Collision model - Game breaker - however no priority?

Hello gents!

I have to get something off my chest. It's been hard to keep silent about this and having raced some multiplayer races tonight made me want to share my thoughts.

The problem is the collision model and collision physics. Not the damage model, but the collision model. I REALLY don't like the collision model of rF1 where wheels were moving through each other and rF2 is better then that at this stage, which I like. What I don't like about it, are the completely insane and utterly rediculous collissions I get in online play. I'm not really racing AI at this stage but if I recall it well those horrible collisions happen in Single player too. Hitting the barrier head-on can send the car flying in all unrealistic angles.

Now, ISI is focussing on game breaking bugs first and the bugs like the flashing mirrors are lower priority. I'm with ISI on that one. What worries me though, is the collision model which has been the same for all the beta versions, right? I call this a game breaking problem because close door to door/wheel to wheel racing is completely impossible. The smallest contacts can result in huge crashes, and I don't mean that in a realistic way, at all.

Now, my question to you: Are you with me on this one?
And the question to ISI: Is there any info on plans to alter, update, fix the collision model? Because gold isn't possible without a good working collision model and physics.

 

You read my mind, yesterday i make some laps online with the formula 2 and when you hit reasonably slow other car your car just fly like a beach ball.

 

yeah its been a "problem" since rF1 for me especially if the mods that come out have it ever so slightly wrong it can be a pain (as in rF1). I certainly dont agree that its Game Breaking for Gold though, I have had some close battles with the AI and the paint swapping has been just fine, its just when you get the odd "funny" moment and you wonder how the hell that tap turned into a spin like that....you know what I mean! Sure it needs updating, not done a lot of open wheel racing recently so cant comment on the wheel to wheel collision just yet.

Thing is the only answer I can see from ISI on this matter is "It will be addressed in the future" like everything else.....their worklist for Post Gold must be huge

 

It is not only addressing of the issue, but they are developing whole new damage model, so of course it will take some time until that is made ready, also in their small team different section of work have to wait for their turn.

I think that there are some really good things in works, very little is told about them.

If I would be an average game buyer and would buy 'ready' game, that is game that is gold release and it would have current collisions, then I would be quick to think that product is not very well done. Of course I do know that with rF2 there will be development also after gold release, but that average buyer is used to get all when he buys the game and of course that would then lead to disappointment and poor reviews also.

So I think that currently what is there, is probably going to change before gold, but of course I can't know this for sure.

edit: Oh yes and I think damage model and what happens in collisions are very closely related to each other, damage model will probably be one that will dampen that collision energy, so cars will no longer fly off when having contacts, but this also reminds to be seen how well it works when damage is there to handle those energies.

 

Hm,

doesn´t it have to be considered in the car models? What is with all the existing mods from ISI and especially from the community modders?

digi

 

No information available at the moment, or at least I don't know. However as rF1 damage and collision model was, there you could affect behaviour quite a bit with model, it might be that same goes with rF2 also, but as there is not knowing if model will be anywhere near same as with rF1, then there is not knowing how to adjust car models. Of course it can be that new model is such that car model can be what it is and damage model takes care of the rest.

To get new damage model to work, it might be that they need new collision model, or then not, but there is not knowing this either at the moment I believe, so we can just wait and see what comes.

As always with beta, be prepared to start over, I think that is something to keep in mind though.

 

For the type of racing I am mostly involved in (Dirt Oval), the collisions are too solid. There is no give when 2 cars collide. Contact between cars (and walls) is very common due to the many racing lines used and cars sliding, struggling to gain traction. We have adjusted quite well to the collisions, but even the slightest amount of contact registers a very solid impact and usually spins someone out or sends them to the wall. I'm not sure if there is some setting that can be changed or something built into the mod to soften the blow of impacts, but it is really hard for the type of racing we do.

Especially for our cars the body panels give quite a bit and you are able to make contact with someone and it only bends their body work, no real hard contact felt. If the collision model were expanded to include more soft body mechanics it would go a long way to help racing and decrease accidents.

 

marcg: Thing is the only answer I can see from ISI on this matter is "It will be addressed in the future" like everything else.....their worklist for Post Gold must be huge

i would have to agree with you on that, BUT we really don't know what is finished and whats not. IMHO we are still 6 months or more away from gold..........but wat wud i no

 

I've always felt that if it's a 'Simulation' then simulate as much as possible. A better collision model and better damage model are certainly part of it.

When one play(ed)s NR2003 and had a wreck, or you see crash videos, most, though there are a few odd/unrealistic, are quite spectacular. Watching a car nudge another car on the rear corner getting a car light, and suddenly it spins or even lifts, and a car gets airborne, just like a real car can, and bounces off other vehicles and walls. And there's some kind of believable looking damage.

It would certainly add something. Grand Prix Legends lack of any real damage model was a let down for everything else it did so well.

rF1 did so many things so well and was very impressive in many way but when you watch replays of amazing tight racing, dicing wheel to wheel, pushing the limit, and someone makes a mistake and..... disappointing... :/ Took away from the excitement of the 'whole' experience.

 

...i totally agree GtrFreak!

 

Such things just need to happen to me twice and I would be SICK of it. Imagine leagues based on rF2 when it goes gold racing a single race every 2 weeks - Imagine you being taken out by these rediculous crash physics.. If ISI doesn't want to lose the faith of their fans, this should be altered. For me, no doubt, this is immensely game breaking. Don't understand you saying you think it's not.

Maybe Tim could share his thoughts?

 

Don't think it is fair to talk game breaker until Gold. Yes there are a long list of things that are not ready but until ISI say it's ready for retail I will give them the benefit of the doubt. It's a damn shame they refuse to say what they are working on at any given time, a dev diary would go a long way to silence many of the negative threads. A list of the things they are working on...but they don't so like I say we just have to assume stuff like this will be gone from Gold, because flying cars are just silly, sure once in a blue moon you see it in RL but I do get irritated with hitting the restart button time and again due to over the top crashes myself.

 

Build 60 and 85 both adjusted it. Lower priority doesn't mean no priority.

 

Absolutely those things are very annoying, and sometimes look ridiculous. They are an artifact, however, of every simulation that I am aware of that is trying to work with complex physics. Every dev does their best to reduce and remove them, but I've seen them in every sim with good physics since GPL.

 

This reminds me, it had to do with time, problem was that collision detection can't run realtime so it can be that meshes are bit inside of each other at time of next check, it was also worse online because tiniest amount of delay could mean something like 2cm which then renders to much larger force than should of been.

There was some mathematical methods to predict contacts and so on, but they all had cost in performance, so that is then why there is really no 100% working collision model at online use, unless someone figures out way to make it.

edit: Oh yes, one way to reduce effect is to reduce forces to unrealistic levels in collisions, some games probably have used that, but I don't think it would be a solution, more of hack.

 

I'm not complaining in any way that this has been a problem and need to get fixed ASAP. However, what I do try to say that it's an issue which has been annoying and which can be seen as game breaking when going gold

That's good to know really, didn't notice a real difference, allthough recently haven't seen such a mayhem like in the youtube vid (its b49 back in Januari).

Well, all I can say is that I personally hope this will be looked at because this is annoying to me, hehe. We'll see what the future brings.

 

Because I dont think it is.....I've had a ton of races against the AI and its only rarely that I get the random strange bump, certainly does'nt happen every race and if it did then I'd think differently....but I dont. As it is now for me its fine for Gold.

 

in rF1-2 is not the principle of the kinetic energy of the body and in contact with the surfaces of ... Only traveling about pulling for a car body, and the body as a rattle on a spring, not a weight ...
I talked about the physics of the very beginning ... yes F1 Callenge 99-02 was one of the best games of 10 years ago ... but erroneous principle calculations of the physical model and online, it's just killing now.
There is a game RoR (Rigs of Rods), a huge database of additional models, and no one model there are no questions in physics, each part has its own weight and mass, and this together it works fine ....
rFactor1-2 provide only an excellent area to model, but without the proper calculation of a physical model. I'm 100% sure of this. Throw tomatoes at me fans.

This is my check in online.

Significant changes in the output of gold, I do not expect.

ISI, excuse me ... what's your problem?

 

You got quite bit of lag issues there.

 

Just one thing that comes to my mind:

The higher the latency of the cars involved in a crash is makes the collision model go more and more funky. Keep in mind there are only a couple of players on public servers at the same time, so there's a fairly high chance that there are people from all across the globe on a populated server. You may get latencies between 10 and 400+ ms in the pack. Colliding with someone with a very high latency WILL send some cars flying.

High latencies will do freaky stuff in every multiplayer title, not only in simulations.