Automobilista 2: New Preview Video Released

[Paul Jeffrey]

Not satisfied with the last Automobilista 2 video footage? Well wrap your eyes around this one...

Reiza Studios recently revealed a new comparison video of the developing Automobilista 2 simulation, showing the game in direct comparison to its older brother AMS 1, and featuring the work-in-progress Snetterton Circuit in the UK.

Despite obviously being a significant upgrade over the original title, many fans were a little underwhelmed by how development of Automobilista 2 looked to be progressing from a visual point of view, something that Reiza Studios have acknowledged when reading the comments section of the various articles featuring the July roadmap post.

Having another shot at wowing the crowds, Reiza have recently dropped a much improved video of the Ultima GTR lapping around the Snetterton track in various time of day conditions - and it's fair to say the visual improvements are considerable...

Capture has a higher bitrate which is more accurate to the game´s actual graphical quality" said Reiza Studios Renato Simioni.

Other differences in this new video include improvements to track lighting, updated road and foliage shaders, revised textures; smoothed cockpit model edges & updated materials; adjustments to audio code, rebalancing of engine sounds and various sound effects (also replacing a few placeholders used in the original video); updated physics and increased game graphical settings.

Should be stated perhaps that this still isn´t the most exciting car / track combo or settings to promote AMS2 which wasn´t really the point of the original video - obviously we miscalculated how closely people would be looking!

This is a better representation of AMS2 in its current stage of development but it´s still a WIP - things will change as we progress to release and continue to afterwards. Such is the nature of the thing...
​

So, what do you think?

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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[numbersevenhull]

IMHO, another thing that Reiza should address is that there is a perception that, because you are using the Madness engine, the physics/FFB of AMS2 will be similar to Project Cars 2.

People love AMS1 in good part because of the physics/FFB and a lot of those same people loath Projects Cars 2 because of SMS' implementation of physics/FFB in the Project Cars 2 title.

I think that Reiza should reassure us that the physics/FFB in AMS2 is really a successor to AMS1 and not a successor to Project Cars 2.

With all due respect that has been answered if you'd care to read and listen (sometimes between the lines). Reiza have already told us that in their experience is that the FFB is equivalent/better than AMS, and that is an experience they have told us others have confirmed. When the announcement was first made Ian Bell joined the forums for the odd telling comment (bear in mind the context of Mr Bell who had wanted the Reiza team to come on board with their project given their brilliance at buffing coal into diamonds). He concluded "We didn't polish it as we would have liked. Reiza are experts at polish. I'll say no more.". One assumes his assertion that Project Cars Revolution will be a big improvement on PC2 is in part, above what SMS are working on, because there is some collaboration on physics, knowledge and working methods. If I have a really good game engine that was my companies baby, that's what I'd want, and I wouldn't let another company have a licence for it if they couldn't improve it, bring something new to it and move it forward because otherwise there is too much commercial risk involved.

Any chance we could stop going round and round in circles on this issue. It's not only dull but merit less. And accept there will also be some differences, but differences = opportunity and space for creativity and that's where the really good stuff happens.

 

[ShredatorFIN]

Donington would've been better pick to showcase graphics As it will be in AMS1 too. Snetterton is really bland track visually, by nature.

I saw no problem with AMS1 graphics. Razor sharp AA, clean image and ran well on triple screen. If it would support VR I would drive it all the time. I still miss AMS1 and considering putting my triples back up, so I can play it again... even when I now have VR.

Actually if someone modded VR into AMS, I wouldn't even need AMS2 (more tracks, through mods)

 

[Renato Simioni]

IMHO, another thing that Reiza should address is that there is a perception that, because you are using the Madness engine, the physics/FFB of AMS2 will be similar to Project Cars 2.

People love AMS1 in good part because of the physics/FFB and a lot of those same people loath Projects Cars 2 because of SMS' implementation of physics/FFB in the Project Cars 2 title.

I think that Reiza should reassure us that the physics/FFB in AMS2 is really a successor to AMS1 and not a successor to Project Cars 2.

That and other fronts of development will be topics of future dev updates - we still have a few of these until release.

I have stated a few times already the concern is unfounded though as the physics engine is derivative of the same code base AMS1 was - a lot of our physics ports over pretty seamlessly. The main difference is the tyre model, which happens to be more advanced.

The Madness physics engine indeed packs some extra models which is the result of SMS developing it for 10 years. It is in fact more advanced than what we had in many ways. In the dev update I mention for ex the atmospheric & thermodynamics models from Madness, which we also planned but didnt get around to implementing in AMS1, and its a substantial realism boost.

There is unfortunately this conflation of the merits of the engine with what some peoples perception of PCars2 is, and we know from working with ISIMotor before that these stigmas tend to linger on no matter what you do. All we can really do is make the best sim we can, making clear we chose this engine also because of the physics and not in spite of it.

 

[numbersevenhull]

I saw no problem with AMS1 graphics. Razor sharp AA, clean image and ran well on triple screen. If it would support VR I would drive it all the time. I still miss AMS1 and considering putting my triples back up, so I can play it again... even when I now have VR.

Actually if someone modded VR into AMS, I wouldn't even need AMS2 (more tracks, through mods)

That's the glory of DX9 isn't it. There is something lovely about the clarity, and an aesthetic I really enjoy (must be because the first sim I loved was GP4). I think iracing retains some of that because of it's DX9 heritage, I find it visually really pleasing. And yep, AMS on tripples still kicks butt. And I'm the same, tripples down, VR on :-( and I miss it.

 

[Michel Bélisle]

That and other fronts of development will be topics of future dev updates - we still have a few of these until release.

I have stated a few times already the concern is unfounded though as the physics engine is derivative of the same code base AMS1 was - a lot of our physics ports over pretty seamlessly. The main difference is the tyre model, which happens to be more advanced.

The Madness physics engine indeed packs some extra models which is the result of SMS developing it for 10 years. It is in fact more advanced than what we had in many ways. In the dev update I mention for ex the atmospheric & thermodynamics models from Madness, which we also planned but didnt get around to implementing in AMS1, and its a substantial realism boost.

There is unfortunately this conflation of the merits of the engine with what some peoples perception of PCars2 is, and we know from working with ISIMotor before that these stigmas tend to linger on no matter what you do. All we can really do is make the best sim we can, making clear we chose this engine also because of the physics and not in spite of it.

@Renato Simioni
I appreciate you took the time to clarify. I feel reassured and I am looking forward to get my hands on AMS2.

 

[Spinelli]

I saw some people disagree with me. The specularity of grass which I am talking about is not really true specularity effect, but it acts pretty much on same angle, it is not a reflection of light or anything, but simply just specularity colour, which is result of sun light shining through leaves, which should result in yellowish color tone. And it can be achieved in track models with primitive texture carpets + 2d fins that everybody for some reason are calling 3D grass.

Just like in GT Sport. Lawn and most other stuff gets yellowish tone when in specularity zone.

A GTS video:

Though there is a bit of weird exposure stuff going on there in GTS. But overall colours are so fine. But prebaked raytracing must help a lot there. Still they have to have shaders and textures nailed.

It's probably not fair to compare to Gran Turismo as they've always been on another level compared to the rest of the industry throughout their history in my opinion. GT blows everything away in terms of looking raw and realistic even on a standard model PS4 on a 720p TV. The guys at Polyphony Studios (GT developers) have always had incredibly realistic looking lighting/materials/environments in every GT game for it's time. I play GTS on PS4 at the moment since I currently have no wheel and it absolutely blows me away how incredibly real it looks but without that fake fantasy look that other nice games use to look good. Sure, maybe if you go up real close to some objects they may look low-poly or low-res but I believe that's massively over-rated in terms of graphical importance to look real. What I believe is of utmost importance is overall lighting/materials/environments.

GT also has the advantage of not having dynamic time of day combined with probably a huge budget. From what I read, having static time of day makes an enormous difference in how good you can make a game look and how easy it is to make it look good.

That's the glory of DX9 isn't it. There is something lovely about the clarity, and an aesthetic I really enjoy (must be because the first sim I loved was GP4). I think iracing retains some of that because of it's DX9 heritage, I find it visually really pleasing. And yep, AMS on tripples still kicks butt. And I'm the same, tripples down, VR on :-( and I miss it.

I agree but I don't believe it's not possible with DX11 and DX12. Why wouldn't it? I think a lot of videogame developers just don't know how to use the DX11 and DX12 technical feature set without having that soft, smudged look. I also think they sometimes like that as the soft picture can make graphics look more "pretty" and hides a lot of not-so-pretty things (basic looking objects, aliasing, etc.).

 

[Bonehead]

I've read all the above, and I just want say I'm very much looking forward to the new AMS2. My word, some of the nick picky things people perceive from two videos that are still BETA, I wonder why they don't develop and produce a quality racing sim themselves! Relax... it's BETA.

 

[Miguel Batista]

@Renato Simioni yeah, some peoe felt shafted by pcars 1, passed that on to pcars 2 (which admittedly has its flaws but it is a much better product and truly a good simulator imho) and just outright call you a liar when you say that game is good. You say they are nitpicky and parse the video frame by frame, I say you could post a video of the real thing and say it is project cars 2 and you will have people saying how it looks floaty and bland and other games look better and you can tell that the physics are all wrong... anyway, looking forward to further dev updates and hope to see a lot more of work in progress shots.

 

[Spinelli]

0:31 - 0:35
2:01 - 2:06

16:26-16:30

0:25 - 0:28
(harder to see, schumi floors it on exit over the curbs and gets wheelspin and a nice slide on exit)
0:45 - 0:49
(flooring it, getting sideways, keeping lots of throttle and wheelspin on during the slide, lays rubber 1/4 of the way down the whole straight)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nuMIL0rmmU
1:37 - 1:41

The only sims I've seen even remotely close to being able to deliver those types of oversteer/wheelspin physics behaviour are Live for Speed and Netkar Pro. The real car in those videos is an F1 car so very stiff & darty, very direct and on edge - and even more so because of how Schumi used to set his car up, especially when he had bad handling cars - yet at the same time the rear-angle along with wheelspin/revs are able to be modulated and manipulated during wheelspin. It's not an on/off moment, it's not a "snap opposite lock, snap lift throttle, and then snap steering wheel back to centre" moment. You can get the rear out on exit while the car continues on it's original path towards the outside of the corner all while the angle of the slide remains and while you're holding that angle with your opposite lock....then, you can add a bit more power to increase the rear-angle even more as long as you also increase the opposite lock even more....all the while the car's direction of travel is still continuing to the exit of the corner....then you can hammer the throttle while still in an angle (but less so or else you can spin) and leave huge strips of rubber on the track. The car's rear rotates accordingly depending on whether you add more throttle or not and you can control that rotation accordingly with throttle and steering modulation. When you get wheelspin, or add throttle to increase/adjust wheelspin, the revs don't instantly skyrocket to redline as if 100% of grip is lost like in most sims (the worse in RF/ISI & iRacing physics engines), nor does the car start almost horizontally wondering all over the track as if there's no inertia or mass and unlimited front-grip. You're able to adjust the rear-angle as well as the wheelspin throughout the rev-range. It's not just some on/off moment where you apply opposite lock the instant the rear comes out and then from there you just wait for the slide to finish (almost like the oversteer is canned from that point on). Also notice when throttle/wheelspin is adjusted mid-slide, the wheelspin and revs don't suddenly burst to redline as if all grip was lost or as if the car suddenly gained thousands of hp.

I really hope the PC2 physics engine is capable of improving on this. I believe it's not just purely core tyre model related but also something to do with mass/inertia or some sort of other combination of forces acting on the vehicle. The reason I believe it's more than just tyre model related is because RF2 and PC1 have updated or different all-together (PC1) tyre models yet the issues remain.

I've seen and played some mods that have improved on this aspect but the cars (or tyres) seem to drive more sloppy and mushy. It's like the entire car's character has to be changed in order to try and compensate. What should really be happening is the cars' physics keeping the stiff, responsive, on-edge character while also behaving much better at and over the limit. It's like one area has to be compromised in order to try and mask another area's issues.

 

[A man with a Harmonica]

Personally I loved the shot of caterham in Brands Hatch the most in the announcement trailer of AMS. PC2 has something kinda boosting external track cameras view graphics, doesn't it ? Well maybe all that blur helps

And this looks bad:

grass is not affected by specularity, even if it is dry it should still get the effect, considering that no game out there would have shaders for wet environment for ALL objects, and in sims it would be mainly limited by kerbs and tarmac, perhaps some puddles in the grass for extra stuff.

Not exactly the specularity but the grass blades are translucent and should turn to yellow (or the sun light) at sun low angles, so you're on the spot the grass reaction to the light is not convincing. The rest of the scene is good IMHO

 

[Mr Deap]

I read, having static time of day makes an enormous difference in how good you can make a game look and how easy it is to make it look good.

It would make sense with limited power to play with, but ain't the case with unlimited power.

It mostly depend of the artist skill in how realistic it can look.

You can meet high budget game with everything done wrong, but yeah everything is possible depending what is your target audience, same goes to realism.

 

[A man with a Harmonica]

GT sport has baked light, since the tracks only work in a predefined time of the day and weather the textures are baked by computer algorithms. It's impossible in 2019 to reach GT sport GFX quality under dynamic time of day and dynamic weather.

 

[Tony]

will not take it into consideration unless it proves friendly to mods

Fascinating

 

[michael conger]

Looks isn’t something they or we should b worry about ,rather R they gonna come up with a proper Motorsport simulator that’s works as a whole and hits all the points we’re looking to get out of a modern Sim.So let’s not start drooling yet

 

[G_B]

, I imagine a new racing title title from with Unreal Engine 4.... i like Batman Arkham City who use the same engine. However, i see more comments about the engine than the content of the game. Even with an older graphic engine we can see nice thing (Quake II).

The engine is important but the content is the base of the game. Also, we can't consider Racing Game as the more important game part in the world in comparaison of soccer title, it's not Need For Speed game, if the content and the direction of the studio is nice, let's go race

Oh, i hope, Who has played Automobilista 2 so far? nobody ? so wait

 

[Ghoults]

This past month we ran into this unusual overlap of working on the same tracks for both the “old” and the “new” sim, which seemed to me would make for an interesting bit of material in the dev update. Turns out that was a mistake, not only because the AMS2 footage on the 1st video was somewhat sloppily put together, but also because some people will scrutinize every second of a video to death to a wide variety of hasted conclusions in the meantime the whole context of the dev update it had been a part of was lost in the shuffle.

To be fair you have made a huge mistake if you just post a video and expect people not to analyze what is in the video.

Simracer are a special species.

Thanks for that expert analysis.

 

[ShredatorFIN]

GT sport has baked light, since the tracks only work in a predefined time of the day and weather the textures are baked by computer algorithms. It's impossible in 2019 to reach GT sport GFX quality under dynamic time of day and dynamic weather.

Forza Horizon 4 gets pretty close though.

It has full 24h cycle and even weather effects and seasonal changes, all look very convincing and run super well (one of best optimized games on the market). Too bad it's arcade with bad FFB (and naturally no VR support)

 

[f1superracer]

This is a really good version of Snetterton and captures the openness of the track. I think that what might the PCARS 2 verison "look better" is the amount of track side objects and billboards which, apart BTCC and BSB, Snetterton doesn't have. I was at the British GT event in May and there was hardly any advertising boards! and this is one of their "bigger" events! Even the famous corner name markers weren't there.

In terms of scenery detail I think that AMS2 is much closer to what I saw at Snetterton. I mean the only real landmarks at the track are the some grain silo's and the scary tree (more on that later) and the rest is just farmers' fields.

Right so on to the scary tree.

This is what the scary tree looked like in 2013 when the orginal PCARS scan was done:

Here's what it looks like in 2019:

Also here's a lap of Snetterton in real life so you can compare!:

 

[TylerDurden4321]

Just like in GT Sport. Lawn and most other stuff gets yellowish tone when in specularity zone.

A GTS video:

Though there is a bit of weird exposure stuff going on there in GTS. But overall colours are so fine. But prebaked raytracing must help a lot there. Still they have to have shaders and textures nailed.

I', not an expert, but I know that GTS uses Subsurface Scattering to make leaves of trees look summery healthy bright green when the sun is shining through them. Maybe they are using similar but less hardware intensive effect for grass as well?!??

 

[GuitarTech]

@FlyGasm To be fair, I have absolutely no idea where that came from or even why. You make an innocent joke and the next thing you know, some random guy starts insulting you. Maybe I'm missing a joke or something ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That's the magic of internet