rF2 | May Development Roadmap Brings News Of Portland

Paul Jeffrey

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Studio 397 have continued their current pacy output of news from the last few days, with the release of their latest monthly development roadmap update - and plenty of goodies it contains too...

The May Development Roadmap posting tells the tale of a few exceptionally busy weeks at Studio 397, thanks to the recent burst of esport activity involving the simulation, and of course not forgetting the recent array of content releases (here, hereand here) that have dropped over the course of the last few days. Nevertheless, Studio 397 remain undaunted and plan to carry on the updates, with news of a new build deployment in the works, the much awaiting Portland International Raceway (for free, too!) and a bonus update and fresh layout for Silverstone - amongst many other goodies...

The rFactor 2 May Development Roadmap in full

Last month we published a roadmap with a focus that was slightly different than most ones that came before it. We got some very diverse reactions to it, most of which were positive, and some thought we’d given up. The latter could not be further from the truth, but on a weekly basis our priorities have to be adjusted to adapt to the changing situation. In the weeks that followed, we could finally start announcing some of the things that were hinted at.

The new build, that both fixed some long standing issues as well as added a significant graphics update. The brand new Berlin and New York E-Prix tracks. Zandvoort in 2020 layout, the first simulation on the market to feature it. The announcement of the Radical SR3 XX, a launch that was coordinated with the real car by Radical Sportscars, earlier today. The Ferrari 488 GTE which needs no further introduction. And of course the announcement that we are hosting the 24 hours of Le Mans together with the ACO and Motorsport Games, featuring probably some of the strongest drivers and manufacturers ever to be competing in a single event.

We supported various Formula E races, some not without controversy, and ran weekly All-Stars events featuring many of the fastest simracers, racing drivers and legends, such as Mario Andretti and Fernando Alonso. So, with all of those things happening, you would almost forget that there’s a lot more to come. So let’s take a look at what the month of June will likely bring.

First of all we will be updating our build and providing you with the long awaited customization instructions on our brand new overlays. We’re just wrapping up testing of this build, that will contain a few other fixes as well, so you can certainly expect that to be available in the upcoming week.

On the art side, June will see the release of Portland International Raceway. This has definitely been one of the longer projects within Studio 397, as we’ve halted and continued it a few times. It has done the track a lot of good as it ended up being our showcase for all the new lighting improvements we’ve been working on over the past year or so. This track will be released for free, and we hope you will all enjoy it.

We have a few more things we’re working on though. Those of you watching the All-Stars events will probably have noticed they were driving on a much improved version of Silverstone. In recent weeks we’ve taken this track, updated all the materials and also brought the track and its surroundings up to the 2020 layout. We’ve even added back one of the older layouts for you to enjoy. And finally of course, with the 24 hour race being run in two weeks from now, Le Mans will get some updates as well. Needless to say the track team has been quite busy, and we will be upgrading a few more tracks in the months to come.

Our car team has also been quite busy. The unannounced car we mentioned last month will remain like that for a little while longer. We have also upgraded a couple of older cars to our new materials, such as the Indycar. The current focus of the team is a final BOP for all the GTE cars at Le Mans. Once that is done, work will most likely start on a few more cars we’ve recently licensed, but are not yet ready to announce. Needless to say the Ferrari 488 in GT3 spec will be one of those.

On the development side, apart from the continued focus on both improvements to the graphics engine and its performance and general bug fixes, we are working on the UI and competition subsystems. You will most likely see updates to the broadcast overlays as well as a system to share customizations of these overlays via the workshop. Here too there is a lot of focus on the 24 hour event as our development team is supporting this huge project. We still have a long list of tasks ahead here and not everything we are working on is visible or announced yet so bear with us as we continue these developments.

Last but not least our esports and marketing team has obviously been very busy organizing events and supporting others. With our own GT series coming to a close, they are already looking ahead at the next season later this year.

All in all this has probably been our busiest month in our now almost four year history, and we’re very excited to learn what the next couple of months will bring as in some areas of the world the lock-down is slowly lifting while other areas are still in the middle of their struggle to ensure people are safe. Some of motorsport is restarting too, but many believe the world will never be the same. Given that the only constant is change, that’s probably not even a bad thing. At least we look at the bright side of things and try to seize the new opportunities this brings. Thank you all for making it to the end of this roadmap, and again, stay healthy and stay safe!



Original Source: Studio 397

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Why buy cars and tracks in rFactor 2 if you can not enjoy them in online races ... at least in other sims if there are races every day to enjoy the purchased content.

Ugh, I'm so sick of this attitude. Not everyone can or wants to play online. I totally understand that for some people that's their jam, but for me and many others, I enjoy offline racing, and rf2 has always done a pretty good job for me there.
 
Bright? You mean blue?

Didn't they change the lighting recently and remove the "blue"? I have to say that at midday I also find the lighting quite unexpectedly dull. It feels more overcast rather than a clear blue sun filled sky around midday. I think removing the blue has also made some of the colors on older tracks look a little weird. Trees on the Rieza tracks look an odd sort of lime green. The 2020 Zandvoort tracks looks down right awful in my book.

Having said that, the Ferrari 488 GTE interior now looks up to modern standards. The new materials work has really paid off it seems. It looks brilliant. I wish they would go back and update all the GT3 and older content to match as a higher priority.
 
Glad to read they're working the graphics. The recent E Sports events on TV replacing real motorsport have been entertaining but comparing RF2 events to those of I racing have shown up how far RF2 has fallen behind in this area. I love this sim mainly because imo it has far an away the best ffb and tyre model out there. Get the graphics sorted along with the UI and it will be unmatched. Keep it up guys I have faith in you
 
Would like to know what settings they use for screenshots, because I have a difficult time emulating their results.

Really trying to stay onboard, bought all the Formula E content as that seems to have become a steady development and the new Ferrari -:which fits in well with the other GT content. Handling-wise I’ve to retune it a bit, but pretty close.

I can push the settings to the max, but it never gets anywhere near the screenshots.
 
Would like to know what settings they use for screenshots, because I have a difficult time emulating their results.

Really trying to stay onboard, bought all the Formula E content as that seems to have become a steady development and the new Ferrari -:which fits in well with the other GT content. Handling-wise I’ve to retune it a bit, but pretty close.

I can push the settings to the max, but it never gets anywhere near the screenshots.

You'll need this plugin to rF2 look nice:
 
Does this apply to all the stuff in the Steam RFACTOR 2 store and if so - why? I play offline but first I heard of this...
You can race online, but the scarcity of populated servers makes finding a good online race rare. Plus, When a server has a complete carpak, you too must have the complete carpak. If you only wanted one car, say just the GT3 Corvette, you would have to buy the rest of the pack just to connect with the server, IF the server had the full 5 car pack installed.
 
One of the problems with running an online race, is the Packages system. Quite honestly, it's currently a bit of a mess IMO. However, you do need understand how to use this, in order to put up a server which will download all the necessary content when a player tries to join the server.

I thought I'd seen a (pretty vague tbh) statement from @Marcel Offermans , saying something about improving the Packages system?

One of the other complaints about this system is the fact that content is currently stored twice on a given players hard drive/SSD.

Please S397, can we have some clarification on this? Are you working on making it easier for non-technical people to put up a usable dedicated server, and are there any plans to reduce the amount of storage space required for content?

Thanks for your time. :thumbsup:
 
You can race online, but the scarcity of populated servers makes finding a good online race rare. Plus, When a server has a complete carpak, you too must have the complete carpak. If you only wanted one car, say just the GT3 Corvette, you would have to buy the rest of the pack just to connect with the server, IF the server had the full 5 car pack installed.
You talking bull.. dont need other cars only the oner you drive (own) you talk about iracing in the past was like that , not anymore either now
 

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