ICYMI: Laserscanned Nordschleife Coming to rF2...

[Paul Jeffrey]

At the 2018 Sim Racing Expo Studio 397 had plenty of big news to share, not least of which was the announcement of a laserscanned Nordschleife coming to rFactor 2...

Now I know this is pretty late in being written up, I blame too much beer and too good company for that, but I think it is probably big enough and exciting enough to deserve an article all of its own - even if it is several days after the actual event.

Clearly very pleased with their latest licence agreement, Marcel Offermans and Christopher Elliot of Studio 397 used the recent Sim Racing Expo in Germany as an opportunity to announce to the world the recent acquisition of a licence to recreate the spectacular Nordschleife in rFactor 2.

Nordschleife is often one of the most favoured and requested race tracks in sim racing circles, with many of the current breed of sim games already featuring the epic circuit, however what makes the move to bring the circuit to rF2 a little bit more special is that Offermans and co have secured brand new laser scanned data, giving the studio the opportunity to recreate the circuit as it is in 2018, including several updates to the track that are not present in other recreations of the venue elsewhere in sim racing.

This is good, and marks a significant step for Studio 397 as they continue to look to bring yet more interesting official content to the simulation.

As well as the big hitting news of Nordschleife coming to rF2, the Dutch developers have also announced and subsequently released three new historic McLaren Formula One cars, of which you can read about HERE, plus they have previewed some rather impressive shader improvements that are coming to the title very soon - Studio 397 making yet more progress with an increasingly improving graphical power of the simulation.

You can check out some of the shader preview images below:

Sim Racing Expo 2018 was a big weekend for Studio 397, and it looks like things can only keep on improving from here...

rFactor 2 is available exclusively for PC from Steam now.

Check out the rFactor 2 sub forum here at RaceDepartment for all the latest news and discussion with regards to the simulation. You can take part in lively debates with fellow rFactor 2 fans and take part in some great Club and League racing events..! Head over to the forum now!

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Happy with the rF2 announcements last weekend? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!​

 

[Terry Rock]

Does anybody actually race on the Nordschleife anymore in simracing...or is it just being used for hot-lap satisfaction?
It seems when ever I join a Nords-based server in other simracing titles, I see folks practice/testing but it never culminates as a race.
I usually leave after waiting for what seems like an eternity.
Still, its good that S397 is at least listening a bit.

 

[Kimmo Kokkonen]

They should buy the point cloud from one of the 542655 companies that performed the laser surveying before. The same work being made over and over again..

But this could be the first ever a real laser scanned, when other company's with every other versions of this track they said that yes we scanned but always the track looks and fells the same than the first GTR Evolution track by Simbin. Only different official version can be found from Grand Prix Legends with historic layout...Assetto Corsa version is copy of GTR Evolution, thougth, maybe slightly changed something details etc.

 

[Boby Kim]

Great stuff S397 is planting itself into creating more tracks. The Nord is not my thing but i hope for the lovers it will be as good as Sebring.

 

[Amanda]

source?

IIRC there's only one company allowed to do the laser scanning in the Nordschleife. Studios then need two licenses, one to use the "Nurburgring/Nordschleife" name, and another one to get the point cloud.

In total, costs were about 30K EUR in 2012, if memory serves me right. BridgeToGantry, a website run by Dale (one of the Ring Taxi drivers, he basically lives on the track) had an article about it.

 

[Amanda]

Does anybody actually race on the Nordschleife anymore in simracing...or is it just being used for hot-lap satisfaction?
It seems when ever I join a Nords-based server in other simracing titles, I see folks practice/testing but it never culminates as a race.

Depends.

On AC I can only recall one server (search for "French") where races actually occur. IIRC they use the VLN layout.
All other servers are supposed to be "Track Day" but people in these servers are always as dumb as a pile of rocks, they don't know what "Track Day" means, most seem to think it means "do hotlaps and disregard drivers in slower classes". Like, really, they don't even slow down to pass slower classes, they're so stupid they keep the racing line as if they're robots programmed to do this. "DUUUUDE GET OUT OF THE WAYYYY I'M COMIIIING".
Sometimes I wish I could go through the monitor and strangle some of these. Other times I just say on the chat "stupid people should not be allowed to breed, and don't ever go to a real race track driving like this or you'll be banned and possible beaten as well".

Very rarely do you see someone actually replicating the track day in AC, like if I'm on a LaFerrari and I see a 95 DTM ahead, I calculate when we're going to meet and so I slow down accordingly and allow for the driver to move to the right side so we can both fit on the track, and so on.
But most don't even use their mirrors, on a racing environment. Good thing some servers make this mandatory.

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When it comes to Project Cars 2 you see more servers doing actual races on the track, but still it's not that many.

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The sim you're more than likely to find at least 2 or 3 servers running the track is RaceRoom. There's always a server open and some people to race against.

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And even if there weren't too many people to race against, people still want the track. Personally I want it even to race offline, it's my favorite track and racing with BOT's is a more realistic experience than racing with humans who don't know what they're doing. If you see my video on it, you'll see that racing with BOT's is actually pretty good, and should be even better with rFactor 2's AI

 

[gianlucaP]

ì

 

[David Jundt]

Does anybody actually race on the Nordschleife anymore in simracing...or is it just being used for hot-lap satisfaction?
It seems when ever I join a Nords-based server in other simracing titles, I see folks practice/testing but it never culminates as a race.
I usually leave after waiting for what seems like an eternity.
Still, its good that S397 is at least listening a bit.

Simracing.Club wanted to host a 24H Event with the GT3 cars, but the version they had wasn't that great which seemed to affect the amount of teams that signed up so it got cancelled.

Now, with a non-modded version coming, this might open the door again...

Apart from Endurance leagues, I admit I don't know about more races there.

 

[Kimmo Kokkonen]

They've also said that they possibly create a non-laserscanned version of the old Südschleife(South Loop), which could enable them to make a historic combination of both North and South loop.

This sounds good, Historic version is the best for 60's F1 historic mod. I just a week ago reinstalled Grand Prix legends with all updates, it is still so good simulator, after all these modern eye candy games old GPL look, feel and the most important thing, it sounds like a race car, it sounds like a raw brutal race car, wow what a game, 20 years old but still the "BEST". I will create video asap, I'm still "practising", it is so difficult to drive fast in GP mode and without driving aids.

 

[David Jundt]

In the streaming that they did from the Expo they said that the laser scan was done by an external company (so, not by S397), that they plan to do the Nordschleife, the combined layout (GP + Nord) and the Sudschleife.
This last one can't be laser scanned, because if I remember well a part of it has been demolished. So they are collecting all the reference data available, also with the help of the community.
They plan to release the track in the end of the Q1 2019.
And that's it, this is all the info we have now. So we can expect several layouts at the end.

I wonder how much has changed in 7 years from this video, parts could potentially be laser-scanned, but only with modern data, not historic, even if the elevation changes might be similiar. But the costs to do this... probably too high.

But as they said they can use any kind of photos or videos, it might prove helpful either way.

 

[makan]

Does anybody actually race on the Nordschleife anymore in simracing...or is it just being used for hot-lap satisfaction?
It seems when ever I join a Nords-based server in other simracing titles, I see folks practice/testing but it never culminates as a race.
I usually leave after waiting for what seems like an eternity.

Because you just joined some public trackday servers in AC i think.
But official races, That's a different story.
In iracing we race in nords several times in every season, and those series are very popular.
I think with RF2's new ui,competition system,FFB,tire model and new cars ,It'll be very desirable to participate in official races.
====
@AmarildoJr
Ninjaed.

 

[VirtuaIceMan]

But this could be the first ever a real laser scanned, when other company's with every other versions of this track they said that yes we scanned but always the track looks and fells the same than the first GTR Evolution track by Simbin. Only different official version can be found from Grand Prix Legends with historic layout...Assetto Corsa version is copy of GTR Evolution, thougth, maybe slightly changed something details etc.

You can compare versions of the Nordschleife here: https://www.racedepartment.com/threads/every-nurburgring-nordschleife-on-pc-compared.138599/

 

[Will Mazeo]

Does anybody actually race on the Nordschleife anymore in simracing...or is it just being used for hot-lap satisfaction?
It seems when ever I join a Nords-based server in other simracing titles, I see folks practice/testing but it never culminates as a race.
I usually leave after waiting for what seems like an eternity.
Still, its good that S397 is at least listening a bit.

Nords is only fun if you manage to get real life grid sizes, but then you need a rather powerfull pc to run 140 cars, unless rF2 manage to find a better tech for their AI rather than letting it use rF1 player physics.
I asked to an ex iRacing member and he said Nur is not that popular nowadays there either, not sure how true it is tho but I think this is a waste of licensing and production costs would rather see that being spent on more US tracks/cars to get the full IMSA season going

 

[MoerasGrizzly]

Give us a proper support for surround sound like AC,AMS, ACC, R3e..Yes i can choose 5.1/7.1 in the setup but the actual audio samples are only in stereo/mono.

All 3d audio systems use mono and stereo recordings, the 7.1 stuff is simply done via calculations. Doesn't matter if you're gaming with headphones or have a Dolby Atmos enabled actual cinema, it all works the same way.

 

[John-Eric Saxén]

But this could be the first ever a real laser scanned, when other company's with every other versions of this track they said that yes we scanned but always the track looks and fells the same than the first GTR Evolution track by Simbin. Only different official version can be found from Grand Prix Legends with historic layout...Assetto Corsa version is copy of GTR Evolution, thougth, maybe slightly changed something details etc.

The AC version is superior to GTR Evolution in every way. And the main problem isn't scanning accuracy, the problem is that the scan itself contains hundreds of times more xyz information than could ever run on a PC, so all consumer sims have to reduce information and accuracy from the scan to make it run in real time. Depending on how much they cut corners, result may be tangibly worse. The only centimeter precision Nordschleife that exists in a sim is the one in rF Pro.

 

[Raikku]

I have Nords in all sims what I have(and I have them all), but I think I haven't never "raced" there, nor that I would want to. Driving on Nords is like virtual masturbation, you can watch porn or drive on Nords and get pleasure from that.

 

[randMracer]

No wonder
White, Middle-Age Suicide In America Skyrockets..

No need for racist stereotyping just because you got laughed at. Not a wise path to follow.

 

[gianlucaP]

ì

 

[enduser282]

No way a small company like s397 can afford their own scan, i ve heard in yt nords laser data costs around 40K euros but idk if its accurate. And then how much they sell this data to each game... s397 have said themselves to be negotiating a track for 6 months! so probably thats the one, thats also worth something like that.

Tbh i d prefer a 70s version or just the nurburing gp to do sprints and a championship builder to use it with, or use that money for multiple laser scanned tracks as rf2 lacks quality tracks and i dont play endurance, but great news if u do!

Then again if sebring took 6 months to make this will take a while (and it ll cost at least 20 euros), so wake me up when its ready.

 

[Jriv012]

Does anybody actually race on the Nordschleife anymore in simracing...or is it just being used for hot-lap satisfaction?
It seems when ever I join a Nords-based server in other simracing titles, I see folks practice/testing but it never culminates as a race.
I usually leave after waiting for what seems like an eternity.
Still, its good that S397 is at least listening a bit.

I believe many people do, in all platforms, I am aware of league races coming in GT3 for rf2 and WTCR in R3E just in October; the green hell, tho, is not the kind of track you just want to jump in casually after a few beers, it requires practice and planning for the specific conditions of that one race, which, btw, is one of the reasons I usually suck at it

And about the pretty McLaren screeshots, I support rf2 fully, but also haven't seen them even close to that quality once screenshots become actual gameplay, will see...

 

[Jim Liak]

One of the best and sophisticated sims of the market, announces the greatest license of it's history, still , a vaporware (GTR 3) takes X10^99 more love and attention in comparison.
What a strange world indeed....