The Last Garage Q&A With Marcel Offermans
OverTake: What has the feedback been like since people got to try the vertical slice version of The Last Garage at Sim Formula Europe 2024?
Marcel Offermans: A lot of people there got to try the sim for a few laps. What I could observe was that after a few corners, people in general were able to control the car nicely on and slightly over the limit. Some people, especially some of the e-sports drivers that were competing there, gave very detailed feedback on the handling and I’ve used that to improve some details in the last couple of months.
Almost everybody came out with a big smile though, so that is probably a good thing! Of course you cannot expect anyone to fully review the sim after a 15 minute drive, so I’m sure when we start doing longer trials, more feedback will surface and that’s great.
Have any exciting opportunities opened up after this public trial (that you can share)?
There is not much in terms of details that I can share right now, but in general I’ve had a few requests about licensing the new engine for other projects, which is still a bit too early today but definitely something I’ll consider going forward.
Then there are a few hardware companies that I’m working closely with to see if a better integration between hardware and software can yield better results for both, but those projects are all under NDA so until something is released there is nothing I can share. On top of those, there are a few talks about very specific projects. I’ll definitely share anything that happens here as soon as I can.
With the possibility to simulate different mechanical setups – like the different types of suspension layouts – on cars, even oddballs like the Tyrrell P34 are possible in TLG. Which uncommon car would you like to see most in the sim eventually?
As you know, I’ve been simracing for over 25 years now and one of the people I “grew up with” is Remco Hitman. Besides being an extremely nice guy, Remco also is a very skilled builder and his passion project was a 1:1 scale replica of the Tyrrell P34. I would encourage people to search for his blogs, pictures and videos as it’s really an amazing project.
Recently, Remco gave me the opportunity to try his sim, and that has only strengthened my desire to recreate that car. Because it is so different, it also serves as a great proof of concept to see if the modular technology can really deal with special cars.
Is there a timeline for The Last Garage’s development yet, or is it still too early to tell?
That is still too early to tell as I have not even decided on an exact scope for a title, so any date I would name now would be purely fictional. What I will do is follow closely what new titles that are scheduled for release this and next year are doing and what the feedback from our community is. My goal is to build a sustainable business for sim racers and right now I’m still exploring what the best way is to do that.
Will the attention to detail that goes into cars’ suspensions etc. also raise the bar regarding tracks and environments? In which way?
That’s an excellent question and I have a somewhat surprising answer when I say it doesn’t. A suspension, together with the tires of the car, is designed to keep the car on the road with the driver in full control. So it will try to absorb bumps, make the weight transfer of the chassis smooth, etc. In other words, a good suspension will fix the problems of a not so good road.
Of course that’s only one side of the coin, and as sim racers we want to accurately represent all aspects, so from that point of view it is important to have an accurate representation of the road and the contact patch between that road and the tire. The shape and size of that patch is obviously important and there it also makes a big difference if, for example, curbs are modeled in 3D or as flat surfaces. And how small your time step is or else you risk to miss certain bumps completely at high speed. So in the end it’s a combination of all of these things.
The May blog mentions pre-war Grand Prix cars, an era that is very underrepresented in sim racing. What fascinates you about the cars of the time, and do you think The Last Garage could change their lack of representation?
I have a background in mechanical engineering, so what fascinates me about those cars is how simple a lot of things were compared to modern race cars. It obviously also was a very dangerous era, which is something that sim racing changes, and it puts a big emphasis on the skills of the driver. What makes it harder to pull off is the fact that typically the tracks they raced on no longer exist. Even discarding the whole “laser scan” discussion, it is hard to accurately represent them.
Same for the cars, if you’re lucky there’s a few left in a museum, so all your data will have to come from those. Sometimes it’s surprising to realize how recently the introduction of something like CAD was btw, even a lot of post war F1 cars, just to name an example, are not available as CAD models at all. I am going to be a bit cautious about saying “yes, we will have these” as I just explained there is no fixed plan yet for the first title and I do not want to start promising things here when I don’t know if I can deliver.
Audio is another area that sim racing titles tend to struggle with, at least regarding external sounds. Have you thought about how to possibly change that, or is this not necessarily something you have in mind for TLG?
A couple of years back while I was still at Studio 397, we hired an intern called Devin Braune who, as part of his internship, was tasked to explore the different options for creating a new sound engine. That ultimately lead to a completely new implementation in rFactor 2 which I still think was a big step up. That said, there are certainly advancements in technology today that would allow different approaches to sound engine design, taking advantage of multiple cores and possibly even GPU or whatever new types of processors will come to future computers.
To be honest, for now I’m using a fairly traditional way to generate sounds, but I am closely following developments in this area. If you’ve ever been at Spa for example, the way the sound reflects between the hills is a very unique experience and one that would be amazing to replicate. Ultimately you are looking at simulating how sound reflects, absorbs, etc in a complicated 3D environment with different materials which is a form of “audio ray tracing”. No easy task!
What are your thougts on the The Last Garage May dev blog? Let us know on Twitter @OverTake_gg or in the comments below!
Marcel Offermans: A lot of people there got to try the sim for a few laps. What I could observe was that after a few corners, people in general were able to control the car nicely on and slightly over the limit. Some people, especially some of the e-sports drivers that were competing there, gave very detailed feedback on the handling and I’ve used that to improve some details in the last couple of months.
Almost everybody came out with a big smile though, so that is probably a good thing! Of course you cannot expect anyone to fully review the sim after a 15 minute drive, so I’m sure when we start doing longer trials, more feedback will surface and that’s great.
Have any exciting opportunities opened up after this public trial (that you can share)?
There is not much in terms of details that I can share right now, but in general I’ve had a few requests about licensing the new engine for other projects, which is still a bit too early today but definitely something I’ll consider going forward.
Then there are a few hardware companies that I’m working closely with to see if a better integration between hardware and software can yield better results for both, but those projects are all under NDA so until something is released there is nothing I can share. On top of those, there are a few talks about very specific projects. I’ll definitely share anything that happens here as soon as I can.
With the possibility to simulate different mechanical setups – like the different types of suspension layouts – on cars, even oddballs like the Tyrrell P34 are possible in TLG. Which uncommon car would you like to see most in the sim eventually?
As you know, I’ve been simracing for over 25 years now and one of the people I “grew up with” is Remco Hitman. Besides being an extremely nice guy, Remco also is a very skilled builder and his passion project was a 1:1 scale replica of the Tyrrell P34. I would encourage people to search for his blogs, pictures and videos as it’s really an amazing project.
Recently, Remco gave me the opportunity to try his sim, and that has only strengthened my desire to recreate that car. Because it is so different, it also serves as a great proof of concept to see if the modular technology can really deal with special cars.
Is there a timeline for The Last Garage’s development yet, or is it still too early to tell?
That is still too early to tell as I have not even decided on an exact scope for a title, so any date I would name now would be purely fictional. What I will do is follow closely what new titles that are scheduled for release this and next year are doing and what the feedback from our community is. My goal is to build a sustainable business for sim racers and right now I’m still exploring what the best way is to do that.
Will the attention to detail that goes into cars’ suspensions etc. also raise the bar regarding tracks and environments? In which way?
That’s an excellent question and I have a somewhat surprising answer when I say it doesn’t. A suspension, together with the tires of the car, is designed to keep the car on the road with the driver in full control. So it will try to absorb bumps, make the weight transfer of the chassis smooth, etc. In other words, a good suspension will fix the problems of a not so good road.
Of course that’s only one side of the coin, and as sim racers we want to accurately represent all aspects, so from that point of view it is important to have an accurate representation of the road and the contact patch between that road and the tire. The shape and size of that patch is obviously important and there it also makes a big difference if, for example, curbs are modeled in 3D or as flat surfaces. And how small your time step is or else you risk to miss certain bumps completely at high speed. So in the end it’s a combination of all of these things.
The May blog mentions pre-war Grand Prix cars, an era that is very underrepresented in sim racing. What fascinates you about the cars of the time, and do you think The Last Garage could change their lack of representation?
I have a background in mechanical engineering, so what fascinates me about those cars is how simple a lot of things were compared to modern race cars. It obviously also was a very dangerous era, which is something that sim racing changes, and it puts a big emphasis on the skills of the driver. What makes it harder to pull off is the fact that typically the tracks they raced on no longer exist. Even discarding the whole “laser scan” discussion, it is hard to accurately represent them.
Same for the cars, if you’re lucky there’s a few left in a museum, so all your data will have to come from those. Sometimes it’s surprising to realize how recently the introduction of something like CAD was btw, even a lot of post war F1 cars, just to name an example, are not available as CAD models at all. I am going to be a bit cautious about saying “yes, we will have these” as I just explained there is no fixed plan yet for the first title and I do not want to start promising things here when I don’t know if I can deliver.
Audio is another area that sim racing titles tend to struggle with, at least regarding external sounds. Have you thought about how to possibly change that, or is this not necessarily something you have in mind for TLG?
A couple of years back while I was still at Studio 397, we hired an intern called Devin Braune who, as part of his internship, was tasked to explore the different options for creating a new sound engine. That ultimately lead to a completely new implementation in rFactor 2 which I still think was a big step up. That said, there are certainly advancements in technology today that would allow different approaches to sound engine design, taking advantage of multiple cores and possibly even GPU or whatever new types of processors will come to future computers.
To be honest, for now I’m using a fairly traditional way to generate sounds, but I am closely following developments in this area. If you’ve ever been at Spa for example, the way the sound reflects between the hills is a very unique experience and one that would be amazing to replicate. Ultimately you are looking at simulating how sound reflects, absorbs, etc in a complicated 3D environment with different materials which is a form of “audio ray tracing”. No easy task!
What are your thougts on the The Last Garage May dev blog? Let us know on Twitter @OverTake_gg or in the comments below!
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