rFactor 2: The Big Interview (Part 3)

Paul Jeffrey

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rF2 4.jpg

Part 3 of our Studio 397 / rFactor 2 interview with Marcel Offermans is now live.


If you missed our the first two instalments of our new interview, you can check out Part 1 here, and Part 2 here.

Part 3...

RD: (question from @Martin Fiala) - There's been a lot of talk about the upcoming UI, but very few mentions (if any) lately of the new plugin system that was supposed to solve the issue of plugins not being able to draw to the screen in the DX11 version. Is that still planned? Is it considered part of the new UI? If not, are there at least some in-game replacements for the most popular plugins planned, like proper track map or the very badly needed FFB meter?

MO: Allowing plugins direct access to DX9 was causing a lot of issues, which is why we took out this ability with DX11, with no plans to bring it back in the same way. A new way over overlaying information will be part of the new UI, although we are not yet confident that this will make it into the first (beta) release. That said, you probably have seen already that we can render track maps in-game in the new UI, so I’m confident we will see that feature return. Same probably goes for the FFB and pedal meters.

RD: (question from @Martin Fiala) - Are there any plans to improve the sound engine that seems to be basically limited to a very simple on/off reverb and to stereo only sound?

MO: Yes. The current plan is to look at this starting probably Q4 of 2019. I anticipate this work to go well into 2020 though, so you will have to be patient!

RD: (question from @Peter Koslowski) - All I need is 3D grass. Will all new and old tracks (Zandvoort already has it) be equipped with it?

MO: It is highly unlikely that we will retrofit the type of 3D grass that was used at Zandvoort to all other tracks. There are a few reasons for that. First of all, placing this type of grass right now is quite time-consuming. The second reason is that we are not yet satisfied with the overall effect. The third reason is a more technical one, we lack a few bits and pieces to really end up with nice looking 3D grass. So I guess the good news is that this is something our artists and graphics developers actively discuss. We have not decided on an exact implementation yet.

RD: (question from @leclettico) - There's a plan to manage a custom championship with the AI (so, with the same AI drivers) without having to create copy of liveries and drivers and using LogAnalyzer to looking into results and standings?

MO: This is planned as a “second stage” of our new competition system, the first stage being online races against humans. That said, I do think LogAnalyzer did an amazing job on their system.

rF2 1.jpg


RD: (question from @leclettico) - Rain and AI. There will be improvements in the managing of pit in case of rain?

MO: Yes. A few of your fellow community members asked a similar question and it’s certainly one of the areas where our AI can and should improve.

RD: (question from @Jonny Austin) - Many sim racers praise the handling in RF2. What are the other unique features that should make me buy RF2?

MO: I think by now we are the only “open” racing simulation that is still under active development, meaning you can build your own cars and tracks and customize a lot of aspects of the simulation. Also, we have fairly robust on-line play with intelligent prediction technology to ensure that even with some latency, we can still allow very close racing without (m)any surprises. Couple that to a dynamic track and weather system and I’m sure you will keep finding new racing challenges for a long time.

RD: (question from @Alexandr Meshkov) - Is there Portland International Raceway still in development? No news for 1.5 years about it in Roadmaps

MO: It was in development as we anticipated using it for some specific project. That fell through, and we also were not yet happy with how the track looked at the time so we decided to put it on hold and focus our resources on other projects. Does that mean we won’t ever finish it? Probably not. It’s just that right now there is no news about it.

RD: (question from @Alexandr Meshkov) - What is the dirt maps and how it works? I remember that was a word about that feature when Sebring releases but no explanation since that.

MO: Yes, I spoke too soon. We implemented dirt maps for Sebring and I think it really helped the look of the track, but when we evaluated the technology and how we used it after building that track, our artists and graphics developers agreed that we wanted to make further changes to the system before “handing it over” to modders. Which is why you did not hear much about it yet, as we’re still working on a better version.

RD: (question from @The Walker) – When do you expect to release the Tatuus Pack?

MO: Due to my lack of speed in answering all your questions, this pack by now has been released. Do you like it?

rF2 2.jpg


RD: (question from @The Walker) - Also, but this is just curiosity, I read somewhere like in 2017 that rF2 had the license for the Reynard 95i car. They never got released, right?

MO: Correct, and I don’t think the car was ever modeled either. It was one of the licenses we “inherited” from ISI and one of the issues we had with those at the time was that we were really getting a lot of feedback from our community to go for series or classes of cars instead of individual ones (unless those were “cup” classes of course). So we decided not to do anything with some of those licenses.

RD: (question from @SLimJim70 ) - As someone who works constantly changing shift patterns, do they ever plan to incorporate 'drop-in/drop-out' online racing?

MO: Yes, that is planned as part of our competition system, where we intend to host events that contain multiple races where you can attend one or more of them in a period of multiple days, which should accommodate people with changing or unpredictable schedules.

RD: (question from @VernWozza) - Are there any plans to do a thing with the damage model in the sim. Loving what iRacing have planned, I would love to see something similar in rf2.

MO: Right now, no. I like what iRacing is doing to their damage model, so we’ll definitely keep an eye on that development but for now we have nothing planned in that area.

RD: (question from @Cristian Luis) - Will the new UI allow the possibility to listen to music while in the main menu? Just like in rF1?

MO: I don’t know yet. We have the technology to play music files, but the tricky part is choosing music everybody likes (and keeps liking even if he plays rFactor 2 for a long time). That is hard, and possibly expensive, considering we would need to license that music too. So would that really be the best way for us to invest our money? I’m just not sure. Nothing stops you from listening to music while you’re driving and/or clicking around in the menu system. Our current UI allows you to add music. We just don’t see a lot of people doing that.

RD: (question from @tswest) - Will there be more tutorials and assistance to allow third party builders to build tracks for rF2 like it has been for rF1. I am a track builder and would like to see more Building tracks in rF2 for DUMMIES tutorials. At the moment there is very little info and I get the impression Studio 397 wants to keep everything for themselves.

MO: If we gave you that impression, that is certainly not correct. The tools we provide to track and car builders did not fundamentally change much. We did upgrade them to 64 bits and newer versions of 3D Studio Max. With those in place, I think building tracks is mainly a matter of experience in 3D modeling in general and, on top of that, a lot of hard work. As engines become more advanced and faster, the level of detail for tracks raises, which has the downside that it becomes harder for people to build a whole track from scratch. We now use a team of 3 to 4 people, all seasoned professionals, to build a track and still it takes us many months, so I can only imagine how long it takes someone by himself who has a daytime job on top of that. But let me reverse the question, what kind of tutorial are you looking for, as there are certainly a ton of tutorials out there already about all aspects of 3D modeling and a lot of those apply to track too, so I guess the type of information we would need to add is specific information about our tools? Or am I overlooking something here?

RD: (question from @Rui Santos) - Any plans to update the wet weather physics, racing line, water on track, etc.?

MO: We are aware that our grip levels on a wet track are not always correct, so we do intend to tweak those. Water, rubber and marbles on the track are already quite accurately modeled through our RealRoad system so I think we’re in a good place there and we’ll keep expanding it.

rF2 3.jpg


RD: (question from John Eric-Saxen) - Across all industries we have recently seen a lot of buzz around AI and machine learning based on big data. However, in racing simulators the development of AI has stagnated at a very basic level. Could we possibly see a form of "neural AI" based on learning in some form in rF2 in the future? This could reduce the time and effort required to tweak the AI to work well with various car classes?

MO: This to us is certainly a very interesting research topic. As you might know our parent company, Luminis, is involved in cloud technology and we also have specialists in AI and machine learning. What’s holding us back right now is that we first need to finish our competition infrastructure so we can more easily collect enough data for such algorithms to work effectively. But this is without a doubt the future of AI in simracing (and a very nice question, thank you)!

RD: (question from @Travis) - will we have a return of the dev blogs? Michael Borda's blog was excellent; are these to be continued at some point?

MO: I certainly hope so! With the Brabham BT44B finished, I guess we need to find a new topic for a series of blogs. And maybe some of our other physics engineers can chime in too, as it’s not just Michael doing all the great work in that department.

RD: (question from @pcraenme) - Are you thinking of introducing something like a season pass/one year membership, so you pay all the upcoming DLC content for a certain period (e.g. a whole year) in advance, but for a cheaper price then having to buy all the individual DLC's when they come out?

MO: Such a system is currently impossible to implement with the features Steam offers us. We will keep aggressively pricing bundles and participating in Steam sales. That model works a lot better. That said, Steam might add features in the future that help with “season passes” so please also relay such requests to Valve as they tend to listen to their users (if enough of them want a certain feature).

RD: (question from @Terry Rock) - Will there be any emphasis placed on setting up any RF2 dedicated servers, strictly for pick-up racing with original content?

MO: It’s our intention to host races for all kinds of people through the competition system, so I think you’ll find both pick-up style races and championships there. And obviously we’ll keep a close eye on what our community wants to drive and adjust our schedule accordingly.

RD: (question from @mantasisg) - Better wet surfaces simulation, viscous and dynamic hydroplaning

MO: I think there are two things we can improve when it comes to wet surfaces. The first thing are the grip levels of parts of the track that have a lot of rubber and marbles on them when the track gets wet. We are aware that those are not totally right yet. The second thing is, as you mention, aquaplaning, which is currently missing. We are still studying the latter to see how we can best implement that in our model, because if we do it, we want to make sure it’s physically accurate.

rF2 6.jpg


RD: (question from @mantasisg) - Better gearboxes, drivetrain simulation. Will it happen ?

MO: Right now we are still prioritizing the UI and competition system, but once that is in place we will certainly free up some resources to work on these aspects. Some of you might know that, before forming Studio 397, some of us were involved in the development of Automobilista for Reiza Studios, where we implemented some of these features in the rFactor 1 engine. Of course we want to take the simulation of the drivetrain and gearbox to the next level as the rFactor 2 engine offers a lot more possibilities to model such things.

RD: (question from @mantasisg) - More graphics (besides PBR) improvements. Will it happen ?

MO: Yes, certainly, for us it is very important to get the basics right first, which means improving our lighting model and using PBR based rendering. Once that is in place, it opens the door for more consistent improvements. Most likely you will see us improving cockpits, a very important aspect since that’s your daily office as a racing driver, but also address things like shadows and our particle systems.

RD: (question from @mantasisg) - More variety in cars content, more classics, more range in years, more range in vehicle types. Will it happen ?

MO: I would say it is already happening, but it will also be fair to say that we won’t ever be able to cover every form of racing out there, so there’s a nice task for our community as well to fill in some of the gaps. And if those gaps turn out to be popular, we can even look at working with modders to go after official licenses, etc.

RD: (question from @Boby Kim) - Nowadays the community wants graphics instead of physics as graphics are directly visible, and thus understandable, and physics are not: a direct outcome of Reiza going Madness=they will receive a huge chunk of the Project Cars community who are not interested in physics layers. How do you stand up against this change with rF2 in the future as more and more people choose for graphics and content instead of true simulation?

MO: Interesting question. Obviously I can’t answer on behalf of Reiza Studios, but I’m sure they had good reasons to make the choices they did. I think honestly with our new DX11 engine, if you compare it to the DX9 engine we started out with, we’ve already improved a lot. In some cases even well beyond what the competition has, such as our car paints that feature up to six different unique material regions that can be different on each individual car. We are far from done though, graphically, so I expect us to stand our ground. That said, from experience, a good physics engine is what keeps people coming back in the long run and I think we are really doing well in that department.

RD: (question from @DriftManiaX) - Will they ever fix all the bugs instead of releasing new paid content?

MO: I like to believe we’re doing both. No software is free of bugs though, so I guess the formal answer is no, we won’t ever be able to fix them all. We’ll definitely give it our best shot though, balancing both adding new stuff (features, paid and free content) and fixing bugs.

rF2 5.jpg


RD: (question from @FS7) - Will rF2 have an option to enable trackmap on the hud?

MO: As you might have seen, we already have a trackmap that we can enable in our new broadcast overlays, so the technology is there to also add it to the HUD. If you ask me personally I don’t think a trackmap is a very “sim” like feature, but I guess a lot of people do ask about it so I’ll answer this with a firm “yes”.

RD: (question from @formidable) - Is expected the release from a classic Le Mans layout (70-80-90), plus some Group C or LMP1 Cars?

MO: Right now we don’t have plans to release classic versions of Le Mans, doing the current one was already a huge project and we intend to provide a few more updates for that one. Group C cars are a personal favorite, so who knows. LMP1 cars are unlikely at this point as they are slowly dying and not yet “classics”, like Group C.

RD: (question from @Dean Hayes) - Given that your currently working on laser scanned versions for both Lemans and Nurburgring is it safe to say that Spa is next?

MO: It’s a lovely question, but one I can’t answer right now.

RD: (question from @Will Mazeo) - I'd like to know about more pit stop work… Mandatory pits with pit window (u got 2 official GT3 packs, this is a must have) / Min pit timer stop (like ADAC GT) / Larger pit stalls as people requested in the forums / Pit stop animations at some point?

MO: So that’s a few questions. I think our plugin system is powerful enough for leagues that want to follow the rules of specific series to implement those (mandatory pit window, minimum time in the pitlane). The larger pit stalls I am not sure about. Why would you want those? I hear a lot of people commenting they would like more pit stalls rather than less so I’m not sure if that makes sense. Finally the pit stop animations, those are hard to do for arbitrary types of cars and series regulations and I have not seen a single game that has done this for all the cars we have. If you limit yourself to a single series, you might be able to pull this off, if you need to solve all the cases, this becomes a very expensive project. So I don’t see this happening until there are better animation systems we could easily integrate that make it possible to implement “smart” pit crews that don’t require extensive motion capture animations.


RD: (question from @ilema) - Drift content + drift tracks + drift scoring system? Possible?

MO: I don’t believe there is anything fundamentally blocking people from making cars or tracks for drifting. Now I’m not super familiar with the drift scoring system. From the few races I’ve seen it’s mostly jury based, right? I am not sure how we would translate that into code. If you have an idea, you can certainly write a plugin that does that. If the question is, will we make drift cars in the near future? Probably not.

RD: (question from @pcraenme) - Can track loading times be improved, since rF2 is the slowest by far when it comes to loading a track?


MO: Our loading is currently done on a single core, and I think the reasoning was that loading times will mostly be I/O (disk speed) bound anyway. Now if that is still true in these times, remains to be seen. It’s an area we have not investigated a lot, but you’re not the first to suggest this so I’m sure at some point we at least will want to analyze better what the slowdown is. One reason I know and that is that our tracks are probably some of the largest ones around.

RD: (question from @A man with a Harmonica) - Do you intend to fix the erratic and often bizarre AI behaviour on wet track where they pit every lap and are either too fast or excruciating slow


MO: Yes, we would like to improve those situations, making AI more aware of the cost of changing tyres all the time versus running on a track with a certain wetness using the wrong. Some of these issues are triggered by starting in the rain but on a dry track. That confuses them. It’s raining so they start on wets, and when they start driving they think the track is too dry for them and they go to slicks only to go back to wets a short while later. Stuff like that I am sure we can improve on.


Part 3 is done! Stay tuned for our fourth and final instalment soon!

rFactor 2 is a PC exclusive racing sim from Studio 397 - Available now.


Check out the rFactor 2 sub forum here at RaceDepartment for the latest news and discussion regarding this excellent sim. Like your racing hard and fair? Join in with our rFactor 2 Racing Club for all your eSport racing fun! Oh, don't forget we like mods to, with our own rFactor 2 Modding Forum for you to enjoy!

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There was a question on grass but not trees: trees on Le Mans are awful looking, very old school and not lit properly. AMS1 has better grass, trees and vegetation than that (see Ibarra or Oulton Park for example). That's a bit sad. If Nords has that bad vegetation, it will not be nice.
Although I generally like and enjoy rF2, there are so many things on the graphic side that can detract from immersion.

And loading tracks is dead slow, even on fast hardware. I'm amazed nobody at Studio 397 seem to have profiled it to understand the bottleneck (probably CPU related because SSDs are crazy fast) and make a plan to improve it...
 
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So much negativity towards Studio 397, people tend to forget they acquired the rights to an already existing very buggy title and decided to work on it and improve it. I bet the better way would have been for them to just work on it under closed doors and release it by a new name as a new sim.

All I know if it wasn't for Studio 397 to save this title, rFactor 2 would have been dead and that would have been very sad for me personally since is my favorite sim racing title (I enjoy all of the other titles as well).

As for the graphics which people seem to cling to in every rFactor 2 post that happens everywhere on the Internet, I think it looks great for a sim title, is more grounded and realistic looking, not over the top "Photoshop filter" look and I really don't notice 3D grass or whatever other eye candy when I am having so much fun racing other people here in RD. If you notice 3D grass when you are racing all I can say is you are doing it wrong:p.

The competition system and the multiplayer updates are something I am looking very much forward too.

Great interview, looking forward for the last part.
 
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First of all, I think the team at RF2 are doing a fantastic job! In my opinion they have leapfrogged this simulation further than I ever thought it would be even last year. They deserve much credit for that, and my hat's off to them for the hours of enjoyment I get from their sim.

Secondly/ I just got home after two days at the real Sebring International Raceway, zipping around in my Miata. When I was reading the threads on the informative RF2 interview, I kept reading about graphics. I have a 1070, and to me the sim looks and runs great. I read about the trees at LeMans looking old, however during the first Iaps drove there on the sim, I actually was impressed with them. I guess everyone has their opinions, and that's fine.

After reading about the graphic I thought back to what I looked in real live driving on the Sebring track yesterday and today. There are four bridges at Sebring with banners either painted, or attached to them. I never noticed the banners, never mind even read one. There are banners along the front straight and I have no clue at all what advertisement was on them. There are trees, a hotel, a billboard, and many other things I never see from my cockpit.

I am completely focused on the track. From looking at the braking point to the turn in point, to the apex, then where I am tracking out to; I am 99 percent focused on the track itself. Add in looking at my mirrors a hundred times a lap, and I am a busy guy. I have thousand of laps at the real Sebring, and my jaw drops with the complete accuracy of this track and drives in RF2. So if the trees aren't exact, the bridge structure isn't exact, the hotel color isn't exact, I don't really care.

This is a great racing simulation, and it's going to get better! :)
 
I would like to think the number of questions aimed at AI performance shows that a large portion of the community is interested in an improved offline experience.

Hopefully the wait for offline editions to the UI and improvments to the AI don't take too long after its release. It's honestly a pain using the analyzer and I hope S397 don't consider that "good enough" moving forward. It's 2019 and I don't think it is asking for too much to have custom offline championships as a feature and not something we have to rely on 3rd party apps to cover.
 
  • Deleted member 197115

Have you checked ACC numbers? It looks really pretty but has even lower numbers than rF2! It's not just visuals that keep me going to certain games but sure it does help.
ACC is plagued by technical and performance issues. Look at AC and how player base climbs up due to CSP and SOL mods.
 
Similar time even on my HDD! Super quick loader is ACC. Not sure why but it is great to click load and it's game time straight away instead of clicking play and going to get a coffee and back only to be 3/4 loaded, lol
Have you noticed that when the game first show a car after the loading screen it displays a lower resolution texture for a split second like some other Unreal titles?
Perhaps it uses some software solution similar to partially resident textures/tiled resources.
So when the game renders a scene it actually is streaming only about the essential for that view.
 
Well, a lot more positive answers to my question(s) than I was expecting! Good to hear :thumbsup: Thank you for answering.

Edit: BTW, since I also mentioned track map, reading this answer to someone else...



I absolutely agree it is not a very sim like feature. But we also have to deal with some limitations compared to real life racing, and from that point of view, a solid track map can go a long way in improving safety when it comes to rejoining, blue flag conditions and stuff like that. That's the primary reason I do generally have track map enabled. (Even though it obviously still relies on people actually using the feature...)
CrewChief is your answer, my man. :) Can be set so it wont interfere with MP chatter and only give you whatever info you want. When rolling out and car(s) are on the pit straight CrewChief tells you "be careful when exiting the pit". Awesome mod that i cant live without because it basically cover all HUD elements in spoken information that sounds 100% human.
 
@Alex72 No, Crew Chief isn't the answer. As much as I can't imagine racing without him, not even his info on leaving the pitlane is reliablet - he commonly tells me there's a car coming and then there's no car at all, or just the other day in the Donington Tatuus race he told me on multiple occasions the pit exit is clear and if I didn't know he's not reliable, I would've came out right in front of incoming car. So you absolutely can't rely on his information in this regard.

And he is of no help with rejoining when you got off the track as well, which was what I was talking about. Much more reliable to check the mirrors (if possible due to angle and/or say the dust behind you covering the view) and track map.
 
  • Deleted member 197115

Did that make you feel good hehehe ;)

Why does anyone think the small % of users that race online are more important ?
Waste years on stuff off liners never needed
Not sure why it should make me feel better, was responding to the claim that better looking game (ACC) does not attract users. :O_o:
 
So much negativity towards Studio 397, people tend to forget they acquired the rights to an already existing very buggy title and decided to work on it and improve it. I bet the better way would have been for them to just work on it under closed doors and release it by a new name as a new sim.

All I know if it wasn't for Studio 397 to save this title, rFactor 2 would have been dead and that would have been very sad for me personally since is my favorite sim racing title (I enjoy all of the other titles as well).

As for the graphics which people seem to cling to in every rFactor 2 post that happens everywhere on the Internet, I think it looks great for a sim title, is more grounded and realistic looking, not over the top "Photoshop filter" look and I really don't notice 3D grass or whatever other eye candy when I am having so much fun racing other people here in RD. If you notice 3D grass when you are racing all I can say is you are doing it wrong:p.

The competition system and the multiplayer updates are something I am looking very much forward too.

Great interview, looking forward for the last part.

Fortunately I drive fast and still see well! If I find a woman beautiful, I can make her even more happy!
 
Not exactly complaining, maybe lamenting a little here, but I was really excited about the Reynard 95i when it was announced all those years ago. I accepted it was never coming, but thank you to Marcel for at least offering some closure.
 
First off, I totally support Studio 397 the best I can by purchasing all the DLC that has to do with combustible engine driven cars and tracks and have no problem justifying the pricing either because for every 1 item you buy they release 2-3 for free. However it is little disappointing hearing that offline custom championships is not getting added any time soon.
 

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