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Studio 397 ci aggiorna sullo sviluppo del suo rFactor 2 con il nuovo roadmap update del mese di giugno. Fra le tante novità e migliorie dell'aggiornamento troviamo vari upgrades per la Formula 2, una divertente paint competition dedicata alla Radical e scopriamo anche il prossimo arrivo di una nuovissima McLaren GT che sarà utilizzata nell'imminente torneo Worlds Fastest Gamer della McLaren. Commenti e discussioni sul forum dedicato. Roadmap Update June 2017 Welcome back to another monthly update. I’m sure many of you have watched the 24 hours of Le Mans over the weekend. What an exciting race that was, and good news for us as, although they did set a new fastest lap time in qualification, they did not break the record for the most number of laps driven in the race, so we can continue as Studio 397 for another year! We are heavy in development currently in all areas and look forward to bringing you several updates over the next few months and beyond. Starting on August 1st we will open registration for the rFactor 2 round of the World’s Fastest Gamer competition by McLaren. The winner of that competition will be offered one of the best jobs in esports: that of an official simulator driver in the Formula 1 team. In four rounds people will battle to set the fastest time on different configurations of Silverstone and Zandvoort and compete head to head in weekly races for championship points. These races will all be done in a soon-to-be-announced McLaren GT car. UI We have been getting a lot of questions on our new UI lately, which is taking us a bit longer than we anticipated. We’ve already shown you various new screenshots, so we thought this month might be a good time to explain a little bit more about its technical background. For some of you all these terms might be a bit too technical. They are all modern web technologies that allow us to create an interface that is flexible and accessible from all kinds of locations. A few months ago we already explained the UI is built with HTML. We have chosen to embed a modern browser to render it, and the actual connection with the local game is done via a REST based interface. This interface allows you to control all aspects of the game, and because this technology will both be added to the client and dedicated server, it means we have vastly extended the ways in which you can write all kinds of tools on top of that. Just as an example, this enables you to create live timing pages that can be used as an overlay for broadcasting. You might have seen this a couple of weeks ago when VEC broadcast their 24h race in DX11. There are many other possible applications though, such as remotely connecting to the garage of a team mate and making improvements to his setup while he is still driving. Content We have converted most of our content to DX11 by now, but there are still a few items left. Alongside this roadmap update, we will release two updated pieces of content tomorrow. The São Paulo track, which has seen various texture updates and the Formula 2, which had both texture and physics updates, details of which can be found in the changelog below. In terms of new content, we mentioned the McLaren GT car earlier and cannot wait to show you more updates on it, content which is aligned is important to us, and over the next couple of months we hope you will be pleasantly surprised! Additionally, we are working hard on bringing Zandvoort to you in all its glory and of course are close to releasing a fantastic car for racing the Radical SR3. Radical Paint Competition It’s paint time! That’s right, get your team’s or personal livery in the official release of the Radical SR3. We will add the top 20 designs into the game as part of the release of the Radical SR3. We have created a special “paint version” of the car, which is available in the workshop. If you subscribe to it, it will automatically be downloaded and installed. Included with the car is a template, which can be found in the “Templates” folder of your rFactor 2 install. You can use any paint program that can load PSD (Photoshop) files. We advise you to first make a copy of the file before you start painting. When you have created your paint, save it as a DDS file. The folder you should use for that can be seen in the showroom if you’ve loaded the car there. You might need to hit “CREATE DIR” to create the folder the first time, and if you’ve updated the paint while the game was still loaded, hit “RELOAD” to refresh the folder. If you have any questions about this, feel free to ask in our forum or on Discord! For the record, you cannot yet drive the car, you can only look at it in the showroom (click on “TUNING” on the car screen). Talking about which, we spared no expense and built you a brand new showroom. We hope you like it! Guidelines No alcohol, tobacco or illegal products Any paint job you make is yours and not taken from someone else You will need to transfer rights to us for the paint to use in the game You guarantee it does not infringe on any copyrights of third parties, so no logos that you do not have permission to use How to enter Please read the guidelines above, then email us on radicalpaints@studio-397.com with 3 images from the showroom, a download link to your PSD and the driver and team name you want to use for your car. The deadline for submission is midnight GMT 27th June 2017! Miscellaneous We know with DX11 that many of you cannot use plugins that render to the screen, and we are currently reviewing the best way to add this capability in a future-proof and rock solid way. Our current method of giving plugins access to the screen can cause issues with the stability of our platform as a whole. As a final note we are proud to announce that we’ve signed a license agreement with MoTec and will add official support for their tools to our simulation. More details about this will be released in the upcoming months. In the mean time, enjoy the summer! Changelog Build (DX11) Fixed: VR trackside cameras. Fixed: VR Showroom is now rendering properly. Fixed VR Monitor and replay working in-game. Fixed: Multi-monitor selection now available. Fixed: Minor issues with UI font. Fixed: AI way-points now show in Dev Mode. Fixed: Zoom and out of focus elements in track-side cameras when in multi-view mode. (Triple screen) Fixed: Focus on UI elements in Viewer.exe Fixed: Real Road rendering issues. Added: Brand New High resolution “Hangar” style showroom to better showcase cars. Added: VR Improvements to the Post processing effects by disabling the Depth-of-Field. Updated: Minor performance and video memory improvements. Updated: Showroom post process preset. Updated: The graphics engine now renders ambient shadows while in the showroom. Formula Two Full CPM tyre upgrade. AI improvements to help launch on race starts. AI now take longer to warm up tyres. AI correlation tweaks to slightly decrease grip. Added RCD / talent file. AI tweaks to make them faster overall. Lower initial tyre temperatures and more pressure buildup. Softened front ARB. More damping in suspension components. Minor tyre tweaks to include more damping. Correction to low downforce package to add stability. Added optional caster upgrade to help increase the cornering forces in the FFB. Reduced flatspot intensity on front tyres. Softened steering slightly. Low-end torque slightly increased. Corrected unsprung inertia. New engine throttle map. Softened chassis. Improved inertia. Lowered max brake force. Set default brake pressure to realistic typical usage. Rear ARB increased to be bit stiffer and better match the data. Reduced fuel consumption by appropriately 20%, this should give more plausible fuel consumption figures. Slightly less dirty air in the slip-steam (in particular, less understeer so you can follow a tiny bit closer). Front ARB now displays stiffness to make it clearer. Wheel rate correction. Added chassis flex. Added new steering system. Softened shifts, this should make up-shifts more harmonious especially in mid-corner

Il team Studio 397 torna ad aggiornarci puntualmente sullo sviluppo del suo rFactor 2. Il roadmap update del mese di maggio ci segnala il lavoro in corso sulla fisica delle vetture, le prossime novità in arrivo proprio a livello auto e l'evento dal vivo sul tracciato di Zandvoort al quale parteciperà persino Max Verstappen. Non mancano le prime immagini del mitico circuito olandese. Commenti sul forum. Roadmap Update May 2017 A lot has happened since our last roadmap update, with the release of the DX11 engine where we entered an “open beta” phase that saw frequent updates and a lot of feedback from our community. First of all, we would like to thank you all for that! We feel we are moving towards a stable release in a few more weeks, after which our focus will shift towards the completion of our new UI. We will also provide you with some updates soon on how to interact with the screen from plugin code in DX11. On top of the significant code changes, we also decided to give our existing content an update. A lot of cars and tracks have already been released, with a few more still to come. Tiger Moth and the classic Belgium track are being finished as we speak for example. Some tracks are taking a bit longer as we need to fix a few of our older shaders. Physics Updates For our cars, we not only want to do updates to the graphics to make them look better under DX11 and DX9, but also update their physics. The biggest updates are related to our Contact Patch Model (CPM) which will give the F2 and Marussia F1 car new rubber. We are also looking at doing the same for the Civic and will probably do a few others. Cars In previous updates you’ve already seen some shots of the Radical in-game and we are currently working hard on completing the sound, physics and tyres for the car and get the package in the hands of our testers. Realistically we are looking at a release in June for this car. In other news, we now go left with the USF2000 oval package upgrade. Recently we got our hands on some good hard data on the oval package run by the USF2000 series – the resulting upgrade package we’ve developed makes for a more challenging open wheel oval experience. The added adjustments, being in line with the real world data add the proper baseline asymmetry needed, making the car better suited to the sustained wheel-to-wheel and ‘in the draft’ oval action. Additionally, the provided asymmetrical setup is a great starting point for those daunted by having to make an oval setup, it should be well balanced out of the box for a wide range of ovals – so don’t be afraid to just jump in start racing. You should see this update early next week. Keep an eye out on our social media for a few other announcements on the car front! Meet us in Zandvoort! Over the weekend, we will be at the Jumbo Racing Days, driven by Max Verstappen, which is a spectacular event at Circuit Park Zandvoort. In a partnership with Red Bull, Fanatec, PlaySeat and Team Redline we have setup a large tent in the paddock area with a couple of rigs where you can test your skills against some of the Team Redline drivers on-site. We’ve heard that Max Verstappen will drop by himself to set a benchmark lap! He will of course also give a lot of demonstrations with his racing car on the real track throughout the whole weekend. For us this is a great opportunity to share the first preview of our new Zandvoort track, which will be coming to rFactor 2. We’ve included a few early screenshots which show our progress with the track and we are very pleased that we can also announce that we’ve obtained an official license for it. On that note we would like to wrap up this update and wish you a great month on behalf of the whole team here at Studio 397 and if you decide to go to Zandvoort we certainly hope to meet you there!

Il team Studio 397 ha appena pubblicato un nuovo roadmap update per aggiornarci sullo sviluppo del suo rFactor 2. La principale fantastica notizia è che dal 1 maggio sarà disponibile la prima versione beta del software con il nuovo motore grafico spinto dalle DirectX 11. Come si nota dalle immagini di anteprima, il miglioramento estetico sarà più che notevole! Commenti sul forum. With about a week and a half left until May 1st, it’s time for our monthly update again. We’re sure everybody is looking forward to the new build, and we’re happy to announce that both the DX11 graphics engine and VR support will be released as promised. DX11 Over the last couple of months, we’ve revealed several development screenshots of the DirectX 11 engine to share with you our enthusiasm for the possibilities it brings. The new engine is not only the basis for our VR implementation, but it also enabled a new, improved HDR tone mapper and a bunch of post effects that greatly enhance the overall atmosphere of the simulation. We tried to strike a balance between using these effects to render the real-world imperfections of cameras while retaining the “first person view” you have when racing. At the same time we kept two very important goals in mind: we needed to ensure that, with the same graphics settings, the DX11 engine is at least as fast as the DX9 engine, and that existing content is still compatible with the new engine, so all the content out there can still be fully enjoyed. We are quite sure we succeeded in both, and we extensively tested the new graphics engine with our community of beta testers. That said, we want to make sure that everybody is able to run this new build without a hitch, which is why we are making the initial release available as an “open beta.” Starting May 1st, anybody can switch to this new build and try it out. It is fully multiplayer compatible with the DX9 build. If for some reason you run into any problems with the new build, you can easily revert to the previous engine with just one click. We didn’t just stop at updating the graphics engine, though. While we’re at it, we also updated some of our existing content to DX11, so you can expect the first of a series of Studio 397 updates as well. And you’ll be happy to know, these updates don’t just concern the graphics: in some cases we also made changes to and upgraded the physics. The new graphics engine really lets our content shine. It provides so much improvement that we have decided to postpone releasing any new shaders. To whet your appetite, take a look at these new screenshots showing off the new engine and some of the camera post effects in action: Virtual Reality If you have been following us on Facebook, you’ve already enjoyed some teaser shots of our VR implementation. We have since added some features such as support for our HUD, including virtual mirrors, as well as a way to browse the UI in VR mode. Mouse control is enabled for the UI, although we are definitely considering adding other options for controlling the VR interface. User Interface We know you are eagerly awaiting the new user interface, and we share your impatience. However, because we want to give you the full experience of the new UI and all its capabilities, we feel it is not quite ready for prime time just yet. Although that means we will ship the first open beta release with our existing UI, it will be upgraded to the new UI once that’s ready for release. As we announced last month, we are now able to easily push updates, and we will use this ability to quickly release updates to the open beta in the upcoming weeks. Our goal is to ensure that we have a stable release for everybody, allowing us to begin phasing out the DX9 build altogether after a few months. In the meantime, our concern is to ensure that everybody has a fully functioning and compatible version of rFactor 2 to race with. Content Work on the Radical continues. With most of the graphics in place, our focus has now shifted to the physics and the sounds for this car. It’s not ready to be unveiled yet, but we can tease you with one of the other new cars that we have started working on soon! Watch our social media. Modding The modding community just recently gained access to an early DX11 build, and we released some guidelines for artists to work with the new rendering engine. Expect to see updates of third party content coming soon. In general, the new engine requires modders to make only minor changes. One area we are still working on concerns “plugins” that render directly to the screen. These plugins will not work properly in the first open beta. We are actively looking at improving our implementation of this functionality overall.

L'attivissimo Studio 397, che vi ricordiamo ha rilevato dagli ISI lo sviluppo di rFactor 2, ha pubblicato sul blog ufficiale un nuovo Roadmap Update del mese di Febbraio, per aggiornare gli appassionati sullo sviluppo del software, su cosa si sta lavorando al momento e cosa aspettarsi nell'immediato futuro. Il menu proposto è decisamente ricco, visto che si parla di VR, grafica in DirectX 11, una nuova struttura per le competizioni, menu UI, il circuito di NOLA, comunicazioni Radio e persino un interessante invito ai modders... Fate riferimento al forum per discussioni e commenti. We have a lot of exciting news in this month’s update as we edge closer to our release at the end of Q1. The team is working very hard in all areas and we’re thrilled to share some of the recent developments with you. Updates include new DX11 screenshots, a release date for NOLA Motorsports Park, an update on VR, our UI, competition support, radio communication and an offer to help modders upgrade their content to DX11. We have a lot of exciting news in this month’s update as we edge closer to our release at the end of Q1. The team is working very hard in all areas and we’re thrilled to share some of the recent developments with you. VR Update With DX11 implementation complete, we are now in our first development stage for VR. Our initial focus is the in-car driver experience with both the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive. The second development stage will delve deeper into the environmental capabilities of the VR experience, which we will share over the next couple of months. DX11 Content Peek Last month we shared with you our first comparison shots for DX11. In the last couple of weeks we’ve focused on ensuring compatibility with existing content as well as further improvements to the way we render our HDR output. We’ll let the new screenshots speak for themselves. Competition Update Development of the competition infrastructure is going well and is on track to be released this summer. Drivers and teams will be able to record their stats, achievements and results, which then can be accessed through any device and shared with friends. Competitions will feature selected existing content and new content. Details will be announced in the coming months. Our main focus is to create feature rich mechanics that provide a challenge for new drivers and seasoned sim racing veterans alike. UI Update We are super excited about our new user interface, which is currently under development. The new UI not only provides a more intuitive and user-friendly experience, it also offers improved flexibility and the ability to add new elements and modules. NOLA Motorsports Park Whether you choose to race a kart, open wheeler, or tintop, the large variety of configurations makes NOLA a very versatile and challenging track to master. NOLA Motorsports Park will be released on February 28th! Radio Communication Most racing series use radio communication to let drivers talk to their team and pit crew. Some series also have race control broadcasting instructions. For example, oval racing series such as Stock Car typically also have spotters that keep an eye on what’s happening to keep you out of trouble. We are working on expanding our current system, which is centered on the spotter’s role, into a system that allows different people to talk to you on the radio. In addition, we intend to make the communication more interactive by giving you the ability to ask for information or instructions. Modding We’re excited to invite modding teams to join our private forum. We are looking to work with those of you in the modding community to explain the necessary steps that ensure your content continues to work flawlessly with the new DX11 engine. Modders joining our forum will also get access to pre-release builds of the DX11 graphics engine (still in alpha). Our goal is to ensure that your content is ready to go when we do the first public release of the new engine. If your modding team is interested, please register on our forum and start a conversation with Christopher and Marcel, stating: Your modding team name and all the names and forum names of members that need access. A list of mods you have released for rFactor 2 (either links to the workshop, or some other reference). Any other interesting information about your team such as mods you are still working on. That wraps up this roadmap update. We are looking forward to the coming month of development so we can continue to share with you our progress on the new innovative elements planned over the next few months!

Lo Studio397 ha appena pubblicato un nuovo roadmap per aggiornarci sullo sviluppo del suo rFactor 2. La prima notizia interessante è che martedi 20 dicembre sarà rilasciata la nuova build 1108 del simulatore ex ISI, che sarà disponibile esclusivamente tramite Steam (l'offerta per trasferire il software su Steam è prorogata fino al 31 gennaio). La nuova release porta con sè alcune novità interessanti, spiegate qui di seguito in dettaglio, mentre il team è già in beta testing con la nuova grafica in DirectX 11... On Tuesday, December 20th, we will release build 1108. This is our first Steam-only release, and we would like to remind you of our offer to migrate to Steam for free, which will be extended until January 31st, 2017. To reiterate where we are, we are making really good progress with a new development team coupled with a new vision. As long time sim racers, we understand the need for a strong platform with great content, physics and visuals as well as competition, both online and offline. A detailed changelog will be posted alongside the actual release, but some of the highlights of this build include a huge update to our Stock Car rules, better support for running Steam in offline mode – which can be very useful in LAN situations and a fix for the nVidia driver bug that has been plaguing some users of certain series of nVidia cards. Good news! We’re ahead of our DX11 development schedule and are internally testing the first builds now. There is still a lot to do in terms of adding new features such as depth of field and motion blur effects on external cameras as well as overall improvements such as the shadow system. Needless to say, the results so far are looking good. We are really excited about the capability we have already and where it’s going. Our goal to keep the engine backward compatible seems achievable, and in the upcoming months we will start engaging the modding community providing information on the improved engine and how best to utilise it. As we’ve announced last month, we are completely revamping the user interface of rFactor 2 to make it easier to use, nicer to look at and ready for VR. We’re leveraging modern web technology and are currently in the middle of the design phase. To give you a first impression, we’ve added a screenshot of a WIP car selection screen. Concerning content, we are very excited with the direction we are headed, certainly in the way plan to match cars and tracks. We will start to develop this approach over the next few months. We have a number of car developments underway. With our current focus on the Radical, we are adding the finishing touches to the 3D model right now while we wait for some additional data to complete the physics model. More great news! We have just signed a license with General Motors for the 2016 model of the Corvette C7.R. Development of the model ans physics will start early next year. The 2016 model has significant aerodynamic improvements with a new, larger splitter and a large diffuser to generate more downforce. The car is the weapon of choice for Corvette Racing in their 2017 IMSA campaign as well as their effort to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans. As an added bonus, this car will also contribute to improving car physics overall. In terms of tracks, we’ve already shown you previews of NOLA Motorsports Park in earlier updates, and we’re now in the final stages of development. The track will feature 5 different road course layouts and 5 different karting layouts, and we’re currently placing track side objects, such as grand stands, trees and a ferris wheel and are working on AI paths. It’s looking good for release early next year. Now let’s talk about online. Since the release of rFactor 2 the pricing consisted of a one time payment and an online subscription, with the option of buying a lifetime version of that subscription. Over the years we have received a lot of questions about charging extra for online access, and what people were getting for this in return. We understand that online racing is key to the future of the platform. As online racers ourselves, we have decided to provide online access for everybody with the Steam version for free – simplifying the pricing model and encouraging everybody to race online. Steam will take care of automated updates. We recognise that some of you have made this purchase over the past few months, and it was a difficult decision. However, we’re positive that you’ll agree we’ve made the right decision for the future of the platform. With the Steam Winter Sale approaching what better way for you to relax and driver rFactor 2. Look out for an exclusive offer for the holiday period! That’s all for our last monthly update of 2016. Happy Simracing and have a great holiday. We hope to see you all in the new year!