Imagine what iRacers are going to be feeling when rF2 is released, and they realized they paid $12-$15 dollars per track that exist in some strange universe where there is no such thing as weather. A universe where every millimeter of the track remains exactly the same even if 10,000,000 laps are run on it. Doesn't sound like realism to me. Those tracks are going to seem like.....a waste of money......or maybe just ridiculous?? Btw, does the time of day even change in iRacing yet?
no They have superb/great shadows at 1pm all the time BUt if there are some racers who doesn't care about track accuracy, why you are surprised there are drivers you doesn't care about changeable day time ?
Some will be disappointed. And some will say (and are saying) that it would be easy to add fake weather effects. But super-Dave is in the business of only accurate simulation. And once his mathematical description of a tyre is completely correct, it'll be trivial to add different surface grip levels and weather too. ..just as well, because by then the Sun will be spitting out ice cubes if you ask me.
There are quite a few iracers that will never change their mind. It seriously is a religion to alot of them with Dave Kaemmer being their Jesus and John Henry is their god. That's why I do believe no matter how crappy it gets over there iracing will always be around. There is a guy in their forums who hasn't raced in 3 months but has 6,500 posts in just over a year defending iracing constantly. @feels3 I'm not saying ir's tracks are ugly or crap. I think alot of their tracks (not all of them) are very nice and the track surface does come alive in your hands in certain cars. If it wasn't for their whole laser scanning gimmick they wouldn't be around I believe.
But with rf2 i'm only getting cars and tracks , not the service and organised racing. Didn't rf1 have a weather? Gtr2 had changing conditions and rain. NetKar-Pro also have (fake) rain. I believe most iRacers have tried other sims before iRacing and weather is nothing special and new to them.
Please let's not turn this thread into a rFactor Vs iRacing thread folks !!!! It would make me sad The Topic is "LiDAR circuit models" ...... Well, I must say, both camps have laid out their positions pretty well. The potential for the best possible real world track representations lies with the PRO LS camp. Physics engines can be adapted and tuned and if the work is done well, a truely great experience can be delivered. The PRO Standard Dev [SD] camp have a strong argument supporting why the costs incurred to achieve real world LS track representations far out weigh the benefits at this point in time when compared to the existing SD tracks that are available. It can be taken as a given that both LS and SD can produce terrible representations if the work on the modding side is not very good. Let's keep the comparison away from these. Here's the thing folks, both camps have valid positions and for one camp to ignore the argument from the other makes them a little blinkered and immature. I don't believe anyone in the Pro SD camp are absolutely anti the LS model. They consider LS as not a good value proposition at the moment. Equally, I don't believe anyone in the Pro LS camp are necessarily anti the SD model ... they just are convinced the LS model is a good value proposition. For those for whom only LS is acceptable or cannot accept the merits of the SD model, then there's nothing more to say other than to suggest iRacing or indeed to go and buy some LS data and built the track. Either way, there's a wait need as it seems rFactor franchise will not pick up LS track modelling presently. The LS model may well become the standard at some point in the future, when the barriers to entry for that product are reduced enough and rFactor management decided to endorse it. That day will result in an improved potential for even better tracks. I will welcome that day even-though presently, my own position is that LS is not worth it yet. Until that day, I will continue to find hours of enjoyment on the SD modelled tracks currently available from some of the finest modders in the PC games industry. I'm not going to concern myself with what I don't know and I'll continue to race my friends on the common and even playing ground of the SD modelled tracks. May the fastest cross the line first, but not before me! Safe driving
Anyway i do not mean the "standard built" tracks are all ugly..take a look for example on Virtua_LM tracks, are really beautiful and very well built. I LOVE Mid-Ohio or Sebring, they did a great work. There are lots of beautiful tracks available for rFactor but..also there are lots innaccurate, because they used old meshes. For rF2 i'd like to see less conversions (specially inaccurate and old tracks) and more tracks built from scratch. I think rF2 needs quality about cars and tracks, not quantity. Less conversions, less illegal stuff, and more legal and quality work. IMHO of course.
With you there .... It'll be interesting to see what happens on the conversion front. My guess is alot of existing rF1 tracks will get ported across and it'll be down to each person to find and install the best stuff. It's the strength and the weakness of an open system sin't it? Hopefully, there will be somewhat of a reset however with alot of the eternally WIP and less good tracks not making it across
I would obviously like to have laser scanned tracks but when it comes right down to it, it doesn't really matter unless you plan to lap the track in real life. In the sim you are either competing online, against AI or even against your own times. In any of these cases everyone is on the same track. So who cares if a bump is 1ft off. It is 1ft off for all competitors. I am even content with fantasy tracks. Some of these fantasy tracks are a blast. Again, I am not saying I don't want LS tracks. I just don't think it will make or break anything. I am not like many of the iRacing guys that seam to think that there sim is so real that they could drive in real life. I have done enough laps in real life to know that sims will "never" compare to the real thing. Ever! Well not unless they find a way to clamp some probes on your head and send signals directly to your brain to simulate forces on your body. Sim racing is a good tool for real life but not a replacement. The important thing is it is very fun and competitive.
iRacing and some of it's more fanatical drivers like to say that their LS tracks can be a big help (more than other sim tracks) to a real driver before they visit a track in real life. Ridiculous. For many DECADES now, real life drivers have visited tracks they've never seen before on a Friday, and been able to compete at 100% by Sunday. Unless you are a stone cold idiot, it's very easy to memorize a track (including.....bumps!) within a dozen laps. Anything a real driver learns from a sim track is forgotten almost immediately after they get out on the real thing. LS is simply not worth the costs.
I'm not one to bag iRacing, but mentioning real drivers who say the tracks are 'correct' shouldn't carry a lot of weight. Those not new to sims may recall Jos Verstappen saying GP3 felt like the real thing (unfortunately people are so easily misled by the equipment disparity in F1 that they dismissed it out of hand purely because he was a "s*** driver"), which goes to show that what a racing driver sees in a game isn't the same as what a gamer sees in a game. The video I saw of Huttu driving in a real car had him saying the track was, in comparison to the iRacing version, "pretty close, except a kerb here and there" (I'm paraphrasing obviously) But, again, I wonder how close it actually needs to be before you just don't notice the difference when so many other aspects of the experience also change. I can see the appeal in LS, because a correct track is a correct track. You don't need the best physics engine (will never be perfect), you don't need the best graphics (will never be completely realistic), road is road is road so if it's right it's just... right. But no matter how you skin the cat you can't capture all the LS detail (and, unless the cloud images are misleading, the LS resolution is limited anyway) without exceeding memory or CPU capabilities, and if you ever do get that close you run into a lot of factors that affect the real track (as has already been eluded to) which make all your accuracy a bit pointless. You might have a perfect version of how that track was at a particular moment, but it's no longer the same as the real one - perhaps not different enough to notice, but then we're back to whether you need the accuracy you're not noticing
LDMR - Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns .... some folks will get it, others will ignore it. .... and anyway, who am I to say who is right or wrong? I think this long thread has said it all. Roll on rF2
Yes, when i'm racing , it doesn't matter if the track is not 100% accurate, it's same fo everyone. Same thing with physics.
The way you perceive a track in real life is totally different from how you perceive it on a small flat screen with narrow FOV. Surely he felt like a curb was off here or there but I bet they were actually identical. The fact remains, sims != real life. But another fact also remains that simracing is close to real life and is very fun and competitive.
@J.V You can say the same things about cars. You can drive fantasy car in rf1, it's the same for everyone. The same one fantasy car physics. Maybe you should play Need for Speed?
You can have a realistic handling fantasy car. I bet I could download a fantasy car and put a 997 GT3 RSR 3D model and sounds on it and tell you that I drive it in real life and that the mod is 100% accurate and everyone would be cool with it. Just because someone doesn't get hung up on cars/tracks that exist in real life doesn't mean they should switch to a game with arcade physics.
For me arcade doesn't mean only simplicity physic model, but non accurate data comparing with real car too. If I want to drive Porsche, I want to hear real sound, feel real performance, and if I take these Porsche to SPA, i want to feel like in real SPA. As real as possible of course. I like fantasy track and cars and I don't expect 100% accuracy from that kind of stuff. Fun still can be the same.
There're two data caps which we don't know about. IR staff should inform how many points from that insanely dense points cloud collected by scanner are dropped for the actual 3d model track (1st cap). From that, how many points per square meter the simulator's engine is able to include for the car's suspension calculations (2nd cap) I bet at the end the driving and the car reactions would be the same of a non-LS track.
