Now, something to warm you up ahead of Winter! Take advantage of the Steam Autumn sale – big discounts on rFactor 2 and some of our most popular DLC – check it out below!
Another big announcement! We are incredibly excited to be releasing another stunning set of cars. This time, SIX awesome current-gen single seaters from Tatuus, which form the first two steps of the FIA ladder to Formula 1 – the proving grounds for speed, racecraft and passion.
The cars have been meticulously created with extensive data from multiple partners. We worked directly with Tatuus and Engineering Consult who work with Mucke Motorsport.
It’s been a long road, and we think you will enjoy these cars as much as we do. These cars will form a great part of our competition ladder in the future and will be used in other e-sport activities. So if you like competition, stay tuned!
The cars will be available as part of your default installation!
Just over a year ago, Italian race car manufacturer Tatuus was approached by the Tatuus Pack project leader Wito van Kuijeren to set initial guidelines to bring the full range of Tatuus open wheel race cars into race simulation. Tatuus, based in Monza, saw the opportunity and provided a huge data set for each vehicle, from engine and dynamics data to tyre data from all over the world. These six cars entering the rFactor ecosystem now race in almost all continents, starting in Europe with MSV F3-016 (BRDC British Formula 3 Championship), F4-T014 (Italian F4 Championship / ADAC Formula 4 / SMP F4 Championship) and WSK F3.T18 (Formula Regional European Championship). In New Zealand, the Toyota Racing Series features the incredible FT-50, in Asia the F.3 T318 for the F3 Asian Championship and finally in the USA, the Tatuus PM-18 and USF-17 cars are used in the Road to Indy.
Gianfranco De Bellis, CSO of Tatuus – “First of all thanks to Studio 397 and Engineering Consult for the incredible effort they put into this project. We at Tatuus are just as proud. Making our cars available in such a realistic way to all our drivers, but also the sim racing world is impressive. We produced over 1000 Formula Renault’s between 2000 and 2009, The F4 hits numbers close to 500, and with the introduction of the F.3 T318 we also produced 200 cars till date.”
Giovanni Delfino, CEO at Tatuus. “It was clear that we would be involved in a project like this. As far as I know no other race car manufacturer ever worked that close with a race simulation program with the sole purpose to make a our cars as realistic as possible and available for the public, including all teams running these cars and the drivers racing those. With this, rFactor 2 covers 70% of the FIA ladder and that’s impressive.”
Wito van Kuijeren, CEO at Engineering Consult. “This is the biggest project for me to date. I have many years running Tatuus cars on track (bought my first one in 1995) and in my job as race engineer race simulation has always been a big part of my work. With rFactor 2 and the development in esport it was clear the whole program would benefit from a proper platform. This platform is rFactor 2. We can create highly detailed cars, that match real car performance. Engine, boost mapping and tyre models are without doubt best out there. Now we have all, taking it one step further and make these cars available for all, and expect some awesome online leagues with them.”
Dom Duhan, CDO, Studio 397. “We’re incredibly proud to bring these cars to the masses, having worked at an extensive level with data, we believe we have created some of the most detailed interpretations of cars in sim racing. With Tatuus providing several cars used in the FIA ladder, we are also looking forward to them be used throughout esports competition. Thank you to Tatuus and Engineering Consult for their dedication and patience!”
All Tatuus race cars are built to the latest safety standards in year of production. They all feature a carbon chassis, stressed engine mounting, 6-speed paddle shifters with auto-downshift. The F.3-T318 (produced in 2017) also features the HALO device and latest front and side impact protection.
Tatuus cars cover the first two steps of the FIA Ladder to F1 and form some of the most intense racing in motorsport.
Tatuus FT-50, year of production 2014. Production number 26. Equipped with a Toyota 1.8L naturally aspirated engine with approx. 205 bhp. The car is run exclusively in Toyota Racing Series in New Zealand. Former champions include Lando Norris, Lance Stroll, Brandon Hartley, Robert Shwarzman, and Earl Bamber, to mention a few.
Tatuus F4-T014, year of production 2014. Production number 250. Equipped with a blown 1.4 Abarth engine with approx. 165 bhp. The car is run in several championships, including, Germany, Italy, Spain and United Arabian Emirates. Since 2014, nearly all drivers have passed through this car on their way to the top level: Lando Norris, Lance Stroll, Ralf Aron, Mick Schumacher, Sophia Floersch, Markus Armstrong, Enzo Fittipaldi, and Liam Lawson, to mention a few.
Tatuus MSV F3-016, year of production 2016. Production number 30. Equipped with a powerful Cosworth 2.0L naturally aspirated engine producing 220+ bhp and big wings, this car matches the performance of the international F3 of the same year. It is run exclusively in the MSV championship. Former champs include Billy Monger, Linus Lundquist, Jamie Chadwick and Enaam Ahmed, to name a few.
Tatuus USF-17, year of production 2016. Production number 40. Equipped with the Mazda naturally aspirated engine producing 175 bhp. The car has identical build spec as the F4-T014 with a bit bigger brakes to handle the heavy road courses that the Road to Indy championships race on.
Tatuus PM-18, year of production 2017. Production number 40. Equipped with a high-revving full-race Mazda engine, this is the big bad brother of the USF-17: 275+ bhp, big wings, big tires and oval-ready. With this car, there is a linear step within Road to Indy straight up to the infamous Indycar. Former Road to Indy champs include Rinus Veekay, J.R Hildebrand, Connor de Philippi, and Patricio O’Ward.
Tatuus F.3 T318, year of production 2018. Production number 220. Equipped with the Alfa Romeo blown 1.7 engine producing 280 bhp. This car comes with big wings and big tyres and an aeromap very similar to its equivalent in the FIA F3. It is actually run in two championships, the ASIA F3 and Regional WSK.
The outstanding Formula E Gen2 car has finally arrived! A complete redesign to the Gen1 cars, the Gen2 car features more power and longevity, boasting double the energy storage capacity of the Gen1 car, meaning it can complete a whole race without having to change car mid-race. With 250kW of power, the Gen2 will accelerate from 0-100km/h in 2.8-seconds and go on to a top speed of 280km/h.
This release of the Formula E Gen2 is not just about the car itself. We have been hard at work adding in new physics features to enable the very latest of brake-by-wire technology. You might ask, what does this mean? Brake-by-wire in layman’s terms simply means that the entire braking circuit is handled ‘electronically’ based on the amount of pressure you put on the brake pedal (kind of like your home sim rig!). This electronic signal from the brake pedal is then split between the ‘electric motor’ and the ‘brake rotor’. In real life, the balance of this split is up to the race team engineer.
Engineers will seek to maximize the motor regeneration of the battery. This means the brake-by-wire system will use the maximum negative torque capability (braking power) of the electric motor before starting to apply force to the physical brake disc. The brake discs will only kick in if the requested torque needed for braking exceeds what the electric motor is capable of. However, given that the rear brakes will then struggle to generate any temperature, an engineer may choose to have some force applied to the discs just to ensure that the carbon discs don’t glaze over.
This is in addition to the absence of a rear brake duct for the Formula E. Our new system’s algorithm is currently based on this optimal balance. What this all means….mash that brake pedal and watch your battery charge up! (wink)
Download here!
https://store.steampowered.com/itemstore/365960/detail/19/
Technical Specifications – FIA Formula E Gen2 |
Comparison to Gen1 |
|
| Overall length | 5160mm | +160mm |
| Overall width | 1770mm | -10mm |
| Overall height | 1050mm | remains the same |
| Front track | 1553mm | +25mm |
| Rear track | 1505mm | +13mm |
| Ride height | 75mm (max) | remains the same |
| Wheelbase | 3100mm | remains the same |
| Minimum weight (inc. driver) | 900kg (battery 385kg) | +20kg (battery +65kg) |
| Maximum power | 250kW, equivalent to 335bhp | +50kW, +67bhp |
| Race Mode (maximum power available) | 200Kw, equivalent to 270bhp | +20kW, +30bhp |
| Maximum power regeneration | 250kW | +100kW |
| Maximum speed | 280km/h (174mph) | +55km/h (+34mph) |
| Acceleration | 0-100km/h (0-62mph) | -2.8s |
Not only that, as a special surprise, find out Formula E inspired version of the awesome Lester GP circuit. Welcome Lester Special Edition Formula E and free addition for rFactor 2.
Lester Special Edition is a fictional track made for Formula E cars based on the classic Lester GP in New Jersey, USA. The 3.2km track boasts 18 corners with some amazing sweeping curves and two tricky chicanes. The grungy industrial backdrop makes racing at Lester Special Edition all the more exhilarating. With its boundless high and medium speed overtaking opportunities everywhere, it’s a constant battle!
Get it for Free here!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1716705573
Remember, any questions, please visit our forum here https://forum.studio-397.com/index.php or visit us for direct chat on Discord https://discord.gg/CruX93K
Sebring Raceway, birthplace of the American endurance racing, with it´s unique racetrack and overall atmosphere.
Thousands of fans travel to Florida each year to feel the atmosphere and enjoy multi-class-racing at it’s finest. As this event, the Sebring 12 hour race, is an event that is on every endurance-racing enthusiasts list, it was time to bring the same excitement and the same incredible racing to rFactor 2.
With our recent content packs, we were finally able to re-create the challenge of multi-class racing on Sebring.
Creating a big one-off event and celebrating one of the premier endurance events out there has been on our list for some time. Thanks to Fanatec, WTF1 and Sim-Lab we can now bring this action to you, with 40 Teams, 3 classes and 12 hours of live broadcast.
Every single overtake and dramatic lead change will be commentated by the likes of James Kirk, David Carter, Jonathan Simon, Corey Dyer and our very own Rene Buttler. For our viewers joining us later during the day, Stefan Schlacher will get you up to speed with the Sim-Lab Sideline report every 2 hours.
Of course every top of the line racing event needs stars behind the wheel and while the list of team names is already impressive enough, with cars brought in by Williams esports, Team Redline, Fernando Alonso Racing esports and many more, we also got some other gems for you. You need an example? Max Verstappen, a name that should ring some bells, will actually sit behind the wheel of the Team Redline LMP2 Oreca to start the race.
Now let’s look at the prizes!
In each of the 3 classes!
1st – 800 EUR + 800 EUR in Fanatec vouchers
2nd – 400 EUR + 400 EUR in Fanatec vouchers
3rd – 200 EUR + 200 EUR in Fanatec vouchers
If you enter our competition you might win Fanatec Vouchers or even this insane Fanatec Podium Direct Drive Wheel which we will be announcing throughout the broadcast. http://www.fanatec.com/podium
Driver of the day will win a Sim Lab TR1 Cockpit as voted by you guys!
To Watch the race, tune in Saturday 23rd March at 10.30 am CET
Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/rfactorlive
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/rFactor2
YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/studio%20397
Live timing – Coming soon!
Check out the Spotter guide below
It’s the time of the year where the sun starts greeting us more often during the day. The first roar and rumble of the rare species of racecars can be heard close to racetracks all around Europe as everybody is waking up from their winter dreams. Everyone involved in motorsport is eagerly waiting for tracks to dry out, engines to fire up and for the sun to shine on their careers as they are encouraged by early test results. It´s not just heating up in Europe or in the hearts of motorsport enthusiasts, but also in our studio and offices, as slowly some of the newly developed features and content for our beloved rFactor 2 are starting to take shape. Last year at Simracing Expo many people already said that 2019 would be an exciting year for this simulation and yes, that will absolutely be the case! Over the last months we announced many cool things, but that´s not all of it for 2019. We won´t reveal everything just yet, though! Nevertheless, buckle up in your seats as February is coming to an end. And as the snow is melting on the northern hemisphere, the new roadmap appears!
With the new PBR based system in place for car bodies, we are shifting attention to cockpits now. We are taking this opportunity to not just create better looking materials, but also to improve how reflections and shadows work in the cockpit. It’s still early days, but the first rough prototypes are looking promising. We are also finalizing the guidelines for modders, which is taking us a bit longer than expected, but we are committed to getting those out soon. In parallel we have also been working on a few more fixes to our GT cars as reported by various community members and we have optimized LODs on some cars that will help to make them look better as well as perform better at lower levels of detail, allowing you to use more visible cars on lower-end systems and still end up with a great looking image.
Work continues as planned, with both integrating the competition system into the UI and also work in the backend. We are adding plugable standings, which will allow competitions to choose from a great variety of ways of scoring results. At the same time, as we are running more competitions internally, we are learning a lot and adding features to improve the stability and robustness of the whole system. March 23rd will see our first real endurance event, the 12 hours of Sebring. This race will feature several well-known names within the simracing community, such as YouTuber Jimmy Broadbent, Team Redline, Fernando Alonso Racing by Logitech G, McLaren Shadow and Williams eSports. These teams and others will also be racing along side our qualifiers from the prelude earlier in February. You still have a chance to race, make sure you enter our qualifier for this round! As one of the most prestigious races of the year, there will be a fantastic range of a prizes totalling over 5,000 euros!! More details are available on our forum.
The Nürburgring is obviously a huge project and for the first couple of months in such projects we don’t have much visible progress as we transform all the data into a detailed and accurate road mesh and working our way outwards, to curbs, grass, barriers and terrain with track-side objects. We’re now in the middle of modelling the curbs and we can share some of the early wireframes of parts of the track. I’m sure most of you will instantly recognize these areas of the track.
The Reiza pack is another piece of content that we’ve been talking about for quite some time now. It’s really close now, we promise, and you might have seen Reiza Studios announcing that Imola will be part of this pack. We have more exciting news! Virginia International Raceway will also be included and to whet your appetite, we’ve included some very nice screenshots of the track.
And let’s just add a few more images of Imola for good measure!
Both the Tatuus cars and Formula E Gen 2 are almost ready to release. For the latter we are currently implementing a more advanced brake-by-wire system that matches the system on the real car, leading to more accurate regeneration and rear brake temperatures. We are also testing the last big planned update of Zandvoort, where we focus on optimizations as well as add the latest buildings on and around the track. The Dutch are still hopeful that F1 will visit the track again in the future, and in the mean time our virtual version has the advantage that it can host many and loud race cars every day!
That concludes the roadmap for the shortest month of the year. We hope to see all of you on track soon!
One month into the start of a new year saw a lot of changes at Studio 397. First of all we welcomed a handful of new colleagues, most of which with long track records in content production, to further extend the Studio’s capabilities to create content. Then, halfway through January, we could finally tell the world about the project we had been secretly working on for the last year and a half. We have licensed our physics engine and provided a helping hand to Amazon Game Studios in creating The Grand Tour Game to accompany the third season of the series that airs on Amazon Prime. Released on consoles, like the show, this is a fun game you can easily pick up with your friends. As far as we know it’s the first time a game releases in sync with a television series, adding weekly content as new episodes air and closely following the antics of the show.
Let’s also look at some of the work in progress, just to give you an update on how things are going. Our competition system and new UI are the highest priority things our developers are working on right now. Step by step we will be expanding the competition system and testing more parts of it in public, and we’re currently integrating it into our new UI to ensure it is both easy to find and join competitions. Expect us to reveal more towards the end of the first quarter of this year.
Then let’s look at some of the content that is in progress, starting with the Tatuus cars. Physics wise the cars are mostly done, but we are still doing some fine-tuning of the 3D models and making sure the materials are all using our new system. We will release this pack with an extensive set of real-life liveries, which also means we’re busy making sure we get approvals from all the teams involved. We don’t have a fixed release date yet, but these cars will be shipping soon. Then there’s the Reiza Pack, which is still being finalised and the cars in it are upgraded to the new material system. Nordschleife is obviously also still in the works and it looks like its release date will slip based on the first predictions we made, mostly because we got the right scan roughly two months later than expected. In the mean time we will also keep upgrading more cars to the new material system, releasing updated templates and upgrading the existing liveries. We are also working hard on adding more new PBR based shaders to the material system for tracks and other parts of our cars. Not only that, we are working on a number of features to enhance your experience.
Many have been racing our new GT3 cars on tracks all over the world while anxiously waiting for more liveries as well as templates and information on how to paint these cars with the new material system. For each of the new cars we’ve added a couple of liveries to brighten up the field. Some from real teams running these cars, in other cases fantasy liveries, partially because some of these cars were so new that not many teams were racing them already. Those are all included in the update, alongside the new templates.
At the same time, we spent a bit of extra time to make sure the new liveries worked well on-line. As the new material system really requires you to build a livery from multiple textures, we made some improvements to ensure that these textures automatically get packaged in a so called MAS file to ensure all parts get transferred to a server (and other clients) if the server has skin transfers enabled. All of this, and more, is explained in the guide we made for making your own liveries, which is the next thing we will discuss in this roadmap update.
To get the best possible results when designing your own livery, we decided to create a guide on painting your own car, to accompany the new templates and material system. We tried to make this a guide for beginners and advanced painters, covering all aspects. The first version of this guide can be found on our documentation site. Please take a look and let us know what you think, and what we can still improve! We will be adding new materials over time, so do please leave feedback. Do make sure you post your creations, we will be featuring a paint every fortnight – so get creative!
You might have guessed it already, but we are bringing you the new Gen 2 car from Formula E soon, with all the current team liveries and helmets. On top of that we are bringing you a new track that was adapted specifically for fast and fun racing with these new cars. The track is called Lester Formula E Edition, it’s a fantasy track that has been adapted with a few chicanes, despite that, it is still fast and flowing, great for Gen 2 action!
The Prelude – 3 hours of Sebring qualifiers are going into the final stages, with almost 100 drivers lapping around the bumpy track, the top 40 will be secured for a spot in the all GT3 powered field. On February the 16th the race will be broadcast live on our YouTube, Twitch and Facebook accounts so make sure you tune in!
Top 3 teams will get a special invite for the 12 hours of Sebring that will be hosted in March. The hotlap competition to enter the 3 hour event ends on Sunday the 3rd of February at 23:59, so buckle up and head on over to our competition page: https://rfactor2.studio-397.com/
The 12 hour event will be a diverse field of invites, qualifiers (top 3 from the 3 hour race) and teams that have qualfied into the competition. We will be hosting this race with the LMP2, GTE and GT3 packs, more info about this in the next couple of weeks. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Discord where news will be shared as well on our forum. In other news our competition system is taking real good shape and will be used for daily races within in short period of time.
The ESL MAPFRE competition has also kicked off with, featuring well-known names across sim racing, tomorrow round 2 begins so make sure you tune in.
Check out round 1 at Atlanta Motorsports Park Karting highlights here!
That’s it for this month! We certainly hope to see you on track and hope we can make 2019 into another great year for rFactor 2!
With a great heritage in GT class racing, we are proud to announce the next pack released for rFactor 2 – The GT3 Challengers Pack. Featuring not just one, but two world firsts! GT represents much of what rFactor 2 stands for, and fits into our feature set of day/night transitions, weather and driver swaps. We hope you enjoy this pack that also features our latest graphic engine technology.
With our existing GT3 Pack and the Endurance Pack we now have 13 GT class cars that can race on track – add a couple of LMP’s and we have one of the most diverse grids in sim racing.
Once again we are proud to have great support from partners to help us make this happen.
Now let’s take a look at what’s in awesome pack!
To bring one of their new incredible cars onto race tracks, McLaren developed the stunning 720S GT3.
Modern design, impressive aerodynamics and years of experience in Motorsport should help this car to claim wins among several premier GT3 events in 2019.
It probably wouldn’t be called motorsport if the iconic brand Porsche aren’t part of a class.
The 911 GT3 R is once again a very balanced, race-proven car by the German manufacturer, reinforcing their image as being amongst the highest rated contenders in a series.
Considered as one of the all-time favourites, this midship RWD car by Audi has been competing in GT3 since the beginning, winning significant races around the globe for a variety of teams. A demanding but rewarding choice.
From the very start, the BMW M6 GT3 hit the grids all over the motorsport world and proved the V8 concept to the German manufacturer. Leading several Endurance events in different series and also claiming the 2018 FIA GT World Cup title, this car is a winner.
The second generation of the Aston Martin Vantage GT3 is ready for some serious racing action. It will enter GT events in 2019 and beefs up the already stunning road version of the Vantage. With the prestige and expertise Aston Martin brings into racing, it’s a challenger you always have to keep an eye on.
*Please note this car will be released as part of the pack once approved
These cars are built with our new graphic technology, based on PBR lighting. We are converting more of our older content and yes, we are bringing more liveries to you shortly!
For painters, we are finalising the templates and the technology behind it, trust us, it will be a game changer for you! In the meantime, please read more on our December Roadmap here https://www.studio-397.com/2018/12/roadmap-update-december-2018/
Remember, any questions, please visit our forum here https://forum.studio-397.com/index.php or visit us for direct chat on Discord https://discord.gg/CruX93K
Welcome to the last roadmap update of the year! We decided to end the year with a bang, with a new car pack and the first iteration of our updated material system being released real soon now. We have a lot to share, so I’m afraid this roadmap grew a bit bigger than it normally would. So let’s get started!
December is always a month where we look back at the year. We started the year having just announced the DX11 graphics engine as the new default and in January we introduced a brand new trailer. A lot has happened since.
In the first quarter of the year, we announced that we would start our first laser scanned track, Sebring. We also continued to work on Zandvoort and signed a license with Portland. A lot of time was spent on improving performance of the DX11 engine, resulting in build 1110 that brought significant improvements as well as a brand new HUD and a few other fixes. We also released the first third-party paid content with KartSim, featuring three tracks and two karts. Finally we released the liveries of the GT3 paint competition as an update to the existing pack.
In the second quarter we kicked off with the Luminis DevCon, a developer oriented conference where we showcased rFactor 2 along many other things our parent company worked on. A few weeks after we were present at the Jumbo Racing Days in Zandvoort, where we collaborated with the KNAF, SRVN and CitySimRacing to show a broad audience how exciting simracing is. After teasing the five cars earlier, we also released the Endurance Pack, featuring a few new code features as well, such as position lights and in-car TC and ABS support. Soon after we updated our GT3 pack with those features too. To please the fans of historic content, we released both the Brabham BT44B and March 761 and we announced a third car from the same era, the McLaren M23. Improvements were also done to our tTool for modders. And we started doing community nights!
The third quarter kicked off with our presence at Chinajoy followed by the SimRacing Expo, where we announced and released three brand new McLaren historic race cars, the previously announced M23, the MP4/8 and the MP4/13. All of those were going to be used in the rFactor 2 qualifiers for the McLaren Shadow competition. Historic fans could also enjoy a big update to Longford, and we released Sebring, marking a new milestone in accuracy and attention to detail. A new build and demo was released alongside updates of the GT3 and Endurance pack, leveraging feedback we got from our visit to Duqueine Engineering, and we announced the second third-party pack from Reiza Studios, which incidentally should be out early 2019. We also for the first time showed a glimpse of the new material system, and we announced that we obtained a license to the Nurburgring, which we intend to release at the end of Q1 next year. Also fully laser scanned of course.
The fourth quarter of the year started with the release of Botniaring, a local and quite exciting track. Build 1112 was released with enhanced wheel support, and we announced no less than six cars to be featured in the upcoming Tatuus pack next year. We also started teasing upcoming GT3 cars, as well as more details about our new material system. Ongoing work also includes improved modding tools. And of course we could finally tell the world we had been working with Amazon Games on The Grand Tour Game that allows you to “play the show”, to be released in a few weeks from now!
The year in statistics: We released a total of three major code updates, a number of tracks and no less than fourteen new cars.
As we announced in November´s roadmap our competition system is now moving into a more serious testing. During the holidays we will host a hotlap competition each day, starting off with the two GT3 packs on Zandvoort on December 26th. A new hotlap competition will be activated every day at midnight (CET) until New Years. In January we will start hosting daily races. We have 2 focus points. One is to get the community racing and second is to gather valuable data from our competition system. While we are still merging this system into our new UI, we still need to get data on backend and performance. Remember this is early access, so there might be alterations during the competitions – such as a restart if needed. However our initial tests have worked out great and we now feel we should include each and everyone of you. We´ve currently set a time slot of 17:00-21:00 as our event time, however once our competition is building obviously other timezones should be favoured as well. Are you ready? speaking of ready…
As mentioned elsewhere you might have seen the upcoming DLC with 5 new GT3 cars, the pack is being presented live and with the chance to WIN and to RACE it live as well. Tomorrow at 19:00 CET, Rene and Marcel will talk you through the new Material system and cars. Then we will switch over to Jimmi who is broadcasting 2 races. First race will be YouTuber´s only on Sebring – then after this race we will share the competition password. Then it will be open until the split is full. 2nd race is on Mores, the “mini-championship” winner will get 10 GT3 Challengers pack DLC keys to give away to their community. Remember you can still enter our giveaway here: https://gleam.io/INIxQ/rfactor-2-christmas-giveaway-2018
During the Sim Racing Expo last September we showed the very first preview shots of the material system we have been working on for the last half year or so. In the last roadmap of the year, we want to take the opportunity to look back at the things we implemented for this system, as well as look ahead at its incremental release over the next couple of months.
Let’s first take a step back at the challenge we had when we started, so you better understand why we made the changes we did. When we took over the development of rFactor 2 a little over two years ago now, we wanted to make sure we upgraded the graphics engine and future proof it, all without sacrificing backwards compatibility. Our first steps therefore were to develop a DX11 based engine that rendered exactly the same as the old DX9 one. This then allowed us two things. First of all we could implement VR support and second of all we could start using more modern techniques such as using a post processing library. It also enabled us to add proper support for rain, with raindrops that ran across the car bodies and windscreen and proper wipers to clear you windscreen again. We also used the opportunity to implement puddle maps for the tracks and linked them to our realroad system so puddles would show up in locations where there was water according to your dynamic realroad system. At his point we also made DX11 the default and removed support for the DX9 engine subsequent builds.
However, it did not fix one core aspect of the graphics engine, namely support for Physically Based Rendering, a technique that has become the de facto standard in the industry.
What is PBR? – some of you may ask. Well Physically Based Rendering has become the buzz word in the games industry, to encapsulate a whole new way of doing art. It demands big changes to how art is produced but the benefits are certainly worthwhile as it delivers much more consistent and predictable results. In the past artists were only able to create textures that looked good in specific conditions and would not behave naturally as the lighting changed. When broken down this new pipeline is actually comprised of two parts, PBR concentrates on light conservation ensuring that a surface can not reflect more light than it receives – this helps to ensure that the balance between specular and diffuse reflections are always correct. The next key part is Image Based Lighting. This helps ensure assets react to the surrounding environment more naturally, meaning that all different surfaces can be lit by the environment correctly – all the way from mirror reflections down to the roughest matte rock surface. All this combined results in a pipeline that is much more intuitive for artists to produce realistic results, especially with a range of industry standard values for different materials. There are two different types of pipeline implementation out there: Metallic/Roughness and Glossiness/Smoothness. Our implementation is very similar to Metallic/Roughness.
Implementing this was challenging for us for several reasons.
First of all, like with everything we did, we needed to stay compatible. What made this hard is that we knew there were some fundamental issues with our lighting model that prevented us from properly introducing PBR and getting the desired results. Therefore we first needed to go deeper and address the lighting model. A year ago we took the first step in that direction when we introduced “Image-Based Lighting for Ambient”, improving how ambient light got rendered on tracks and introducing ambient probes that could be strategically placed to create the right atmosphere.
The next step was to implement a convolved cubemap specular as part of our IBL system, which was an important basis for starting work on new materials. The material system we developed allows us to use unique and specialized parameters for each shader instead of relying on standard settings. The first materials we worked on were the PBR car paint shader with support for clear coats that fully used the IBL system we described above and allows a car body to be made of up to 6 different materials and a generic PBR shader that can be used to emulate a broad range of materials and covers a lot of things you see on a track. We have worked hard to ensure that the generic shader matches game industry standards, as well as being extremely flexible to be used on the majority of objects. Terrain and Road surfaces are obviously something that need more specific solutions though. Prototyping work there has already started and we are looking to give them a complete overhaul too.
This is where we are now. We are far from done, both in terms of developing the system and in terms of adapting existing content, but we decided to not try and do an “all in one, big bang release” but instead choose a more phased approach that we choose more often when making big changes.
We anticipate this phase to take a couple of months, during which we will transition things step by step. This also means the first release, that we will release really soon now, has a few minor known issues and the overall look of the game will improve. That said, the results of the materials we have developed so far were encouraging enough for us to decide to apply them to the new cars we are building.
Let’s first discuss some of the known issues. Obviously one is that we have not converted most content yet, which means that many of the cars and tracks you will be using now are more or less still looking the same. Another known issue is that our post effects are not fine-tuned yet to the new materials. That means in some conditions they produce unbalanced results, like too much glare. We are currently comparing our output to that of industry standard ray tracing solutions to make sure our output matches such solutions and when we are happy with that we’ll re-calibrate the post effects to work with realistic light intensities from things like headlights and solar specular. If it bothers you, we recommend you turn those effects down a notch or two for the moment.
So… Where do we go from here?
The first release of the new cars will not yet include instructions on how to paint them using the new materials. Therefore they will also not come with a template. We intend to provide extended documentation as well as templates in an update we plan in January. That is also the month we start updating other content and help our modding community do the same. We are polishing the workflows for defining materials, providing a wide selection of materials that can be consistently used on cars and tracks. Our next steps will be to continue development of a few very specific materials for things like realroad, curbs, grass and possibly a few other things, such as an improved system for rendering clouds. Our goal is to have materials on all major pieces of content by the end of the first quarter and to do smaller tweaks in the second quarter, making the whole system more robust and possibly further optimizing certain aspects of it.
Talking about tooling, we will also release our Max plugins for up to date versions, and we are looking at other types of tools too that should help modders and ourselves to create new content. And of course there are many other topics we should update you on, such as the competition system and UI. They are probably taking a bit longer than we all expected, but I’m confident that we will see them materialize in 2019, and since this update is already almost the size of a book, I propose we save some of that for the next edition. If you’re still reading at this point, we would like to wish you and your loved ones a great holiday and all the best for the future on behalf of everybody in and around Studio 397!
Welcome to our end of year Roadmap!
When we look back over the past 12 months we are incredibly proud of what we have achieved, additionally we are grateful of our ever-growing community who continue to support us.
Now with Christmas on the way let the sales begin! rFactor 2 is currently half-price, so make sure you get involved if you haven’t already right here http://store.steampowered.com/app/365960/rFactor_2/ If you were interested in the Formula E Energize Pack or the GT3 Power Pack, look no further, we have created a bundle for a limited amount of time – check it out here http://store.steampowered.com/itemstore/365960/detail/2000/
Over the past few months we have been working heavily on improving the graphics engine in many ways, so let’s look at a few updates:
Our lighting has been transformed, reflecting the environment, this is called IBLA – Image Based Lighting and it substantially improves the overall lighting in our graphics engine, creating a richer, more realistic view. This technology will help us improve and develop the engine and bring in new elements.
We are now bringing our DX11 as the default build people will see for the first time. With that we will be no longer supporting DX9, in fact, this is our last official supported version of DX9 – already you will not receive some of the visual benefits, such as the windscreen effects and moving wipers. Removing DX9 will allow us to concentrate on one build and enhance it – it also means new users see rFactor 2 in the correct light!
We do recognise that many draw to screen plugins are affected, however, our intent it to bring in tools to allow new ways to show data on screen without impacting stability or performance. Shortly we will have an update for the HUD which will provide access to additional data.
Ever since we migrated rFactor 2 to Steam, we’ve been getting a lot of user feedback about the implementation of our “cache” folder and how it holds a lot of components that not everybody wants installed. Because it came with the base install, there was no good way to delete that folder as Steam would simply download those files again if you did. We’ve now removed that folder completely. On first launch we will still subscribe you to all Studio 397 content, but you will be able to unsubscribe from any item you don’t need.
Our rain is still work in progress in many areas, however we are pleased to to bring a significant change, creating more atmosphere in and out of the car. We have converted much of our content to incorporate rain, however there is still work to which will go into early 2018.
Cars:
Our cars now simulate rain effects, including wiper animations and spray. There are different levels of detail which affect the windscreen which the ‘Rain Drops’ option in the display menu will control. These effects include water on the windshield as well as the car body with ripples dependant on your speed.
Tracks:
Tracks now have additional reflections, with the real road being redone. Kerbs also reflect correct in wet conditions and now on some tracks we will start to see dynamic puddle buildup, based off research and CAD. Currently these effects do not affect physics, however we intend to build that in as well.
To see the full release notes click here https://www.studio-397.com/2017/12/december-2017-release-notes/
We have mentioned this a few times before and now are starting to build the framework to allow creators to potentially license products. Our ambition is to help legitimise creators within our community and promote their incredible work. Our first venture will be with Kartsim, who have created a super realistic Karting platform and laser-scanned kart tracks – stay tuned for more info.
As we said before, thank you so much for your continued support! We are super-excited about 2018, with lots of new features and content coming – not only that with the world looking at sim racing as a bona fide esport we are in a great position to bring you not only great competition infrastructure, but the events to go with it!
Here are the release notes for a significant update to rFactor 2!
21.12.17 20.15 GMT – Please note we are updating content currently, however it is taking time with Steam servers getting hammered, you will automatically start to download the content from the workshop.
Improved Lighting
Rain Effects
Cars
Tracks
