Sim Racing Expo 2018: Day 1 in Review

[FeltHat]

How come Sector 3 Studio, is never at any of these racing events or at a Sim racing Expo.

We see Kunos, Reiza, iracing and Studio 397 at various race events

I've never seen Sector 3 Studio promote their title at any race events, and they only talk about their product, when its time for them to release a dlc.

Just something I've noticed every Year.

https://twitter.com/raceroom/status/1040610461690081280
close enough

 

[Amanda]

I am happy to see it coming to rF2, but the laser scan has been made available for years now and we know many other sims and games already have it. A bit late to the party, though better late than never.

The difference is that instead of driving on it with simulators that have questionable physics, now we all get to experience it with what is considered the best simulation on the market.

Plus, it's the latest scan (this year's) so all the curbs, bumps, lights, stands, everything will be there from this year.

rFactor 1 & 2 have been very badly treated by ISI when it comes to content. Their mentality of "let the community create most the content" was obsolete the moment GTR2 was released in 2006, and was a dead end when iRacing was released.

Good thing that S397 is doing miracles with the platform, now we're really seeing what rFactor 2 can be in all it's potential.

Other news:

• Still developing graphics engine that has been going on for 4 months and are currently 50% through development (graphics and graphical improvements)
• New lighting system (ambient lighting already implemented), so now working on new shaders
• They have made new car shaders on the new lighting models (physical base rendering)
• currently car shaders have been done but now need to work on road, car and other material shaders
• shaders on different layers now possible (so now metallic and two-tone paint possible as well as different materials being able to be reflected correctly) - up to 6 different materials can now be represented on the car body creating diversity and realism of car representations
  
• It's WIP and 3-4months away from being released
• Night lighting adjustments being implemented too - with the new material system cars won't look so flat & night 'reflectivity' being looked at
• No implementation of Nvidia's RTX at this stage of the products cycle
  
• Bluish tint from rF2 will be gone
• Rough reflections will be possible
• UI & Competition System in HTML creates a host of (online) features and opportunities for leagues, for e.g., allowing another player to step in and change your settings, and you head out and try it at your end (a team experience)
• Competition - there will be a match-making system. Scoring system. Different types of events. A system with a ladder of progression. Official races available every day. Will open it up for leagues.
• A new collision system is not being considered
• Overlays will be based on HTML and will arrive with the new UI (end of Q4 2018 - end of Q1 2019)
• Shadow improvements are possible with new techniques & are looking at improving
• Dynamic clouds can be tweaked to improve on what rf2, 'not a lot, but a bit better'
• Dynamic track temperature will be implemented but have to make sure all content is playable as many mods have been made with one temperature for the tyre in mind.
• Once real data is received (in a few months) from wet racing from one of the teams, wet grip will be adjusted.
• Zandvoort will be released this week with all layouts, night lighting, rain effects - so a 1.0 release
• Live weather will be implemented

EDIT: (SOURCE)

 

[Amanda]

For me it's been a great weekend for Rf2 related news

Agreed. To me this has been the greatest weekend for rFactor 2 in many, many years.

 

[Will Mazeo]

rFactor 1 & 2 have been very badly treated by ISI when it comes to content. Their mentality of "let the community create most the content" was obsolete the moment GTR2 was released in 2006, and was a dead end when iRacing was released.

This is not true, rF1 golden age was after 2008 actually and went till AC got attention from community at around 2014. GTR2 had benefits from rF1 and vice versa actually as content could be easily ported between these 2 sims.
The "let the community create most the content" mentality for sure should have been abandoned in rF2 at release, but rF1 was so solid they probably didnt see anyone competing with rF1 or 2 in near future.

 

[Epistolarius]

Clearly it's impossible for simracing fanboys to not talk down other simulations than their favourite in their posts even in a thread like this...

 

[Amanda]

This is not true, rF1 golden age was after 2008 actually and went till AC got attention from community at around 2014.
The "let the community create most the content" mentality for sure should have been abandoned in rF2 at release, but rF1 was so solid they probably didnt see anyone competing with rF1 or 2 in near future.

What I mean by my statement is that, while letting the community create content might have worked for rF1 for some years, it was already an obsolete idea that proved to be the death of the sim. GTR2 came with all the tracks and cars from the FIA GT series, and some tracks (like Spa) were so good they're comparable to Kuno's LS Spa. Then iRacing came around with tracks that, to this day, are no match to any other simulator, and then Kunos came around doing basically the same.

By the time rFactor 2 was released the community was already fed with laser-scanned tracks, official cars, sims that worked, were cheaper and looked really good, and whatnot. So while the idea of being lazy (or they didn't have the capital to release more content) may have worked for rF1 for numerous reasons, it was one of the reasons rFactor 2 almost died and ISI was happy to hand it over.

And don't get me wrong, rFactor 2's historic content is the best I've ever seen on any simulator, driving around historic Spa and Longford has been one of the best experiences I've had in Sim Racing - but sims don't sell only on this type of content, you MUST release official and known content in order to keep a simulator living.

Good thing S397 picked up on this. Enough of MOD's for most races, specially that horrible nurburgring+nordschleife (no offense to the modders, but once you go LS you don't go back to tracks that are so wrong in elevation and camber). Enough of EnduRacers's questionable physics too since the Endurance Pack release.

Enough of bad content. For the most popular series and the overwhelming majority of content, official releases are the way to go. For all the rest there are very few teams able to do good releases, like the GP3 or the Palatov MOD, this last one being created by a real race team.

 

[Alex72]

Now I'm curious about the price of the Nordschleife. And a bit scared too.

Here there are the video interviews with the announcements they did until now:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/310425793##

Is the videos supposed to play in their "clips" section? I can see the thumbnails of all clips but when i click on them i get only a black screen. Nothing happens. Im going nuts. Is it supposed to be like that?!

 

[Amanda]

Clearly it's impossible for simracing fanboys to not talk down other simulations than their favourite in their posts even in a thread like this...

If your comment was pointed to me: I'm not, in no shape or form, an rF2 fanboy. I think it's one of the worse experiences besides the driving (and that can be really bad too since we're still depending on MOD's for quite a lot of content) - but nobody can deny that rF2 has the best physics on the market, the same way nobody can deny Kunos made some huge revolutions on the sim market, or that iRacing makes the best tracks, or that RaceRoom has the best sounds.

Stating how bad one aspect of the simulation isn't really putting it down, it most likely has qualities no found in others.

One way or another they all suck at something

 

[Alex72]

And what would be these issues?
Physics wise is almost perfect, for many better than the competitors.
Sounds are great in many cars.
Graphic is ok for me and is going to be improved.
We got rain, night, live weather incoming if I understood well.
The new UI seems will be great.
In the future we'll have more cars and tracks and Marcel said that they plan to update to the new tech all the old content that they can get licensed.
They are introducing a new system for the multiplayer.
The current cars and tracks available are great (but not enough content according to some people and that's true).
The mods are increasing and they have good (when not great) quality.

I don't play with a steering wheel, so maybe I'm missing something regarding that aspect.

For me the shader stuff and the UI things that they talked about in this last video are more important than the Nordschleife or the Mclarens for the simple reason that it proves that they are intentioned to keep improving the game, so it's a long term support that they have in mind.
The nord was about to come sooner or later, so no big surprise in the end.
The McLarens were aready been announced. Same for Zandvoort.
The shader thing instead, for the way it has been described, could convince more modders to spend their time for this game. And this is what I'm personally interested in, because for me RF2 is already awesome as it is.

"Maybe im missing something".

Ehhh.....

You are missing one of the biggest things in rF2.

 

[Case_]

How come Sector 3 Studio, is never at any of these racing events or at a Sim racing Expo.

We see Kunos, Reiza, iracing and Studio 397 at various race events

I've never seen Sector 3 Studio promote their title at any race events

Apart from many other of their activites you seem to be ignoring, they also happen to have a year round permanent presence right there at the Nürburgring with their Raceroom Cafe.

 

[gianlucaP]

ì

 

[Alex72]

I can't post directly the video like for the YT ones, so I can only post the link.
Following the link you go in the page where their streaming videos are collected. I can see them with no problem with Chrome, and I have adblockers active. Try with a different browser.

Im using Brave browser (since i hate Google products) and i have no problems ever, but those videos are not playing from the clips menu. Tried to turn off my adblocker as well but it was the same. Have to look into this. Cheers mate.

EDIT: i click the link to the clip and get fullscreen working.

 

[tr1v1um]

Yeah, I see plenty of complaints about rF2 graphics, and I don't understand them at all, certainly not since the switch to DX11 was made.

This is without me even really trying to make it look good apart from the choice of the shot - it's the graphics settings I race with, so still quite far from the best settings available.

A lot of the content is kinda lacking in car, track and trackside detail, yes, but no shaders will change that. I like nice graphics, I don't really subscribe to that "I don't care about graphics in sims" school of thought, but I really can't see much wrong with rF2 graphics. Not anything shaders would change, anyway, see above. There are far more important issues to be solved in rF2 than nicer shaders and lighting, IMO.

It depends a bit from my perspective. It is right that the game has certainly made a huge step in terms of visual quality since the switch to DX11, but there is still room for improvement. For example, when you drive from sunset into the night you will notice that at one point allmost everything loses it's reflectivity. That goes for the cars themself aswell as for the track surface, where headlights don't reflect properly on the wet surface. I guess PBR will most likely solve most of these issues. Another problem is visible in your screenshot, and that's the sky gradient. Who ever had the idea to implement a green tint, needs to take a clear look to the real sky. From my perspective the sky in DX9 looked much better. Besides that the cloud system clearly needs an overhaul, so I am glad that most of those issues will be adressed.

Tbh, I think that the graphics are atleast decent right now. The image is very clear and sharp and has alot of depth and in some cirumstances the sim looks even better than PCars 2. But the new shaders and improvements to shadows would be the icing on the cake for me.

 

[Will Mazeo]

What I mean by my statement is that, while letting the community create content might have worked for rF1 for some years, it was already an obsolete idea that proved to be the death of the sim. GTR2 came with all the tracks and cars from the FIA GT series, and some tracks (like Spa) were so good they're comparable to Kuno's LS Spa. Then iRacing came around with tracks that, to this day, are no match to any other simulator, and then Kunos came around doing basically the same.

By the time rFactor 2 was released the community was already fed with laser-scanned tracks, official cars, sims that worked, were cheaper and looked really good, and whatnot. So while the idea of being lazy (or they didn't have the capital to release more content) may have worked for rF1 for numerous reasons, it was one of the reasons rFactor 2 almost died and ISI was happy to hand it over.

And don't get me wrong, rFactor 2's historic content is the best I've ever seen on any simulator, driving around historic Spa and Longford has been one of the best experiences I've had in Sim Racing - but sims don't sell only on this type of content, you MUST release official and known content in order to keep a simulator living.

Good thing S397 picked up on this. Enough of MOD's for most races, specially that horrible nurburgring+nordschleife (no offense to the modders, but once you go LS you don't go back to tracks that are so wrong in elevation and camber). Enough of EnduRacers's questionable physics too since the Endurance Pack release.

Enough of bad content. For the most popular series and the overwhelming majority of content, official releases are the way to go. For all the rest there are very few teams able to do good releases, like the GP3 or the Palatov MOD, this last one being created by a real race team.

Well neither GTR2 nor iRacing or laser scanned tracks killed modding or rFactor. I agree with you that the mentality about modding should have been dropped but in the end modding is still strong, they just moved to AC instead.
If ISI hasn't gone "professional level of modding" (note this is not literally) with rF2 and had invested on graphics and expanding on physics from there (like Reiza with AMS) rather than making things a lot more complicated rF2 would have success, by now the game would have hybrids, gear box stuff, and way better graphics, and more race rules, etc. They just chose the wrong path because they [probably] never thought "can anyone release something that will make people move away from rF2 when we release it?".
In the end rF1/2 were not exactly a game, they were more like a demo of a tech, the community with its mods just helped ISI to sell the source code. Just my 2 cents.
Good thing to have S397 onboard.

 

[Amanda]

@Will Mazeo I kind of agree with your post but I'm not talking about ending the modding scenario. What I'm talking about is that, between having to chose a laser-scanned track and good cars, and a horrible mod track with horrible mod car, the users will eventually chose the better experience.

I love modding, but making a product depend on it is it's death wish.

 

[Case_]

Edit: nevermind.

 

[F1Aussie]

Did fanatec make any announcements at the expo? Have not heard anything.

 

[Ghoults]

I think that this new video confirms that RF2 is becoming a perfect platform for the modding community.

How so? They have not really improved the modding aspects of rf2 which has always been massive issue for rf2 especially considering it was supposed to be modding platform first and something else second. Rf2 modding issues are lack of documentation and poor quality of tools. And when I mean poor I mean poor. They even killed off gjed without any warning just so they can take a step backwards and make 3dsmax 2012 the only software that can create content for rf2. Shinier graphics with more modern shaders won't fix any of that.

 

[thepharcyde]

I wish S397 ran a poll, personally would have preferred le mans

 

[Paul Glover]

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