Milestone ha reso disponibile un nuovo aggiornamento per MotoGP 21: l'aggiornamento porta in dote l'aggiornamento 2021 per le moto e i piloti della classe Moto3, alcuni aggiustamenti relativi al meteo e alla IA Neurale e le nuove opzioni avanzate per i comandi, tramite il quale potremo modificare zona morta, linearità, saturazione, filtro in pressione e filtro in rilascio per sterzata, acceleratore, freno anteriore, freno posteriore, frizione e gestione del peso del pilota

Arriva puntuale anche il Development Update di Reiza dedicato al suo Automobilista 2. Con l'arrivo imminente dell'aggiornamento 1.2 sono tanti i temi affrontati: si parte dal DLC Racin' USA Part 1, in arrivo il 4 Giugno, contenente le piste di Laguna Seca, Daytona e Long Beach, 3 GTE (Porsche 911 RSR, BMW M8 GTE e Corvette C8.R) e la Cadillac DPi come unica (per il momento) vettura per la classe DPi.

Tra le altre importanti novità in arrivo con il nuovo aggiornamento abbiamo il Real Weather (che proporrà condizioni climatiche accurate e reali di ogni giorno degli ultimi 40 anni), un importante aggiornamento della fisica di gioco, miglioramenti audio e grafici, Campionati personalizzati e la possibilità di gareggiare in multiplayer senza possedere i circuiti che fanno parte dei pacchetti DLC

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Greetings everyone! We hope you all are doing well and staying safe as we continue to go through what hopefully will turn out to be the final months of this terrible ordeal that has been the COVID pandemic. As with most people, the pandemic by now has hit close to home, with two of our lead devs having struggled through it in recent weeks (luckily with no serious consequences).

This obviously has had an impact and slowed some of our progress, but not stopped it - on the contrary in fact as we continue to gear up to our biggest release yet. It has however contributed to a small change of plans as we are still working on the final details of this update, which is now scheduled to be deployed on Friday June 4th along with Part 1 of the Racin USA Expansion Pack - a few extra days then to ensure we have all elements of a truly massive update firing on all cylinders from the get-go!

Often in these dev updates I´ll refer to the fact that as much we might want to break the progress of the game into tidy even monthly updates, development often doesn´t work that way - sometimes things don´t work out on schedule and we end up with a somewhat meagre step; in others, everything comes together and fall into place even beyond our plans, and you end up with a minor revolution.

Luckily, the upcoming V1.2 is on the latter bracket, bringing truly substantive improvements to every front of the game along with major new features - some of which never seen in race sim before. We are very excited about it, and hope you all agree on the significance of this milestone once you come to try it!

Since we still have a few more days to go, let´s take the opportunity to go over some of the highlights of the update.

Racin´ USA Pt1 & BMW M4 GT4
Starting with the much anticipated content - Automobilista 2 V1.2 marks our entry into the North American territory in grand style, with the Racin´ USA Expansion Pack Pt1 featuring three premium race tracks (Daytona, Long Beach & Laguna Seca) and three GTE cars (BMW M8, Corvette C8.R and Porsche 911 RSR) - the new content currently in Beta has been nicely previewed by @SimRacing604 here
Also featuring in the pack but missing from the video is the Cadillac DPi.V.R, which arrives as (for now) the sole contender in the DPi class
The new content is not all about the Expansion Pack - AMS2 v1.2 also features a neat free surprise in the form the BMW M4, which arrives to boost the GT4 class with a fresh contender!

Real Weather, Customizable Date & LiveTrack Presets
One of the highlights of the new update is a first in sim racing - the ultra-advanced weather system of the Madness engine along with LiveTrack technology used in Automobilista 2 is now hooked up with a live weather forecast system, providing accurate weather conditions for all tracks in the game - for today, tomorrow and any given day over the last 40 years, allowing users to travel back in time and even peek into future conditions for any given location in Automobilista 2.

As of this version, Real Weather will still have some limitations - the system sets the conditions based on weather data in 1h slots, which means localized showers may not happen exactly as it does or did in certain places, or not at the exact time. Other simplifications include not yet offering the option of snow on the track itself, and environment temperatures, wind and humidity are still being picked up from internal seasonal data for each region & season rather than from the real external data. The data is also not universally accurate, with some locations having some discrepancies specially when going decades back.

Further developments and fine-tuning of the system will continue beyond this release, and the database will be amended as we gather more information about any discrepancy, eventually resulting in far more accurate results.

Real Weather however already works exceptionally well specially for recent dates, and the implications of the system to the driving & racing experience is significant - not only can the weather be set to evolve in a much more dynamic and unpredictable manner, the range of conditions provided by setting races in different seasons can provide a wide range of evolving track states from session to session, ensuring no setup is always universally good, tire choices become much more relevant and the driver might need to adapt his style as the race progresses - cold environment temperatures for example may make keeping tire and brake temps in their optimal range harder, at the same time give the engine a bit more oomph - a combination that can be far more tricky than the same setup on warmer weather. At the other end of the scale, a very hot summer day may mean that softer tire compound you´ve been driving all weekend isn´t really suitable for the race, and drivers may need to open up their radiator and brake ducts to ensure the cars can make the distance.

Naturally, users who might prefer to rely on more stable conditions and less setup fiddling can stick to running their sessions as they have so far, using specific weather with the default date for the track, which are usually set to a summer day in the chosen location.

Along with Real Weather, users will now be able configure LiveTrack presets for each session - you can set the track to start wet, damp, and any range of dry states ranging from a green track to a heavily rubbered one.

If running Real Weather, the preset will be influenced by the weather in the preceding hours of the day and hour the session is starting - say that you set your race to start at 14h local time on a given location, at a time the weather was clear, but following a morning of heavy rain - appropriately, the track will still be wet at the time you chose for the start of your race. Pretty cool isn´t it?

One final relevant note here is that Real Weather with accurate track presets will not yet be available in Multiplayer as of v1.2 - this should happen in time for the next update.

Making Beautiful Dynamics Beautiful
With the ever-expanding set of locations, regional climates, eras, different landscapes and vegetation as well as weather conditions, Automobilista 2 is a massively challenging project from an artistic POV. Fortunately, it is made viable by a truly exceptional, versatile and optimized graphics engine, and a team of artists that simply doesn´t grasp the meaning of "good enough". Led by our man @ilya, the team has continued to go above and beyond the call of duty, simultaneously producing new tracks at the exceptional rate our plans demand, and continuing to raise the artistic standards and updating older content as they go.

Many of these efforts have come to a head in v1.2 - various lighting & HDR adjustments go a long way to delivering more realistic representations of various climates, and better integrate cars into environment; we have also made some initial progress on shadow cascading, leading to much improved shadows specially at longer distances; and various texture improvements going a long way in capturing the wear & tear of real race tracks.

The results are truly sights to behold - come rain or sunshine, night or day, whether revving it up through the hills of Virginia in the fall, navigating the Ardennes forest in the bitter winter, enjoying a typical foggy British morning in Spring or kicking up dust in the arid lands of Monterey California in the summer, the stunning & detailed visuals will place you there, producing a range of different atmospheres with an unprecedented level of realism in a race sim.

Cars have also received a lot of love, with various fixes, material updates and a whole set of new driver outfits ranging from the 60´s to the 90´s all the way to modern drivers. Dirt build-up glitches have been fixed, with cars now presenting very realistic levels of dirt accumulation over a session.

Please note that while all tracks will feature some level of foliage customization per season, the more in-depth art work so far has been concentrated on the Premium tracks - other locations will receive similar treatment in future updates, to the extent they are needed - obviously far less foliage variation seen on Brazilian tracks for example where we basically only have two seasons, rainy hot for 8 months and mild chilly dry for 4!

Physics Development
All of the awesome developments above would naturally be worth little in a racing sim if the driving experience wasn´t up to par - thankfully, v1.2 also packs another substantial physics revamp across the board following recent discoveries made on the physics engine, and feedback from beta testers so far seem to bare out their significance.

Physics development has obviously been constant since initial release and specially in recent months, in a process that may have appeared never-ending and a bit confusing for users, as physics for certain cars have changed substantially from month to month. Despite our best efforts towards concentrating these physics revisions and reaching a stable state ASAP, the reality is that as much as we may plan, expect and hope to hit certain milestones within a given timeframe, sometimes there´s no speeding up a learning curve - it takes time to get a grasp on a new physics engine, learning its peculiarities and getting the best out of it. Even after well over a decade working on the ISI PMotor engine, we were still learning new things about it, and how to model our understanding of vehicle dynamics (itself a constant learning curve) in it. While some of that work and learning has carried over into AMS2, the new and highly sophisticated tire and driveline models in the Madness engine presented its own challenges. While we don´t expect this will be the last step in that learning curve - it never is for anyone who is serious about developing a racing simulator - we believe the physics have reached a stage of maturity with v1.2 that are truly representative, and which will allow things to evolve at a more gradual pace from now on.

AI Evolution
An extensive calibration pass to even out the playing field following all the physics developments in recent updates along with an expanded range of driver personalities should result in higher quality, more consistent challenge from AI in single player races.

Audio - Hear That Progress
Just as important as the visuals and physics is the sonic experience, and V1.2 packs some great improvements in the area too, with @Domagoj Lovric and @SHR Modding truly beginning to flex the muscles of the FMOD engine further.

The main development on the audio front is a new surface sound model, delivering more realistic and informative tire sound effects which are very useful in giving better audio cues to the driver as to what the car is doing, when wheels are about to lock up or the rear beginning to slide. As important as the improved feedback is the fact that new system is much better optimized, lessening chances of CPU bottlenecks that could create problems and even cause reliability issues in Multiplayer sessions.

The cars themselves are also more alive, with new ignition cut-off developments boosting grunty limiter and traction control sounds.

Some of the most significant progress in audio design is particularly evident on the new content, which can be nicely heard on this preview of V1.2 by @steelreserv:

Those more attuned with the GTE class will pick up on some creative licensing with the sounds of the Porsche RSR, still featuring the glorious straight exhaust sounds from the previous generation model. Unfortunately the COVID situation hasn´t really presented us with an opportunity to record the latest model yet, but those who hear the car in-game hopefully will agree that this is a very acceptable placeholder!

Championships - Create Your Own!
AMS2 V1.2 also marks the introduction of another highly anticipated feature, as users will now be able to create their own championship seasons - choose the classes, select the tracks, customize the dates (with the option for Real Weather don´t forget, historical or current), pick a scoring system and get on with the racing!

When combined with the range of content and options in AMS2, this is a truly powerful tool that will bring a whole new dimension to AMS2 single player racing. In testing this feature internally, I´m having a hard time stopping myself from just going one more round - somehow all the tracks I chose in my customized championship season seem appealing to me!

And it will only get better as @Dave Stephenson who did an exceptional job putting this together in-game, for an UI and game structure not designed to support it continues to polish it further - the feature, while fully functional will still be considered Beta as of V1.2, with plans to expand options further and improve the UI presentation in subsequent updates.

Important Notes Going into V1.2
Here are some more important considerations to take into account as you prepare for the release of AMS2 v1.2 and the Racin´ USA Pack:

• Settings reset - We strongly recommend users to delete the content of their Documents\Automobilista 2\savegame , as some old settings may cause game breaking issues with the latest developments.
• Disk Space - Users are advised to ensure they have 10-15GB worth of disk space in their AMS2 install to accommodate the addition of seasonal foliage sets for all tracks.
• Time Trial - While a more thorough evaluation will be made following release to verify its necessity, it´s almost certain that a new and hopefully definitive reset to existing Time Trial leaderboards may be required as the physics and LiveTrack updates will render times set with some cars as of v1.1.4.5 unnatainable, and older setups obsolete.
• Performance - The latest developments should generally result in improved shadow quality overall but also some side effects and a minor performance hit under the same settings - generally settings have been bumped a quality level so if you previously were running shadows on Ultra and experience a performance hit with v1.2.0.0, consider switching to High setting as it should still provide improvements relative to V1.1.4.5 Ultra - same if you were running High and switching to Medium in V1.1.5.0, and Medium to Low.

DLC Purchase Options
Users interested in picking up the Racin´ USA Pt1 Pack will have several options to pick from, with one of them hopefully fitting their purchases so far and plans for acquiring further DLC in the future.
Essentially, there will be 4 ways of acquiring the contents of the pack:

 

• Buying the Racin´ USA Pt1 as standalone - self explanatory, buying Pt1 separately from any other DLC or Expansion available or to be released for AMS2
• Buying the Racin´ USA Full Expansion Pack - This Pack includes Part 1 along with parts 2 and 3 to be released later in 2021
• Buying the 2020-2022 Season Pass - if you buy this or already have it, you are all set in terms of AMS2 DLCs all the way to the end of 2022
• Buying the Premium Expansion Packs - this will be a new option targetted for those who bought the Premium Track Pack, essentially expanding that purchase into a full 2020-2022 Season Pass.

DLC Tracks to be Available for All in Multiplayer
Living up to a promise made a few months ago, all DLC tracks will as of v1.2 be available for all users in a Multiplayer session, whether they own the track or not.

The DLC cars in turn will remain available exclusively for owners, although you can still race against them as opponents if the race is set to allow a class which content you do own.

Although all the developments mentioned previously in this update also contribute to boosting Multiplayer racing directly or indirectly, there will be more Multiplayer-centric features incoming in next few months to help increase Multiplayer action around AMS2.

Facebook Q & A
As proposed in last month´s Dev Update, I´ve recently conducted a Q&A session through the AMS2 Facebook page, and it´s filled with many questions and replies other users may find of releance - the full transcript of the Q&A will be posted here on the forum shortly.

And as I glance to the bottom right of my desktop I can see that this is a wrap for the month of May, and so it is also for this Dev Update - we continue hard at work for this weekend´s update, and then straight on for the next milestones at the end of June - there´s no stopping when you are having fun!

We´ll catch up again then!

Puntuale come sempre arriva la roadmap di fine mese dedicata ad rFactor 2: protagonisti di questa roadmap sono: miglioramenti grafici (ombre e SSR), maggiore supporto dell'hardware, nuove feature per il CS, aggiornamenti PBR per Sebring ma soprattutto l'Autodromo Nazionale di Monza annunciato ieri che si mostra nelle prime immagini work in progress e che sarà rilasciato entro i prossimi 2 o 3 mesi

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Roadmap Day!

Welcome to the Monthly Development Roadmap post for May – the latest look behind the curtain of Studio 397 as we continue on our exciting rFactor 2 journey. 

Thankfully and somewhat later than hoped for, the warm weather is starting to take hold around Europe (allegedly), and even with the significant temptation to venture out into the great outdoors, our team here at Studio 397 have remained hunkered down in our home offices working hard to keep up the flow of updates, tweaks, improvements and fixes to the title coming together at a pace – with plenty having gone on behind the scenes in what has been a satisfyingly successful and busy few weeks of development. 

As is always the case with these development roadmap posts, the intention today is to give you a brief insight into what we are working on within the simulation going forward, and to wrap up our most recent achievements for those within the community who perhaps don’t follow our progress on a day-to-day basis. 

Studio 397 Now Officially Part Of Motorsport Games Family 

Now with that introduction out of the way, and before we dig deeper into upcoming developments, we must start off with some rather big and satisfying news for everyone here at the Studio. Following up on the announcement about our impending purchase by Motorsport Games, we finally managed to see that deal over the line earlier this month, and from here on in are now a part of the ever expanding Motorsport Games network – a move that we believe will significantly help us strengthen our core skills and resources as we continue to push forward and develop rFactor 2 in the weeks, months and years ahead. 

Motorsport Games Complete Purchase of S397 | More Details: CLICK HERE

The new relationship is still very much in its infancy at the moment, with much of the current activity focusing on Motorsport Games and Studio 397 colleagues getting to know each other, understanding where our respective skills, strengths and weaknesses all lye and slowly starting to get a feel for how we can collectively work together to drive our various roles and responsibilities forward in the years ahead. Although these kinds of major ownership changes take time to bed in and settle down before any real insight into what benefits each party can and will bring to the table, we are just as keen as the community is to know how this new arrangement will impact the development future of rFactor 2. As such, in a bid to help clear up some facts and share insights with the community here in rFactor 2, we have planned a long and detailed video interview with Motorsport Games President Stephen Hood, where we plan to sit down at the Motorsport Games HQ in Silverstone and really get into the details about how this new arrangement is expected to work going forward. Furthermore, once that interview has been released, and the subsequent questions that will no doubt produce, we will produce a follow-on session with Marcel Offermans from Studio 397, where we plan to mop up any following questions from the community, and likely throw a few curveballs at Marcel from our side as well! 

Unfortunately, the initial plan was to head down to Silverstone week ending 28th May, however quite frankly I had a delayed Covid-19 vaccination jab the day before departing, and suddenly the task of a 240-mile round trip felt significantly less desirable than when the meeting was initially arranged. As such, the original plan has been delayed slightly, with a new date for the interview set to be arranged for the first week or two of June.

Development Focus For June

Each month in these development roadmap posts we attempt to share a little insight into some activities and developments we are working on behind the scenes with rFactor 2. Due to the level of complexity of game development, and the many varied states of either bug fixing or feature improvements we are working on at any given time, with the software, sometimes the amount of information we feel able to share with the wider public can vary in its detail. This can be for a number of reasons, some related to our confidence on getting round to starting / finishing any given piece of project work, through to certain aspects of development having a longer lead time than others, often meaning that key areas of improvement can roll over into consecutive months, especially if some of the necessary background work that needs to be undertaken is often behind the scenes, and doesn’t produce something that will affect the game play experience of the public in general. 

With that said, much of what the team are focusing on for this coming month will centre around some key areas of the software – from background tooling, maintenance and code revisions that will support future development objectives, to other major changes the likes of our new SSR implementation, that although set to bring a significant visual improvement to the title, are major pieces of work in their own right. 

Following up from what we discussed in the April Development Roadmap, this month much of our work continues to look at ways we can develop and improve the user experience within the simulation, as the team look at the smaller and more fine detail aspects of the UI in a bid to streamline and smoothen out both the experience and the flow of using the front end aspects of rFactor 2. Much of the ground work for these changes has already been discussed in our previous roadmap post, however for the month ahead we hope to bring many of these small but important updates forward within the next upcoming Release Candidate build of the simulation – with much work still being undertaken by the development team to further polish and improve the experience and performance within the UI.

Shadow Cascading Improvements

A long time issue of the graphics engine in rFactor 2, I’m sure many of you will have noticed the shadow cascading (or so called running shadow) effect in rFactor 2 over the years. As we continue in our push to improve the overall visual experience for rFactor 2 players, this is one of the aspects of the simulation that has long been on our laundry list of items that we would like to review and improve over time. Back at the very start of the rFactor 2 journey we considered this to be one of those aspects of the graphics engine that would unfortunately prove to require too significant of a development to effectively review and improve in the immediate future, however as the graphical prowess of rFactor 2 has moved on significantly in recent years, it has become more and more apparent that this aspect of the way shadows are produced in the software needs to be improved, and upon closer inspected we are delighted to report that early trials and investigations have brought back some very encouraging results so far. 

Although it would be fair to say we are still some way off from creating a solution that is robust enough to move into any public facing build versions of the simulation, we still feel it is a point worth raising with the community that this side of the graphic engine is being looked into, and that we are optimistic that the work being undertaken at present will have real value to the ongoing visual improvements in the software in the near future. 

To give you a little bit of insight into the current state of these tests (very early and without any AA applied), check out the comparison gifs from before and after the changes below:

Before

After

Additional Hardware Support

Another aspect of the continued strive to make our UI experience easier and more customisable for the end user has led us to look at the introduction of further visual references for the calibration of hardware within the simulation. As many of you will know, rFactor 2 works with an incredibly wide range of sim racing hardware, from all different kinds of popular (and not so popular) wheel and pedal sets, to handbrakes, motion systems and pretty much any other type of hardware device one can imagine. Of course, with such a varied amount of hardware now available within the sim racing marketplace, we recognise the fact it is important to our users to have the power to adjust and tweak their equipment to provide an realistic and enjoyable experience. That said, we also recognise that further fine tuning and adjustments are valuable to our players in order to perform those final tweaks to dial in their hardware, as such, we have resolved to bring further pedal calibration options into the UI, that will allow players to access a simple and visual tool within the software that will enable maximum and minimum inputs to be set across the whole raw range of pedal travel – similar in functionality to what was available in the former UI configuration pages. 

Furthermore, we also intend to look at offering a reverse FFB forces option natively within the UI, which will be helpful for correcting forces on some wheels that are inverted on calibration. These changes, along with the previously mentioned sever password save option, asynchronously server loading, new sorting options, removed waiting time for ‘favourite servers’ and other quality of life improvements are all at lesser or greater stages of development, and should be making an appearance within upcoming builds of the title in the very near future.

New Overlay Features

With the next Release Candidate build we intend to ship a new overlay feature for DRS (Drag Reduction System) within the core offering of rFactor 2. Many cars in the title, both first and third party, feature some kind of DRS functionality, and while we already support this natively on certain tracks with DRS zones, as well as on all tracks as unregulated activations, the next build of rFactor 2 should bring with it the ability to visually represent how DRS is being deployed on the broadcast overlay functionality within the sim. Telling a story to the viewers on a broadcast, either from the commentary team or on screen by way of broadcast graphics is an important aspect of producing compelling racing coverage, and we are excited to introduce some very interesting DRS related features within the next build. Chief amongst these updates will be the introduction of a ‘1v1 battle box’ that will display in scenarios when a chasing driver has enabled DRS, plus the ability to display each row of drivers with active DRS in the timing tower and the extended battle box, as well as a “DRS ACTIVE” text in the 1v1 battle box if the chasing driver has DRS active – all part of the ongoing improvements and additions to our broadcast overlay system within rFactor 2. 

Competition System – New Features

 

The main noticeable change to the Competition System this month will undoubtedly be the introduction of our new three-race ‘Summer Showdown’ series of events, where we have compiled three very different types of racing action in our StockCar, IndyCar and GT3 car sets across three very different circuits, with the top split qualified drivers featuring in their own live streamed race on the rFactorLive Twitch channel on Saturday evenings. We are quite frankly delighted with the level of interest and engagement these races have generated within the community, and it has been a great pleasure for us to see the enjoyment (and excellent racing) that these events are producing so far as we head into the final ’60 Minutes of the Ring’ later in June. With such a great uptake on this new format of special edition races, we very much plan to continue this trend going forward for a little while longer – so expect more special edition broadcasted events in the weeks and months ahead! 

 

Still keeping to the topic of the Competition System, one other new feature that is likely to be introduced into the main system in the very near future is the ability to host fixed setup race events, something that we have heard many requests about from the community and are happy to finally be able to introduce into the system for future events. Of course we recognise that some players enjoy the aspect of building and racing a custom setup, so don’t expect all events to feature this new option – we will work hard to ensure our planning of future races offers up a nice mix of both fixes and custom setup racing, much like we do with our mix of paid and free content within the Competition System – as we try and offer a mix of something for all different types of rFactor 2 users. Earlier this month we also provided an update to our roadmap, making some changes and elaborating on a few others.

Monza! New Track Announcement

 

Finally we have been able to confirm the latest new circuit to be added to rFactor 2, with the announcement of the much anticipate addition of the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza – fully laser scanned and up-to-date with the current racing season. We headed out to the beautiful Monza park back at the end of March, and since then the track team here at Studio 397 have been working at an incredible rate to bring together the many hundreds of GB of data into a working circuit model within the simulation. Now of course I’m not going to fall into the trap of predicting a release date for this new circuit, however I think (ha, ha) I’m probably on safe ground to say we should be looking to get this out to the public within the next two or three months. 

Monza Announced | More Details: Click HERE

 

As work continues at a pace back in the studio on this track, we will continue to keep you all updated with regular progress reports on the various Studio 397 social media channels, from video previous, shots of the work-in-progress development and side-by-side comparisons to the real circuit, so if you aren’t already following us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, make sure to give us a like and not miss out on any of the awesome progress that is happening with this great new track.

Major Sebring PBR Update Incoming

 

Sebring International Raceway | Steam Store: CLICK HERE

Keeping very firmly on the subject of tracks, despite the announcement of a brand-new venue in the form of Monza, and with a couple more we are about to secure licences for in the next few weeks, we are still very much focussed on updating and refreshing the current roster of content within rFactor 2 to ensure all our content offerings to the community reach a certain level of quality expected by our community. Recently we introduced a pretty substantial PBR update to the free Lime Rock Park track within the sim (more on that below), and the next venue in our list to get the PBR update treatment is one of our absolute favourite tracks in rFactor 2 – the Sebring International Raceway! 

 

We’ve had a version of the newly updated track in our internal testing team for a little while now as we look to ensure everything is behaving as expected from the new update, and so far things are looking very good indeed for a release within the month of June. As one can expect from a full PBR refresh, we think Sebring looks absolutely spectacular in this new build, and we cannot wait to get this big update out into the general public for you all to enjoy the fruits of our track teams labour. Already the track looks fantastic in the different time of day and weather conditions in rFactor 2, and coupled together with the upcoming SSR update, we thing our players will notice a considerably improved visual experience in this top draw American race circuit. 

More PBR Track Updates and Remodelling In The Works

With a PBR update release of Sebring quite close to being deployed to the public, we have already started work on an even bigger PBR update and remodelling task for another of our existing tracks within the simulation, however we will keep the details of that to ourselves for now, and likely tell you more about what is next on the list in the June Development Roadmap – needless to say, our track team are very busy with new and existing content !

Looking Back On May

May was a very busy month for the team here at Studio 397, and we have been delighted to get plenty of goodies out into the public domain for our wonderful community to enjoy. From new content updates in the form of our massive Lime Rock Park PBR refresh, to a pretty significant development by the KartSim team, plus a number of fixes and tweaks to the core simulation itself –  May was a good one indeed!

Lime Rock Park PBR Refresh

 

Lime Rock Park | Steam Workshop: Click Here.

A popular track made even more attractive thanks to the great work of the rFactor 2 track team, we were absolutely delighted to release the free PBR update refresh for this mighty little American venue last month, and the reaction from our community has been incredibly heart-warming to see how much fresh love and affection this little and often overlooked venue has received since the new update was deployed back on the 5th May. We’ve always been fans of the lesser known venues here at Studio 397, despite acknowledging that many players very much appreciate the more well-known tracks we have to offer, we are sure many of you like ourselves enjoy the odd guilty pleasure of tearing up the tarmac on lesser known little gems like this one. 

Lime Rock Park has been a staple venue of rFactor 2 for many a year, having originally released for the simulation all the way back in the 2013, and thanks to its grand old age it would be fair to say that the little 2.462km track needed this new refresh in order to bring it back into line with the quality standards you’ve all now become accustomed to with our more recent content offerings. 

For us at the studio it was an really rewarding experience bringing this track back into the spotlight, and so far it very much looks like all of our hard work is paying off, as the track has been very warmly received by the community, and already has been the scene of some epic racing adventures in our Competition System. Lime Rock Park is back, and more beautiful that ever!

Opt-Out New Build

 

rFactor 2 Build 6660506 | More Details: CLICK HERE

May would also see the introduction of a new build of rFactor 2, as we moved over the existing ‘Release Candidate’ version of the software into the main public build of the simulation. The latest new release, deployed to the title on May 19th was the result of several weeks of development focus on address key areas of bug fixing and development that have been identified through both our internal testing processes, and via the valuable feedback reported from our community. Under normal circumstances, the introduction of a new build release would generate a complementary new ‘Release Candidate’ update for players to choose if they wish to opt into that experimental build, however due to the size and complexity of the new for the next RC build SSR implementation, we have taken the decision to delay the launch of our next RC update, until such a time in the very near future that we can be sure the build is stable and suitable for the public to try. 

What this means in reality is the current public ‘Opt-Out’ and ‘Release Candidate’ builds of rFactor 2 are for the moment identical, until such a time as when we elect to deploy the new Release Candidate build to Steam. 

Client 6660506
Dedicated 6660508

General

• Added SteamID of each client to race results logs generated by a Dedicated Server
• Fix issue with Attack Mode overlay information not correctly resetting.
• Stopped AI playing wipers when in Garage
• Added automatic headlight and wiper settings for player.
• These show as an extra step in the key toggles (Headlights: Off / Auto / On) or (Wipers: Off / Auto / Slow / Fast)
• Skip Auto option when the setting is disabled
• Added a message about windscreen wiper state to the message centre. Don’t show a message if the vehicle does not have wipers.
• Auto Headlights and Windscreen Wipers are forced on if no key is assigned”
• Fixed issue where automatic gears would require a false top gear to correctly downshift for some vehicles
• Report steam branch and build number on startup

HUD

• Fixed spacing for weather info in HUD

Graphics

• Renamed Anti-Aliasing options to show the amount of MSAA applied.
• Adjust Sunflare strength so that they work with different field of views
• Added a blend out at screen edge to smooth transition of Sunflare going off screen.
• Fixed an issue where a texture sampler would not set correctly
• Fixed an issue that DigitalFlags would behave as Marshals online
• Reworked Auto Exposure to reduce the calculated exposure “bouncing” around in different conditions
• Enabled Auto Exposure in Cockpit Cameras
• Fixed Water not rendering on TV Screens
• Removed GPU V-Sync option from Graphics Configuration settings
• Updated Environment Reflection Settings
• Low/Medium/High/Ultra settings which increase refresh rate and resolution.
• Ambient light probes now allow for more advanced blending options
• Fixed stuttering on Replay Monitor screen.

UI

• Added sector and lap timing to full screen replay bar.
• Updated the styling and alignment of the full screen replay bar.
• Fixed UI stopping updating when clicking repeatedly on the track map in the event screen.
• Corrected the display of FXAA to On/Off
• Fixed the units to seconds for displaying Transparent Trainer Lead Timer
• Fixed the display units for Low Speed Information to show a percentage
• Fixed race countdown not always showing for a multiplayer race.
• Fixed showing the maximum time for a single player race before the race start.
• Improved formatting of time durations.
• Fixed issue where RealRoad setting was carried over from previous track selection in session setup screen
• Fixed an issue where some tracks would not show in game due to having packed SCN files which were not valid track layouts
• Added Auto Blip, Auto Lift, Hold Brakes, Hold Clutch, Repeat Shifts, Start Engine, Auto Wipers and Auto Headlight settings to difficulty screen

Modding

• Fixed some minor issues with sample ModDev content
• Added pop up (mod dev & scene viewer only) / logging to paths where the RRBIN file fails to load
• Force an update after loading RRBIN in scene viewer or moddev so that it shows correctly straight away.
• Updated default RRBIN filename scene viewer / moddev tweakbar rollout
• Setup a stable and beta version of Max Plugins 2021. Stable is the last fully tested internally. Beta is built to the absolute latest code.

Ligier JS P217 Update 

 

Ligier JS P217 Released | More Info: Click HERE.

The lovely Ligier was another piece of content that received update treatment during the course of the month about to pass, as we took out the time to check back and review this awesome LMP2 car and address some of the issues that have cropped up since we released the car as part of the Endurance Pack 2 DLC back in December.

More of a quality of life tidy up than a major development overhaul, the new build took the car to version 1.17 and as well as adding a new O-Rouge themed livery, also cleared up some issues around the cockpit graphics – namely tidying up a reflection issue on the steering wheel glass, repaired the underbody shadows of AI cars bug and other minor wiper and IBL shaders on wheel rims issues, as you can check on the update release notes link above.

Competition System 

 

Well, well, well – plenty has been happening in the world of the rFactor 2 Competition System this month! We’ve had the debut of regular hourly races in the legendary USF2000 open wheeler, the final throws of the GT Challenge series and of course, a brand-new initiative in the form of the very first ‘rFactor 2 Summer Showdown’ series of events – an open invite three race competition where rFactor 2 drivers are invited to register within the competition system and set a time for three high profile and very different types of racing action.

Quite frankly we have been delighted with the uptake from our community with these races so far, and already the first two events (StockCar Challenge at Portland and the rF250 at Indianapolis) have already produced some excellent top split broadcasted racing action. We’ve only got the final 60 Minutes at the Ring event left to run on June 12th, but don’t worry – this type of thing looks like it is something our community enjoy, so expect more of these type of events in the immediate future.

In terms of the Competition System itself, as part of the now bi-weekly CS Blog postings Marcel has issued a new and revised top level development roadmap for the Competition System, details of which you can see just below the catch up links to the latest Q&A sessions below: 

• Week 15 | CLICK HERE
• Week 16 | CLICK HERE 

Latest Competition System Roadmap Update:

More competition formats — we decided to pull some of the different competition formats forward, and we just finished running the first season of GT Challenge in the Competition System. That taught us some valuable things about where we need to add more flexibility to the system, and how we can better accommodate the different styles and formats of racing that we know are so important to our existing and potential new players of rFactor 2. With these findings in our growing databank of knowledge, we’ve elected to spend some more time focussing on this area in the immediate future, however that said, this is probably going to be a continual task, so expect more formats to emerge in the upcoming months.

Protests and decisions — This is a topic that we have decided is best managed by splitting it into two distinct parts. The first part of it, making sure we can handle protests and having race control take decisions, is in place in terms of the basic mechanics, which we will continue to monitor, test and expand upon as the system matures and clear trends and requirements make themselves apparent. We have some firm ideas of what we expect this system to look like and the things we plan to achieve with it, however we are also finding it valuable to absorb the excellent feedback from within the community, feedback which will no doubt have an impact upon the finished product going forward. 

Ratings — based on the data we have gathered, we have completed the internal testing of our algorithms, so our next steps are to look at how to integrate them into the UI and decide what competitions we want to use them for. 

In parallel, we’ve also been looking at some forms of safety ratings, but as I’m sure you can imagine, this is an aspect of the system we want to be fully confident is producing fair and balanced results for all of our users, as such this is very much under evaluation back at the studio as we look to ensure we can offer a robust and well-thought-out solution come public release.

Stewarding — This is another thorny topic of discussion, and arguably one of the most labour-intensive aspects of running racing events on any sim racing platform. When we introduced the idea of the Competition System in rFactor 2, one of the key goals of the platform had to be around how to make life easier for event organizers to put on top quality racing activations, rather than being bogged down with unnecessary levels of administration that doesn’t add to the quality of life experience of our drivers and participants. With this in mind, we have always aspired to offer a significant amount of automation within the system, with aspects such as protests and decisions being one of the key areas we are working to streamline. Of course, this is a rather large area of discussion, and as the system continues to evolve and develop in this regard, we will expand further on this top separately. Our goal is definitely to let the in-game systems do a lot of the (easy) work here, monitoring when you cut the track or commit other offences and directly handing out penalties. At the same time we are aware that not everything can be decided by robots.

Broadcast integration — no big changes here, as we are gradually introducing these features, first internally and then also as part of our overlay package. Some things you will have seen in GT Pro and Challenge over the last couple of months. The goal is still to make sure that overlays showing standings, points, participants and calendars accurately reflect the competition they’re a part of.

Roles and team based driving — This is something that many of you within the community have been requesting from the rFactor 2 Competition System in recent months, and as keen endurance racing fans ourselves, we are certainly incredibly enthusiastic to bring this level of functionality to the system for you to enjoy.  As things stand currently, we are working on adding the ability to allow multiple drivers to share an “entry”, or car, in a competition. Additionally, we plan on allowing roles to be defined within the system, which means that teams can elect to allocate specific roles for a manager or race engineer for example. Other roles are stewards, race control, and cameramen to facilitate broadcasts.

Offline Championships — I’m sure you will appreciate that a lot of our development attention has been focused on improving the online experience of rFactor 2 lately, however with these changes we are also looking at introducing new features to benefit the offline portion of our player base. Already we have identified ways to implement the much request offline championship mode within the core simulation – this will be added once the online part is running smoothly. We will leverage the features introduced as part of the Competition System to allow players to develop their own custom championship tool to race against the AI, something that has been a long time coming to rFactor 2, but hopefully should be worth the wait! 

Integration — This is a topic that is currently under active discussion within Motorsport Games, the new owners of Studio 397 and rFactor 2 With the rFactor 2 engine becoming the base of many new games, the Competition System is being reviewed and considered for those, as well as integration of it in the Traxion.gg website. No decisions have been made here. We’ll update you as time goes on.

Recommended Viewing – rFactor 2 Esports Competitions

Fun as it is to get out onto the virtual tarmac for yourself, it is also somewhat enjoyable to watch the efforts of others in one of the many sim racing esport broadcasts available on the internet during these boom days of virtual motorsports. As a leading simulation platform, rFactor 2 enjoys its fair share of esport racing action, and to keep things nice and easy we’ve once again put together a list of some potential highlights for the month ahead:

Saturday 5th June | 14:30 CEST | VEC 24 Hours of Le Sarthe | VEC YouTube

Monday 7th June | 20:00 CEST | GT Challenge Round 6 |  rFactorLive Twitch/ TraxionGG YouTube

Saturday 12th June | 21:00 CEST | Summer Showdown Race 3 | rFactorLive Twitch 

Thursday 17th June | TBC | Something Special – TBC | rFactorLive Twitch/ TraxionGG YouTube

Sunday 20th June | 20:45 CEST | Formula Sim Racing Round 8 | FSR YouTube

Monday 21st June | 20:00 CEST | GT Pro Relegation Season 4 |  rFactorLive Twitch/ TraxionGG YouTube

Thursday 24th June | 20:00 CEST | RCCO World eX  Championship Round 5 | Motorsport.TV

Saturday 26th June | 14:00 CEST | GTR24h Nürburgring 12h |  GTR24h YouTube

As always, thank you for your time in reading our latest update from the world of rFactor 2. Please do continue to stay safe, stay fast and see you out on the (virtual) track!

Sector3 ha rilasciato un nuovo aggiornamento per il suo RaceRoom Racing Experience. Il nuovo update, da circa 1,7GB, ci offre numerose correzioni, incluso il BOP, sulle vetture di classe GT4, inoltre aggiungi vari contentuti dedicati alla prossima ADAC GT3 e GT4 esport series, oltre alla nuovissima Opel Astra appena resa disponibile tramite store online.

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RaceRoom has been updated

Update details:

Download size = 1.7 GB
Client version = 0.9.2.43
Client BuildID = 6785299
Dedi version = 75.0.1299
Dedi BuildID = 6785264

GT4 Base BOP rework:(all GT4 leaderboards were cleared)

• All cars - Reduced differences in fuel usage / Fuel tank capacities
• All cars - Slight reduction of torque and tyre grip
• All cars - Default tyre pressure changes to improve consistency on longer runs.
• BMW M4 GT4 - Reduced downforce
• KTM - Slightly less downforce on the front, slightly more drag
• Lotus Evora - Power increase
• Porsche 718 - Increased downforce, increased drag, increased torque, reduced weight
• Porsche 981 MR - Reduced torque, reduced downforce, increased weight

Other changes:

• Added content for upcoming ADAC GT3 and GT4 esport series
• Added content for upcoming store releases
• Fixed dark cars on Road America when real time reflections were disabled.
• Spectator - Fixed Qualifying results disappearing from broadcast overlays as soon as the session timer hits zero.
• Spectator - Made the steering animations smooth while looking at cockpit onboard cameras
• Rolling Starts - Fixed an issue with H-shifting where the car would make unnecessary gearshifts while under AI control if shifter was not in 1st or Neutral.
• Rolling Starts - Fixed the last reported issues with regards to players disconnecting from the starting grid, causing some traffic jams.
• Dedicated Server - Fixed an issue with results from race 1 being duplicated.
• Dedicated Server - Fixed pitstops not always registering in results files
• Pitlane speed limiter - Helped with some players still getting caught going above 60kph limits after accelerating a lot and overshooting the limit by making throttle fade out when approaching the speed limit.
• Single Player Championships - Fixed an issue where an “Invalid lap” would be presented at the start of a race.

Dopo aver annunciato nelle scorse settimane l'arrivo di un circuito AAA e aver rilasciato dei teaser negli scorsi giorni è arrivato finalmente l'annuncio ufficiale: l'Autodromo Nazionale di Monza è in arrivo su rFactor 2.

Per l'occasione il team ne ha approfittato per utilizzare un drone che ha seguito l'auto utilizzata per il ground scan e ha catturato foto e video a 360° per raccogliere non solo quelli che sono i dati della pista, ma anche per raccogliere informazioni circa l'atmosfera di Monza e riprodurla nel simulatore nella maniera più fedele possibile.
Per questo il team non ha solo posto la sua attenzione al circuito vero e proprio, ma ha prestato attenzione anche alle costruzioni nella pit lane e nella zona del paddock,  compresi gli interni dei vari garage. Tutti questi dettagli sono stati raccolti e riprodotti nel virtuale, per restituire ai giocatori la versione di Monza più fedele in circolazione.

Il team rilascerà più informazioni circa lo stato del tracciato nella roadmap di Maggio che verrà rilasciata domani

Andare a spulciare i report economici e corporate delle grandi multinazionali del gaming è molto utile per capire quali sono i titoli di grande successo, gli orientamenti del mercato, l'impatto sul settore esport e cosi via. Leggendo questi documenti con attenzione è possibile spesso anche scoprire novità molto interessanti...

E' il caso, ad esempio, del report di Maggio 2021 (riportato qui) pubblicato da Digital Bros, global company attiva nel settore del digital entertainment, sotto la cui ala troviamo il team Kunos Simulazioni ed il suo publisher 505 Games. Digital Bros conferma una volta di più che Assetto Corsa (uscito nel dicembre 2014) è stato uno dei titoli di maggiore successo, con ben 12 milioni di copie vendute, mentre il nuovo titolo Assetto Corsa Competizione (uscito nel maggio 2019) beneficia di 3 anni di partnership ufficiale con il campionato GT di SRO.

La vera notizia "bomba" però, che tutti gli appassionati di simracing speravano di leggere da tempo, è la conferma da parte di Digital Bros della seconda versione proprio di Assetto Corsa: come si legge a pagina 23 infatti, Assetto Corsa 2 è in sviluppo ed è previsto in uscita nel 2024 ! E' altresi in sviluppo la versione mobile di Assetto Corsa, attesa invece in uscita per l'estate 2021.

Ad oggi non sappiamo ancora nulla di Assetto Corsa 2, anche se nel febbraio scorso Marco Massarutto della Kunos, in un'intervista a Il Videogioco, aveva accennato:

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Ovviamente se parliamo di un Assetto Corsa “2” le potenzialità sono infinite, come ha dimostrato il primo Assetto Corsa. Ciò che riteniamo sia arrivato il momento di fare, oltre a consolidare e continuare ad evolvere quanto di buono già fatto in passato in termini di grafica, fisica, car handling, multiplayer e così via, è approfondire il design sul gameplay: “scegli auto/scegli circuito/scegli modalità di gara” è ancora molto valido, ma non più sufficiente, se vogliamo continuare ad appassionare un pubblico sempre più eterogeneo.

Troppo spesso l’unico denominatore che si va a toccare nel nostro ambiente è quello relativo all’handling e alla relativa difficoltà di gioco: “Vuoi espandere il tuo pubblico? Rendi la guida più semplice”. Questo secondo noi è un errore, che di recente ha punito duramente chi ha pensato che fosse una buona idea. Noi siamo fermamente convinti che più il motore fisico è avanzato, più l’handling risulta realistico e pertanto intuitivo, e di conseguenza, divertente.

Dovremo perciò pazientare almeno 3 lunghi anni, che però potremo tenere impegnati ottimamente con l'ultimo Assetto Corsa Competizione (immagine qui sotto), per il quale arriveranno probabilmente ulteriori novità, anche se al momento non ci sono notizie in merito e casomai potremo passare la nostra estate sotto l'ombrellone con lo smartphone ed il buon vecchio Assetto Corsa...

A quanto pare, festeggeremo il decennale dell'uscita del primo Assetto Corsa (nell'immagine qui sopra nel titolo) nel modo migliore possibile!

Commenti sul forum dedicato.

Dopo il successo del Virtual Race Car Engineer, Tim McArthur prosegue lo sviluppo del suo software e ritorna con il suo ingegnere di pista virtuale, questa volta con la nuova versione 2021 del suo Setup Developer Tool, un programma molto più completo e professionale: come vedete dalle immagini catturate, il Setup Developer Tool 2021 ci permetterà di analizzare ogni dettaglio del setup della nostra vettura, indicandoci le relative soluzioni ottimali !

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So you know nothing about setting up a race car? Want to build your own setups but don’t know where to start or what anything means? The Setup Developer Tool is for you. SDT will walk you through a step by step process of creating and customizing your very own personalized baseline race setup. It does so by asking simple questions about the car type, track type, and behavior of the car on track. Choosing from a menu of possible responses to the questions, the user describes the car and SDT offers valid setup changes for each step in the process, ultimately resulting in a user-created baseline setup personalized to your own needs.

Product features

• Easy to use tablet style interface
• Choose car type, track type, and track traits to generate a starting setup
• Lap logging and reporting including new graph for easier reading
• Fuel calculator; full race, race remaining, & number of stops required
• Uses driver feedback to create setup to your personal needs
• Works with all modern sim-racing games, and real world cars
• Supports open wheel, sports cars, touring cars, and stock cars
• Both road course and oval style race tracks supported
• English, Portuguese, Turkish, Dutch, and Italian languages (more coming!)

The Setup Developer Tool is the product of more than two decades of research in auto racing and race car mechanics. The information offered therein is relevant not only to all racing games, but real world applications as well. It can be used with any realistic auto racing software that allows the users to adjust the car setup. Use with Assetto Corsa, Automobilista, Codemasters F1 series, iRacing, Project Cars, RaceRoom, rFactor, Stock Car Extreme, and more.

Raceroom è conosciuto per avere una grande varietà di tracciati, dai più famosi fino alle gemme nascoste che non troviamo in quasi nessun altro videogame, e di recente il team è stato impegnato per ricreare proprio due piste di questo tipo, che arriveranno molto presto nello store di Raceroom Racing Experience

Il primo tracciato è quello di Vålerbanen, situato a Braskereidfoss, in Norvegia. Durante l'inverno è utilizzato come circuito di test per guidare in condizioni particolari (ad esempio sul ghiaccio), mentre nel resto dell'anno ospita eventi come il Gatebil, l'evento di racing amatoriale più importante in Norvegia. Il tracciato ha anche ospitato gare del Swedish Touring Car Championship

Il secondo tracciato è il Circuito di Brno, situato in Repubblica Ceca. Sicuramente conosciuto dagli appassionati di Superbike e MotoGP, ha anche ospitato negli anni eventi a quattro ruote con i campionati FIA GT, DTM e WTCC. Il circuito, circondato da una splendida foresta, è caratterizzato da difficili curve lunghe e cambi di elevazione.

Entrambe le piste saranno presto disponibili nello store, con Brno che verrà rilasciato poco dopo Vålerbanen

L'ultima versione rilasciata di Live for Speed, la 0.6V, risale al febbraio scorso, ma gli sviluppatori stanno continuando il lavoro di aggiornamento e miglioria sul fronte della grafica. Oggi per esempio ci mostrano il miglioramento apportato fino ad ora al circuito londinese di South City.

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Hello Racers,
It has been a while so we'd like to tell you what we've been doing and some plans.
You may have been expecting a report about Fern Bay.
But Eric had so many ideas for new ways to link up roads at South City he wasn't ready to stop.

Nacon, insieme a KT Racing, annuncia oggi il nuovo trailer dedicato a WRC 10, il videogame ufficiale del FIA World Rally Championship. Il filmato ci presenta il nuovissimo rally di Croazia, per la prima volta inserito nel franchise. WRC 10 sarà disponibile tramite Steam a partire dal prossimo 2 Settembre.

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Add WRC 10 to your Steam wishlist: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1462810/WRC_10_FIA_World_Rally_Championship/

As we celebrate the Croatia Rally's very first appearance in the Championship calendar, it may already be regarded as one of the most exciting events in WRC history!

WRC 10 will be available on 2 September 2021 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC and on Nintendo Switch at a later date.