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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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
no, rF2 is like that now. Your car purchases must match the cars installed on the server. So if you bought one GT3 car and the server has all 5, then you won't be able to race until you get all 5 as well. That could also mean, buying the package would mean you would have duplicated at least one car. That is why we users have discouraged buying single cars when the pack is available.
Now recent releases like the Ferrari 488 GTE are sold singly, but if you want to join a server that is hosting the GTE carset plus the 488, then back to the store you go.
( and I'm shocked :), shocked I say, that ANYone would accuse me of talking Bull...why I never.....) :)
 
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 never understood the purpose of rfmods. I know it's ISI who created the whole system, but it serves as a good example of how to not design software. End users should never have to deal with something like rfmods, even if they existed internally, this is according to basic principles of abstraction. The way rfmods work at the moment is they are more or less serving as a "link" between x cars and tracks without adding any meaningful functionality to the user. There is no reason why they should get downloaded and accumulate on the hard drive creating problems with dependencies. Perhaps the biggest issue with rfmods is the extra complication they create when hosting. Anyone doing regular hosting and switching between cars and tracks would quickly end up saving hours of work if the whole concept of rfmod was removed or at least abstracted so there would be no manual packaging involved.

Joining a server with paid content without owning it is a separate issue from rfmods that is maybe less straightforward to solve, it isn't a limitation with only rF2, other sims like Assetto Corsa do have this requirement as well.

Their light system is broken since day 0, there's no enough sun intensity. But when you point that out for developers they simply ignore.

Nonsense. if you check light colored materials in the game, you'll actually notice they are more on the side of over exposed under direct sunlight, which suggests there is perhaps a tad too much direct light, not too little.
 
Looks like Marcel got fed up of all the whining and deleted his RD account.
I echo your sentiments entirely plus I wish they would fix the AI to allow for multi class racing
[/QUOTE]

Has he really deleted his account? I find that hard to believe.
 
Very cool to see the developments progressing nicely.
Looking forward to put an IndyCar to it's pace on Portland somewhere this month :)
Also the Le Mans update is promising, had such a blast at the 2.4 hour club race last week!
 
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.
Thanks for clarifying. Hopefully it's possible to resolve in future and if not technically then at least offer a discount of full package price minus paid single item price. Anyway I gather this has been discussed in the past but thanks again.
 
Thanks for clarifying. Hopefully it's possible to resolve in future and if not technically then at least offer a discount of full package price minus paid single item price. Anyway I gather this has been discussed in the past but thanks again.
The carpacks go on sale quite often. Keep track of the steam sales and the older car packs and tracks will be discounted most of the time
 
I've been going Marie Kondo on my hard drive. If it doesn't bring me joy (or I haven't played it in 3 months) get ready to get uninstalled. Most recently it was ACC. (Dirt4, I'd be worried if I were you) But rF2 isn't far behind. I used to love it but in like 2014(?), but honestly, it was really just the old F2 cars I liked. Every time I go in it I exit disappointed. The only thing saving it is I moved it off of my main gaming HDD to my third Media HDD, so I don't need the space. But the icon taunts me.

And you know, I just STUPIDLY bought the EGT paid mod for rF2 (you know, the one I never play in AC also?) just because I'm addicted to New Viper. (Like Old Viper, but better). I really wish there was a way to sell games, it would remove the temptation to reinstall.

For all the game pirating I *may* have done in my younger days, I have certainly made up for it by supporting the simracing community. I spent another $13 at humblebundle buying Assetto Corsa DLC. I haven't played AC more than 1 hour in the past year until these last two nights. WHY WOULD I BUY THAT?!
 
There's no way I could have activated a night race, I haven o idea how to do it in the UI?!?

Compare the OP's picture to this:
usf2000-web-2016-gp-of-indy-advance.tmb-newsheader.jpg
And your point is? There are so many variables that determine how an image looks that it makes no sense at all to slap a random image from the internet into a thread and compare it to a random image in a news post for wich you don't know the conditions either. Do you know at wich TOD your images was takes and wich camera settings they used? There are no aperture sizes or exposure times in rF2 either that play a huge role in how your posted image looks like. S397 could cheat a little and add a photomode with such options, but that's not really the point and propably shouldn't be their focus for now given the other constructions sites of the sim.
 
And your point is? There are so many variables that determine how an image looks that it makes no sense at all to slap a random image from the internet into a thread and compare it to a random image in a news post for wich you don't know the conditions either. Do you know at wich TOD your images was takes and wich camera settings they used? There are no aperture sizes or exposure times in rF2 either that play a huge role in how your posted image looks like. S397 could cheat a little and add a photomode with such options, but that's not really the point and propably shouldn't be their focus for now given the other constructions sites of the sim.

Whoa, I've been schooled!!! Let me boil it down to a generalization that has gotten some agreement elsewhere on these forums. The lighting in rFactor2 has generally been less bright than other sims, as identified as full sun settings. The OP posted a pic of near high noon as judged by the length of the shadows, so I found a picture of the same type of car that featured shadows of the same length, hopefully signifying similar conditions. I know nothing of the F-stops and shutter speeds of either so I cannot speak to those. But I can see that the photo is brighter and features more contrast than rF2. It would be nice if the rF2 engine could be enhanced to the level of other racing games. That was all I was asking. Maybe the devs won't care for my comments and will find them of little value, but they should note that I have not bought any Studio 397 DLC for rF2, and that sets it apart from PC1 and PC2, AC, RRRE, and AMS where I have almost all of the available DLC.
 
I've been driving RaceRoom, AMS2 and RF2 back to back (to back!) in recent weeks, in VR i have not noticed RF2 being any darker at all at any time of the day compared to the other two Sims, and I've also not seen anyone else mention it until this thread.

Perhaps a recent update changed it slightly for monitors? Pure guess that.
 
Whoa, I've been schooled!!! Let me boil it down to a generalization that has gotten some agreement elsewhere on these forums. The lighting in rFactor2 has generally been less bright than other sims, as identified as full sun settings. The OP posted a pic of near high noon as judged by the length of the shadows, so I found a picture of the same type of car that featured shadows of the same length, hopefully signifying similar conditions. I know nothing of the F-stops and shutter speeds of either so I cannot speak to those. But I can see that the photo is brighter and features more contrast than rF2. It would be nice if the rF2 engine could be enhanced to the level of other racing games. That was all I was asking. Maybe the devs won't care for my comments and will find them of little value, but they should note that I have not bought any Studio 397 DLC for rF2, and that sets it apart from PC1 and PC2, AC, RRRE, and AMS where I have almost all of the available DLC.
I think it's dangerous to to make desicions about the development of the lighting pipeline of a graphics engine based on assumptions based on some "gereralizations that has gotten some agreement elsewhere" on some forums. That's exactly not how this stuff works especialy with limited manpower and budgets in a field where physics and math are involved. I guess nobody will argue that the Madness engine offers great visuals and lighting but the question is if you can compare a AAA engine that was developed with big budgets and financial backing from the likes of EA with an inhouse graphics engine of a small studio like S397. If you think that RRRE, AMS or AC look better to you is subjective either and it's not that difficult to see where the limits of those engines are with AC even showcasing some issues when using SOL and custom shaders that were a thing in the very early days of rF2.

Point is, if you don't know how a camera works why make such a bold statement and compare a random image that could be photoshopped or even completely over exposed by simple stuff like ISO values compared to the real conditions with an ingame screenshot where you don't know the TOD and the conditions? It's very well possible that this screenshot was taken at 6 or 7 pm with overcast settings. And at the end of the day you will never get the power of the sun shown on a LCD monitor. Anyway, S397 are in the constant process of updating the graphics engine, and once the content get's upgraded some of the problems might get solved anyway.
 
Point is, if you don't know how a camera works why make such a bold statement and compare a random image that could be photoshopped or even completely over exposed by simple stuff like ISO values compared to the real conditions with an ingame screenshot where you don't know the TOD and the conditions? It's very well possible that this screenshot was taken at 6 or 7 pm with overcast settings. And at the end of the day you will never get the power of the sun shown on a LCD monitor. Anyway, S397 are in the constant process of updating the graphics engine, and once the content get's upgraded some of the problems might get solved anyway.

I give up, you win the internet. I will log off now.
 

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