F1 2019 Graphics Comparison – out with the old, in with the new

It’s fair to say that F1 2018 could never be called ugly, however the developers have managed to make a significant improvement to the graphics – specifically the lighting – and the difference is night and day (pun intended).

Stuart Campbell – Art Director, F1® 2019 :

“Night lighting was one of our visual update priorities 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.“

Have a look through these screens to see for yourself the huge improvements they have made.

We can’t wait for F1 2019, as the 28 June 2019 release date is now tantalisingly close.

As an added bonus, check out the final versions of the cars here too!

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

•