rFactor 2 - Beta Released

[Duke]

Reiza Studios has released the anticipated Reiza Bundle DLC for rFactor 2.
The DLC pack contains 6 cars and 4 tracks which feature 10 different track layouts. Both the cars and tracks can be purchased as a bundle, but are also available as a separate car and track DLC.
This Car pack includes the Metalmoro AJR in 4 different engine configurations, the Metalmoro MR18 in a 26-car field, the Formula Vee in a 24-car field, the MCR S2000 in a 20-car field, the Puma GTE in a 10-car field, and the Puma P052 in a 20-car field.
The track pack includes the 1972 and 2018 versions of the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, better known as Imola, the Virginia International Raceway, also known as VIR which comes with 5 different layouts, the lesser known Ecuadorian track Ibarra which features 2 layouts and and last but not least the Guaporé Autodrome from southern Brazil.

Purchase the Reiza rFactor 2 Bundle for $31.32

Purchase the Reiza rFactor 2 Track Pack for $23.48

Purchase the Reiza rFactor 2 Car Pack for $15.66

[norbs]

Purchased. Just for the Formula Vee which I love in AMS.

[GT VIRUS]

It's a pretty amazing DLC, even if not much of it is new to most of you. The Puma's are a bit too tame for me, but the rest of the cars are great. Formula Vee's around Formula E circuits is a great laugh.

Autodromo Internacional de Yahuarcocha is an amazing circuit that I can't believe I never tried in AMS, and Imola 72 is just mental! Great stuff

[norbs]

A lot of those weird arse little Brazilian circuits are tremendous. AMS is such an underrated title.

I agree about the Pumas. They need a bit more kick, they look great.

[Duke]

Roadmap Update March 2019

Welcome to our third roadmap of the year. We’ve had quite an exciting quarter altogether with updates to many of our car packs, a new material editor, an exciting 12 hour race at Sebring and last but not least the release of our biggest pack to date, the Reiza pack, featuring no less than 6 cars and 4 tracks. You can buy the full pack here, but there are also options to buy just the tracks or just the cars, or even individual items.
And those of you who follow our roadmaps every month will know there is a lot more to come, so let’s get started with this month’s updates!

Cars
We’ve just wrapped up the development of our brand new brake-by-wire system for the Gen 2 Formula E car. These cars are rear wheel driven, so the rear wheels also do the energy regeneration when braking. As much of the braking torque as possible will be used to regenerate the batteries, with the remaining required torque coming from the rear disc brakes. This is all controlled by a brake-by-wire system and we’re in final testing of it in the new car, so expect this one to be released next!

Tracks
The Nürburgring is going as planned as we’re moving towards the barriers and mapping out all the different pieces of graffiti on the track. Those of you who heard the podcast René and Marcel had with Davy Jones already know that we have two more tracks in progress, both of which we will keep as a surprise for later this year.



Performance
Very recently we’ve released a build that embeds some very specific performance logging in an attempt to catch the few cases people have reported over the years where they are “running out of real-time” because of hickups of the physics calculations. We have a dedicated thread on our forum explaining how to report these logs to us and although we have already received a few logs, we can still use a lot more so if this has happened to you in an on-line race, please help us out and submit your data, and we will try to help you solve the issues.

Competition and new UI Update
This month we’ll take a more in-depth look at where we are with the new UI and competition infrastructure. Our current UI is really split into parts, with a Launcher that is responsible for content management and on-line matchmaking and a main executable that can either be launched in single player or multiplayer mode. For our new UI we want to merge all of that into one. We are now at a point where we’ve replaced every bit of UI in the executable for both modes. In fact, one thing we are doing is eliminating the need to have two modes, merging single and multiplayer modes.
So let’s get started. When you launch rFactor 2, you end up in the main menu that provides you with a few different options. Here you can drive in single player, view a replay or live race or participate in multiplayer, browse various aspects of our community (forum, news, upcoming events) as well as configure the game.
The game options have been cleaned up and re-arranged to give a better overview. As an example we’ve kept the settings for recording replays here, but moved the actual playback of replays to a different location as viewing replays clearly has nothing to do with options. In general we now have more space as well to add extra context and help, making it easier for users to understand the many different settings. Session settings have also been revamped.



We’ve split those up into generic settings that span the different sessions, and session specific settings. We also exposed a few extras here, allowing you to for example configure more than one practice session without having to resort to editing text files. Car and track selections have been tweaked as well. For both we have added a few different views, ranging from a more graphical, icon based view to a more compact list. In all of those modes we’ve added quick search options, which usually help you find the car or track you’re looking for with just a few keystrokes. Car tuning is also still there, and here you will see our our new material editor being integrated nicely as well.

Moving on to the garage, you see we have grouped the different tuning options for a car into logical sections. Little details to make your life easier here is that we can show you in a different color all options you changed compared to the set you last loaded or saved, and we also still allow you to compare your own setup to another one, where we no longer list all options twice, leaving you to figure out the ones that actually changed, but more clearly indicating those. At this point it’s also interesting to point out another feature. As the whole UI is web based, we will also allow you to “share” your UI with a team mate remotely.



What this means is that while you’re driving he can log in to your game and review and make changes to your setup. Such changes will then be applied the next time you leave the garage. As you can imagine such features open up a ton of possibilities for people racing as teams, but also ways to give remote support and I’m sure our community will find many other uses as well! Apart from the garage we also have a monitor that allows you to view the action live from different camera standpoints, as well as to view an instant replay. Standings have been extended to show more information and the camera controls can be used for broadcasting races as well.

Competition is being developed now as part of the new UI, so it is easy to see what are the upcoming races. From a list of competitions you can sign up for the ones you want to compete in. Zooming in you can see past and upcoming events, sessions and standings. Joining a session directly takes you to the right server. This part is far from done but we just passed a few important milestones that will allow us to run not only hotlap competitions but also qualification sessions and actual races. We’re working on different ways to score those, from traditional “points based” ones to ones that evaluate the actual racing skills of every driver involved and ranking them accordingly. Another thing we’re integrating right now is a protest system. Currently we’re evaluating, through internal testing, how to best release this to the public and we are considering doing some kind of beta as a first step.



So, what is left to do? Mainly the features that are currently in the Launcher, two of which are crucial: the matchmaker showing the list of servers and the package management system. The matchmaker will receive some love as we will add features to see if a server has players or AI on them and we will also add more detailed information about each individual server. The package management system will be extended to allow you to directly browse the workshop and our item store, so all content can be managed in one single place.

That’s all for this month. See you all on the virtual track!

[norbs]

woodsy will be pleased.

[w00dsy]

woodsy will be pleased.

TL:DR, which bit?

[norbs]

woodsy will be pleased.

TL:DR, which bit?

Competition and new UI Update
This month we’ll take a more in-depth look at where we are with the new UI and competition infrastructure. Our current UI is really split into parts, with a Launcher that is responsible for content management and on-line matchmaking and a main executable that can either be launched in single player or multiplayer mode. For our new UI we want to merge all of that into one. We are now at a point where we’ve replaced every bit of UI in the executable for both modes. In fact, one thing we are doing is eliminating the need to have two modes, merging single and multiplayer modes.
So let’s get started. When you launch rFactor 2, you end up in the main menu that provides you with a few different options. Here you can drive in single player, view a replay or live race or participate in multiplayer, browse various aspects of our community (forum, news, upcoming events) as well as configure the game.

[w00dsy]

[Duke]

Studio 397 released the 2019 Formula E Gen2 car for the rFactor 2 racing simulator.
From a simulation point of view, the 2019 Formula E racer significantly changed the racing experience, as the 250kW (335bhp) 2018/2019 spec Formula E car is faster than its predecessor and almost doubles the amount of energy storage capacity, meaning it can now complete a whole race without having to change cars. The car is availabe as payed content for a very modest 4,99€.

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!

Purchase the rF2 2019 Formula E car ($7.85)

Besides the FIA Formula E licensed content, Studio 397 also introduced the Lester Special Edition, which is a fictional track made for Formula E cars based upon the classic Lester GP based in New Jersey, USA.
The 3.2 km track boasts 18 corners with some amazing sweeping curves and 2 tricky chicanes. The 292.707 MB download is free of charge.

Download Lester Special

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!

[Duke]

Reiza Studios recently confirmed work is still well underway to enhance the recent 'Reiza Bundle' DLC for rFactor 2 - including some additional free versions of Imola...

Although the rF2 engine is in many ways still similar to our AMS engine (and even big differences like tyre modelling have eventually delivered surprisingly similar results on both sims), there are still a number of differences, not just with the physics engine but also configurations and how FFB, audio, controllers are set up which can add up to very different experiences.
The goal has always been to make the transition both from AMS to rF2 as well as from other rF2 cars and tracks relatively seamless, and we´ll point out a few ways to better bridge those gaps.
Since release we´ve also found some ground to cover in order to get closer to that goal and generally improve the quality of the pack. Quite a bit has already been done in the 3 weeks since release - we currently have an update in testing which should hopefully be deployed soon, below is the summary of the main points of what it will include and also what the plans are beyond it:

GRAPHICS
The main change for the 1st update will be that all car skins (except the F-Vee) have been upscaled to 4k, added regions to customize different type of materials within each skin.
On the preview below you can see for ex. the chrome on the splitter pillar and carbon on the splitter itself - these along with the higher resolution make the cars look substantially nicer and add some extra room for those looking to get creative in their skinning



The higher quality skins come with a small FPS hit when running larger fields, but this should be offset by the fact we have also lowered mirror resolution to use rF2´s standard, so performance should be slightly improved overall specially from cockpit view.
With the tracks, the main change is that we have fixed an exporting problem with VIR, Imola and Ibarra that caused road / curb texture sorting issues through the windshield of certain cars.
Generally our content is less resource hungry then recent rFactor2 releases, specially the cars as our models have been optimized to run on AMS which is still a 32bit app. Some glitches have been reported while running lower graphical settings and while we have been fixing these, the gains from running anything below high detail for cars and tracks should be relatively minor.

PHYSICS
Although the physics have remained largely unchanged, we´ve done some refinements to all cars, mainly to FFB by further reducing clipping reported for some cars. The steering lock range has been adjusted to allow a minimum of 10deg, and the default setting has been reduced for a slightly slower steering ratio in all cars.
Default setups have also been adjusted so cars are generally more comfortable to drive out of the box.
We´ve been observing some discrepant feedback on driving feel depending on the player´s wheel. We´re still investigating why that is, but one recommendation that has proved useful for many users is to increase FFB smoothing setting, specially on Fanatec wheels (or at least stay within default values for your wheel).
It´s worth noting there are some differences on the Pumas relative to their AMS counterparts; The Puma P052 runs on slick tires in rF2 (semislicks in AMS); the Puma GTE is based on original 1970s specs and runs on radial tires with softer suspension rates (vs the slick-shod, stiffly sprung AMS version which is based on modern Copa Classic setups). The goal being making the content more diverse and filling gaps better within rF2.

AI
We have revised the AIW for all tracks to correct some issues that have been reported since release. The AI physics have also received some fine tuning for more consistent performance across all series.



It´s important to point out that unlike Automobilista, rFactor 2 has a bigger range of AI parameters that can be overridden by player configuration (through the UI or player JSON file) - straying too far from default may lead to unforeseen issues with performance, behaviour and fuel use and strategy from the AI-controlled cars.

AUDIO
The main changes on the audio front have been to sound effects - here again we have been following S397 lead with their recent releases and applied the samples they have kindly supplied for wind, road, rumble, tyre scrub & skid and did some volume balancing to bring it closer to rF2´s standard, aiming again for consistency in those fronts relative to the experience with other rFactor2 cars. We have also adjusted engine volume levels for player and opponents following that same logic, and done some polishing to some of our engine samples.

BUG FIXES
On top of these updates we addressed various graphical glitches that have been reported since release.



In the post below you´ll see the current changelog for the upcoming update, which may still be updated as we undergo some final testing before release.
If you run across bugs that haven´t already been covered so far or even after the update is released, please continue to use the Bundle release thread to report them so we can try address them as we´re able.

FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
We´re working on adding some special bonus content to the Bundle: Imola 1988 and 2001 layouts will be added free of charge to all who bought the Imola track or any pack that included it.



These however won´t be quite ready for the upcoming update, and will instead most likely will be released in a following update towards the end of may.
The plan is to continue to refine and look into incorporating new features as they are introduced to the sim as well as trying to discover ways to get the best of these cars and tracks in rFactor2 - as we do we´ll continue to keep you informed through this topic

[Duke]

Studio 397 have recently released a new build of rFactor 2.
Timed to be in conjunction with the release of the latest generation of Formula E car that deployed as DLC back at the end of last week, the new build of rFactor 2 is now here and ready to download (if you haven't already) the next time you restart your Steam client.

Update Notes:
Steam Build IDs
client: 3750893
dedi: 3750894

Added more detailed realtime logging to help better diagnose sporadic physics lock-ups reported by some clients. If you have experienced this issue please see instructions here on logging:
https://forum.studio-397.com/index.php? ... zes.62687/
New materials fix to avoid custom team skins not showing.
Implemented 'brake-by-wire' (for Formula E Gen2).
Fixed 32bit crash.
Fixed sporadic blown out scene when using car select and tuning in a multiplayer session
Fixed glitched puddle reflections of cars bodies.
Fixed crash for some users when joining a multiplayer session.

Steam Build IDs
client: 3753718
dedi: 3750894

Fixed VR virtual mirrors

[Duke]

Studio 397 and Reiza Studios released a new update for the recently released Reiza rF2 Bundle for rFactor 2. The update features various improvements and fixes further improving the quality of the Reiza DLC pack.

Changelog for 29-04 update:
Upscaled skins to 4k for all cars in the Bundle (except F-Vee) & added regions to customize the different type of materials
Revised AIWs for all tracks in the Bundle
Fixed problem with VIR, Imola and Ibarra exporting that could lead to road/curb texture sorting issues through the windshield of certain cars
Added adjustable mirrors to all cars
Adjusted lock range to a minimum of 10deg, and reduced default setting for slightly slower steering ratio in all cars
Adjusted Max Steering torque in all cars to reduce FFB clipping closer to rF2 standards
Adjusted default setup for all cars for a slightly more comfortable out of the box handling
Applied S397 latest sound effect samples and settings for wind, road, rumble, tyre scrub & skid to bring it closer to rF2´s standard
Adjusted engine volume levels for player and opponents to bring it closer to rF2´s current standard
Added some relevant information to default setup notes
Adjusted AI physics for more consistent performance across all series
Reduced mirror resolution to rF2´s current standard for improved cockpit performance
Adjusted head physics and cockpit vibration to rF2 current standards
Switched off previously working mirrors from external view on some cars
F-Vee: Fixed missing front suspension from cockpit view; Reduced steering rotation to 720deg
Metalmoro AJR: Added HARD tyre compound option; Fixed Chevy V8 engine startup sound; Adjusted Honda Turbo engine performance; Fixed missing front suspension in showroom
Puma GTE: Corrected tire diameter; tuned engine for slightly more power; reduced steering rotation to 720deg
Puma P052: Fixed showroom reflection glow; Fixed excessive glow from brake lights; fixed z-fighting in mirrors when running lower graphical settings
MCR S2000: Fixed transparent unlit LEDs when running lower graphical settings

[Duke]

Roadmap Update April 2019

When you work hard, times just flies by, so it’s not a surprise that it feels like we just wrote our previous roadmap some days ago.
The roadmap this month takes us to the second-smallest, most densely-populated country in the world and home to many past and current racing drivers. But not just there. We basically travel everywhere and show you what´s happening in the big rFactor 2 world. No matter if you are looking for build updates, news about upcoming content or where to find the right competition for you, it’s all here and it’s called Roadmap!

Formula E Monaco e-Prix
If you had not already guessed from our introduction, the big news this month is the announcement of a new track, the Monaco e-Prix, which twists and turns through the beautiful city streets. Scheduled to be released at the same time Formula E drives the real race, this track is based on laserscan data and CAD from Formula E, ensuring an accurate layout. The track complements our existing Formula E portfolio, which features the recently released “Gen 2” car, as well as the Hong Kong and Lester tracks, and puts us in the lead in terms of Formula E content in any racing simulation.









Updates on work in progress
Later this year we are going to go 64 bit only with our rFactor 2 builds. This move was triggered by the fact that Steam hardware surveys show us that only 0.5% of our users are still on a 32 bit build, whilst within the global Steam community, this number is less than 2% too. All hardware you can buy for many years now is 64 bit, so it’s time to move forward. Doing so will save us time building and testing code, which we can then spend on improving the simulation as a whole.
There are several bits of documentation we’re currently adding. First of all, we have a guide on how to create your own car pack. For our modding community we have now documented the new IBL/PBR based car shader, detailing how to use it when creating your own car.
In our ongoing UI previews we share with you some of the things that are in right now and being actively tested. One important one is the matchmaker, which will make a triumphant return back in game! For now it’s the bare minimum to assure it’s working, but we intend to use the flexibility the new UI allows us, to add more features.



And just something gadgety-cool and nouveau to look forward to, a live trackmap/loading screen drawn from the actual track data – because what’s more useful than a track map before you blast out on track, and look it even has the pitlane (click on the image below to see it in motion)!




With the announcement of the second of three iconic tracks in progress, it’s time to take a look at the progress on the Nürburgring. Last month we reported we were pretty much on schedule, and that is still the case.





On the side of cars, now that the Formula E Gen 2 car has been released, we’re shifting our focus again to the Tatuus cars. They’re all drivable, the models and sounds are mostly done and we’re now tweaking and bugfixing them.

Community and Competitions
As promised on last years Simracing expo already, we continue our efforts to bring more activations and competitions to rFactor 2, enabling our drivers to enjoy racing in different championships around the globe. We want to make sure that you can find not just the best competitions in our Sim, but also the best drivers, while also giving people the chance to move their way up the leader-board and put their name on the map for drivers to look out for.

A1esports
We are more then happy to welcome A1 Telekom as one of our new partners with their A1 esports series. It´s already the third season, but new to this esports event, which features an offline final in Vienna, is rFactor 2 now. This esports championship is open to all drivers that live in a german speaking region (Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Lichtenstein and Luxembourg). If you live in one of these regions, the 7.000 Euro prizepool is surely something worth going for. On top of that you also get invited to the Offline Final in Vienna, racing on a stage. We are sure that this will be a blast. Wondering what you need to do for that or where to sign up? Just use this link. Happy Racing!

ESL MAPFRE Season 2
We started the journey with ESL and their first rFactor 2 Championship a while ago and what a journey it was. Awesome offline final, close racing action and great broadcasts. You missed that? How could you, it was for 20.000 Euro?! But don´t worry, ESL just announced their second season and it will soon be underway with the qualifier. More infos about that can be found on their site.

Verified on Discord!
Last, but not least, on the community side we are proud to announce that we now have a formally verified Discord server. We would like to invite you to drop by for an informal chat. Most of the time, there are people from Studio 397 around and you will definitely always meet a few friendly community members willing to help and answer question, or just willing to hop in a race with you!
Go to: https://discord.gg/rfactor2

…and have a great month!

[Duke]

Studio 397 have released their second official Formula E circuit for the simulation - adding the Monaco E-Prix 2019 layout for the title.
Retailing for just under $13 if bought as a standalone piece of content, or purchasable as part of a larger Formula E themed pack, the 2019 variation of the Monaco E-Prix is available from the rFactor 2 Steam Store now.

Recreating Monaco has been a huge effort, and it’s been more than worth it! We made it our primary goal to painstakingly bring to life this special environment with the highest level of detail. Starting with a high resolution ‘laser-scan’ as a base to create the track surface, we then went on to build the essential elements that make Monaco what it is. From the yachts and sailboats in the harbor that sit in the glistening blue water as the sun goes low, to the buildings and track side objects – it’s all there!
The 1.765 km track offers intense racing requiring high-concentration to keep the car out of trouble – good luck!

[Duke]

Roadmap Update May 2019

Summer seems to be in full force already, looking at temperatures here in Europe. Besides it being a good time for ice-cream lovers, it also caters to endurance-enthusiasts, with the iconic races at Le Mans and the Nürburgring coming closer and closer. As if this wouldn’t be enough already to get our racing hearts beat faster, how about some naturally aspirated high revving machinery.
So here-it-is! You probably didn’t see it coming, but yes it’s here. No need for a long dramatic intro. We’re ecstatic to announce Circuit des 24 Heures du Mans otherwise known as “24h Le Mans” is coming to rFactor 2. And the cherry on top, it’s coming much sooner than you think. So you are right to get excited now!
As with all of our latest track content, we are pulling out all the stops. The 2018 terrain is modeled with millimeter precision using the latest in laser scan technology. Nothing but the best for this epic track. What other sim to bring out its real potential than rFactor 2 with it’s heritage with endurance multi-class racing.
Bringing this iconic track to life has been a passion of ours since we started, our studio name even includes the record 397 laps achieved in 2010. Officially licensed by the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO) the 24h Le Mans circuit is over 13.6 km and unique in nature with long sweeping corners and high-speed straights. With the nature of the track also comes a unique race. Le Mans challenges drivers like no other, with 24 hours of hard racing throughout the night and often with difficult weather conditions! rFactor 2 will offer you that challenge – look out for our Road to Le Mans competition coming soon!
We will be releasing more details over the next couple of weeks.





In other news!
When it comes to things, features and content we currently work on, we could even fill an entire roadmap just with listing it. This means we are pretty busy with working on our favorite sim to ensure that we see even more great racing this year. We have our teams working on the UI, Competition system, updated shaders as well as new cars and of course the Nürburgring/Nordschleife. Progress can be seen everywhere right now which makes us proud every day, but there is still a lot of work up ahead to bring everything your way. But we are on it! Let´s get into details for some of the topics.

Competition
With Le Mans on the way, we’re looking forward to bringing an updated competition format for you all to take part in. Details will be posted shortly!! Additionally, you may have seen that McLaren Shadow will be back for another season, so brush off your wheel and get ready to enter into this fantastic competition which we are proud to support!



New UI
The UI itself we are still very busy under the hood, working on optimizations and fixing bugs that arise as part of the new features being integrated. One big feature we can now announce is the Launcher as you now know it, a separate application sitting on your desktop will now have all of it’s features fused into the in-game UI. This means no extra interface to deal with, it’s an all in one unified UI experience, as it should be! And of course we by now also implemented more details in the in-game matchmaker, and one request we often get is the ability to filter AI vs real life humans in the server list. It’s important to know who’s a bot and who’s not! This is working now, and will be released as part of the new UI.

Enjoy the summer, we’ll be back with more news soon!

[Bails MacKenzie]

Gave RF2 a shot today, pretty impressed

[norbs]

Just like real life Bails!

[norbs]

Not sure what Duke is doing, but LeMans has dropped and it is awesome!

[norbs]

I did an online race with some dudes from RaceDept last night. 1 hour in a GTE car. Was hectic until I lost concentration at night time at the porsche curves and turned left instead of right. Hilarity ensued.

man, the LMP2 cars coming up behind is frightening in a game, i cant imagine it in real life.

[Duke]

Not sure what Duke is doing, but LeMans has dropped and it is awesome!

I did miss this as I was busy watching the actual race & surprisingly this was the only significant sim-racing news during the L24 weekend.

Studio 397 released the Circuit de la Sarthe (Le Mans) track for their rFactor 2 racing simulator. The rFactor 2 version of this amazing endurance circuit is officially licensed by the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO).
Studio 397 also posted a great article on the background of the project & a track walk-through on their website: Le Mans 24h Release!

The Le Mans 24h track is now available via the Steam rFactor 2 store for $18.00 AUD.

The release of this new track also requires you to update your rFactor installation to the latest build. (V1.1112) below;
rFactor 2 version: 1.1112
Steam Build-IDs: 3921932 (client), 3921933 (dedicated server)
Changes:
Improved performance logging to be faster and give more information.
Fixed skewed driver labels on triple screen multi-view (cockpit and track-side full-screen cams).
Removed aggressive threading as it’s not that helpful.
Improved timing to help avoid stutters and real-time freezes.
Improvements on materials and lighting (see article above for full description).
Implemented all-new ‘digital flags’ – for ‘Circuit des 24 Heures du Mans’.

[Duke]

So with the Nurburgring 24hr on this weekend is anyone willing to bet on Studio397 releasing the track for RF2 very soon...?

[Duke]

Roadmap Update June 2019

Surprise, surprise! Let’s do the roadmap a week early, at the start of the actual Steam Summer Sale!

Summer Sale
There’s quite a few packs on sale this summer, more than we ever had, so let’s go over them! And of course, rFactor 2 itself is on sale as well!
We have three car packs on sale. The GT3 Power Pack and Endurance Pack are both 50% off, and the latest GT3 Challengers Pack has a 33% discount.
Our first ever laser scanned track, that set a benchmark for future high quality tracks, Sebring, has a 30% discount.
A 25% discount was applied to the Formula E Race bundle, featuring the Gen 2 car as well as two, highly accurate tracks: Monaco and Hong Kong.
Our partners at KartSim have put their package on sale at 50% off, a great opportunity if you want to get into karting.
Last but not least, our partners at Reiza Studios also have a special surprise for the summer. Not only are all three of their packs (the full pack, the car pack and the track pack) on sale, they also provided some fixes for the MCR 2000 as well as two brand new layouts for Imola, doubling the number of layouts available!
The existing layouts, the classic, dangerous 1972 layout surrounded by nearby barriers and the current configuration, fully adapted to modern standards but still retaining a lot of the unique challenges that made it famous are now augmented by the 1988 layout that introduced a few chicanes and the subsequent 2001 layout with further modifications and chicanes. I think it’s fair to say that this track can now be adapted to suit a car of any age! Of course, you get both new layouts for free if you’ve already bought Imola before! Just check the workshop for updates.










Tatuus
We know we know, it’s been a little while…. open wheel fans have been sitting at the window longingly looking into the distance hoping for a sign. But wait no more, we are pleased to once again give you ‘open wheel’ aficionados something to get your pulse ‘racing’ again. So start getting worked up right now, because the Tatuus pack arrival is imminent. This punchy bundle of six unique open wheel Tatuus cars that includes the Tatuus F.3 T318, the Tatuus MSV F3-016 (aka British F3), the Tatuus PM-18 (Pro Mazda), the Tatuus USF-17, Tatuus F4 T014, and the Tatuus FT-50, will hit the ground wheels spinning on Thursday this week.








And one more thing, the Tatuus pack and all of it’s cars will be ‘free’ on the Steam workshop for everyone to enjoy!

New Build
We’ve also just released a new build with some fixes and new features in it.

VR Features
We basically added two new things. Support for “IPD” or “World Scale” adjustments, which allow the fine tuning of the distance between the eye cameras in game. Some headsets have hardware controls for this too, but due to popular demand from people in our community we added this as a software feature too. This adjustment allows changing stereo separation strength, which leads to different perception of VR image and in some cases increases comfort. We’ve added key bindings to increase, decrease or even reset the IPD so you can map those and make adjustments while sitting in the cockpit (don’t adjust and drive though!).
The second feature we added is for users of the Pimax (and possibly other similarly constructed headsets). It allows you to enable or disable a specific projection mode that respects the orientation of the displays in the headsets. On the Pimax they are canted. Setting this feature, that for now needs to be changed in the player.json text file, to “1” enables this new option for Pimax. As a side effect, rendering on Pimax becomes roughly 25% more efficient, which is a nice bonus.
Below is an overview of both settings as they appear in your player.json:

Code: Select all

"VR IPD Scale": 1,
"VR IPD Scale#": "VR IPD Scale: Adjusts IPD distance
                 between eyes. 1.0 = default IPD 
                 distance, as reported by the HMD, 
                 below 1.0 = reduce, above 1.0 = 
                 increase",
"VR Projection Mode": 0,
"VR Projection Mode#": "VR Projection Mode: 0 = 
                 default, 1 = not in-plane displays
                 HMDs",

Changes
Other, smaller changes are:
- We’ve fixed a problem with our RSS based news feed in the old launcher (news failed to show up at all, should be back again now).
- The showroom was not correctly showing up in VR, now it’s back to normal.
- Temporarily we’ve disabled the heat haze effect as it was rendering incorrectly. We are working on a proper fix, it will be back soon.
- We’ve made some improvements to how our light probes are updated when jumping around in a replay between different times of day.

Road to Le Mans
The sign up for the qualifying races is going into the final hours, deadline is 15:00 CEST on the 26th of June. With qualifying races held this weekend the current 78 entries will fight to get into the final 45 spots. Oreca, BMW, Corvette and Porsche will race side by side for the ultimate glory. We will be crowing the 2019 winners of Le Mans when the race ends Sunday, July 7th.
As mentioned this race features our Endurance pack, which is on sale now. There is practically no excuse to not enter this epic event. Try out our recently released Le Mans laser scanned track. It can’t get any better than this!

That’s it for now. Enjoy the summer!

[norbs]

And one more thing, the Tatuus pack and all of it’s cars will be ‘free’ on the Steam workshop for everyone to enjoy!


Be still my erect penis!

[Duke]

It's out & norbs will be presenting his review just after lunch time today.

Studio 397 proudly announced the release of the Tatuus Car Pack for rFactor 2 containing no less than six open-wheel racers from the Italian racing car developer.
Even better so, the new car pack is available for all rFactor 2 users, free of charge & available as part of your default installation!

Included models (with links to their individual steam workshop):
The MSV F3-016 (BRDC British Formula 3 Championship)
F4-T014 (Italian F4 Championship / ADAC Formula 4 / SMP F4 Championship)
WSK F3.T18 & F.3 T318 (Formula Regional European Championship & Asian F3 Championship)
FT-50 (New Zealand, the Toyota Racing Series)
PM-18 and USF-17 ( USA – used in the Road to Indy)

The Tatuus Spectacular! blog post is worth a read too.