I very much appreciate the recently added water splash particles. I think they add a lot to immersion when going through water. The game used to look very fake in that regard, but now it's better. But other basic visuals are still missing. My wish list would be: * dynamic dust, mud and wetness on tires and vehicle body * dynamic terrain deformation, such as sand, soil, mud and associated physical effects * paint scratches * vegetation that interacts with vehicles, such as bushes getting run over This isn't a discussion about what's doable or what hit on fps someone fears these effects would have. None of these are revolutionary ideas and they've been done successfully in other games. This is more about, what visual effects would you like to see?
I personally would like to see all of these, but none of these will be added for a very long time. They are extremely hard to do and just not worth the time for such a small detail. The developers probably want to add more important things, like realistic tyre temperature/wear simulation.
OK, a fair response. To me, tire temperature & wear would be secondary. I just feel those clean, black tires driving on dirt roads stand out like a sore thumb, so I'd take care of that first. Dynamic tire dust would probably be the easiest effect to implement. It's just a texture swap/fade. Some BeamNG tires already have dirt baked in.
The thing with most of these points is the approach the game takes toward realism. If the developers wanted to have paint scratches, they would have to simulate each paint fleck individually. If they wanted to have deformable terrain and vehicles getting dirty, they would have to simulate every grain of sand + dirt + mud in the entire map at once. I think that once (or if) tyre wear is implemented, they will add some sort of way for tyres to get dirty, but I'm sure the developers never want to do some crude mid-effort way to do it. Keep in mind that the BeamNG developer team is very small, and therefore it will be very hard for them to implement these features. I'm sure a lot of people (including me) want these features, and they seem like game-changers, but when you think about it it's just a small visual change that will take years of programming that could be dedicated towards new vehicles+maps, career mode, or more realistic functions for vehicles. Your 4 ideas in order of when I think they will come out: -dynamic dirt on vehicles: mid-late 2025 -paint scratches: early 2026 -deformable terrain: probably not until about 2027 or 2028. This is a huge feature that will greatly affect the entire world, and will likely break 100% of map mods. Until the developers figure out a way to make this not be extremely laggy, this will definitely not be added for a few years.
If they don't even do any of these for the purpose of physics simulation, why would they do it for visual simulation?
Keep in mind that BeamNG will be almost 20 years old in 2028. It´s also not needed to simulate it on the entire map at the same time if they implement some kind of tiling system, which would only load the part of the map you are on (isn´t that already on WCUSA?).
60 people isn't a small team. And 2028 for deformable terrain is just pathetic, sorry. This would be 14 years after Spintires did it. Might as well not do it at all. Again, like many people you are overthinking it. It doesn't have to be 100% NASA-level simulation or nothing. The water particles and dust cloud we already have did not involve rocket science. --- Post updated --- Physics would be very welcome to be introduced with the effects, where appropriate. Just like we got water current physics with the water splash particles. It was a perfect addition. I want more like that.
I feel like you're replying without having any knowledge about the process. Scratches - just another map + normal map for detailed dents, cars already have normal maps, AO maps, diffuse maps on them so that would just add another one to it, same with dirt and mud, these things will never be simulated, rather ''painted'' on the body after touching a material which can be generated from the surface after tire driving on it in certain speed. I think devs should do an live Q&A and then everyone could have their questions answered and if anyone asks for something again we can forward them to the Q&A. sorry if the first bit wasn't nice but people are often replying for the devs not actually knowing about the topic just wanting to be the nice guy who saves them hassle
2000 people worked on Red Dead Redemption 2. Unreal Montreal (Far Cry 5 team) has 3,400 people. 60 people is a small fraction of an AAA team.
Well funny thing funny, but due to how the texturing system works... you can actually have dynamic scratches and dents in the form of a texture be applied during deformation to the car already. The reason the dev's don't do this with current vehicles is because it really ends up being rather flat. Every time the vehicle would take damage, it would leave behind the exact same texture and pattern. Naturally the devs wanted something better than this, so they wanted to look into implementing both dirt and scratches/dents with dynamic texture splatting or something of that nature. (I believe that's what it was called). So this would basically be a fully dynamic system that would use what happens to particular nodes to apply textures to the mesh's on the body. Nodes hit water? Apply a wet reflective texture in that local area. Nodes hit dirt/mud? Apply dirt textures in that local area. Nodes acquire sliding distance? Apply scratch textures. Nodes are displaced from their standard locations? Apply dent textures. They intend to implement something similar to this only much more advanced then that naturally. Plus the only reason I say this as I have read them write about it before somewhere in the great expanses of the forums.
Well if you're more into visual effects, I highly recommend checking out this mod (I am aware that this is slightly offtopic) https://www.beamng.com/resources/brake-glow-mod.13891/
That is so cool, that kind of system would be universal for many different things, such as cars getting wet, paint scratches, dirt, mud, small dents, etc. And with it being node-based it could instantly work on all cars including mods once implemented, and also on props! I hope it's still in their plans, it would be amazing to have it!
Yeah... it did sound really neat... although I gotta say that I think I read this almost 5 years ago now, so who knows where they are at in their research with any of it or if it has just been shelved.
Yes that's off topic, and not related to anything that I suggested. FYI, I'm not more into visual effects. I just consider them equally as important as the physics. In the end, it's all visual effects, including the soft-body physics. They work together.
I agree with you. I like this idea because they are additions that we see in games. I have a deep respect for the work of the developers, but a lot of additions go unnoticed by the players because they are only small details. If we are not passionate about the project and we do not follow the development, we sometimes do not realize its evolution ... Sometimes I would like to bring people to discover this game, but they don't realize what the game is, they don't see the details. They just see it's a "aimless" game. I hope that the game will not be forgotten by the players before the devs decide to add some real gameplay.
Agree that some things that feels basic is missing, such as dust/dirt on body and tires. Its said to be depending on how many layers that the game can use for a model i think. Terrain deformation was released for the original Torque3D game engine years and years ago. Back then it was a terrain deforming weapon. My understanding is that this is how it was done and how say SpinTires does it, its basicly a World Editor tool that can be used in the game, in SpinTires its hooked up to the wheels. I assume the same thing can be done in T3D, since you can lock things to the player model. Not sure how it would coop in BeamNG though of course. Paint scratches would be nice but probably way down the list. Vegetation moving, yeah thatd be nice. I agree with the ones that says that theres other things to prioritize although these things are all good stuff. Personally i think the graphics is in need of a upgrade, whjich i think is slowly coming, and also gameplay although BeamMP (and KissMP) has contributed to that thing alot. Things like mission that utilize the games possibilities, say careers with different routes, scrap yards, towing, police, fire folks and what not. Multiplayer makes all those things kind of secondary IMO but having those things in the game would make MP much bigger than it already is. Personally i reaaaaally like how the BeamNG devs tackle things, going for the simulation of it all, although it does feel like theres a risk of a scenarion where the hype of BeamNG dies out before things like gfx and gameplay width is added. But again, it honestly feels like BeamNG is becoming BeamNG.System where it just keeps growing and growing uneffected by dynamics such as player hype, since its not a game, rather a... system. Then id be happy, this da*n game would follow me through life for sure.
The whole point of BeamNG is vehicle simulation, that's what they put their effort into. It irks me slightly when people get all entitled over features the devs must add to the game to make it more like X racing game. BeamNG.drive is merely a fraction of BeamNG. There are aspects to this software, and the company behind it, that do not apply to those of us who just want to crash cars... so when people say that 60 people isn't a small team, it is.
