Zwift Switch to '90s Graphics with NEW Climb Portal Feature!
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- Опубліковано 1 жов 2024
- Coming soon to Zwift is the highly anticipated "Climb Portal" experience, and early feedback from users has been nothing short of eye opening! 😉 In this video, I'll give you an overview of what awaits you if you decide to embark on this new vertical challenge within the game, which is optional of course.
Links:
What's On Zwift Climb Portal Routes: bit.ly/3XDOaOE
ZwiftInsider First Ascent Challenge Article: bit.ly/44kfAf3
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Haven't Zwift always used 90s graphics?
Shhhhhh! 🤫
😂
Climb Portal... what a sloppy way to give us more climbs. So many iconic climbs and worlds to build and we get blocks 😂
@@cadumgarcia ZMinecraft! ⛏
@@gplama yes, this is my son's comment when he first saw Zwift. Inspired by Minecraft.
Agree with you Shane. I welcome there being more climbing options because I’ve done the other in game climbs plenty. When I’m slogging up them the scenery is the least of my concerns when I’m sweating out of my eyeballs
The only thing I’d ask of Zwift is to make more than one of these available at once, maybe something like a short, medium and long climb option on any given day
I think, this could finally be the gateway to customized routes, uploading gpx data, being able to train on other real world locations, e.g. training for your local grand fondo. And imagine a "Zwift Editor App", where you can add trees, houses, lawns etc. on your custom zwift route; just like in some classic computer games. Would be awesome.
I actually think this is a great first step, I'm looking forward to giving it a go and dragging my fat ass up some new climbs for the tron! One step closer to uploading our own routes whether that's real or custom fun workouts!
There are probably many reasons for the retro graphics approach. My guess is that using a single, simple climbing graphics model, they can quickly add new climbs using GPS data with very little human intervention. This is really a win/win because they can quickly churn out new content and we get to do lots of new climbs! Even the current in-game climbs that are fully rendered aren’t the actual climb. That would be the main selling point for me. I think the graphics complainers are overreacting. I’m stoked to try it. 👊
For me zwift ist the best tool for seeing / feeling the speed. And these kind of climbs with any visual feedback (nothing comes near to you, nothing rushing by), kills that feeling.
I love this concept. I hope they leverage it for many more routes and further develop the more popular climbs in due course. Totally agree with Shane, hope to see the hot climbs of the day pop up on Zwift! I'll be doing every one I get the chance to!
I love the concept and think it’s a great idea, just wish they would let us choose the climbs we wanted on the day or have 2 climbs to choose from at the same time rather than waiting 2 weeks for the climb we want to tackle to be featured
Graphics aside this is a pretty exciting feature. I like the possibility of watching the TDF riders going up the Galibier and afterwards riding the same profile, or the day before.
I think its a great idea. While I initially thought the graphics looked a bit amateurish and perhaps rushed to a meet a product launch date, I can see what agility this gives Zwift. They can add any route extremely easily, without having to code all the background detail, which must take a lot of effort. It may get a little dull after a while, but so does any training. Riding up Ventop is pretty boring too. So, I'll definitely be using it and look forward to working through all the climbs that are released, not only this month for Tour de France routes but many other regions too. Let's see Dante’s View, Mauna Kea, Hardknotts Pass etc. Not just the grand tour climbs.
Time to train an AI on their existing courses, then run it on their 3D video of the new courses. Won't be perfect, but should be 90% there. Can likely generate a decent video environment for each climb in a few hours without human input. Then humans can clean it up, add clever aquirrels, yeti, sloths, etc.
@@higgi13425 This would be similar to magic roads on RGT. It would be great for some races to be able to link climbs as well, although at 90 kg, I think it would kill me.
Oof. Mauna Kea. That's a long one.
Said this in another video, but this looks perfect for implementing hills in our own backyard. If the devs can use it to pump out various TDF hills then surely we can also use it to ride on our own hills.
I want to ride other people's hills! South Louisiana has NONE. But I do hope this leads to loading custom climbs. I don't need realistic graphics on my virtual cycling worlds
Exactly my thoughts! Totally doable with the simple graphics design :) that way you can replicate a friends climb for example and see if you could keep up
RGT has Magic Roads using generic 3D landscape over your own GPX file and Rouvy allows you to create your own route with or without IRL video. Both of which require some work by the user, but you can then ride solo or woth friends any time you like. Would be easy for Zwift to do the same if that suited their strategy.
if it gets us quick and easy acces to real life climbs, without zwift having to do all the labour of populting the scenery ... what's not to love.
At no point in time was this feature a 'given' for our subscriptions, so all this does is just add more to all the other new things zwift has recently added.
(coffee break, teleport, steering, ...)
Don't get me wrong, realistic view would make this even better. But anything new is a nice addition.
If you have to enjoy the graphics while going up there, you are climbing wrong.
Came here for the Rouvy shoutout. Was not disappointed. :)
Love the call out to Rouvy! 😂 I guess once you’re grunting along through the gears we’ll find out… but I figure having some scenery sometimes helps to forget the pain?
My Zwift subscriptions is currently suspended, this will make me reactivate it. I love the idea that Zwift can quickly add routes, see what the engagement is like, then build them out will full graphics later. I can see so much use for this type of "just ride" route. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a good Yeti sighting, but this is a great way for a flatlander like me to practice climbing regularly on all different types of routes.
Wait.... you're swimming against the stream! Reactivating your subscription!? 👌🏼 Keep me posted on your thoughts once you've ridden a few of these new climbs.
I think it looks like a really great feature, apart from the graphics. I was expecting some kind of procedurally generated tarmac with generic roadside objects. But maybe if they had done that, I'd complain it was too similar to the rest of Zwift.... so all credit to Zwift for trying new and different things.... I'm just not sure I'll ever grow to love the visuals (but I'll still use it anyway)
and if they did that everyone would cry out that they're just copying RGT's magic roads.
@@strongmen yes good point
A year ago I could hardly walk because of knee pain, now I am almost pain free .. I love Zwift because it got me though the winter (Uk) on my 2nd hand kick snap. Now I have the hub and play controllers love it looking forward to my wheel not slipping going up those hills 🎉😂😊
I can already see a october 31st or April 1st climb being a crazy 25% straight for 10 miles or something. They can make some crazy climbs on these
Plot twist - On those days they give us a -15% descent for 10 miles!
The most obvious comparison point is the Magic Roads functionality of Wahoo RGT. They can create a rideable route from any GPS track. It tries to look more realistic by having actual hillsides, trees and such. The fact is that to me, it's no better than what Zwift has done here. They don't look like the real thing either.
Creating a realistic looking virtual version of a real-world climb is not that easy. And if it's going to be off in any case, I can fully appreciate why Zwift went with 100 % video game visuals. This does fit into the overall design of Zwift quite nicely, and like Shane points out, it's not like Zwift is forcing this on the users.
I think it looks interesting. I'd like realistic graphics better, but that is also a lot of work for the devs. Nice little change from the usual routes. I will certainly try to get up one of those.
Lazy from every perspective. But Zwifters have been starved of any substantial innovation for so long that many will welcome any scraps off the table. The one good thing that could have come from this would be the ability to upload your own GPX files similar to RGT magic roads, except Zwift has said explicitly that they won’t do that. I wouldn’t cancel my subscription but I will be keeping an eye on Rolla, who have put Zwift to shame with their graphics straight out of the gate - even when Zwift can be bothered to render any.
I don't mind the portal, but I do mind not seeing a new biggish climb (>=300m vertical) with full environmental graphics on Zwift since... Ventoux? Nothing in Makuri and nothing in Scotland. Hmmmm...
Whinging Zwifters...go figure. Thanks for the advance look at the new climbing portal. I think the portal is a great addition to access more climbing options. I like the AdZ-like sections with stats. Really like the new progress bar at lower left. Also like the fact that you can enter and exit from/to Zwift world to create a longer ride...me, I'll use France as it's Mt fave to do Zwift metric centuries.
🚴♂️🚴♂️🚴♂️
Urgh...hate the visuals. Awful. I'd prefer Zwift not to lean too much towards gaming...I don't even like power-ups in races. So I know I'm probably in the minority, but this just looks cheap, lazy and gimmicky. Personally I'd prefer generic countryside to this...if they haven't the time or resources to replicate how the climbs look, at least give people the option not to have to look at 90's horror-show graphics. Surprised they didn't put banana skins on the road as an extra gimmick!
+1 on the banana skins! 🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌
WTF…. now I need sunglasses indoors as well 😎
Bloody ridiculous people are whinging about this. As you said, just....don't turn down the road to go up the climbs? Problem solved?
If people don't like it, then they should just sod off. This is quite a brilliant move from Zwift. Doing all of those intense graphics we see in game can take years to develop, here we have graphic basic climbs, that could be GPS accurate, that they could rotate through many, many climbs from around the world, that could be developed and released within weeks. This is giving riders more road and harder climbs, at a fraction of time it takes to develop a new world. Look forward to it.
I just started on Zwift after Christmas and the climb portal is one of my favorite features. I think developing real life scenery for so many varied climbs would probably be quite expensive. I would rather my fees not go up!
My second ride on zwift, I took a left turn and ended up doing 'Puy de Dome'. Have to say, I wasn't expecting it and would have preferred proper scenery I think, however it was a good workout which I enjoyed (once I was nearing the top anyway).
Tbh I think this is the first - albeit rushed - attempt to get auto generated climbs in the game based on map data alone. Worlds take a huge amount of time and money to build, these things can be effortlessly generated and then just need testing before pushing live.
Yes, the graphics are terrible, but they’re so terrible I suspect they’re already working on autogenerated scenery too and it wasn’t ready.
Can’t really see the need to be angry about it personally. I’ve ridden a few now and yeah, the colours a god awful but the option is nice to have.
For me the only thing is I also have fulgaz and I much prefer that for anything real world based, but that does cost me an extra A$160 a year (though we don’t have to pay for two subscriptions with FG)
I tried it for the first time today - Cote de Pike, it was hard (I'm a clydesdale) but it was awesome! Keep bringing it Zwift, I loved how hard it was for me.
Personally, I'd rather have more climbs than waiting for them to accurately painstakingly trying to get the realism of one climb correct in the same amount of time. I think eventually they'll fill out the climbs down the road, but for now, the graphics don't bother me.
I think the graphics on these climbs are horrible, but will I cancel because of it? Um, of course not. There are plenty of channels on Sirius satellite radio that I would never listen to, but that doesn't mean I cancel my Sirius subscription, I just don't tune to those channels. People are strange.
"nobody tell those people how successful TR is...." 🤣🤣
I don’t like climbs but I do love this 😂
I’ve just had a ride and it’s bloody awesome.
I find it so funny that people think anyone gives a F**k if they leave lol😂
It looks like rain this weekend so I'm going to climb the Puy de Dôme on Rouvy. Should be a good challenge. If you want even a bigger challenge try mamiky's route of the Stelvio Pass on Rouvy. 15.95 miles with 6040 feet of elevation gain at an average of 7%. Plus you get to look at the amazing scenery on the way up.
I love Zwift for training, racing & predictability. But for new adventures, long rides, climbs & multiday events Rouvy has so much to offer. So 2 months zwift, 1 month rouvy is a nice mixup.
Not what i was expecting. Was thinking they would slap some random foresty-hilly scenery on it. Dont understand this choice but its not a big deal.
Optional climb? Optional? Obviously you don’t know me that well. 😜
Climb portal is pretty cool, it may actually get me to resubscribe before winter! Wish they’d let you choose the climb yourself though..
I rode Puy de Dome today. I really enjoyed it. It’s a different experience for sure, but enjoyable. I liked how the colors changed with the gradient!
people canceling subscription because of optional training opportunities... good we got rid of them
When I got my indoor trainer last year I installed zwift first thing with the trial. 10 minutes into the trial I never touched it again and been using Rouvy since. To me doing real climbs is just so much more interesting and I really enjoy watching the footage., but then again I wouldn't bother with any of the racing aspects Zwift has to offer. Also love the user uploaded ones on Rouvy to massively expand the library (Although can be a bit tricky to find good ones).
Mine craft is super popular in the video game world. Not sure how this is different? Climbing training programs would be great with this new feature.
Hello GP Lama
At lassttt new grind and new Climb. Lets make a ride on party on the circle too congratulate those who climb it !
The climb portal is a great idea but climbing a 'veloviewer climb' is not better that climbing a GPX file with a Garmin/wahoo that control the trainer. I understand that in this way they can add a lot of climbs with less effort but i prefer the 'classic' (and old) graphics.
Finally.... now my Tron bike has a suitable 80's retro environment 😄
I want the full Mario kart experience. Let’s battle up the climbs!
People are annoyed at this? But love the look of the cringe tron bikes? Hypocrites
Love the feature, but think you should be able to choose which climb you want, not have 1 climb at a time.
Going to put on some 90s rave tunes and go for it :). Looking forward to trying it out.
Wipeout 😅
What a great idea - thank you Zwift. @Rouvy shame on you!
90s graphics? So like always
Are Yowies real? GP-Sheepy would know!
Graphics don't make me a better climber or suffer less
I look forward to the new rotating climbs, but I shudder to think what my pain cave is going to look like with my Phillips Hue lights mirroring the light colors from the Zwift screen!
looks sick,
i dont get why people are mad...
Raining today so signed back up to Zwift to try it out, looks good.
I'm pumped for it. Firstly, I love Zwift and secondly, I love climbing. Anything new gets me excited.
Everyone happy to earn a tron bike so I dont see the problem with this! Looks good to me!
Good point about the Tron! They need to make the Tron change colour with the roads on this portal. 🎨👌🏼
I enjoy the climb portal. Cool idea!
It would be great to copy a route from a gpx file into this portal. So if you train for a specific event you can use this gpx file and upload it. This would be really nice. Than the graphic stuff really doesn't matter
That'd be Magic Roads that RGT used to have. I'd love to see Zwift implement this with AI generated environments based on the location the GPX is. Uploading an Aussie route? Then here, have gum trees, koalas, kangaroos, etc.
I wish it looked even more gamey. Go balls to the wall using shader effects on high end GPUs. Reuse existing assets like castles floating around to give us something to look at. Make it look like like a full on demo(scene).
Also looking down on Watopia can be very nice sometimes when the sun is right. Might have been nice to see something like that below us.
Unless they upgrade it with more interesting things to look at then I think it will suffer the same fate as RGT's Magic Roads. Impressive the first 2-3 times but quickly becomes too repetitive.
Please tell me you know Future Crew - Second Reality!?
@@gplama I know it but before my time. I was thinking of 2000s Farbrausch demos when they were making abstract scenes which looked better than real games and still cramming them into only 64k using a combination of procedural generation and shaders built into GPUs.
I'm stoked about this. Looking forward to try it out when summer is over here in Europe, and the hard, agonizing sessions in the pain cave starts. The graphics look cool. Something new and refreshing. And yetis are real.
I like it.
I just want to ride a purple unicorn.
Wait but i will be able to actually do normal climbs like before right. I wasn't on last week and this didn't even pass my mind and this is the first time I have seen it. So what does it actually change. Its just another mode right where you can ride at any climb you want to? Right?
oh ok nothing I already figured it out.
Ì tried it yesterday, I dont tend to watch the surroundings much during a climb , I usually focus on the dashboards and the other riders so it works for me. It made pacing the climb a lot easier and gave a good workout. One thing that would improve it for me is a ghost rider like they have in the sprints, so I can see how I'm doing against my best time.
Not a good climber but did a couple didn't mind it
Did my first climb today. Pretty tough for sure. I loved it. Great concept 😊
Stay tuned for more updates to this very soon!
The simplified graphics will make the game more accessible to people who purchased 4060's.
Oh… I see what you did there. I just want it to run on my Voodoo2 SLI.
Gonna be crushing this shit. Netflix and Climb Portal here we come.
That’s a different take on Netflix and Chill. 🤣
Part of me thinks not having world graphics is a big negative but then when I think about how I climb the Alpe du Zwift at the moment, I basically focus on the data hud on the left and the map on the right, and don't really take any notice of the 'scenery', so I reckon for me it'll be the first five minutes thinking, it's a shame there's no world graphics, and then from there on I won't be noticing anything other than the data huds and map.
Hold up. Im still confused on why this is contraversial 😂
1st world problems indeed. The stuff people get upset over these days just blows my mind. :/
Bloody brilliant idea. So stoked to see some innovation here. The simplified graphics will only be BETTER for focus and getting the most out of the training.
What's with all these positive comments!? They're not helping my angle of generating a ton of rage to feed the UA-cam algorithm! Just kidding, I'm happy to see some positivity around a new feature. 👌🏼
@@gplama rage you ask for, i'll scream and scream and scream until i'm sick. was looking forward to more climbs, but the graphics are not for me. i'll pass.
Just done Puy de Dome, great fun
No pin of shame yet. I'm almost disappointed. I expected a lot more toxicity and a lot more quickly after all the hate Zwift got on Strava for the pride-on events. That really set a very high bar.
Early comments on here have been great to read. I hope my explanation of why/when/what has landed this in the right place with people who didn't like what they were seeing.
And we got our pin of shame in the end and it was a well deserved one!
I’ve been on Zwift since the second wave of beta testers. Except for summers during pandemic I’ve put Zwift into vacation mode from June to August. But the wildfire smoke from Canada changed my usual plan. Looking forward hitting the portal later today. Or I can find my OG Sufferfest discs.
Minus the floating shapes, I like the concept. Using a similar color coding as the climb feature in wahoo or Garmin gps's makes it easy to understand your effort from a visual perspective (ie where you can recover, where the crux is ....) Too bad you don't get bonus points for the completing the climbs. Do you know if the portal is available as an event option for group rides?
I think it’s a great new option.
Tried it - 2 Thumbs Up!!
Fact check: yetis *are* real ffs 😤
I think it’ll be good when they can be used for events. A multi stage race over a few climbs would be a great event.
Or a portal at the bottom after your decent to take you to another pass. E.g Toumalet then galibier
Zwift is a training tool, doesn’t have to be pretty as long as you get your workout in. If you cancel your subscription over graphics you aren’t serious about training. It’s a great feature
Yup. That's why all the people who choose Zwift instead of Trainerroad because of graphics aren't serious about training.
Fabulous...living in Chicago (very flat) ...added climbing is nice; thanks for explanation.
2 different portals should equal two different climbs plus we have world choices so it follows we should have climb choices. The graphics- I’d prefer to see the background colour stay constant and just the Road / ribbon colour change with gradient. Looking forward to riding it and imo background doesn’t matter, when you struggle up Ventop it’s just a boring battle. Here we hopefully will get more variety and it will tie in with the wider cycling season in real life.
Rouvy can whine all they want, but an internet-era business doesn't win by doing something first, but by taking it to massive scale first. Speaking of which, I'm sure Rouvy will get likes from their 25 users on those oh-so-clever clever posts.
I don't see how this is controversial per se. What does piss me off tho is that it took them so long to have the 2D elevation profile colour-graded, and that right now it is only limited to this feature. The current all-black is basically useless. There have been countless time where I got "stuck" on a short sharp bump (e.g. NY) cause I didn't know it was coming and changes of gradient in the game are really hard to (fore)see.
Our opinion ? Great ! It is something different. They could have added the climb upon the Brocken, or any other Mountain out of the real world. This is pure fantasy. I little bit of psychedelic. Late 90s graphic. Cat on mushroom. Again, we say it is great. Good motivation. But what is this with the sunglasses ? Why are they gone ? It is always a special moment if one drops the sunglasses, like Agent Smith or Tyler Durden. Historical moments in the movie world. AND in the gaming world. Sorry. Jerseys will be taken. It is all pure fantasy.
Is it a kind of dream
Floating out on the tide
Following the river of death downstream?
Oh, is it a dream?
There's a fog along the horizon
A strange glow in the sky
And nobody seems to know where you go
And what does it mean?
Oh, is it a dream?
Bright eyes
Burning like fire
Bright eyes
Great Olympos itself shook terribly under the might of bright-eyes,
the earth groaned awfully and the ocean was moved to foam up with dark waves,
Bright eyes, then as sudden the salt sea stopped. The glorious son of Hyperion,the sun, stood his fast-footed horses still for a long time,
Bright eyes and the girl took that god-like armor from her immortal shoulders.
Bright eyes
Burning like fire
How can you close and fail?
How can the light that burned so brightly
Suddenly burn so pale for us humans?
LOVE what the feature might become. Don't care about the graphics at all personally (when I'm sweating through my eyes during hard intervals or PR efforts, I'm not watching graphics on the screen).
BUT. Wake me up when I'm able to choose from a list of 100 most famous climbs in the world. Any time I want. Until then this for me is a big meh. Good first step though. I hope it doesn't take zwift ages to build on top of this. (probably will)
Wow *slowclap*. Honestly, who are the below 10k active users in zwoffseason? It‘t the die-hards smashing out their intervals that are impossible to do outside without getting run over by a car. But will they finally fix their bugs or do some of the low-hanging suggestions from the forum hanging around since 2017 to make the thing more usable? „Innovation“ like keyboard support on iOS? Nope, of course not. Still living the good life on 1hr workdays and venture capital.
the negative comments when they havent even ridden it is a joke. when i got to ride it i was pleasantly surpised. its quite good, and liked the color coded roads - tons of info - other riders, it was NOT boring.
Not enough people climb to justify putting time & effort into them over the flatter routes.
Also look at the Epic KOM bypass, a lovely road, but "cut off" by 10% climbs or even the Jungle with its slow roads.
Also not an approach that works for flat routes, as you might as well watch a video on main, while looping round the desert.
I do like the 10 sections though, very Alpe Du Zwift :)
Please add more Yetis!
I think it's really good.. it's almost impossible to see upcoming gradient changes until now.
RGT has Magic Roads using generic 3D landscape (dynamically rendered by their server) over your own GPX file and Rouvy allows you to create your own route with or without IRL video. Both of which require some work by the user, but you can then ride solo or with friends any time you like. Would be easy for Zwift to do the same if that suited their strategy. I hope they do.
Microsoft, Google and other mapping vendors also have APIs for game development engines that allow game creators to have dynamic realistic 3D environments that a user could potentially roam around just like they would IRL. Subject to licensing costs of course. Only problem for Zwift, other than having to give another software vendor their money, is that Zwift uses a custom game dev engine. So no API for you 😢
I like the idea that because this is a "stripped out" graphical feature, it surely enables zwift to provide lots of climbs (or entire stages) from the real world very quickly. Also, its only an option, so if you don't want to use it, well, don't. Its not taking anything away from the existing experience (which I personally love). Its just adding some extra options for those who want to challenge themselves against alternative courses or routes, without zwift having to spend hundreds of hours creating new "fully modelled" routes. My only caveat would be that I hope this doesn't reduce the number of development hours on the "main" zwift programme.
If I'm going to suffer on a climb, I want something to look at. This would quickly become mind numbing unless one is also watching a 4K movie on a nearby screen. This has potential but, as it is, I don't think will be very popular for most folks. Released prematurely? A big disappointment, Zwift. When you suffer up Alpe du Zwift or Ventoux, at least you have some scenery.
Looks good to me! I will see how I feel about it when I am suffering. I do not have a problem with it initially and love the ability to ride real climbs. This is what I am training for!
Just give us a "magic road" like feature where one can upload a GPX .. just some nice scenery eye candy would be nice .. About time use a different graphics engine and maybe AI for bike dynamics. Would love Zwift to be a single go-to for my training, and race preparation, but RGT does have magic roads for pre-race familiarization.
I have only just started coming back on Zwift for the autumn and winter, and yesterday saw the link for Climb Portal: Coll d'Ordino in Watopia. So I thought I would give it a go, and I loved it. I was a hard climb, the graphics are great especially as you can see what's coming. I am looking forward to doing as many as possible, and hope Zwift put on as many different climbs as they can.