Forza Horizon 5 developers show regional weather effects and storms
Playground Games has revealed more details about Forza Horizon 5. Developers will show how the realistic skies in the game were created and details about the new weather effects and storms players may encounter.
Forza Horizon 5 includes two completely new weather effects: Sandstorms and Tropical Storms. They will appear in certain areas of the game and players can see them from a distance and then drive towards them. The weather in the game depends on the season and the region in which the players are located. For example, in the desert there is a little bit of rain, while in the jungle there are tropical downpours. In a stream, developers of Playground Games show new images and explain them.
The skies in Forza Horizon 5 were created using time-lapse footage captured by the team in Mexico. In total, more than 400 hours of sky images were recorded, good for 75 terabytes of data, from which the most interesting cloudy skies and the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets were selected.
To make the aerial shots, the makers use a rig of three cameras, which capture a 360-degree view of the sky. By taking photos with different exposures and combining them afterwards, everything is captured in HDR. The photos are then provided with motion vectors by the developers, so that moving images can be made with interpolation.
In Forza Horizon 4 and 3, Playground Games used similar techniques, but the system has been further improved in the new game, according to the developers. Forza Horizon 4 included about 300 different possible combinations of weather effects, such as “rainy afternoon” and “sunny sunset”. In Forza Horizon 5, that has been increased to over 2000 different combinations. So players will encounter more different weather conditions in the game.
Forza Horizon 5 launches November 9th
Microsoft announced Forza Horizon 5 earlier this month at the E3 games show. Set in Mexico, the open-world racing game features environments that have been recreated in detail, including murals by Mexican artists. The game has been in development for some time and will be released on November 9 for current and previous generation Xbox consoles, Windows 10, and Xbox cloud gaming. The game is part of the Xbox Game Pass subscription.