rF2: Sebring Released

[Paul Jeffrey]

Studio 397 and rFactor 2 have released a fully laser scanned version of Sebring!

Rich in motorsport history, the Sebring International Raceway is a legendarily tough, bumpy, dirty and challenging race track in Florida, USA, home to many high level international grade motorsport events and something of a favourite with endurance racing fans.

With little margin for error and some delightfully fast corners mixed with slow and technical sections, Sebring has many of the characteristics essential for a classic race venue, and now, thanks to Studio 397 and rFactor 2, sim racers get the chance to try out the track in all its virtual glory, with a new and laserscanned version of the iconic circuit released earlier today - Happy weekend everyone!

And now for the big one, Sebring! Since taking over the development of rFactor 2, our goals have been clear: take an already incredible simulation as a base and move the bar higher, push new and exciting features that you want, and give you the chance to experience a professional grade simulator – at home!

So this track release is more than just “a track release”. It’s a milestone for our team in what we’ve set out to do. The level of fidelity and road feel is above and beyond anything that’s out there, and we’re boldly confident you will agree. Of course we’re excited to say the track was created using an extremely detailed laserscan – but it’s not just about the laserscan itself, it’s about the way we utilized the data and converted it into usable detailed information that gets back to the force feedback in your wheel, something that has not yet been done in rFactor 2 at this level. We feel we’ve achieved our goals in the high level of road fidelity thanks to some innovations and, of course, rigorous testing. The end result is… the ‘FFB’ doesn’t lie – you’ll feel every crack in the pavement and every undulation in minute detail. On the straights and as you dive into each turn, those subtle nuances in the track surface will give you the precise control and muscle memory that a real-life driver would have on track. Our development and test teams have all become addicted, driving endless stints and trying to get that elusive extra tenth or even hundredth of a second!

On the visual and graphics side, we’re just as excited and pushing ahead. We’ve paid close attention to those essential details that add to the overall immersion. The road surface itself is very precisely modeled on the real thing, with every crack and repaired and re-repaired crack. All the nuances and color variations as well as the overall worn-down, characteristic look from years of racing help to really convey the atmosphere. And with an ultra high level of trackside objects in the environment, from spectators to campers and vehicles, there’s a real ‘track vibe’ from any camera you’re viewing from, which makes watching an online event that much more exciting. Of course, as always, we’ve kept in mind scalability for performance.

So today we release to you Sebring. The main layout is available in two versions. One featuring the 12-hour race layout, with a packed infield and a lot of spectators, and another that gives you more of a “track day” feel. On top of that we also included two shorter layouts: School and Johnson Club. These layouts are very well suited for smaller fields of cars and somewhat slower cars.

Sebring is completely laser scanned in location, through professional high density, high accuracy, laser scan equipment. We scanned the track just a few weeks before the 2018 “12 Hours Of Sebring”. We then processed, filtered and optimized all the data to produce a clean stream of points for the simulation. We used that data to describe and model everything from centerline to first barriers, so even if you put your tires off the grass, you’ll still get a complete simulation of the grounds, through both physics/FFB and graphics.

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 and share the love this simulation so very much deserves...​

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What do you think of Sebring from the talk and drive video, do you think it looks like a good representation of the track? Are you excited to try a first laserscanned circuit in rF2? Happy with the choice of Sebring for the sim? Let us know in the comments section below!
​

 

[Javi288]

Given that we are getting feedback from a lot of people who really miss these lights, we will certainly consider implementing them. It is not something our in-game cockpits have (which is why it's not on the Porsche or any other cars that have this feature for that matter). It is not a very complicated feature to add though. Stay tuned!

Could you also modify the daytime and brake lights of the Porsche? They don't adjust to reality.

https://forum.studio-397.com/index....-pack-now-available.60319/page-23#post-950476

 

[2stains]

Given that we are getting feedback from a lot of people who really miss these lights, we will certainly consider implementing them. It is not something our in-game cockpits have (which is why it's not on the Porsche or any other cars that have this feature for that matter). It is not a very complicated feature to add though. Stay tuned!

I don't actually use them but have noticed that in one Sim i play they work and in another Sim they are there but don't work , so this brought this to my attention and i was curious what they were !
I saw the same car in rF2 and noticed they aren't even in the car .
So again for sake of realism , just wanted them to be there and work , but this also opens up another whole area , like having Motec dash's to work also like irl but i don't think you are going down that route...are you ?

 

[jason_peters]

I don't think you can get 90 with those settings ! My 7700k/1080Ti doesn't
Do you have any videos showing this in action ?

I don’t - but there is no reason to tell fibs about it. And it’s not 90 at the start or for about two thirds of the first lap but after that it is I believe. - it’s only like that since the last build though

What FPS are you getting then???

Edit - at Sebring things are indeed a bit more of an ask from the PC and it takes about a lap and a half to get back to 90 FPS - that’s not nice so will need to cut something - prob the number of AI

 

[kamackeris]

The aussies have a server running this in practice session all week.. Come join in! 5 of us in here now

 

[Marcel Offermans]

Marcel explained in a video that the code base of rf2 started with the F1 challenge game... Or even something older... So yes, the software will evolve. However the question is how long rf2 will last? Nobody knows...

The first game that used some of the code was Sports Car GT, so that's even older than the F1 licensed games. The software obviously evolved since then, some parts got rewritten, but most of the codebase just evolves.

And that is good. If you have to rewrite your code from scratch it is usually because you can no longer evolve the code you have. So starting from scratch, arguably, is not a sign of strength, but of weakness. And you see almost every racing simulation doing that too. Race Room, Project CARS 2 and Automobilista are just some examples of sims that still use large parts of the same codebase that was used in rFactor 1. rFactor 2 builds on a lot of things done in rFactor 1 too. Same goes for iRacing, that is still mostly based on the old Papyrus codebase that started with their early NASCAR titles, evolved into GPL and NR2003 and eventually got bought and transformed into what is now iRacing. And you can see the same parallels at Kunos, where netKar evolved all the way into the upcoming ACC title. So nobody just throws everything away and starts from scratch. That's expensive, time consuming and it brings you nothing as in the end you are probably still rebuilding most of the things you had before.

So how long will rFactor 2 and most of its codebase last? I predict for a few more decades to come, just like it has been around for that time already. But that's just my opinion.

 

[Marcel Offermans]

Well if that's the case then they really need to get busy, because the software is definitely showing it's age. Load times on Sebring are really bad.

Loading times are "bad" because the track, in terms of size on disk, is probably more than twice the size of any other track we've ever done. So the times have scaled up with that. There's not much we can do about it.

And is it cost effective to keep on coding and adapting older software or to switch to an entirely new modern game engine? I think AMS and ACC might have already answered that question.

So far ACC videos and screenshots have indeed looked gorgeous, and they have made a big step in the last couple of years replacing the AC graphics engine with UE4. I am pretty sure that they are keeping all other parts of the AC game engine, and are simply building on those.

In what sense has AMS answered this question? Was your point that they've done a bad job sticking to the DX9 rendering engine so far? Arguably that's quite an old engine by now, but I think within the limitations of that engine they have done a really good job. Of course not everybody needs to agree with that.

 

[2stains]

I don’t - but there is no reason to tell fibs about it. And it’s not 90 at the start or for about two thirds of the first lap but after that it is I believe. - it’s only like that since the last build though

What FPS are you getting then???

lol , are you my Wife ? Because like with her ...i was wrong and you were right lol
Yes i tried your settings and got very near 90 fps all round ! So i dropped Shadows to Medium and turned Off road reflections and used

This tweak

"1- While in the game, go to the Graphics tab.
Set Opponent Detail and Player Detail to LOW.
Exit the game.

2-Open the player.JSON file.
Scroll down to [ Graphic Options ] and look for these lines.
These lines should be like this from the changes in-game above.
"Player Detail":0,
"Player Detail#":"0=Low 1=Medium 2=High 3=Full",
"Opponent Detail":0,
Leave them at that.

Now change these line to this
"Opponent Texture Override":3,
"Opponent Texture Override#":"For opponents' vehicle textures: -1=use Opponent Detail, 0-3=override value",
"Player Texture Override":3,

Normally the override lines are at -1, so they use the Player/Opponent settings from the in-game options
You can change the number from 1-3
Low texture= 1
medium= 2
High= 3"
Credit to ADSTA on rF2 forum

and now its pretty perfect ! The best i've had in rF2 .
My problem was i had never gone below x4 AA thinking it would look crap but at x2 it still looks better than pC2 AA !

Thanks Mate now im enjoying rF2 again

 

[2stains]

Loading times are "bad" because the track, in terms of size on disk, is probably more than twice the size of any other track we've ever done. So the times have scaled up with that. There's not much we can do about it.



So far ACC videos and screenshots have indeed looked gorgeous, and they have made a big step in the last couple of years replacing the AC graphics engine with UE4. I am pretty sure that they are keeping all other parts of the AC game engine, and are simply building on those.

In what sense has AMS answered this question? Was your point that they've done a bad job sticking to the DX9 rendering engine so far? Arguably that's quite an old engine by now, but I think within the limitations of that engine they have done a really good job. Of course not everybody needs to agree with that.

@Marcel Offermans You Rock
In my last post you can see a tweak i used to maybe help with FPS in VR ! Do you have any in house , secret tweaks you could share to help get more FPS while still maintaining somewhat reasonable graphics settings ?

 

[F_B]

Loading times are "bad" because the track, in terms of size on disk, is probably more than twice the size of any other track we've ever done. So the times have scaled up with that. There's not much we can do about it.

If you can keep up the level of quality for future track releases I don’t mind long loading times. Sebring is really that good.

 

[teMptatiOn]

What's next after Sebring? I can't wait!!!!

 

[Jason Mullin]

I wish there was a quick way to grow the rF2 community unless the player base is already fairly large and most race the AI only.
I'd really like to see multiplayer populate to the point we have some jump in quick races every night.
There's a few dozen of us in this thread that could all come together a few nights a week or weekends for quick races @ Sebring with the new GTE or something.

 

[Stephen Gibb]

There's a few dozen of us in this thread that could all come together a few nights a week or weekends for quick races @ Sebring with the new GTE or something.

This Saturday there is Club race using the LMP2 at this track.
https://www.racedepartment.com/threads/studio-397-lmp2-sebring-sat-04-aug18.157328/

 

[Andy_J]

So how long will rFactor 2 and most of its codebase last? I predict for a few more decades to come, just like it has been around for that time already.

A few normally means three or more, so RF2 has code that was developed in 1989? Yeah, sure. Try 1999. That's a couple of decades. I truly hope we have some better software and more modern race sims by 2049.

 

[Jason Mullin]

This Saturday there is Club race using the LMP2 at this track.
https://www.racedepartment.com/threads/studio-397-lmp2-sebring-sat-04-aug18.157328/

I don't have a mic or team speak. Can we download team speak to listen only and sign up?

 

[FeltHat]

I don't have a mic or team speak. Can we download team speak to listen only and sign up?

you have to be on team speak, talking is not required

 

[Stephen Gibb]

I don't have a mic or team speak. Can we download team speak to listen only and sign up?

Yes you can sign up no mic is required as @FeltHat has said Teamspeak is required to hear to any race announcements from staff.

 

[Emery]

Loading times are "bad" because the track, in terms of size on disk, is probably more than twice the size of any other track we've ever done. So the times have scaled up with that. There's not much we can do about it.

Probably worth mentioning that a track with the filesize and detail of S397's Sebring wouldn't be possible if ISI hadn't switched to a 64-bit executable about 4 years ago.

 

[Xx_TaT_xX]

Laser scanned track with 4 layouts, maybe pricey but not so much compared to other titles (like raceroom).

RaceRoom is like $4 CDN?!

 

[2stains]

@Marcel Offermans You Rock
In my last post you can see a tweak i used to maybe help with FPS in VR ! Do you have any in house , secret tweaks you could share to help get more FPS while still maintaining somewhat reasonable graphics settings ?

I guess not @Marcel Offermans

 

[MarcG]

I guess not

There are ways to achieve acceptable FPS in VR, here's my handy tips for lower end VR systems:
- Shadow Blur = OFF
- Shadows = OFF or LOW or MEDIUM
- PP Effects = OFF or LOW
- Soft Particles = OFF (unsure if this does anything anyway)
- Visible Vehicles = Less than 12, depending on track you may usually see no more than 8 cars or so during a race at any one time, more often than not a lot less than that. Obviously Race Starts are different so it depends if you can live with a few cars "popping" into view on the first few laps, those nearest you will always be visible of course.
- Road/Env Reflections = LOW or MEDIUM

SS Settings always plays a big role, in SteamVR start with 100% and work your way up to an acceptable level but don't push it too far as this will hurt FPS the higher it goes, hope that helps