Maniaplanet Forum

I'd definitely love to see this! But I think we can't expect it soon, it's way more big than the gravity parameter. But this would be an awesome addition to TrackMania!!

You can already have fog with Ambiance MT.

However Cloudy/Rainy/Stormy weather would be amazing.

Filipe1020 wrote:I can totally picture Lagoon having tracks with a rain storm weather, with lot's of raining and strong wind, Valley with a fog weather, and among others, can we please have this NADEO? Instead of it being sunny all the time?

First, don't take this post as the 100% exact science about the engine but i'll answer as the best knowledge i have.

If you're talking about the full developed feature (like real rain/wind/etc... not done by the MT), it'll be complicated because it'll certainly require a lot of change to the engine. For example there isn't a ragdoll engine in our engine (for the Wind effect on the trees or grass) so it ask to add one.
Plus to be as logical as possible, it means that these effects should have an effect to the car behaviour which could be an issue because it takes us away from the Trackmania philosophy (it's a pure arcade racing game where only the skill of the player is required, no external factors).
Moreover it'll means that the PC specification to run the game will raise a lot because those features will require a lot of more power to be usable.

A lot of things in the engine have been made to make Trackmania been able to run on a very large range of computers and even if a player doesn't want to activate those features, the fact that there are present in the game could impact the performace.

So it's a delicate issue

domino54 wrote:I'll answer like Nadeo employee: You can do that with a mod .

Now I'll answer as myself: For Nadeo is really hard to add just more moods because it takes up to 10 minutes of hard work. And they can make nitro flames on cars, road reflections but adding falling rain drops texture around the car and dark environment mood is to hard. (But moving birds, stadium turbine rotors and whirlwinds were ez pz.)

A mood isn't 10 minutes to make as there is a lot variables and consideration to take into account (first the colour ofc, the way the mood can modify the perception of the texture, how it can render on several monitor with different settings (because no all the monitors have the same settings of course), how it fit the art direction of the environment, etc...)

And adding more real time effects on the engine is more difficult that you think (when taking all the constraints into account).

With that reply of you Cerovan I thought of something else :

If you release a game 7 years ago and promis to update it, then will you make sure that the speccs dont evolve with the updates? I cant decide if this is a good or bad thing. I expect a game to be more demanding every year... just like ( for example ) COD.

Anyways, Weather effects would surely be awesome and maybe it's worth "this extra work" ?

@Cerovan
'because it takes us away from the Trackmania philosophy' was probably the only line u needed to write because that is 100% answer to the question

Cerovan wrote: First, don't take this post as the 100% exact science about the engine but i'll answer as the best knowledge i have.

If you're talking about the full developed feature (like real rain/wind/etc... not done by the MT), it'll be complicated because it'll certainly require a lot of change to the engine. For example there isn't a ragdoll engine in our engine (for the Wind effect on the trees or grass) so it ask to add one.
Plus to be as logical as possible, it means that these effects should have an effect to the car behaviour which could be an issue because it takes us away from the Trackmania philosophy (it's a pure arcade racing game where only the skill of the player is required, no external factors).
Moreover it'll means that the PC specification to run the game will raise a lot because those features will require a lot of more power to be usable.

A lot of things in the engine have been made to make Trackmania been able to run on a very large range of computers and even if a player doesn't want to activate those features, the fact that there are present in the game could impact the performace.

So it's a delicate issue

ding more real time effects on the engine is more difficult that you think (when taking all the constraints into account).

There is always the Pros and Cons when adding new features, that doesn't mean it should be completely discarted, don't be lazy, those games seriously need new content and features to keep it fresh and new, and weather options would be a fantastic addition, and so many other games have weather effects like rain and wind that doesn't take too much power or the changes in perfomance are barely minimum because those are built in the game and optimized to the point that allows that, don't you guys have a bigger team now at NADEO? I'm pretty sure they're professional enough to add new features like those.

And about the handling perspective, the weather then should atleast be only cosmetic and not affect the car handling if that's the issue, and if wind effects can truly be a pain, then just add rain and fog effects, not strong wind options, I can tell that this would be a pain in Valley with all of the trees moving.

+ snowfall
+ rainbow

btw. fog is often used in games to reduce the rendering complexity on far distance, this could make the game faster or allow more details on short distance.

But it looks like we will have to wait for at least MP 5...

The rain mood could not affect gameplay at all, just be as a decoration element, then your arcade concept is kept. Then it would be rather darker sunlight, some more fog, reflections at the textures and some debris around camera.

Filipe1020 wrote:There is always the Pros and Cons when adding new features, that doesn't mean it should be completely discarted, don't be lazy, those games seriously need new content and features to keep it fresh and new, and weather options would be a fantastic addition, and so many other games have weather effects like rain and wind that doesn't take too much power or the changes in perfomance are barely minimum because those are built in the game and optimized to the point that allows that, don't you guys have a bigger team now at NADEO? I'm pretty sure they're professional enough to add new features like those.

The team is skilled enough that's not the issue. I just wanted to raise that there is pros & cons about your ideas (dynamic weather will have a big performance cost and the adding them also raise questions about the Trackmania essence/philosophy like why "reduce" the pure arcade style to make it closer to a simulation graphically speaking for example).

Cerovan wrote: The team is skilled enough that's not the issue. I just wanted to raise that there is pros & cons about your ideas (dynamic weather will have a big performance cost and the adding them also raise questions about the Trackmania essence/philosophy like why "reduce" the pure arcade style to make it closer to a simulation graphically speaking for example).

Again, you guys could totally add atleast a rain option just for cosmetic reasons, not needed to change the handling, physics or anything, and that doesn't make it any more of a simulation.