calibration setting solves 90% of the issues I mentioned. The rest is how Turn 10 actually design the lighting engine, which for the most part, is very well optimized and looks beautiful, however there are a few inconsistencies that arise.

I don't know what they were thinking giving preference to HDR screens only.

I think the most interesting aspect of the calibration issue when reading this thread and the other one is that FM7 looks perfectly fine on my SDR HDTV. My display is probably 8 years old by now, but the colors and contrast of FM7 look well balanced to me. TBH, the overall balance looks as good as Horizon 4, which had a manual calibration step. So I'm surprised that the visual experience is so varied among users, regardless of the dynamic range of the display. One thing that comes to mind is the age, brand and model of your display. If your screen is relatively new, then I wonder if FM7 is able to correctly profile it for output.

I have an LG 25UM58-P. It's an IPS panel, released in Feb. 2016. It's worked normally in hundreds of games. A couple benefit from raising the "Black stabilizer"--50 is default and what I use 95% of the time. Only FM7 gives me trouble.

Okay, this is interesting. You're saying your 8-year old SDR TV is showing the brake lights properly in all daytime and rain conditions? No orange or bright yellow brake lights? Try these cars: Cinque roadster, P1, LaF, 458, R33/R34 and get back to us with shots if you can please.

While Horizon 4 looks alright on my TV, the tail lights are just plain bizarre in FM7. And the issue never happens in full/broad daylight conditions and night. Only low contrast daytime conditions and rain.

@Seanbil

Thought I'd post some shots for you. Can you post the same shots in same track conditions for a direct comparison? Since yours is also an SDR screen, then images should appear on my monitor here exactly as you are viewing them on your TV. I'd like to see some *red* tail lights please!

zonda coasting suzuka rain
zonda braking
enzo late afternoon dubai
LaF braking rain maple valley

I honestly cannot come up with a reason so as to why they'd have such poor calibration and not even bother including proper SDR assets - after going through the trouble of making the game 4k/60fps.

Edited by user Tuesday, August 20, 2019 4:23:29 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

As much chatter as there's been in these threads, I do want to make a few points:

Forza's graphics are at such a good point right now because they're better than all of their competitors bar GT Sport but it's hard to compare those two due to the completely different design philosophy and even then, I wouldn't say Forza is a million miles away. In-race the two are pretty close and that's sort of my point.

The graphics are so good already that we don't really need a revolution like a we had with Forza Motorsport 5. All we need is a slight amount of refining here and there, nothing crazy is needed. I think it would be far more beneficial to put time and effort into refining other aspects of the game like features, FRR, Experimental Drag, physics, etc.

That said I do think Forza can improve the lighting in a few regards:

1. Reduce the bloom and over exposure.

2. More detail in car and track reflections.

3. More trackside detail (tarmac, grass, trees, buildings, etc).

4. Higher polygon count for cars.

5. Volumetric lighting.

6. Better HDR and SDR calibration.

We don't need anything crazy, just very minor tweaks here and there.

Sorry to disappoint, but I'm still experiencing the exact same issues with yellow brake lights as yourself. I was just commenting to @EpicEvan777 that the game in general looks very good on my old SDR HDTV in terms of things like contrast, bloom, exposure, etc. I just decided to leave the comments about yellow taillights in the other thread since they were specifically about that.



I agree 100%.

Spot on! I agree with all the points 100%.

Spot on! I agree with all the points 100%.


@Seanbill

"Sorry to disappoint, but I'm still experiencing the exact same issues with yellow brake lights as yourself. I was just commenting to @EpicEvan777 that the game in general looks very good on my old SDR HDTV in terms of things like contrast, bloom, exposure, etc. I just decided to leave the comments about yellow taillights in the other thread since they were specifically about that."

It is what it is - can't do anything but ignore it and not use chase view I guess. And I was getting mad at my TV for nothing the other day, LOL. I'm sticking to my SDR screen because I believe HDR is a gimmick and a luxury as well. Normal 8bit or 10bit panels are perfectly capable of reproducing rich, accurate, vibrant and photorealistic colors in games. But this is entirely up to the developer. Since marketing gurus and tech experts are pushing for HDR to be a standard, developers have no choice but to incoporate it i their games.

With this being said, there are other HDR games that look nearly just as "pretty" on well-calibrated SDR screens; prime examples being GOW4 and Shadow of TR.

All this, just my opinion. You and others may agree or disagree.

Edited by user Wednesday, August 21, 2019 12:28:51 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

HDR is certainly no gimmick. I think it's been much more beneficial to picture quality and overall fidelity than 4K.

To get back on track however, I've been tuning the HDR settings in-game and have come to the conclusion that the calibration isn't the problem. Perhaps it's slightly off but I believe now that the excessive bloom and over-exposure is the problem.

My theory is backed up by just going into photo mode as well. Just turning down the exposure slightly makes a big difference. If they fix this bloom and exposure issue for Forza Motorsport 8, then I think the problems people have will be almost completely eradicated.

We hear a lot about immersion in gaming these days. We're also accustomed to seeing cars with "red" taillights in daily life that it can be alarming when that state of immersion is broken by something that is different from what we subconsciously expect. So I understand what you're saying about the yellow taillights being a distraction and how it's affecting your enjoyment of the game. The yellow taillights were obviously not intended by T10 to best represent taillights in the real world or else the scenario would be flipped and we would be seeing more cars with yellow taillights in the game rather than just a few. Also, there's no way that T10 would've built an HDR game without it being backwards compatible with SDR screens. The yellow taillights most likely got overlooked in beta because there's a very specific set of circumstances to make them appear on SDR displays.

These were exactly my thoughts when I played FM7 for the first time: too much bloom and auto-exposure going haywire causing the tail lights to look just off.

Hoped that they would fix this in an update at some point, but apparently they feel it does nothing to affect gameplay. Right....



Dare I say it: developer laziness?

If they didn't resolve this then, I think they should at least look at it now and just release a small patch which includes the correct color calibration profile, not just for SDR but HDR as well.

Why can't T10 get the lighting right?

"because there's a very specific set of circumstances to make them appear on SDR displays"

Yes that's true. However, cars like the 570S or say, Cinque Roadster (along with many, many others) have their bright orange around certain times of day and then almost pure, "glowy" yellow in low contrast track conditions. It's just so weird, they are never red. LaF suffers from the same problem too. I keep checking FM5 and 6 for reference, for these exact cars, and they are 100% accurate - red all the time with the right amount of glow/bloom.

Edited by user Thursday, August 22, 2019 11:08:29 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Forget about patches, at this point they are working on the next title

Which is a good thing I believe.

Even though it's controversial, I fully support them abandoning Forza Motorsport 7. We have already had 10 or more months of extra post game support then any other title the franchise has ever released.

The truth is, there's no benefit to improving FM7 further. The problem hasn't been the support of the title, it was the launch. The foundation we have is excellent, by far the best starting point there's been. Here's a few things Forza Motorsport 6 didn't have as a foundation that Forza Motorsport 8 will:

Forza Race Regulations
Decent Force Feedback
Auction House
Speciality Dealer
Forzathon
Dynamic Weather
More in-depth car customization
Forza's Driver's Cup
Character Customisation
Homologation
And probably a lot more I've forgotten

Now not all of these were polished enough in FM7 but regardless, they serve as a really good foundation if expanded and improved upon.

Then you've got to remember all the advancements Forza Horizon 4 has made which might trickle down into the next Motorsport game as well, such as:

A revamped suspension model
Temperature and other condition changing road grip
Seasons
Paint shop overhaul
Car customization like spacers etc.
Blueprint overhaul
Car perk system
And again, probably more that I'm forgetting

Now if so focus shifts towards making Forza Motorsport 8 good at launch, which with this foundation I don't see a reason why it can't, then happy days. It's best to move on.

The suspension, steering, aero and braking physics is something I would really like them to pay attention to. I think all along, they've been focusing far too much on just tire physics.

The gamepad steering needs work. The only notable improvements to gamepad steering since FM4/5/6 in 7 is the fix of "sim-twitch oversteer". It's slow, but not deliberate. It focuses on the front tires, but ignores the rears, and the car's weight/inertia as a whole. Drifting has always been a meme--"tap the gas and steering until you find the right rhythm". The thumbstick is analog for a reason. There are better ways to utilize it.

The tires are inconsistent at high slipangles--they lose a massive amount of lateral grip between 20 degrees slipangle and 90. Why? Isn't sliding rubber going to have the same grip no matter which way it's facing? It's not generating enough grip to meaningfully deform the contact patch anyway, that should be relatively consistent.

The aero is ok. Would be nice to have a few tiers, if not of visual parts, at least of downforce/drag/PI.

Brakes can be frustrating because adjustable bias can be crucial, yet it's packaged into the lightweight brakes upgrade. Brake upgrades should increase power and reduce fade. Bias should be a separate upgrade or always available, like tire pressure.

Suspension tuning... 0.05 degree toe increments (twice the current resolution), caster up to 10 degrees, meaningful units on the ARBs and dampers... Simple, intuitive, effective high-speed damper tuning? Hide it behind a toggle in difficulty settings?

Differential preload? I know, Pacejka tires struggle with locked diffs.



Fully re-thinking the steering, reverting the tires to what they were like in FM4, and adding a few more compound types to maintain the grip difference between the slipperiest stock tires and stickiest race tires, while keeping the tight steps of tuning options by grip, would be my top 2 wishes for FM8.

Someone forgot we have a Wish list thread?