iRacing: New Damage Model Video (Preview)

[Paul Jeffrey]

iRacing have released a fresh video showing the current state of the work-in-progress damage model for the simulation.

Seemingly making great strides with the way the iRacing simulation represents damage when out on track, this latest preview video gives fans a very impressive demonstration of just how far things are progressing within the title - although we still don't yet know exactly when this new gameplay feature will be arriving to the popular racing simulation.

In the latest video, we once again see various cars in action out on the circuit, however be sure to check out a sneaky look at the yet to be released Audi TCR machine - a very welcome new piece of content set to arrive within the iRacing store in the reasonably near future...

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[Madatek]

literal gore crying and shaking rn

 

[Enthilzha]

This damage model looks impressive...amazing job
The only thing I see is that taking in count the speed the cars seem to have in the video i think there should be more chassis deformation for the rest it looks awesome

I noticed the same. Whilst all the parts becoming detached and deformed look extremely impressive, if you watch the video again, you will see that the main body of the car usually seems pretty much untouched regardless of the impact - especially the single-seaters.

 

[cupra_abf]

It's really nice to see a post about iR not being completely taken over by bashing them or similar.

The damage model looks great! Most of the comments here are constructive, and regarding the people criticizing them, some raise valid concerns, but some seem to not have driven iR in years honestly...

There is real drivers claiming it's great, there is real drivers claiming its garbage. The same can be said for pretty much every sim out there, so it's never really an argument for or against a sim in my eyes. Not to mention, we know drivers are getting paid these days to promote sims...I wouldn't be surprised if some of them talk bad about other sims for a reason too.

The days of 'iceracing' are over though, these days I have more wtf? spins in many other sims than in iR. It feels believable for the most part, but it's also noticable that there is craploads of content and its ever-evolving. Some updates just go into the wrong direction or break something. All in all, the progress has been impressive over the years though and it does some things better than any other sim (including some parts of the physics). Its not just the online organized racing part of it that's great, even just hotlapping is enjoyable and fairly realistic.

I noticed the same. Whilst all the parts becoming detached and deformed look extremely impressive, if you watch the video again, you will see that the main body of the car usually seems pretty much untouched regardless of the impact - especially the single-seaters.

That's the main thing car manufacturers are finicky about, the cell is not allowed to deform, stuff like that. I don't remember where I read it, might have actually been in a post on the iR forums. I don't think we'll ever see much more than the attachments deforming as long as licenses from the big manufacturers are involved. I'm glad they allow for this much damage at all. Maybe some more crumbling of the front/back at some point, but we can expect the actual passenger compartment to stay fully rigid.

Now, with open wheelers this is only the beginning. They have said that in the future, they'd like to include the monocoque breaking apart from the engine for example.

 

[snyperal]

Yeah, I jumped in with both feet after minimal practice made it 20min into a 30min race spun off the track was towed to the pit and then got too eager to leave and was black flagged. I now know that they flash the maximum speed in the pit area on the screen and I need to take note of that. So I got DQ'd because I didn't realize what being black flagged meant. Up until that point I had only been bumped from behind at the beginning of the race. Of course "maybe" I could have checked the aid that limits your pit speed automatically... Oh well! It was a lot of fun and I learned a few things.

Is there an auto pit limiter? I didn't think there was one.

 

[DesKane]

Wow !

 

[CC]

Jesus you see that chassis flex at 32 seconds when that formula car lifts in the air damn.....

 

[MarcG]

Looks good, very good, I've been crying out for realistic damage in Racing Sims for years so it's good to see one of the pack finally doing it "real", hope the others follow suit.

 

[jason_peters]

What happened to AI coming to IR?

 

[Riblo]

Hey Raceroom, hey AC/C you see it...

iRace can have this damage model cause it costs you 2000$ and 150$/year to play it

The damage model is very good but i am not in need to pay 150$ per year to play when THEY WANT with who THEY WANT with a game with few cars and tracks that costs about 2000$ if i want all cars and tracks

I am not a professional driver or a youtuber that want to make a video where he drives with lando norris or max verstappen
I am simdriver who is part of a group of friends that want to make funny races between themselves not competitive races with people i dont know

Looks great, but tire model is still jack ****, they should really prioritize "fixing" it and improving netcode.
Anyone else saw Max Verstappen intentionally ramming others again? This guy is never going to learn.

I dont play to iracing (too much money for a past time activity IMHO) but i can believe Verstappen ramming people in Iracing too

 

[RCHeliguy]

I think iRacing has gotten a bi-polar response from people who are split over the exact reasons it is a success.

The first is obviously their subscription model, but there in lies the key to their success. You hear people complain over and over again about a new title having the "same" content when new version comes out. Dirt Rally was raked over the coals for that recently as have other titles. However iRacing will propose a list of new tracks and ask members which ones they consider the most important. Then they will laser scan a track and add it to the game with a price tag. The same goes for cars. So there is a subscription to cover keeping all the servers running and then then you pay for new cars and tracks. You can argue all you want about the pricing, but the business model is sound. There is a separation of church and state. You pay for content once and you pay for the service separately. The reason no other title has this kind of match making and servers with scheduled races is that they are simply putting out software and not a service. You can't offer a service for free and remain solvent or expect it to work well, so other titles have to eventually orphan you and "force" you to upgrade or fall behind. This fragments the user base. iRacing by comparison has momentum with thousands of racers taking part regularly. Part of your yearly service cost goes toward improvements to the software, but everyone comes along for the ride together. That helps build a user base which they have been doing for many years now.

The second sticking point for some is also part of their success. That's their license structure, safety rating and points. You know where you stand, there is a structure in place for everyone to follow. The biggest complaint I read about is fault and safety ratings. Yes, it may not seem fair that if someone hits you, you also get dinged, but most of their rules have very good reasons. If they opened all incidents up to arbitration the whole system will break down. People complain, but it is an even playing field. Yes some numb nut can screw things up in a race and take you out on the last lap. Yes that might even piss you off, but it's that way for everyone. They have a system in place that is serviceable and works. It's not perfect, but in order for thousands of racers to take part regularly this type of automated system is a requirement.

I'm just starting to learn how to race and at least for me some of the other sims were leading to bad habits. I would turn off damage and push AI's out of the way and laugh while doing it. There were no consequences and I didn't take it seriously. In iRacing what you do matters and I think it changes your mindset about racing.

Just one opinion and I'm not claiming there are not many ways to enjoy sim racing.

 

[Jayenn]

looks impressive. I was under the impression that many of these manufactures hated the idea of their cars getting trashed?

That's an urban myth. Stefano from Kunos talked about that here starting at around 05:43:

 

[DonZmeuheu]

I think iRacing has gotten a bi-polar response from people who are split over the exact reasons it is a success.

The first is obviously their subscription model, but there in lies the key to their success. You hear people complain over and over again about a new title having the "same" content when new version comes out. Dirt Rally was raked over the coals for that recently as have other titles. However iRacing will propose a list of new tracks and ask members which ones they consider the most important. Then they will laser scan a track and add it to the game with a price tag. The same goes for cars. So there is a subscription to cover keeping all the servers running and then then you pay for new cars and tracks. You can argue all you want about the pricing, but the business model is sound. There is a separation of church and state. You pay for content once and you pay for the service separately. The reason no other title has this kind of match making and servers with scheduled races is that they are simply putting out software and not a service. You can't offer a service for free and remain solvent or expect it to work well, so other titles have to eventually orphan you and "force" you to upgrade or fall behind. This fragments the user base. iRacing by comparison has momentum with thousands of racers taking part regularly. Part of your yearly service cost goes toward improvements to the software, but everyone comes along for the ride together. That helps build a user base which they have been doing for many years now.

The second sticking point for some is also part of their success. That's their license structure, safety rating and points. You know where you stand, there is a structure in place for everyone to follow. The biggest complaint I read about is fault and safety ratings. Yes, it may not seem fair that if someone hits you, you also get dinged, but most of their rules have very good reasons. If they opened all incidents up to arbitration the whole system will break down. People complain, but it is an even playing field. Yes some numb nut can screw things up in a race and take you out on the last lap. Yes that might even piss you off, but it's that way for everyone. They have a system in place that is serviceable and works. It's not perfect, but in order for thousands of racers to take part regularly this type of automated system is a requirement.

I'm just starting to learn how to race and at least for me some of the other sims were leading to bad habits. I would turn off damage and push AI's out of the way and laugh while doing it. There were no consequences and I didn't take it seriously.

Just one opinion and I'm not claiming there are not many ways to enjoy sim racing.

I couldn't agree more When you Race in Iracing there is something unique which you described in your post above pretty clear. Thats why everybody take it more serious when Racing in Iracing than in another sim. Like you said, it exists a lot of ways to enjoy sim racing but when it comes to Online Competition no body can beat Iracing

 

[MarkR]

Will the player also have to pay for the damage to their car? I mean they charge for everything else so...

I tried iRacing a few years ago and I wasn't convinced by the driving or feedback, there wasn't much connection between car and track. I might give it another go one day but a damage model isn't enough to tempt me back.

 

[Patrik Marek]

That looks really good, whoa ! Great job

 

[Nick Hill]

That looks absolutely amazing. Not totally surprised though - if you go back to NASCAR Racing 2003, a lot of the oval crashes in that game look uncannily believable (not all of them of course, you can find plenty of YT vids of NR2003 cars flying/glitching/etc so I'm sure this took a lot of work and polish).

My son is a huge Beam NG drive fan. He likes to reproduce racing crashes and is very good at it and produces some really cool/believable results...but in some ways these iRacing crashes look even better. That's amazing when you consider Beam NG is a general purpose physics simulator (they've modeled a bunch of things "pretty well") iRacing's physics are more narrowly focused (they've modeled the physics around driving a car "really well").

I think there is a pretty strong case to be made even before this new damage model that iRacing could fairly label themselves the most sophisticated (home use) simulator out there. I've driven it a fair bit over the years and have also read some stuff about the kinds of things they model that just blow my mind. So cool.

Very pricey though. I have to laugh when R3E come out with some new content and people start to hyperventilate over $5 for a new track. I think "have you heard of iRacing? It would be 3x that PLUS a monthly sub for the privilege of getting to use it AND no AI (at least not yet)". I would need to perceive iRacing as THE sim to justify the outlay, and I just don't see it in that light...which is why I'm stuck as a "C" for both oval and road!

For me, something is fundamentally not right with the tire model and/or how the tire model gets communicated to me through my pretend steering wheel. I'm sure they've got some really smart people who make sure all of the right constants/coefficients/etc are plugged in correctly... something is just getting lost in translation for me. It's kind of funny because, when I first started playing iRacing, the tires felt like literal ice cubes. No sense of feel and slippery as hell. Now? I'm not sure I have a good metaphor - I still have no feel, but the tires feel artificially grippy to me (presumably this is in response to the "iceRacing" criticisms). The problem is, with the lack of feel, the tires go from "we can do this all day, c'mon man - push!" to "say, do you see that tire barrier over there...?" in what feels like an (usually uncatchable) instant.

I should add my tire model complaints go for road...on the oval side, I've always felt iRacing to be very good. It's on the road side - where you have lefts, rights, curbs, elevation, bumps, heavy braking, etc - that I begin to get very irritated.

I've driven cars on tracks (and driven them relatively hard). I know how strong the total feedback sensation package (sight, sound, wheel, butt...) is in real life...for me, other Sims come much closer to providing that level of feedback (through FFB) than iRacing.

Damage still looks very, very cool though. Best I've ever seen, for sure. If you enjoy playing iRacing, I genuinely hope this new damage model makes the game even more fun for you and you should keep playing it irrespective of my complaints (which are all based on personal opinion anyways!)

 

[CaddyDPi]

That's spot on! Really how it should be in real life

 

[RCHeliguy]

Has anyone considered the business sense behind why iRacing is putting the effort into making the crashes more realistic and and spectacular ???

iRacing is pushing eSports. This means that they want more races to have announcers and have racing that is more fun for audiences. When there is a crash the audience wants to see carnage and slow motion replays etc.. etc..

Broadcasting watchable races is another area that iRacing has been putting effort into. This fits into that.

 

[Wayne Hutchison]

Is there an auto pit limiter? I didn't think there was one.

Depends on the car. Most cars don't have a pit speed limiter in real life so don't have it in iRacing either.

 

[Wayne Hutchison]

iRace can have this damage model cause it costs you 2000$ and 150$/year to play it

The damage model is very good but i am not in need to pay 150$ per year to play when THEY WANT with who THEY WANT with a game with few cars and tracks that costs about 2000$ if i want all cars and tracks

I am not a professional driver or a youtuber that want to make a video where he drives with lando norris or max verstappen
I am simdriver who is part of a group of friends that want to make funny races between themselves not competitive races with people i dont know


I dont play to iracing (too much money for a past time activity IMHO) but i can believe Verstappen ramming people in Iracing too

You realise that you can race with anybody you want, whenever you want on iRacing, right? The official races are only a very small portion of the racing that happen on iRacing.

 

[snyperal]

Depends on the car. Most cars don't have a pit speed limiter in real life so don't have it in iRacing either.

I don't think any car has an auto pit limiter or it is an option in iRacing. Some have put limiters but even they have to be manually activated.