AMS 2 Development Roadmap - More News, Videos and Pictures

[Paul Jeffrey]

Reiza Studios have released their 'Development Roadmap' for September, and it's packed full of exciting Automobilista 2 news!

Proving themselves to be as versatile as ever, Reiza Studios have released a new development roadmap for the month of September. This month, the Brazilian studio have shared plenty of details about the upcoming Automobilista 2 racing simulation, plus further news about the ongoing work that is taking place for the (fairly) recent rFactor 2 'Reiza Pack' DLC.

Full roadmap post from Renato Simioni below:

Hello again everyone

September has been another busy month in an ongoing run of busy months that shall continue as we push flatout with development of Automobilista 2 - so let´s cut to the. chase and go straight into what we´ve been up to this past month.

AMS1 / rF2 Bundle Updates

We still have a few updates and fixes pending for these two releases which (at the risk of sounding repetitive) are due out soon. Please bare with us a little longer here

AMS2 Community Skins

We have recently announced in our development forum (restricted to Reiza Backers) that those who joined the AMS2 Early Backing Campaign will have the opportunity to become part of Automobilista 2 by submitting their own paintjob and driver name for any of the various fictional or semi-fictional series which will be present in the sim. and for which backers can apply to become one of the official drivers in Automobilista 2.

If you are a Backer and a capable skin painter, check out the various topics in Reiza51 for instructions on how to apply.

All talented skinners are welcome to come showcase your skills by submitting your application for any of the many series in Automobilista 2 open for community skins, such as this revamped Formula V12:

For the more prolific skinners out there, be advised we are also on the lookout for someone to join the team in an official capacity - if you´re interested in taking this a little more seriously, shoot me a PM

New and familiar Brazilian Series for AMS2

As previously announced AMS2 will see the introduction of Brazilian Sprint Race Series. Powered by a 260HP V6 engine with RWD, sequential 6-speed shifter and with a central driving position, this car serves as an excellent training tool for several types of racing and should be a perfect option for door-to-door action.

AMS2 will also continue to feature the popular Brazilian Formula Vee, the popular trainer now in its latest model featuring a new engine and suspension geometry.

Making the Game Engine Tick

Back when we were developing Stock Car Extreme into Automobilista, a small but significant adjustment we made was bumping the physics tick rate from the original 360hz to 720hz, along with controller rates from 90hz to a (potential depending on setting) 360hz - what this effectively results in is noticeably higher fidelity from physics and better feedback for the controllers, as the game is running physics calcs and outputting feedback at a faster rate.

With the Madness engine we have been looking into it again and finding some good room for improvements. Tick rates are a simple thing to change but something to experiment with carefully as audio, physics and controller rates all interact within the game engine and ought to remain somewhat in sync, so a good deal of testing is needed to find the balance between what rates bring significant improvements without causing problems or performance issues.

The original tick rates had to mind performance on lower end consoles where there are more performance bottlenecks - given we don´t plan to release AMS2 in these consoles and PC hardware has continued to evolve over the years, combined with the fact our assets are generally lighter on resources has given us a little more leeway to tune up those tick rates and get a bit more fidelity all around.

The biggest boost this time so far has been on the audio front where tick rates have been bumped to substantially higher rates than it was and higher than the AMS1 audio engine (which ran @ 120hz) - the difference is even visible when analyzing the graphs below, showing two 100ms chunk of audio curves under the old and new rates:

Old Audio Frequency

New Audio Frequency

This naturally also results in substantial higher fidelity audio in-game, particularly with high revving F1 engines which are capable of covering a respectable RPM range over 100ms.

You can hear what we´ve got so far in the video below featuring 3 of these high-revving engines over a lap at Interlagos - (please keep in mind the usual WIP disclaimers):

On the physics front, the margins for upscaling tick rates were smaller as both physics and controller tick rates were already set at 600hz,but physics has also been bumped up to AMS1 level @ 720hz, as when you´re trying to tame a 1000bhp monster on slicks over standing water you need all control you can have - see for yourself

As before all videos are captured with fairly standard system specs (i7-3770k CPU @ 3.50GHz, 16gb RAM, Geforce GTX 1070) so rest assured we´re not planning on blowing any gaskets here on the contrary, AMS2 should remain very accessible in terms of hardware requirements.

Grinding the Tranny - Manual Transmission Model

Further development on the physics have been made on the drivetrain model, specifically for cars with manual boxes so as in AMS1 the driver can´t get away abusing his gearbox speedshifting or skipping gears without clutching or rev matching.

Here again we´re fortunate to rely on SMS legacy code which was somewhat similar to what we had in AMS1, so re-enabling it and merging with our own model has been relatively straight-forward - it´s already working reasonably as can be seen in the video below:

Obviously everything seen and heard here is early WIP and subject to a lot of fine tuning, but the good news is that this compounds what is overall a more advanced model which will among other things eventually include damage to gears and gearbox altogether from recurring miss-shifts.

London Team Meeting

One of the catalysts for the recent developments has been our team meetings in London - for those not aware Reiza doesn´t have a physical studio so devs work from their own location worldwide, and all team work is done remotely. This is suits us fine generally but we also find it productive and personally rewarding to get together once in a while to perform a few days of intense in loco team work.

Unfortunately not many from Reiza could make it this time but the London setting wasn´t accidental as there we also got the opportunity to meet some of the key people at Slightly Mad Studios, and for a few days consult with some of their lead devs over various topics regarding the development of Automobilista 2 with the Madness engine.

From left to right: SMS Andy Garton, Myself, Reiza Dom Lovric, SMS Ged Keaveney and Reiza Dave Stephenson

From the start of the relationship SMS has proved themselves to be great and enthusiastic partners, generous with their time, knowledge and assets, without which we wouldn´t have a chance of meeting the very aggressive development schedule we have set for ourselves with Automobilista 2. This again proved the case in London where we were treated with great hospitality and able to feed on their expertise, for which we are most grateful.

That cover it for September! We have a couple more updates to go so expect things to pick up steam from now onwards with more info about the development of AMS2 and our longer term goals for it, the premium licenses we are in process of securing and everything else we´re aiming to deliver for it´s initial release and continuous development over the coming years.


Automobilista 2 will release for PC December 2019.

For the latest Automobilista 2 news and discussions, head over to the AMS 2 sub forum here at RaceDepartment and get yourself involved in the conversation today!

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[Yeschristopher]

From videos, looks like it has 2D trees. I think this is actually good thing, saves performance and they look very good on video. Even with good GPU, why waste power into trees, when they look perfectly fine as 2D. The trees of pCars 2 look worse, and they are 3D

2d is better for trackside trees. NO POP-IN!!!!

 

[ShredatorFIN]

2d is better for trackside trees. NO POP-IN!!!!

Yep, I guess some 3D trees could be okay, if they are very prominent landmarks close to track. Then it's more like another building, like in the old VIR layout when the oak was still up. Amount of them won't be significant that way.

Actual 3D trees have to be so crude if all trees are 3D (so that the polygon count stays reasonable), that it doesn't really look all that good, LOD popping nonstop everywhere etc. and you still see it's not a real tree. Good 2D tree actually looks more real. Even AMS1 trees look quite good to this day (spectators not so much, but it's just a matter of texture choice really)

One thing that could be used to make 2D trees more "lively" is the effect that Custom Shaders Patch uses for AC, where Kunos trees react to wind. Even when it's not really moving as an object, just visual gimmick. Dunno if Reiza is looking into that (for example storm condition). While, Kunos trees aren't total 2D, but I think same kind of effect would work for 2D

 

[racingdud3]

Looks awesome graphically and we hope on physics will be great as ams BUT what is gonna be done to attract more people to ams2?

The grid is the problem of ams if not enought online pilots to compete with would be a huge problem, to me better graphics is cool but not the most important...

I hope they will develop a nice multiplayer system with races , if not we could suffer some similar problems on the online field..these times the online experience mean so much.

 

[ShredatorFIN]

VR, good graphics.

2 big reasons to get AMS2, for people who didn't get into AMS due to those. Most common complaints. Some European/American tracks would be good of course, especially now that mods aren't covering gaps

But multiplayer wise, what sim really offers anything massively better over others, other than iRacing.

 

[Alex Townsend]

All AMS2 needs is some good advertising, complete championships for the cars and tracks they have, solid multiplayer options and then all the top options that people in the sim race hosting world want. That way they can be sure that the race sites all over the world will pick it up and use it for their club and league races.
If there are open lobbies, rating system, good track selection that rotates in an online championship kind of way then that would be bliss.
This has the chance to be great. All they really need to do is look at what is lacking in the current sims and try and implement as much as possible.
Easy to say, probably head scratchingly difficult to do...

 

[passenger]

2D trees, if well made, look realistic, and help a lot to save processing power.

rFactor 2´s new Nords track has very good looking trees, and I think they all are 2D. Correct me if I´m wrong, but they all look 2D and great...

On the subject of attrackting customers, I think that what would be most important is having classic tracks that everybody knows and love, especially all F1 tracks.

 

[David Wright]

All AMS2 needs is some good advertising, complete championships for the cars and tracks they have, solid multiplayer options and then all the top options that people in the sim race hosting world want. That way they can be sure that the race sites all over the world will pick it up and use it for their club and league races.
If there are open lobbies, rating system, good track selection that rotates in an online championship kind of way then that would be bliss.
This has the chance to be great. All they really need to do is look at what is lacking in the current sims and try and implement as much as possible.
Easy to say, probably head scratchingly difficult to do...

Reiza are the smallest racing sim development team, probably have the smallest budget and like to focus on Brazilian motor sport. While I'm sure AMS2 will be much more popular than its predecessor, it will be AMS2 and not PC3, AC2 or iRacing 2.

 

[passenger]

If the product is very good, and now graphically will be at the level of some popular racing titles, it will catch the attention of a wider public; it has to be well advertised too, of course.

But, for people who are not simracers, who don´t look for realism, immersion and physics, what attracks them most is content: popular supercars and popular tracks. Here is where Reiza can have a bigger selling point. But perhaps, being a small company, they can not afford buying as many licences as they would like because they may be too expensive...

On a side note: another selling point, and very important for simracers, is to make the Sim moddable (let´s keep insisting on this, guys!).

 

[Lurkusmaximus]

it has to be well advertised too, of course.

Part of this falls on us. If we like it, we should shout its praises on the other racing sim websites. While RD is the king, we need to spread the word where interested individuals visit. Exposure comes first, then addiction.

 

[ermo]

For those who didn't know, Ged Keaveney is responsible for much of the core tech of the MADNESS engine and AndyG is the development director of Slightly Mad Studios.

For these two to have made themselves available to Reiza during the visit tells me that SMS are really serious about this collaboration.

 

[G_B]

[QUOTE = "G_B, post: 3051045, membro: 776554"] Não tem problema com árvores, vamos aproveitar antes que a floresta desapareça no Brasil. [/ QUOTE]
I'm brazilian. in Brazil there is no deforestation

I’m german. in Germany there is no sauerkraut.
Sounds weird, doesn’t it?

I like you Guys, Power of "sauerkraut".

 

[Deleted member 955978]

I like you Guys, Power of "sauerkraut".

Tell that to Winston Churchill...

 

[PickABetterUsername01]

All AMS2 needs is some good advertising, complete championships for the cars and tracks they have, solid multiplayer options and then all the top options that people in the sim race hosting world want. That way they can be sure that the race sites all over the world will pick it up and use it for their club and league races.
If there are open lobbies, rating system, good track selection that rotates in an online championship kind of way then that would be bliss.
This has the chance to be great. All they really need to do is look at what is lacking in the current sims and try and implement as much as possible.
Easy to say, probably head scratchingly difficult to do...

As long as the multiplayer structure and rating system isn't as bad as ACC it should be fine, hopefully. They need to look at ACC multiplayer and think "that's exactly what we shouldn't do" lol.

The game looks good so far, and while it's focused on brazilian racing series, I think it's necessary to have a lot of classic/popular tracks and series. All other games having nordscheleife/spa is not an excuse for this one to not have, it will just make it less popular, thus decreasing popularity and it's community, killing multiplayer potential. And it's even more important now, since there's no mods to "fix" content the game lacks.

 

[G_B]

Tell that to Winston Churchill...

I like more this article : https://richardlangworth.com/cars-churchill-blood-sweat-gears

Does anyone have a Brazilian racing circuit to advise me? a local circuit other than the known circuits.

 

[Andy_J]

As a VR user, I'm perfectly happy with 2D trees in my racing sims. As someone else mentioned, why waste processing power on them? I honestly don't know how some people even notice this kind of thing while actually playing. I mean, they're supposed to be racing, not sitting still staring at the scenery. Put the detail where it's really needed, that's what I say.

That's very nice of you, but us flat screen users still like our trees done nicely thank you. So an option to have crappy trees for VR users might be the best thing to have. That's what I say.

 

[chris_M3]

Since AMS2 is based off the madness engine will it have modding??

 

[Isaac Chavira]

Not a backer but I can make skins. Just check my profile. I can also link you to my Trading Paints page.

 

[dajdosta]

That's very nice of you, but us flat screen users still like out trees done nicely thank you. So an option to have crappy trees for VR users might be the best thing to have. That's what I say.

No we don't

 

[Andy_J]

No we don't

No we don't what?

 

[dajdosta]

No we don't what?

Us flat screen users don't want our trees to be done nicely if that means poor performance.
I agree option to choose would be best but that will never happen