AMS 2: New Game Footage - Plenty of News in July Roadmap

[Paul Jeffrey]

Reiza Studios have been teasing exciting sim racing news once again... with a nice comparison video thrown into the mix for good measure!

Anyone here ever heard of Automobilista 2? Yeah, I thought you might...

I did something I never really do yesterday, I announced an announcement for an upcoming announcement. Sounds silly doesn't it? Well to be honest with you, I was just so excited about the prospect of more AMS 2 news, I really, really wanted to put a little flag in the sand of the internet and give us all somewhere to go roast the marshmallows for a while and pass the time until said announcement wanders into the wild.

Well that time is now, so I'll step aside and hand over to Reiza Studios to share the latest happenings over in Brazil...

………………….

Hello everyone! We are back with another Dev Update to bring you the latest news about our active projects.

This has been another very busy month for the team, and possibly (hopefully!) the last in which we have worked in 3 different sims simultaneously (AMS1, rF2 & AMS2). It´s fair to say switching back and forth from engines doesn´t make things easy for the devs who are involved in all these fronts, so kudos to them for continuing to push hard in order to bring us up to the status I can now present to you

On rF2 there´s not much news yet as we´re still working on small update for the Bundle to fix a few remaining issues. This should not take long now.

For AMS1, we also didn´t quite make to release before the end of July as we had been aiming for, but August will surely see the release of Snetterton and Donington Park as final DLC items for Automobilista 1, along with a small patch for a few tweaks and minor bug fixes.

Both Snetterton and Donington have been modelled with the aid of LIDAR data and are along with the previously released brit tracks some of our most accurate models.

Here´s a preview of Snetterton in AMS1:

The main focus remain of course in Automobilista 2 and things continue to come along strongly there too, with a bunch of fresh cars and tracks being brought up to spec for the new engine as you´ll see peppered through this Dev Update

AMS1 vs AMS2 - Ultima GTR @ Snetterton Comparison

We found ourselves in an unusual position the last couple of months as we developed the same content both for the old title (AMS1) and the new one (AMS2) at the same time, as both Snetterton and Donington Park are being released as DLC for AMS1 and will be part of the base game in AMS2. It made for some interesting back and forth, and we thought it was worth putting together a comparison video. Check it out:

Opinions may and will vary as they always do and obviously nothing from the AMS2 video is quite the finished article yet, but in any case we found it made for an interesting comparison. From a devs POV we left the experiment feeling both reassured that the old dog AMS1 was well put together and is still holding up, at the same time with confidence that AMS2 moves every front up a notch or three in the right direction and with lots of room for improvement still.

The most improved part is actually the physics as this is one of the cars that drive substantially better in AMS2, although you can´t see that in the video

It will take a few months still until you all can compare for yourselves but at least there will be some fresh AMS1 content to race with in this time!

Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit coming in AMS2!

We are happy to be wrapping up a licensing deal with the historical Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit which will see the track featuring in multiple versions from its rich history as base game content in Automobilista 2.

The recently upgraded Kyalami is located in Johannesburg SA, it has hosted the South African Grand Prix several times from the 60s all the way to the 90s, and as a Grade 2 FIA certified track it is currently one of the few viable options for a future return of F1 to the african continent.

Kyalami will feature in Automobilista 2 release with its latest revision along with the sweeping, high speed historical 1976 version, with the 1992 version to be added post-release.

This is an exciting deal for us as not only it highlights our goals of expanding the horizons for Automobilista 2, but also from a sim perspective it adds an interesting challenge as the track is located over 1500m above sea level. In AMS1 we unfortunately didn´t get around to completing our thermodynamic model, but with AMS2 we luckily have that out of the box as part of the Madness engine so when racing in Kyalami players will have to contend with the extra challenge of a high altitude location and the resulting significant toll in engine and aerodynamic performance.

Sprint Race also coming in AMS2

Sprint Race is a new Brazilian series which we are excited to officially include in Automobilista 2.

Managed by ex driver Thiago Marques, the series offers a low budget entry point for new drivers and has remained a healthy popular series for several years now. It has recently made its first venture abroad for races in the USA.

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.

A reminder that you can already pre-order Automobilista 2 through the AMS2 Early Backing Campaign. We´d like to thank everyone who already bought in, the extra revenue stream is most helpful and it´s being put to good use with some fresh licenses already secured and others already lined up. More information on this program and how to participate here.

If you are looking forward to Automobilista 2 but would rather wait for release, you may opt instead to add the game to your Steam wishlist via the AMS2 Steam Store page - Steam will then let you know as soon as it´s released.

We got some more exciting news coming up but these we have to save for next month. Look forward to catching up again then, possibly a little earlier than usual

Well folks, take a breath, have a relax and go enjoy that video again!

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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[mr Sw1tchblade]

Written as clear as day under the video:
".. and obviously nothing from the AMS2 video is quite the finished article yet,..."

Yep, they forget to put some shadows and reflections. But no way Reiza will add more polygons.

 

[Muzzy]

I hope that there'll be major improvements for the sound part (e.g. more pronounced gear whine)
I really like the raw sounds in AMS1 and imho they should be carried over to AMS2 as well.

 

[mantasisg]

Car looks more playful in ams.

 

[TR_S]

PC2 is not a very good looking game. Not that great a game either really. I bought the Season Pass during the steam sale. Played it for a weekend, haven't touched it since. It's... MEH!

Actually, it looks very rF2 and rF2 looks as good or better these days. I've said this forever now. If rF2 added the 3d grass, particles, actual rubber bits, impact bits and a little more visual damage, it would be eons beyond PC2.

As a complete sim, short of an online matchmaking system like you know who, if rF2 had the extras I referred to, features most other sims are beginning to have, it would be beyond most anything really.

Too bad they went this route.

 

[Dethrone1427]

Hopefully as it was stated that this is far off from being the finished article, but the sounds were somewhat underwhelming. Fingers crossed there are more crackles and pops like in RRRE. There wasn't much bass to the sounds...

 

[Daggerman]

I hope that there'll be major improvements for the sound part (e.g. more pronounced gear whine)
I really like the raw sounds in AMS1 and imho they should be carried over to AMS2 as well.

It still has that cut and pasted gear whine effect from NFS Shift.

 

[Fanis]

I am also not very excited about the AMS 2 video, but my guess is, that the purpose of this video is mainly to promote the new content for AMS 1. To me it seems that they are trying to say that AMS 1 is not much worse than AMS 2 and it is still meaningful to invest some money into it. It is even written in the article "AMS1 was well put together and is still holding up" so I think they are trying take this as one last chance to make some money out of AMS 1 and from now on, the videos of AMS 2 are going to become much more impressive.

 

[TR_S]

Hopefully as it was stated that this is far off from being the finished article, but the sounds were somewhat underwhelming. Fingers crossed there are more crackles and pops like in RRRE. There wasn't much bass to the sounds...

RRE has good sounds sure, BUT, with any of these games or sims, why is everyone so concerned with the 'perfect' sound. Inside a racecar is NOT your living room, computer or headset with a 7.1 system. It's raw, it's loud, vibrations and noise come and go and mess with your head, you are wearing a helmet, with ear bud noise filters/audio for comms, there's wind noise particularly in cars without side windows. Give me that.

It's not all smooth and beautiful like everyone wants.

 

[TR_S]

I am also not very excited about the AMS 2 video, but my guess is, that the purpose of this video is mainly to promote the new content for AMS 1. To me it seems that they are trying to say that AMS 1 is not much worse than AMS 2 and it is still meaningful to invest some money into it. It is even written in the article "AMS1 was well put together and is still holding up" so I think they are trying take this as one last chance to make some money out of AMS 1 and from now on, the videos of AMS 2 are going to become much more impressive.

Wishful me thinks. PC2 just doesn't look that great. I kind of get where they may have been going with the look which is far more natural than the over processed look of PC1 however, other than adding more post processing, I doubt they are going to rewrite whole parts of internal code to change the video processing of the game. The driving, ffb, tires and other element of vehicle dynamics are MEH! I don't know how much of that they can improve. I guess we will all see.

Let's see if I'm eating my words in 6-7 months.

 

[tonydean2]

Liking the look of Snetterton as it is one of my favourite circuits, however, one thing is missing in both versions. On the entry to turn two (Justin Wilson Corner) just to the left of centre there is a very distinctive tree. I've always called it the happy spectator as it looks like, well a happy spectator waving their arms at the racers. It's been a feature of this circuit for more years than I can remember. Small point I know but it would be nice to see it included

 

[Mickdrs]

It may be early days, but there's more detail showing in AMS

 

[Dethrone1427]

RRE has good sounds sure, BUT, with any of these games or sims, why is everyone so concerned with the 'perfect' sound. Inside a racecar is NOT your living room, computer or headset with a 7.1 system. It's raw, it's loud, vibrations and noise come and go and mess with your head, you are wearing a helmet, with ear bud noise filters/audio for comms, there's wind noise particularly in cars without side windows. Give me that.

It's not all smooth and beautiful like everyone wants.

I'm saying it sounds too smooth, too clinical. A more raw, dirty, heavy sound is what's needed. But it's all personal preference, hence I adore the sounds in RRRE! Horses for courses.

 

[David Wright]

Liking the look of Snetterton as it is one of my favourite circuits, however, one thing is missing in both versions. On the entry to turn two (Justin Wilson Corner) just to the left of centre there is a very distinctive tree. I've always called it the happy spectator as it looks like, well a happy spectator waving their arms at the racers. It's been a feature of this circuit for more years than I can remember. Small point I know but it would be nice to see it included

Apparently its no longer there in real life.

 

[natedogg1867]

Are we getting licensed content in AMS2 or it's still same fantasy cars on Brazilian tracks?

This is a very odd comment.

Do you not know that the Ultima featured in this video is a real car?

Did you miss the plethora of Paul's other articles that mention Senna's famous Mclaren among the content?

Kinda weird how well polished the screenshots of AMS2 look.

This shouldnt be any surprise given that Pcars 1/2 gameplay looks nothing like the bullshots that are posted by the devs

 

[Claudio Zini]

Oh please dear god no, looks like it drives exactly like pcars. The weird floaty crap

I also hated PC2 because of the strange floaty behavior. After a year I decided to give it a try again and after turning over the settings I found that the problem is incredibly not in physics. It's a camera setup that made all the difference to me: "100% world movement". It's weird I know, but now I just love the physics of PC2 and eliminated the floaty behavior. I consider it one of the best simulations today.

 

[Spinelli]

Video comparison was kinda meh.

• If they had no AM1/AM2 title in video I wouldn't be able to tell them apart...other than sound.

I'm really surprised there's so many people who agreed with this post of yours. The differences aren't massive, and the driver could have driven the car harder to hopefully show improvements during at-and-over the limit physics (especially with regards to rear wheelspin and slip angle control) that I really hope are part of the PC2 physics engine, but there's still definitely some differences. The 3 in the video that stand out for me are:

• In AMS1, very little steering lock to get around corners, AMS2 you actually have to "use the tyres" rather than relying on a seemingly invisible force which makes the car keep turning sharper and sharper on it's own which has been present (and exploitable if you know how to take advantage of it) in the ISI/RF engine since the 1990s (and to this day even in RF2). I have doubts that it's fully fixed in the PC2 engine since it's fundamentally based on the ISI engine but it definitely looks improved. Then again, it's hard to tell on videos because of things like steering ratios, car setup, driving style, etc. but it looks improved.
  
  
• In the AMS1 video @ 1:36 - 1:43, look at how the car does a sudden turn-in everytime he lifts the throttle. The steering lock is held steady (and at a low amount if I may add), and then the driver just keeps going back and forth between lifting and adding back the throttle and keeps on repeating. Everytime he does that, the car does this sudden sharp turn-in. This is another exploit that you see online many of the faster drivers using. They'll fly into corners at the limit, not touch the steering angle, and just keep going back and forth between throttle and no/little throttle in a few bursts and each bursts gives them this sudden, sharp turn-in effect throughout the corner. In real-life, you can "steer with the throttle" but it's different. Also, in real-life, instead of the car doing a sudden turn-in as if you suddenly gained 10x more front-grip than normal and cranked the steering wheel into the corner, what happens in real life instead is that the rear gets lighter which can assist you turning in more but the car's direction of travel / inertia will still continue to the outside of the corner rather than getting sucked to the inside of the corner as if the corner's apex grabbed your car with an invisible hand and pulled you in. I'd even go so far to say that it looks like the car is almost (not quite) floating or hovering above the track or as if something isn't right in the physics engine with mass and/or inertia in relation to how it affects vehicle dynamics & kinematics and vice-versa.
  
  
• Also regarding 1:36 - 1:43, notice how on each transition (throttle-off, sudden turn-in - throttle-on, stop the turn-in, repeat) how the grip transition itself is slow and "mushy" as if the track surface is made of glass or as if the tyres love being in a state of sliding? There's no sense of "grip." It's like the grip/slip and also transitions between them are "soft" or "sloppy".

I would have loved to see how the physics in AMS2 reacted to getting wheelspin over the curbs like AMS1 does @ 1:28. The AMS2 video didn't address whether any of the following RF (AMS, PC, R3E, etc.) & RF2 oversteer physics peculiarities have been addressed:

- rather than modulating the rear-slip-angle, wheelspin, and opposite lock, it was more of an instant, lightning quick full (or almost full) lift of the throttle. You have to do inputs like that often in the RF/ISI physics engine (as well as iRacing and most sims but RF/ISI and iRacing are the worst) because often the rear-slip and rear-wheelspin are extremely "digital" and on/off.

- often the car's path turns in relation to where the front is pointing during the slide rather than the rear rotating around RELATIVE to the vehicle's direction of travel like in real life (generally speaking).

- oversteer often A) needs what seems like less steering lock than expected to save it, B) suddenly ends as you're still in the middle of applying opposite lock. Both of these have a knock-on effect of making it way too easy and common to snap over-correct oversteer.

 

[traind]

Oh please dear god no, looks like it drives exactly like pcars. The weird floaty crap

There is no way you can tell how a sim car feels from a video.

Yes, you can see more suspension movement in AMS2 from the video but that does not mean there is a weird floaty feel or that the physics are wrong. Renato, one of the main guys behind the physics of AMS, says this car already feels "substantially better" in AMS 2 than it does in AMS. I am willing to take his word for it rather than project dislike for PCars2 into a new title based on the same engine.

 

[takfar]

Oh man. Can't wait to play a Reiza title in VR. Sure, I still need to get a VR kit, but, baby steps, right?

 

[Renato Simioni]

"Weird floaty crap" is quite close to how I would describe the Ultima GTR in AMS. Well, probably without the "crap" part. But the car certainly is...an acquired taste, let's put it that way. One that is really easy to unacquire at moments notice.

It’s funny to hear the comments on physics because one of the reasons we used the Ultima was precisely because it drove distinctively better than the AMS1 version, which physics-wise I consider to be a bit of a misfire for AMS1 standards.

What could perhaps feed that impression is that tyre scrub sound was a bit too subdued in the AMS2 video so you dont “hear” grip as much as in AMS1, but thats easily correctable.

Its a potential pitfall of showing WIP stuff, people may be quick to jump to conclusions so its something we are going to be more mindful of moving forward

 

[traind]

• In AMS1, very little steering lock to get around corners, AMS2 you actually have to "use the tyres" rather than relying on a seemingly invisible force which makes the car keep turning sharper and sharper on it's own which has been present (and exploitable if you know how to take advantage of it) in the ISI/RF engine since the 1990s (and to this day even in RF2). I have doubts that it's fully fixed in the PC2 engine since it's fundamentally based on the ISI engine but it definitely looks improved. Then again, it's hard to tell on videos because of things like steering ratios, car setup, driving style, etc. but it looks improved.

I would have loved to see how the physics in AMS2 reacted to getting wheelspin over the curbs like AMS1 does @ 1:28. The AMS2 video didn't address whether any of the following RF (AMS, PC, R3E, etc.) & RF2 oversteer physics peculiarities have been addressed:

I really appreciate your detailed post (which I abbreviated but people should take the time to read the whole thing above). I have heard you articulate this flaw before, I think in the rf2 forums. It doesn't quite bother me as much as I think it does you but you have convinced me that it is an area for improvement in ISI based Sims.

While project cars 2 never quite gelled for me as a Sim it does have a different set of characteristics when the tire is pushed beyond the limit. I am hopeful that Reiza can take advantage of that and really bring it to life.

I have a small story for you that is related to this and you might find amusing. I went to a driving school and Scott Pruett was there. I was fortunate enough to be on the podium for the autocross competition and the reward was getting to drive with Scott on track. On the autocross, with a number of sharp turns, his aggressive use of steering input and (as you described in your post) using the tires aggressively to turn in was very apparent to me. It was my key learning from watching him drive. On certain turns he must have cranked the wheel over twice as fast as I was doing and to a significantly larger angle of turn as well. He wouldn't hold it that far over but he use that technique to get the car turned in. Now this was in a relatively large and heavy Street car, not a race car. I would really loved to have also been able to observe him in a race car with slicks on the same short track but alas, that wasn't part of the program.