rFactor 2 - Beta Released

ISI's new sim rFactor
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Re: rFactor 2 - Beta Released

Post by Duke »

rFactor 2 – Roadmap Update December 2016
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 utilize 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 and 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 grandstands, trees, and a ferriswheel 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!
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Re: rFactor 2 - Beta Released

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Build 1108 Changelog:
Stock Car
The safety car is now set to ‘non-collidable’ by default – testing has shown this can help avoid certain oval-related caution situations in which the safety car has trouble weaving its way to the front of the field. The value can be set to ‘collidable’ in the player.JSON file by editing the following values: "Safety Car Collidable": true. After this update, we recommend server admins backup and remove player.json and multiplayer.json, so that new ones are generated containing all new options and defaults.
Several minor adjustments and tweaks to help optimize scoring.
Further improvements to the track order of cars leaving the pits under caution.
Fixed a bookkeeping error under caution with one lap until restart.
Changed AI behavior to prevent pitting on the last lap of a caution. This helps to avoid messy and disorderly restarts and it makes the AI look a bit smarter too.
Added an extra message to the Low Speed Information pop up: “Please pass the safety car.” This should help you be more aware of where you are with respect to the safety car under a full course caution and should improve sorting overall as drivers no longer have to guess whether to pass the safety car.
Changed pit exit behavior to allow cars to be placed in a large gap rather than behind the whole field, which might be nearly a full track length behind the car exiting on some of the smaller ovals.
Fixed pit behavior: A car entering the pit lane after a race resumes from a caution will no longer be able to continuously lap the field during the next caution.
Fixed a possible scoring mix-up when a full course caution was called while the race leader was in the pits.
Fixed a bug in which cars starting late from the garage area (those that did not press the Race button in time), after the field had gone ahead, were sometimes wrongly scored at race start. Cars starting late from the garage area now have to wait for the entire field to pass the pit-exit line to be able to join the race and go on track.
Added a new single player feature "AI Formation by Position" that when set to “true” in the player.json attempts to line up the AI during yellow flag/formation laps according to your position behind the pace car instead of relative to surrounding cars. This seems to work better on short ovals, whereas the old (default) way might still work better for road courses.
Added new options for configuring an oval server, which can be found in the CustomPluginsVariables.json:
Added two types of double file which can be configured by editing the value "DoubleFileType" where “0” is off (or single file), “1” will ignore lapped and pitted distinctions, and “2” (the default) is standard double file.
Wave-arounds can now be set to on or off for more flexibility by editing the following value: "WaveArounds" “0” is off, “1” is on.
Added the ability to configure number of caution laps by editing the following value: "YellowLapsMinimum"
Added the ability to configure random number of caution laps editing the following value: "YellowLapsRandom"

AI
Fixed AI behavior to prevent them from taking off immediately after what should be their pit stop following their final qualifying lap, which would get them disqualified.
Fixed AI behavior to prevent AI from getting disqualified during qualifying on certain tracks where it is difficult to pit immediately after completing n-1 laps.

Physics
Added a new TGM display. While driving, it was possible to pull up a graph showing the contact patch for each tyre that showed the temperature of the tyre at that point of the contact patch (ALT =). The second display now shows the tyre load.
Changed TTool filename. TTool, a tool that is used to generate tyres for cars, used to output a file named “QSA” when you ran a real-time batch test. That filename has now been corrected to “real-time”.
Fixed an issue where camber angles for tyres reported as zero in real-time telemetry instead of their real angle. Also, this now allows plugins to see the correct angles.

Driver Swaps
Fixed occasional crash when a wheel gets reattached/repaired during a pit stop at the same time as a driver swap.

Graphics
Fixed the multiview gizmo that allows you to enter your triple screen configuration. It now saves and remembers asymmetrical monitor configuration parameters.
Fixed sporadic nVidia driver crashes on certain tracks. The fix, which is only needed if you were experiencing driver crashes and restarts, can be activated by changing the value WorkaroundFlags=1 in the Config.ini with a text editor. Please make sure to delete your shader cache manually (the files in UserData\Log\Shaders) when making this change.
Removed the option to disable HDR.

Dedicated Server

Changed the logic so that the dedicated server properly moves on to the next track in all cases regardless of which sessions are active.

User Interface/Launcher
Added an Engine Mixture setting to the garage so it can be saved as part of a car setup.Updated Launcher icons.
Added new user interface background image and splash screen.
Fixed Launcher to work correctly in Steam’s offline mode. It will no longer hang while attempting to download pending workshop items in this mode.
Updated French language dictionary.

Additional Changes

We’ve made racing online free for every user of rFactor 2.
Fixed results file when VehFile uses escape characters.
Removed DRS enabled/disabled messages for tracks without DRS zones.
Added +skipmonitor as a command line option, which lets you enter from and exit a race directly to the main menu.
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Re: rFactor 2 - Beta Released

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rFactor 2 is currently 50% off in the Steam Winter sale, till January 2nd you can buy it for USD$15.99.
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Re: rFactor 2 - Beta Released

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Studio 397 have been rather busy lately and now the studio have dropped a nice little surprise on players releasing the long awaiting Nissan GT500 from the 2013 Japanese SuperGT Championship!

Previewed as early as 2013, the Nissan GT500 is an extremely impressive piece of technology that went on to great success over in Japan's premier GT series during recent seasons. Weighing in a just 1,100kg and kicking out an awesome 530bhp, the Nissan is a high performance, high technology and high downforce GT race car that perfectly showcases the often underrated SuperGT series over in Japan.

Following seemingly endless years of preview and speculation about this car in rFactor 2, finally Studio 397 have surprised fans of the title by adding the vehicle as a free download for the simulation, available immediately. Featuring four official liveries from the 2013 racing season, the Nissan GT500 can be downloaded via the rFactor 2 Steam Workshop now.
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Re: rFactor 2 - Beta Released

Post by Duke »

A week ago, the rFactor 2 development team released its first update under the STUDIO 397 flag. In Build 1108 the development team started out with optimizing and automating the entire rFactor 2 build process and setting up a new internal bug tracking system in order to help speed up public releases of fixes and features.

The new development approach seems to work. STUDIO 397 received a good amount of feedback and bug reports from the community and got straight to work. The result is this first bugfix patch which addresses some urgent issues. The team is now on a well-deserved Newyear’s break but will continue releasing more bugfixes after the end of year festivities.

The Steam BuildID for this update is 1543400, and you can check your BuildID by opening the Steam Client, going into the library, then right click on rFactor 2 to open the context menu. From there, choose “Properties” and in the window that opens select the tab called “Local Files”. The “Current content BuildID” is mentioned there.

Build 1108 additional Patch 1 Changelog:
Added an empty “Packages” folder to the dedicated server and to rFactor 2 itself. Both distributions were missing this folder, which caused some confusion.
Fixed an issue with nonexistent workshop items. If you were subscribed to a workshop item that was subsequently removed or made invisible to you, Steam would continue to report you as “subscribed” to that item. Because the item no longer exists, it would, however, cause our Launcher to hang whilst waiting for it to download, which could never happen, of course. We’ve made the code more robust and tried to detect all such cases, so you should no longer experience this issue.
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Re: rFactor 2 - Beta Released

Post by Bails MacKenzie »

Good on Studio 397 for trying to do something with RF2 but really, does it need to happen?
We've got the old dev team working on a new RF-esqe title and Automoblista basically being RF2 but with a better car and track list.

For comparison, when I started getting interested in Sim Racing I downloaded the RF1 demo and mucked about with it for a while whilst reading and watching all the new promotional material for RF2 come out, that was in 2011 and RF1 was around 5 years old at that point.

We are now just about 6 years on from RF2 being released and where the hell can they go from here? Every other sim on the market bar IRacing is at least 2 years younger than it and they also didn't stunt their own growth with a subscription system.

It just seems like at this point that RF2 is going nowhere fast.
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Re: rFactor 2 - Beta Released

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To me it's been going nowhere fast for about 4 years now. I'm long over it.
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Re: rFactor 2 - Beta Released

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Re: rFactor 2 - Beta Released

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Roadmap Update January 2017

2017 is well underway! We hope you all made a great start to the new year once the lights went out. Here at Studio 397 we’ve jump-started our new year full of ambition. In with the new, out with the old: don’t forget our migrate to Steam for free offer will end on January 31st, 2017.

DX11
As we have already revealed last month, DX11 development is ahead of schedule. We have migrated much of the engine, and although there are certainly still quite a few things to do and it’s far from a straight port, we’re taking advantage of this opportunity to fix some long-standing issues. We are updating the overall look of the graphics. Lighting improvements include a new HDR tonemapper to achieve better color balance and more saturated colors, which interacts nicely with our dynamic sky model (adding contrast to our clouds). We are also updating the entire shadow system (faster and better looking shadows) and adding some ambient occlusion techniques that provide more dynamic shadows in areas such as engine bays, the underside of tyres, and parts of the inside of the marshal hut. Here are some sneak-peek shots of our work in progress. They do not, of course, reflect the finished product, but we wanted to show you where we are right now.

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These upcoming graphics improvements should be a big step up for everyone in the modding community, giving you a stronger and richer visual base to build from. We will provide a set of guidelines on how elements should look to ensure as much consistency as possible without impacting on your creative freedom.

Next month we are starting a new beta program exclusively for modders to facilitate a smooth transition to DX11. So far it looks like we’ve been able to port all existing shaders, which means existing content should continue to work. Some mods that rely on custom shaders as well as plugins that request to render to the screen (such as some overlay plugins) currently expect a DX9 graphics context and will require an update to work with DX11. In both cases, we will actively help any modders whose work is affected.

UI
We’ve spent this month building the technical foundations for the new user interface, which allows us to link the game logic directly to an HTML5 front-end that we can embed into the simulation. At the same time, we’re putting the finishing touches on our interaction and graphical design, which means we can start building, user testing and refining the actual screens now. The new user interface offers far more flexibility, which gives us the freedom to create additional functionality down the line such as incorporating single player championships and results.

Here’s a look at the new home screen with simple sliding panels to reveal deeper options.

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As part of the new user interface we are developing the in-game competition structure. We all know that competition is at the heart of all racing sims, and rFactor 2 has a long-standing relationship with some of the greatest leagues in simracing covering multiple racing disciplines. Building on this strong foundation, our new competition mechanics intend to encourage frequent racing and greater accessibility, offering a rich career progression coupled with new aligned content.

We are focused on building competition mechanics that are unique and embrace leagues and competitions.

Content
Our content team is still working hard on the Radical and starting work on the Corvette C7.R. Last month we gave you a little Christmas present with the Nissan GT500, and we were overwhelmed with the positive responses to the car. At the same time we also got a lot of feedback from the community about little things we could improve. We’ve tried to fix all of them and our goal is to release an update before the end of this month. This update will also include a paint template. The following shots show many of these improvements.

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NOLA Motorsports Park will likely be released around the end of February. A lot of work was put into showcasing the aesthetic possibilities, and we spared no effort to bring you those 10 different layouts of the track and kart track, giving you plenty of variation and suitable configurations for all classes of cars. As more and more trackside objects are being added, we can now share some high resolution (4k) shots that show you different areas of the track. We chose to give you the full experience and modeled the whole garage area, so it’s actually a little bit of a drive to get to the actual track from there. Don’t worry though, we’ve put up some signs to guide you!

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That’s all for our first monthly update of 2017. We wish you all the best and hope you will enjoy the many updates that we will bring this year.
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Re: rFactor 2 - Beta Released

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STUDIO 397 has released Build 1108 Update 2 and the Nissan GT500 v1.2 for their rFactor 2 racing simulator.

Build 1108 update 2 introduces a new system to easily distribute templates that come with new and updated cars. Upon start, the rF2 Launcher will automatically install new templates into a default folder called “Templates”. Besides this new feature, the new build also deploys some minor fixes.

Code (Build 1108 update 2) Changelog:
Added code that allows car modelers to tweak the body roll for AI physics to ensure tyres don’t go through fenders graphically.
Introduced a simple mechanism for distributing templates with cars (which will end up in a “Templates” folder until the new UI is released).
Fixed a problem where the launcher accidentally URL encoded passwords, making it impossible to join servers with certain characters in the password.

Nissan GT500 Changelog:
Sounds

Added a completely new pack of sounds that should be a lot closer to the way the original car sounded.

Graphics
Added additional tyre compounds, the car now has soft, medium, hard, intermediates and full wet compounds.
Added additional rim types to reflect the ones used by the different teams.
Added fluorescent shader for digits on the dashboard.
Added backfire graphics.
Fixed a gap between the driver helmet and the body.
Fixed tyres going through the fenders when under load.
Updated body 3D shape, adding a missing floor, correcting the front fender shape and some smaller tweaks.
Updated icons.
Improved cockpit textures on the fans, door handles and several other small details.
Improved body reflections.
Improved level of detail (LOD) models.
Improved exhaust model and textures.
Improved windows in cockpit view and added the missing side windows.
Improved liveries.
Improved headlights, now with lens flares.

Physics
Added new tyre compounds to match those added to the graphics.
Updated a few garage settings.
Slightly tweaked the AI physics.
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Re: rFactor 2 - Beta Released

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Roadmap Update February 2017
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.

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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.

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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:
1. Your modding team name and all the names and forum names of members that need access.
2. A list of mods you have released for rFactor 2 (either links to the workshop, or some other reference).
3.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!
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Re: rFactor 2 - Beta Released

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Studio 397 has released NOLA Motorsports Park for rFactor 2, bringing a very versatile new venue to the simulation & is the first rF2 scratch built track add-on to be released under the Studio 397 flag.
Together with the NOLA Motorsports Park release, STUDIO 397 also deployed a small build update adding a Thrustmaster TS_PC controller profile, and new shaders to support the NOLA Motorsports Park and future tracks.

You can download the track from the Steam workshop.

The very demanding technical track features five road course layouts and five additional karting circuit configurations.

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The Indy layout is NOLA’s highlight. Its super high speed chicane through turns 8 and 9 means your choice of entry is crucial to sustain full throttle and carry maximum speed all through the back straight. As with any track layout, it’s the sum of its parts that make up a fast lap. That’s especially true for Indy’s unforgiving temporary curbs in turn 1 and turn 6. They demand respect. Go in too deep on entry and catch a tire, best-case scenario you lose some precious tenths, worst-case you flip up on two wheels or lose control and smash into your opponent!

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On the surface, layout A looks similar to Indy, but there are some key differences. In layout A the high speed esses replace the back straight and require consistent slowing, throttle inputs and weight transfer to ease the car through. Layout A also does without the temporary curbs in turn 1 and turn 7, which means it’s a little less technical and more forgiving.

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Layout B is the shortest layout, and it’s perfect for running slower cars with good traction, like the Skip Barber, Megane and Clio, and even the USF 2000. Turns 2, 3 and 4 make up a flowing mid speed section before going into the long esses. It’s a perfect place for daring outside overtaking!

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Layout C is fast! The combination of the longest front straight, and therefore highest top speed, with the generous width and run off in turn 1 makes for an exciting high speed overtaking opportunity. The combinations of straight line speeds and fast ‘almost’ full throttle esses are a great match for vintage open wheel and prototypes – but of course not limited to!

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Layout D, after Layout C, has the second longest front straight, but unlike C, it’s followed by a very very sharp right hand cut back into turn 1. This requires precise braking and precisely judged entry speed! The mid sector of Layout D, following turn 1, is very technical – comprised of a series of deceptive turns that are extremely easy to misjudge and overcook.

NOLA Motorsports Park also boasts five fun and exciting karting layouts! Each layout is a technical, fast paced track in it’s own right that demands patience and perseverance to master. Once you do find that groove, the satisfaction comes when you bounce off curbs just right to for turn in, control drifts through high speed sectors, and delicately balance weight transfers to keep up that momentum!

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Karting A is a great blend of slow and fast turns. The rush of pushing harder and harder and eventually mashing full throttle through turns 4 to 7 and then slowing just as you roar into turn 8 is a thrill!

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Karting B is the shortest layout, but it still requires feather touch maneuvering through the slow speed zig-zagging mid sector of turns 4 to 7. Here, finding a consistent rhythm using weight transfer is key. Get greedy, take too much of inside curbs, and you’re heading for a spin. Hit the curbs just right, and you’ll float through and keep momentum.

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Karting C has a long straight and therefore high speed entry into the turn 1 chicane, here it requires abrupt and precisely timed off throttle turn in to avoid taking too much curb and flying off! The mid sector is equally challenging. In turns 7 to 10 it’s vital to carry just the right amount of speed to keep an even flow and escape the dreaded ‘bog down’.

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Karting D is much like B, but there’s a twist! It mixes the technical slow mid sector of layout B with the long fast front straight of layout C

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Karting E is the longest layout, with its long front straight into turn 1 ending in a slow right hand cutback. Turn 1 is a honey trap for the overconfident – here it’s all about ‘slow to be fast’! Karting E is mostly mid and high speed turns. By using as little braking as possible, opting for ‘off throttle’ to slow in, and throwing the kart into slight drifts, you’ll see seconds start to drop off! The massive back straight of E ends abruptly. Here, your choice of entry line in the final chicane determines the speed you’ll inherit into the last right hander and the long front straight – this is where you lose or gain a big advantage!
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Re: rFactor 2 - Beta Released

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Roadmap Update March 2017
Spring is in the air and we’re pleased with our progress over the past few months. We have a lot to share with you. We decided to take the time to really bring together all of the newly developed elements – UI, VR, and DX11. Although this puts us slightly behind our targeted “end of Q1” release date, we promise you it will be worth the wait. In addition, we wanted to make sure that modders and leagues have enough time to update their content so it shines in the new engine. With all of this in mind, we’re targeting a release date of May 1st.

DX11 Pipeline and Post FX
Over the course of the last month we have spent a lot of time to further optimise the HDR rendering pipeline. We also started adding post processing effects. This is a bit of a balancing act between ensuring we stay compatible with existing content and adding various improvements to the graphical output. Work on shaders, the shadow system, and on various other effects is also under way.
Working on the DX11 integration has allowed us to fix some things that were previously unaddressed or needed improvement. For example, we fixed an issue with stray coloured pixels in the distance, caused by MSAA artifacts. We also improved the way shadows are cast on the ground. Shadows now follow the normal maps of the materials, which means for example that the shadow on asphalt follows all the little bumps in the road. Our clouds are using much higher resolution textures, and we fine tuned ambient lighting in overcast conditions by adjusting both the color and intensity of the light.
Last month we already showed you improvements, some of which were very subtle. This month, we have a few new screenshots that will show we’re on the right track!

Shadows now follow all the small bumps in the road surface.
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Night lights show a much more realistic, dynamic glow.
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Our classic content looks great as the first rays of sunlight touch the banking.
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The Camaro GT3 on a bright blue day at Mores.
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Early morning going up the hill at Bathurst.
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Virtual Reality is operational
Great news! We are already driving in VR – seeing a virtual sun rise through the trees is an incredible experience!
Our VR implementation is based on OpenVR. We chose OpenVR for its support of both headsets – the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift – ensuring future compatibility. To complete the experience, we are integrating VR with the new UI and adjusting several other parts of the game, such as external cameras.

User Interface
The UI is really taking shape. The initial release will be functionally equivalent to the current user interface, but with some advanced features. Each month, features and functionality of the user interface will be improved. For example, the ability to create your own championships and easier ways to create your own hosted environments.
Setup screens have been split into different aspects.
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Radical Content
We can’t wait to announce some very, very cool content news soon, for both cars and tracks. As you know, our ambition is to streamline content, aligning cars and tracks. In the meantime, the Radical SR3 is coming along nicely. We have extensive technical data from Radical and are creating the most realistic version that has ever been produced.
A pair of Radicals at Silverstone.
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Modding
We are very happy that many modding teams have already applied to join our special forum. We have already started to share information there about upgrading custom shaders. Over the next couple of weeks we will proceed with guidelines on materials and textures as well as provide early beta builds for you to check your work. These guides will be part of a new documentation that we will publish and maintain going forward. So, if you are working on new or existing mods for rFactor 2 and have not done so yet, contact Christopher and Marcel to join the dedicated DX11 forum.

That wraps up another monthly roadmap update. We hope you are as excited as we are about what the future will bring!
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Re: rFactor 2 - Beta Released

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Sarc ; my second favourite type of gasm.
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Re: rFactor 2 - Beta Released

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Studio 397 promised to make their rFactor 2 updates available on a more frequent basis, and so they do. Today they released a new update for rFactor 2 fixing some of the most noticeable issues. Keep in mind that this update is part of a Beta in development. Studio 397 hopes to move to a full release over the next few months.

Changelog:
Fixed excessive marble build up on some tracks.
Fixed UI and HUD colors reversed on some elements.
Fixed VR issue where clouds were clipping over the horizon.
Switched rFactor 2 screenshot function to Steam screenshot.
Fixed Gmotor 2.5 scene viewer showing all stages of real road at the same time.
Fixed CTRL+C (CPU/GPU usage chart) being only visible with driver name tags. ON.
Fixed Dev Mode Launcher ‘Video Settings’ button not properly saving.
Fixed a sporadic issue where changing graphics settings would cause black areas to appear around the car body.
Updated Fanatec SDK: Added native support for LEDs and gear shift indicators.
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Re: rFactor 2 - Beta Released

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With the help of the British Radical Sportscars manufacturer, STUDIO 397 has released the 2017 Radical SR3 RSX.
The rFactor 2 Radical SR3 RSX features both a left and right-hand drive version and comes with 20 liveries which were selected from the rFactor 2 Radical Paint Competition.
Keep in mind that this initial version of the car comes with dry weather tyres only. STUDIO 397 communicated that they will soon provide an update which also includes rain tyres.
The rFactor 2 Radical SR3 RSX (501MB) is now available on the Steam Workshop.
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Re: rFactor 2 - Beta Released

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STUDIO 397 has released another update for rF2, this uodate includes some fixes, multi-GPU and multi-monitor support and some new controller profiles for a selection of Fanatec wheels.

Changelog:
Fixed artifacts on old real road shader.
Fixed screen capture in TTool.
Fixed multiple controller profiles so JOY1 is default controller mapping.
Added controller profiles for Fanatec wheels: Fanatec CSW v2.5, Fanatec CSW v2, Fanatec CSR Elite, Fanatec CSL XBOX, Fanatec CSL PS4.
Added support for multi-GPU’s and multi-monitor selection, available via drop downs in Launcher config.
VR Added re-center view now assignable to a key (default is Backspace).
VR Fixed Track loading screen.
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Re: rFactor 2 - Beta Released

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Roadmap Update July 2017
As we’re counting down to the start of the McLaren World’s Fastest Gamer rFactor 2 competition, it is time for another roadmap update! We have so much underway at the moment in many areas, however, we are not quite ready to show it all.

Competition
As we previously announced, McLaren’s World’s Fastest Gamer starts soon, and we are really excited that rFactor 2 was chosen as the flagship qualifying platform. This competition aligns with the overall competition structure that we are currently building, allowing tournament style events that extend all the way to a license progression system. Our competition platform will be unique in many ways: we will have our own structured competition and, in addition, support the community. We actively believe in the strength of our community to run outstanding events, both online and onsite. Specifically, APIs will be made available to allow sanctioned leagues/competitions to integrate with our overall structure, providing visibility and consistency. We are also developing our license structure based on an overall percentage rating and a system that penalizes drivers for off-track or bad driving by giving time penalties instead of relying on an independent safety rating.

Content
We have some even more exciting news: it’s no secret that we are releasing a McLaren GT car. And now, we are pleased to announce that it will be….drum roll please… the awesome McLaren 650s GT3!

This McLaren will be used in the World’s Fastest Gamer competition and will be available for you all as a paid item in our upcoming item store at the start of August. We’re really excited to launch with this car, which was developed in close cooperation with McLaren. But that’s not all! This car will also be part of a soon-to-be-released wider pack, reaffirming our ambition to align our content! What a tease!

Many of you saw our rendition of Zandvoort at the Max Verstappen days. Since then, we have optimised and further enhanced the track. Like the McLaren above, Zandvoort will be used in the World’s Fastest Gamer competition and will be released as a free addition.

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Additionally, we are working on some new significant track projects and will share more in the next couple of months.

DX11
Ever since the beginning of the year, we’ve showed you the evolution of our DX11 graphics engine. Right now, we’re close to the point where we are happy enough with the visuals and performance of this engine to soon switch it to become the default. We will keep the DX9 engine around as an option for a little while longer, at least until we’ve rolled out the new overlays (see below). This also does not mean we are done developing the engine. We still have many bigger and smaller improvements to make it look better, and we will keep pushing those out in the upcoming months. At this point, we would also like to thank everybody who actively participated in our open beta. Your input was very helpful and allowed us to improve the whole engine, and VR mode, a lot quicker and better.

UI
Not only are we putting the final touches on our in-game user interface, as you have read above, we are also about to roll out the first parts of the new competition infrastructure, which will fit right in with the new UI. To show you some of the last details we are currently working on, we’ve captured two details of the UI, starting with the calibration screen for your wheel and pedals. As you know, you could always calibrate axes visually, but when specifying the ranges of motion and the deadzones, you had to physically move your wheel or pedal in the right position to set such a limit. Now we’ve included not only the exact numbers, but you can also directly edit them to fine tune them exactly the way you want without having to mess around with text files.

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A second detail we’d like to show is what we’ve done with the garage setup screens. There was already a way to compare, and we made that a bit smarter, but we also added a quick way for you to see what changes you made to the current setup compared with the one you saved last. In the shot, you see two gear ratios that have an orange font. Those are ratios you’ve changed. That way you can quickly get an overview. It’s little things like this we are still tweaking. We know it’s taking a bit longer than you, and we, anticipated, but the wait is almost over!

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Physics
One of the things we have been working on over the last few months is our tyre model. You may have noticed some changes in the latest version of the Radical, and you will also see them in the upcoming McLaren. These updates reflect our work on improving accurate tyre fidelity. We have a number of tyre updates underway, making one of the best tyre models in consumer racing simulation even better.

Overlays
We have been working hard to create a solution for overlays. As you know, we aren’t great fans of rendering over rFactor 2 screens as this can cause issues that become hard for us to resolve. We have built a solution using HTML. Shortly, we will be allowing 3rd parties to develop their own overlays, not just for broadcast, but for in-game HUDS through an API.

Misc
For those of you who don’t know, this year’s Sim Expo will be held on the 16/17th September at Nurburgring – another great chance for all of sim racing to come together. We will be there, of course, showcasing some cool future features and content, so make sure you pop by!
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Re: rFactor 2 - Beta Released

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rF2 enters the paid DLC world!!! And cleverly tied it into their partnership with McLaren’s World’s Fastest Gamer competition
STUDIO 397 has released the officially licensed GT3 McLaren 650s GT3 model that will be used in McLaren’s World’s Fastest Gamer competition. The Mclaren 650s GT3 is the first in a series of officially licensed GT3 cars coming to rFactor 2 this year.

You can purchase the McLaren GT 650s GT3 for a very modest $5.90 USD on the dedicated Steam page.

Furthermore, STUDIO 397 also announced an upcoming GT3 Power pack DLC which will include five GT3 spec cars including the McLaren 650S GT3. The remaining four cars have yet to be revealed. The GT3 Power Pack is scheduled for a September release. You can already pre-order the DLC pack on Steam for $17.70 USD.
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Re: rFactor 2 - Beta Released

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It's finally starting to look like a modern sim this. Quite impressive they're still working at it.
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Re: rFactor 2 - Beta Released

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STUDIO 397 proudly released the 2017 version of the Circuit Zandvoort track for rFactor 2. Currently, the track is labeled as a V0.20 beta. STUDIO 397 already announced that they will release more updates for the track soon. The rF2 Circuit Zandvoort track is being used for the second round of the McLaren Worlds Fastest Gamer Competition.
You can subscribe the Zandvoort 2017 track at the Steam Workshop page.
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Re: rFactor 2 - Beta Released

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Roadmap Update September 2017
We are very excited to announce the Bentley Continental GT3 2017 as the second car in our upcoming GT3 pack. Used in many of the premier GT3 categories around the world, the car has a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 and up to unrestricted 600hp. The GT3 pack is due for release in October.



Marcel took the time to give some information on upcoming features showcased at the event, including rain effects like working raindrops that move when the car does, working wipers, raindrops on the body of the car, lighting changes, and dynamic puddles that grow or shrink. The rain effects should come out around the same time as the GT3 pack, possibly shortly afterwards.



Also mentioned in the FaceBook livestream was updated damage and a licensing agreement with Tatuus Racing s.r.l. for a number of open-wheel Formula cars. This allows us to fill out the ladder of progression from Karts to Grand Prix racing and will work well within our competition structure due out next year.

And to whet your appetite, here’s a sneak peek of the next car in our upcoming pack!
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Re: rFactor 2 - Beta Released

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STUDIO 397 proudly released the anticipated GT3 Power Pack DLC for rFactor 2. This new car pack features five modern GT3 class racing cars including the McLaren 650S GT3, Bentley Continental GT3, Callaway Corvette C7 GT3-R, Radical RXC Turbo GT3 and the Mercedes AMG GT3.

During the development of the GT3 Power Pack, STUDIO 397 worked closely with the manufacturers, in order to create the most accurate 3D models, physics and sounds possible. All the cars feature the setup options as available on the real-world cars and come with four tyre choices. Three dry weather compounds ranging from the soft “S7” to the hard “S9” and a wet weather compound.

One of these details in the setup options is the fact that both the Bentley and the McLaren use Ohlins dampers for which 0 is the stiffest setting and higher values mean the dampers get softer. Another example is the exact position and size of the anti-roll bar on the McLaren, whose setup options we’ve named accordingly, like “P3 25x2mm”, where for other cars we use the more familiar “clicks”. Worth mentioning is the steering lock on the Mercedes–quite limited compared to the other cars (about 400 degrees). It should be just enough to negotiate very tight turns on some tracks, but still doable! Finally, the Radical has only four wing positions; however, they are quite widely spaced compared to the other cars, giving you the option to create both high and low downforce setups.

As per regulations, all of these cars are allowed to run with anti-lock brake systems (ABS) and traction control (TC). We did several “Balance of Performance” sessions with all five cars, taking them to a few different tracks and comparing lap times. Since these cars are quite new, we think it is safe to say that we have not found the absolute limit of their setups yet. Leagues running with these cars are encouraged to do additional tests and use weight penalties to further balance the cars. We will aim to do BoP updates as we learn more about these cars.


All the cars in the GT3 Power Pack DLC come with a livery template which will install automatically in the “Templates” folder of your main rFactor installation.
You can buy the GT3 Pack for USD$17.58, which gives you a nice discount over the individual cars priced at USD$5.86 each that can be found in the rFactor2 Steam Store.
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Re: rFactor 2 - Beta Released

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In support of the GT3 DLC pack, STUDIO 397 also deployed a new update for both the DX11 and DX9 builds.
The cars in the GT3 Power Pack, now feature an updated CPM model, a new visual damage model, and a new window and headlight glass shader that produces more realistic reflections.
Keep in mind that also the multiplayer protocol required changes, which means that also the dedicated servers will need to be updated.

Build Changelog:
Added: An extended visual damage model featuring a combination of dents, scratches and cracks on the bodywork of cars, which has been implemented on the GT3 pack.
Added: New window and headlight glass shader that produces more realistic reflections. All five GT3 cars use it.
Added: Controller Profiles for Thrustmaster T-GT, T-GT Ferrari F1 Addon, TS-XW, TS-XW with Ferrari F1 Addon.
Added: Updates to the CPM model.
Fixed: Various small fixes to the no rain zone code that prevents rain from entering closed cockpits.
Fixed: All controller profiles default inputs are now assigned to JOY1.
Fixed: Bumped the rFactor 2 version for multiplayer compatibility to 1109 because of the new visual dents that required changes to the multiplayer protocol.
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Re: rFactor 2 - Beta Released

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Today, STUDIO 397 deployed the first update for the GT3 addon bringing us a selection of improvements, tweaks, and fixes for all five cars in the pack. Check out the changelog below for more details.

Changelog GT3 Pack Update 1 ( 24/10/2017):
McLaren 650S GT3 2017 v1.79

Reworked tire and rim blur animation.
New backfire animation.
Fixed spokes sorting in front of debris/smoke.

Bentley Continental GT3 2017 v1.15
Adjusted LOD distances for better performance.
Reworked tire and rim blur animation.
Damage sensitivity adjusted.
Backfire smoke/vapor added.
Fixed spokes sorting in front of debris/smoke.

Callaway C7 GT3 2017 v1.15
Adjusted LOD distances for better performance.
Reworked tire and rim blur animation.
Damage sensitivity adjusted.
New backfire animation.
Fixed spokes sorting in front of debris/smoke.

Mercedes AMG GT3 2017 v1.07
Reworked tire and rim blur animation.
Damage sensitivity adjusted.
Backfire smoke/vapor added.
Fixed spokes sorting in front of debris/smoke.

Radical RRXC GT3 v1.09
Adjusted LOD distances for better performance.
Reworked tire and rim blur animation.
Fixed black artifact appearing in the cockpit.
Backfire smoke/vapor added.
Fixed spokes sorting in front of debris/smoke.
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