The Assetto Corsa thread

Discussion in 'Off Topic' started by Skybird, Aug 2, 2015.

  1. Mr_Mints_Taboo

    Mr_Mints_Taboo Well-Known Member

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    In England we have a saying: "So?"
    Translated it means "What does that have to do with the point I was making?"

    You may use these games to practice for real life competitions. Ralph Schumacher and Bernd Schneider may use these games for the same reason. But for every Schumacher, Schneider and Schilhan there are 275 other people sat in their 'rigs' or Asda Delivery Van seats, playseats, office chairs or armchairs playing these game purely for fun.

    Now I am not suggesting that people demanding laser scanned accuracy should be locked in a room with spiritual mediums, wine tasters, food connoisseurs and exponents of the vinyl disc....I think we can guess what number would be on that door.

    "laser scanned tracks determine the importance of sim in comparison to the competitors and provide a realistic driving experience for all sim customers."

    Even the ones using an X-box controller, a mouse, or even a keyboard?
    The ones sat in their boxers shorts/towel/naked in a centrally heated house?
    The ones who slam into a wall at 100 mph, grab a slurp of their beer and then hit reset?

    You can laser scan a track all you like, but any one trusting a game to exactly duplicate the conditions on a race track seem to be........optimistic?
    And these same people should be up in arms anytime they hear that a physics patch is on the way...if it was already accurate enough to risk your life based on your practice sessions on the software, then why would it need to be changed....unless the fundamental laws of physics have changed?
    The physics in iRacing are ALWAYS perfect, before and after major patches. The tyre model is spot on - it was the NSM that made it feel funny. But now that is perfect as well and will be even more perfect after the next patch.:)

    But really, even if you are right, and I am wrong, you are still the elite minority.
    If you had said "but the majority of those 88.2% of the racing community are clueless idiots!" then I may have agreed with you.

    You are from Germany - a country/nationality famed for its attention to detail when it comes to engineering and planning a day by the pool. BMW, Mercedes, Audi (well, the good ones), Beetle, superb motor cars, I am sure you will agree, and yet more people buy Ford Fiestas and Renault Clios! They are much cheaper, and "good enough."

    88.2% ? That was a reference to 'comedian' Vic Reeves. I bet it's closer to 99%

    Best Oval racer ever? Nascar 2003*, and they never laser scanned a damn thing.

    *I have never played it, but if I had a Lira for every time I had heard people praising it.......
     
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  2. Skybird

    Skybird Well-Known Member

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    I know. I was trying to illustrate a principle point. GFX engine for visuals versus physics calculations done not by gfx components.

    Here is a translation of an interview given by Marco Massarutto, licensing dirctor of Kunos, somebody kindly summarised and translated the major points - and they are marking some very interesting details. Slobber-slobber!

    http://www.racedepartment.com/threa...es-game-announced.147549/page-14#post-2692478

    GTR3 and RR really need to find a striking answer to these moves, I think, just udating graphics maybe will not be enough anymore to convinces new players in huge numbers. The new ACC game seems to strike right into a domain that so far AC was not busy with and that was left to RR and iR. I also like them "copying" some features from Gran Turismo (which i think is a marvellous console racing game). If somebody does something better than yourself, its clever to learn from his example.

    Some weeks ago Stefano said in an interview at some event that there are so many incredibly good racing sims on the market that AC really needs to find some really good asnwers to defend its place at the top (back then it was still the most played and most-bought racing simulation on Steam, by far). It seems I allowed getting fooled by his smiling face and so missed how serious he meant thtat. :)

    Do we have any new info on when SimBin plans to show up with their new GTR3 title? With rFactor and iR appearing to not compete with ACC close in time, it seems GTR3 and then with a delay RR are the primary direct competitors that will meet as the first the new challenge raised by Kunos here.

    It promises to become a VERY tasty 2018 and 2019 for us sim racers! :) :) And I thought 2015 to 2017 already were glorious... Of course, I will stay loyal to both Raceroom and Assetto corsa, which means I will ignore the other titles there are. Too little time to be busy with more than just two main simulators.
     
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    Last edited: Feb 23, 2018
  3. pixeljetstream

    pixeljetstream Well-Known Member Beta tester

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    SimBin is long enough in the business to know the risks of competition. GTR3 was never an easy task, even if ACC was not announced, but I guarantee you that they anticipate the competition not standing still.
    Imo R3E has it "easier" as free to play title and being always online. They can use that with a bigger reach for marketing, which is another form of income. I think s3s doesn't depend on the game sales alone. That is just my feeling and I may underestimate the in-game sales.

    Even ACC won't have it easy as they are new to this type of focused game as well. So they both have their challenge.
     
  4. zimmer86

    zimmer86 Member

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    will be intresting times ahead, i wonder if GTR3 saw this coming?
     
  5. David Slute

    David Slute Well-Known Member

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    Just my .02

    Not sure why everyone is so concerned with ACC being a threat to GTR3 sales?

    If i am not mistaken ACC is pc only and GTR3 is multi platform?
    Sadly the pc sim racing community is small to say the least and a dying breed in north america. If you add up the top 4 sim racing titles using steamcharts, were lucky to get 10k users at noon on a sat. Consoles have far greater numbers. So theres potentially extra funds for further developement/features/future titles etc.

    I am all for new racing sims, but all I hope for is that ACC is a complete title upon full release and not another "continuning development/beta/early access titles.....as I ve already purchased enough unfinished racing titles in the past 5 yrs.
     
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  6. Skybird

    Skybird Well-Known Member

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    Competition never sleeps, I assume strongly they anticipated that sooner or later another rival would come up with a new title as well. But maybe they hoped they would have more time before this happened.
     
  7. pixeljetstream

    pixeljetstream Well-Known Member Beta tester

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    When they try to get the content licenses I suspect they would figure out someone else is going around ;)
     
  8. Travis P

    Travis P Well-Known Member Beta tester

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    From the AC forums regarding ACC:
    Original interview in Italian: https://www.spreaker.com/user/motorsportrepublic/lintervista-a-marco-massarutto-per-parla
    Based on summaries by Italian speaking Race Department users Matteo Pagin and BhZ & Reset ERA user Mascot.
    Source 1: http://www.racedepartment.com/threa...es-game-announced.147549/page-14#post-2692478
    Source 2: http://www.racedepartment.com/threa...es-game-announced.147549/page-14#post-2692351

    Features & content:
    • Driver swaps are confirmed,
    • ACC will use the 2018 season for the content,
    • 10 circuits from the 2018 season:
    1. Zolder Belgium
    2. Monza Italy
    3. Brands Hatch Great Britain
    4. Silverstone Great Britain
    5. Misano Italy
    6. Paul Ricard France
    7. Spa-FrancorchampsBelgium
    8. Nürburgring Germany
    9. Budapest Hungary
    10. Barcelona Spain
    • Official leaderboards will be part of ACC,
    • Ranking system for both skill and safety similar to iRacing (mention of latest Gran Turismo). Kunos hired the guy behind Minorating (http://www.minorating.com/) for this,
    • ACC will follow Kunos's current philosophy of making the handling realistic (as it was in AC),
    • The tyre model, aero and suspension geometry will be improved thanks to new developers that have been hired in the last year; one new dev stated to be a mechanical engineer,
    • ACC will be more versatile and easier to use for people with less experience however this does not affect the realism (probably adding more driver assists e.g. ABS, SC).
    Pricing & release:
    • Early Access (beta version) at a lower price than the release version - just like AC,
    • No fixed release date at the time of the interview.
    On Unreal Engine 4:
    • Choice of UE4 was driven by desire of focusing on the features that were lacking in AC1, basically "gameplay features" like implementing the various RL regulations, better career mode, better AI etc. Marco supports this decision by saying that Kunos' competitors, even though with a way bigger workforce, have decided to avoid writing a graphics engine themselves. (perhaps a comment about SimBin UK and Sector 3 working together?),
    • Kunos worked on R&D for 8 months during 2017 testing the Unreal Engine 4. Marco stated that it has been an huge risk because they still didn't know if UE4 was the right choice. He mentions as an example the need to do separate renders for the mirrors, which they had trouble to implement initially as UE4 engine is a "general games platform" and not geared towards sim racing use. This required weeks of telemetry of how it works, how it uses CPU/GPU etc,
    • The assets Kunos have needed some rework as well, in order to be optimised for the different engine (as a result of the aforementioned analysis),
    • Kunos will likely UE4 for future projects,
    • Marco praises the photorealism of the Unreal Engine 4, even though some months were needed before both the eye candy and the framerate started to get to the desired level,
    • Kunos took some inspiration on how to solve some issues they had from videos of other games made with the Unreal Engine 4, most notably releases made by Milestone Games.
    On the collaboration between real racing teams & Blancpain:
    • With the official GT3 license, Kunos are going to have an even stronger collaboration between their studio and the drivers/racing teams,
    • Kunos will be at many racing weekends in order to gather data from the teams,
    • Many teams use AC for the training of their drivers. Some of the teams also asked KS for advice to build their own simulator,
    • Many drivers asked Kunos help to setup simulators in order to train for new tracks,
    • Kunos received numerous eSports contacts, but for the moment they are focusing on the development of the game (based on the way Marco talked, it is believed eSports will be added)
    • Kunos is working on a connection between virtual and real Blancpain series (for example ideal time laps vs real ones, plus something similar to RSR with invitations to the races for the fastest guys; Marco mentioned Gran Turismo's Academy as an example)
    On Assetto Corsa:
    • Expected AC sales were 100,000. End result is 1.4 million users across PC and console,
    • Marco mentions comments of people on Facebook that were saying to him that the training/playing time in AC proved useful to catch the car in RL critical situations.
    [​IMG]
     
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    Last edited: Feb 25, 2018
  9. opelman

    opelman Active Member

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    It would be cool race live whit real cars. I mean that oppenents would be live ghost from real race.
     
  10. Matej Lakota

    Matej Lakota Active Member

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    At one point I was a beta tester about something like this idea and if I remember well, we raced at Zolder against Coronel in Leon. He had some sensors on his car and his track position was transferred into the game.
     
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  11. Not Lifting Off

    Not Lifting Off Well-Known Member

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    Yep, a very early iteration of RR or at least a Simbin thing im sure.
     
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  12. David Slute

    David Slute Well-Known Member

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    Asides from the laser scanned tracks, i am really interested in what other track tech they have planned?

    - dynamic track...will it be more advanced than just a timed rubbering in like ac?
    More like pc2 or iracing with altering rubbering lines and track temps

    - loose surface physics....will off track excursions bring debris back on track which can be picked up by the tires and alter grip levels based on weather and temp...ex mud, dirt, grass and dust

    Track side 3d animations...will there be track side animations? AC tracks were pretty lifeless without them.

    Weather...will the weather be linked to a real time weather system based on location?
     
  13. Peter Koch

    Peter Koch Well-Known Member Beta tester

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    That was Real time racing, really cool testing.
     
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  14. Rodger Davies

    Rodger Davies Well-Known Member

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    Good post. On this point:

    - the fireworks are obviously a nod to Spa, but you can see a shot with Radillon in the background with moving fans (please no waving flags at night in the rain!) and the pit shots show team personnel moving around. I do hope they don't try pretending hundreds of thousands of spectators go to Blancpain events though.
     
  15. Klouczech

    Klouczech Member

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    Hello,
    I made a comparison between Real and Virtual Ginetta on Autodrom Most circuit.
     
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  16. Paul a.D.

    Paul a.D. Active Member

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    Assetto Corsa 4K * Nürburgring 1965 [download]

     
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  17. Skybird

    Skybird Well-Known Member

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    Stefano gives a 45 inute lecture on the challenges of developing a racewing AI.

    You could skip the first three minutes without loosing much. But then he gets to the real nitty-gritty of AI coding, and that is highly interesting, I think. It also helps to understand what and why AI in AC does what it does, and where it may differ from the AI in other games - and why that is so.
     
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  18. Skybird

    Skybird Well-Known Member

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    Race Department held a long interview (43 minutes) with Stefano Casillo and Marco Massarutto about Assetto Corsa Competizione. Both informative and entertaining insight into the decisions and reasons forming the background. A second part follow-on to this first interview sessions is announced.

    And in the backgroudn always those unreal world photos... :eek:

    On a sidenote, they confirm that actually they do TWO seasons: 2018 AND 2019. :)

     
    Last edited: Mar 7, 2018
  19. headder

    headder Member

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    Whole stuff about ACC looks really promising. I assume that it will be a true GT3 killer in terms of simracing for all games we currently have.
     
  20. Skybird

    Skybird Well-Known Member

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    Regarding GT3, yes, i think so, too. Also they have a time advantage, early access will already start this summer. I assume it will go as well-sorted as the Early Access for AC, and that was a textbook example of how it should be done and timed.

    I got the impression by some sentences in the interview that the studio meanwhile has shrunk in size again. They did not explicitly said they did, but I recall that two years ago they have gone upwards in size to around 30 people or more, I think. They now seem to be much smaller again. But that is my subjective interpretation, no proven fact. Considering that they do not plan to create over a hundred cars and an infinite number of track DLCs, it makes sense, maybe.

    My only big quarrel is that there is no Nordschleife. Maybe very late, after Blancpain license content is finished, as a DLC, but something tells me it will not happen. :( 50% and more of my racing time is on the Nordschleife, so I hardly will migrate in full to ACC.

    A racing game with mutliple tracks but no lasered Nordschleife, to me these days just is not complete anymore. :)