Does AC really need mods ?

[Alexandre Guzu]

A friend of mine said recently :

"Without mods, AC will last 1 year. With mods, it'll last 10."

What do you think ?

 

[Rui Santos]

Kunos are in for the long haul !

Everything about AC is leaps and bounds better than rF and I myself find it looking very dull especially comparing to AC !

Once the drifters find out about all the cars drifting capability it is surely going to spread like wildfire which will give it a good money injection !

Assetto Corsa is the best thing that happend Sim Racing since RBR (Which I have been playing for 9 years now ) !

Kunos tire model is second to none just as the FFB, no one can touch Kunos there !

Agree with you but don't forget other titles on the verge, rFactor2 is a very promissing sim too with a lot of potential, and it's offering full modding ability and FREE content during years

 

[Tobbe Bergman]

As far as I know rF2 is already out !

Cant say I am overly impressed from what I've seen on YT so far !

 

[Rui Santos]

As far as I know rF2 is already out !

Cant say I am overly impressed from what I've seen on YT so far !

But... are you a simracer??? Or a Gran Turismo player?? Do you evaluate a sim based on what you see on Youtube without even feel it???

And yes rFactor2 is out a long time ago but still in BETA stage...

 

[Tobbe Bergman]

But... are you a simracer??? Or a Gran Turismo player?? Do you evaluate a sim based on what you see on Youtube without even feel it???

And yes rFactor2 is out a long time ago but still in BETA stage...

I guess I am a hardcore Sim racer cause I get nauseous when I hear someone speak about GT as a Sim

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Guys try to discuss without that "my sim is better than yours tone" and don't make it personal please.

 

[Rui Santos]

Nothing personal and not defending this or that "sim", just can't understand how people can evaluate a SIM based on youtube video...

 

[Tobbe Bergman]

I have or had have all of the Sims and arcade Games ever made since the 90's so how could I have said "my sim is better than yours ?"

FYI Gran Turismo does NOT meet any requirements for a Sim Racing Game regarding Physics, Damage or Multiplayer !

It's just facts !
It has absolutely Zero to do with Sim racing !
It's just pure Graphic's Galore !

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

That are not facts but opinions Your opinions and that's fine.

And in my opinion Gran Turismo has a lot to do with sim racing. Can't find any other game out there (with exception of AC now) that gives me a more natural feeling driving the lower powered cars than GT5.

Different people, different games, different flavors.

 

[Tobbe Bergman]

Nothing personal and not defending this or that "sim", just can't understand how people can evaluate a SIM based on youtube video...

Neither do I -that would be stupid to do !

I tried rF and it has good physics and FFB but the graphics are dated even in rF2

That are not facts but opinions Your opinions and that's fine.

OK lets call it that then !

 

[Stuart Whitehead]

The 3rd party tracks in rFactor are fine, and they weren't laser scanned

A blanket statement claiming they were "fine" is being disingenuous imo

The 3rd party tracks in rFactor ranged from absolute dross to as good as it gets without laser scans. Even the very best examples tended to be wildly inaccurate when it came to elevation, cambers and bumps compared to the laser scanned versions seen in iRacing and AC.

I realise that the complete accuracy of tracks is unimportant to many sim racers and i have no issue with that. For those of us that are slightly more anal about the details though 3rd party tracks just dont cut it any more. Accurate elevation changes, the camber of corners and bumps in all areas, especially braking zones make a huge difference in how you drive the track. Those details matter to a lot of people. We've moved on. It's no longer 2006.

I'm still looking forward to 3rd party tracks, especially if they are up to the standard of the VLM tracks for rFactor or the Imola and Mugello tracks for netKar Pro from the Radiator Springs guys. They certainly help to fill the gaps and i fully appreciate the time and effort that goes into making them, but given the choice of even an exceptionally made 3rd party track for free or buying a laser scanned version of the same track... I'll be reaching for my wallet every time. The accuracy makes it worth every penny, and knowing you are helping to fund and support the devs product for as long as possible is a huge bonus.

EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm not against mods or modders in any way. I wwlcome them and will surely use, appreciate and enjoy the top mods. My main beef is with the people that dismiss out of hand ever paying for any quality content from the developers that helps to support the product for many years. Dropping an extra £30 or so a year towards supporting your favourite sim should be a no-brainer. You cant have 1 night out here for that sort of money, yet some people expect 5+ years of entertainment out of a product for their initial £30 outlay. This is why we cant have nice things

 

[Tobbe Bergman]

Nothing personal and not defending this or that "sim", just can't understand how people can evaluate a SIM based on youtube video...

Neither do I -that would be stupid to do !

I tried rF and it has good physics and FFB but ( My Opinion is that ) the graphics are dated even in rF2 plus it made a somewhat shattered impression on me when I had it !

I find AC much more enjoyable in every way !
My Opinion is that Kunos have made a very homogeneous Sim in all departments !

 

[Tobbe Bergman]

A blanket statement claiming they were "fine" is being disingenuous imo

The 3rd party tracks in rFactor ranged from absolute dross to as good as it gets without laser scans. Even the very best examples tended to be wildly inaccurate when it came to elevation, cambers and bumps compared to the laser scanned versions seen in iRacing and AC.

I realise that the complete accuracy of tracks is unimportant to many sim racers and i have no issue with that. For those of us that are slightly more anal about the details though 3rd party tracks just dont cut it any more. Accurate elevation changes, the camber of corners and bumps in all areas, especially braking zones make a huge difference in how you drive the track. Those details matter to a lot of people. We've moved on. It's no longer 2006.

I'm still looking forward to 3rd party tracks, especially if they are up to the standard of the VLM tracks for rFactor or the Imola and Mugello tracks for netKar Pro from the Radiator Springs guys. They certainly help to fill the gaps and i fully appreciate the time and effort that goes into making them, but given the choice of even an exceptionally made 3rd party track for free or buying a laser scanned version of the same track... I'll be reaching for my wallet every time. The accuracy makes it worth every penny, and knowing you are helping to fund and support the devs product for as long as possible is a huge bonus.

The question is how many tracks can Kunos Laserscan without losing any investments ? If they are going to stay afloat for the next 5 years surely they must deliver (Sell) tracks and cars DLC and not depend entirely on the mod community ?

 

[Stuart Whitehead]

The question is how many tracks can Kunos Laserscan without losing any investments ? If they are going to stay afloat for the next 5 years surely they must deliver (Sell) tracks and cars DLC and not depend entirely on the mod community ?

Yes, surely they must. I guess how many they can supply will be entirely dependant on sales of any previous DLC's If they dont sell well then they can't invest in the next ones. This is the main reason i hope the majority of the community support the devs buy purchasing what they offer. Good quality mod tracks will provide a ton of extra variety and entertainment on top of that, i just hope that the majority of users will support the project financially now and again for some top quality content as well.

 

[Tobbe Bergman]

Yes, surely they must. I guess how many they can supply will be entirely dependant on sales of any previous DLC's If they dont sell well then they can't invest in the next ones. This is the main reason i hope the majority of the community support the devs buy purchasing what they offer. Good quality mod tracks will provide a ton of extra variety and entertainment on top of that, i just hope that the majority of users will support the project financially now and again for some top quality content as well.

Kunos seems to have a clever strategy !
I will support them 100 % that's for sure !

 

[Mr Whippy]

I have or had have all of the Sims and arcade Games ever made since the 90's so how could I have said "my sim is better than yours ?"

FYI Gran Turismo does NOT meet any requirements for a Sim Racing Game regarding Physics, Damage or Multiplayer !

It's just facts !
It has absolutely Zero to do with Sim racing !
It's just pure Graphic's Galore !

GT is pretty good in the last few versions on the PS3.

I'm a 100% dedicated simmer/realism crazed person and I can appreciate that it's very very good. Cars generally do what they would do in real life if you use the right tyres and things.

Yes a lot of stuff is generalised, but stuff is being generalised here in AC right now too.



As per laser scanning, you can get pretty nice aerial lidar these days and if coverage of the 25cm res stuff overlaps tracks it's pretty good for making a pretty accurate track.
Still not on-vehicle lidar accurate, but it'll LOOK right and give the cambers and stuff pretty closely.

I'm messing with some sfm methods here for generating point clouds. I've yet to refine the method but ultimately the plan is to compare my SFM with some vehicle scanner point clouds to see how close I can get.

Even using a GPS logger around the track edges and centreline can give you a pretty good result... just a lot of walking around hehe

Dave

 

[Mr Whippy]

Even the very best examples tended to be wildly inaccurate when it came to elevation, cambers and bumps compared to the laser scanned versions seen in iRacing and AC.

The thing is we can do this stuff easier than ever now. OK it's still not trivial but data sets, types, collection methods and costs have dropped a lot over the last decade.

I started a personal track project about 10 years ago but today the aerial imagery is about 10x sharper for that location, there is aerial lidar with ~ 10cm vertical accuracy, with 1m grid density, as a DSM or DTM source... for FREE for non-commercial use. The best I had at the time was 10m contours and spot heights from some 1:10,000 maps iirc.

I remember taking a video for reference and it was old cam-corder, today I can take 1920px wide footage with super clarity at 50fps for the same cost in gear!


I think in 5 years time we'll be able to use SFM on some random videos we take on track and generate a point cloud and/or mesh automatically from it.

LIDAR will only be needed for engineer type commercial uses soon imo.

Dave

 

[Tobbe Bergman]

About tracks I have always thought that they could be done by the Modders at least as good as the developers themself !

Then along comes Laser Scanning !

If there is a bump in the road I want to know exactly where it is ! etc etc etc !

When it comes to cars I don't really know what the modders do!
I mean do they start from scratch and build it with coding, sound and everything or do they just take something that Kunos built and use that to change ?

I suspect that it is the latter option!

 

[Mr Whippy]

Tobbe, you are very correct.

Before laser scanning was quite so widespread we were all happy with 'manually' recreated tracks. Often they might still use measuring gear and photos and GPS etc, or even plans from the original designs etc.


In the end modders probably work HARDER than the developers do with their laser scan data because those with scan data just work right off their point cloud. Quite easy.
Modders have to take all the reference materials they get and make lots of decisions about what they see. Lots and lots of iterating and test driving to check things feel right and match videos etc.

In the end if you threw a mod team some scan data they'd be making tracks better than the commercial dev teams.




As for cars, there are so many components it's hard to say but many people seem to just convert cars from other games these days which is a bit rubbish. Usually the lack of effort in that regard is suggestive of the effort put into other parts of those mods.

But it's common to see people start from scratch and work right through to completion. Guys like Shadow Explorer for example will build from photos alone and it takes a lot of time but the end results are still very very impressive!

The only thing I guess you might re-use are sounds because they are very difficult to capture... I'm fairly certain for example that the AC Z4 has a sound of the TDU 1 TVR Tuscan above 4000rpm...

I can't be 100% sure of that of course, but I've been listening to and ripping sounds from car games since the late 90's so have a few hours under my belt and a keen ear for game car sounds hehe.


But for me, all that matters with sound is that they sound appropriate, I can forgive people ripping/recording other games and mixing together something for their own projects because if they didn't we'd have to resort to people making car noises themselves to use for their samples

Some people are pretty good at that though haha

Dave

 

[Mark Quigley]

Do you guys ever have any fun?
I think some of you need "real life" what ever that is, to find the detail and accuracy you demand.
Lazer (pewpewpewpew) sry) scanning has it's place, Oulton Park in ayeracing for example is stunning, I now realise all previous efforts have not captured the track well, such a fantastic wibblywobbly track.

 

[Mr Whippy]

Does anyone remember the Ring in PGR1 I think it was.

It was really not very good at all, not considering how good many of their city tracks were!

So you do wonder if a lot of it is to do with licensing, and then also artistic license, and also end user expectations.

Ie, if a track is well known and helps sell a game, but in the target market it's gonna be too 'hard' to drive and enjoy then I can imagine game devs might tone the track down a bit to make it more fun for joypad users who use behind car views... or the players simply won't notice and that can mean even games like NFS Shift or whatever get inaccurate tracks.

I think where good modders with the skills and time available have made tracks they will generally be pretty good.

You can certainly see why games like Gran Turismo ran fantasy tracks for so long. They can be just as good as real tracks, if not better and more impressive, but they don't need to be exact copies of anything.

From my perspective a well made fantasy track will always be just as good as a copy of a real track... afterall, every real track is a fantasy track in the eye of the designer before it's built...

Dave