Enduracers Interview

[Paul Jeffrey]

EnduRacers Modding Team and Gentlemen Racers have released the highly anticipated Version 1.00 of their Endurance Series modification for rFactor 2, adding an epic selection of LMP2 and GT2 specification cars to the rFactor 2 simulation.

The new release brings ten new cars and over 400 paint schemes added to the simulation, across three categories of racing and including such legendary endurance brands as Aston Martin, Porsche, Ferrari, Ligier and Lola represented by some of the most iconic endurance racing machines from the last dozen years of racing. With the initial release featuring some vehicles now replaced by newer generation technology, the development team have promised work is underway behind the scenes to add newer vehicles into the mod at a later date. "We want the mod core to be playable since the first release with homogenic classes to allow online races and championships. This is why for example we are including in the first release "old" models like the Ferrari F430 and the Porsche 997, with a choice to develop physics based on GTE regulations instead of GT2" say the team, so it looks like bigger and better things are still to come to this genuinely outstanding modification.

The much anticipated first release of Endurance Series V1.00 contains the following vehicles:

• GTC - Flat6 GT3
• GTE - Aston Martin V8 Vantage
• GTE - BMW M3 E92
• GTE - Corvette C6.R ZR1
• GTE - Ferrari F430 GT
• GTE - Flat6 RSR
• P2 - Ligier JSP2
• P2 - Lola Coupe
• P2 - Oreca 03
• P2 - Zytek

To mark the first build release of the Endurance Series mod, RaceDepartment have sat down with EnduRacers @klo-che to discuss what goes on behind the scenes in one of the most prominent modding teams currently working on content for rFactor 2.

RD: Congratulations on the much anticipated release of Enduracers V1.00. You must be very relieved to have reached this stage?

ER: Yes ! First of all we would like to thank all simracers of the huge amount of positive feedbacks we received, it's very rewarding and gives us motivation to "end the job as good as possible". It has been a long work of development, to adapt all cars to rFactor2 new features, to build the fresh new models, to adjust the mod to the new build features as long as we were working on it.

Building a MOD 100% from scratch requires thousand of work hours, on our free time, a lot of communication between the team members, and a rigourous organisation. We have happy with current build 1.00 result in all domains, even if we would like some better results, on the graphic domain in particular, and we count on the build 2.00 and the rFactor2 recent change of hands to help us to improve that.

One word more, people often do a mistake, talking about our MODs. EnduRacers is the name of our team, and Endurance Series rF2 is the name of the mod, not the contrary.

RD: How many people have been working behind the scenes on this release?

ER: The current EnduRacers team is made with 2 people in charge of 3D modeling, 1 people in charge of cars textures, 1 member working on the rFactor2 export and fine tuning, 1 for the car skins, 1 person focused on the sounds, 1 person for R&D, and 2 members in charge of media management. Together with us, the Gentlemen Racers league is in charge of the car physics, with a complete team in charge of physics development and beta testing. In addition, we receive external help on some domains. We in addition are cooperating with URD Modding Team, with some exchange agreements based on graphic models. Building a mod like that is a huge amount of work and needs to lot of people working together with the same target, almost like a company.

RD: What technology is included in the mod, CPM tyres / chassis flex etc?

ER: The mod includes almost all rFactor2 new features in terms of graphics (dynamic reflects & shadows, deformable tires,...), in terms of sounds (in particular reverbs) and physics (like chassis flex). We are planning to test and maybe add in the mod other features such as dynamic dirt for graphics, or CPM tyres for physics. It's all in works, but it doesn't mean it will be added in the end.

RD: How long to do you plan to support Enduracers v1? Will the mod receive addon content and updates to the latest tech release by Studio397?

ER: We are planning a the Endurance Series build 2.00 as add-on content. The build will add to the mod the Oreca 05 and the Corvette C7.R (courtesy and property of URD Modding Team). Other cars announcement may be done during the build development. About Studio397, we are in particular keeping on eye on their progress on the upcoming DX11 engine, to improve the game graphics which is its current weakness.

RD: What is next on Enduracers plans? Will you be working on another series for rF2?

ER: We have no plans after the Endurance Series rF2 build 2.00 release. First of all, our team members have less and less free time. The simracing community has changed, in particular when new platforms came, and the ambient has changed. It's less friendly than some years ago, and some people have forgotten that in the end all this is done for free as a hobby. It's less motivating than before. To finish with, we have a small professional activity in parallel for some manufacturers & teams simulators.

RD: Briefly, can you describe how much work goes into creating something like this, and what motivates your team to build something from scratch for rF2?

ER: The amount of work to build a mod like that is huge. For your example, as we work on our free time, if you want to build a car from scratch (3D job, UV mapping, all textures with high level of detail, ingame exportation, sounds, physics, tests,...) is at least 6 month of work, if you want to do things in details. So when you build a multicars mod, it's very huge. In addition, you have to spend several weeks in testing, reworking, validation and so on. As you can see, we never release beta version or unfinished products. We have dozens of people available for test & feedback, in particular within the Gentlemen Racers dev team. It's years of job that we have achieved.

All Enduracers & GR members are pure fans of endurance racing and the famous LM24. Even some of us are working for, or part of the ACO team. It's what motivate us, creating the virtual reproductions of the cars we see at Le Mans. It is what has always motivated us since the creation of our team.

We would like to thank RaceDepartment for the focus on our MOD and team. We hope you will enjoy the Endurance Series build 1.00, and are already meeting you for the build 2.00!

MOD - FEATURES
Graphics

• High fidelity 3D models, with high definition cockpits.
• Hundred's of real paints reproduced for each cars.
• Highly improved car materials, reflections, lightnings and shadings.
• Animated car driver, with high definition 3D Helmet.
• Cars details with backfire, headlights with lens flares, deformable tyres.
• Specific mod UI, to be downloaded and installed separately.

Physics

• Accurate car physics, created in collaboration with Gentlemen Racers physics team, with help from real teams and drivers.
• Up to date rF2 physics features for all cars.

Sounds

• Accurate and detailed sounds for all cars and engines.
• Up to date rF2 sounds features for all cars

WORK IN PROGRESS (not included in build 1.00)

• Dynamic dirt on cars.
• Tire new CPM model.
• Damage fine tuning (Not correctly yet implemented in rF2).
• Animated wipers in cockpit (Not correctly yet implemented in rF2).
• Heat effects.
• FuelMixture.

EnduRacers Version 1.00 is available to download now. Check out the rFactor 2 downloads section here and keep an eye out on the EnduRacers website for more information about projects from the team.

The rFactor 2 sub forum here at RaceDepartment is the place to go for all the latest news and discussions regarding the rFactor 2 simulation. We are placing a bit of a focus on the EnduRacers V1.00 mod in the coming weeks, so check out our League and Club Racing forum for some top quality events with this excellent new mod. As well as racing and news, we also host some of the best mods for rFactor 2 in our downloads section, head over and take a look at some of the content, skins, apps and mods available for the game today.



Have you tried the EnduRacers V1.00 mod for rFactor 2 yet? What do you think of the work done by EnduRacers Modding Team and Gentlemen Racers? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[William Levesque]

How do I set up random weather in rF2? It seems that I have to set a certain pattern for the weather to change in advance.

There's a plugin for it... Sounds like a pain in the arse tho so I haven't looked further. If you're patient and motivated you can try it. Just search "rF2 random weather" or something, you should be able to find it.

 

[Gijs van Elderen]

How do I set up random weather in rF2? It seems that I have to set a certain pattern for the weather to change in advance.

If you want random rain.
Set light rain with 50% chance for everything.

 

[St3fan]

There's a plugin for it... Sounds like a pain in the arse tho so I haven't looked further. If you're patient and motivated you can try it. Just search "rF2 random weather" or something, you should be able to find it.

The results Google gives me are old isiforum posts, and any isiforum link will now redirect to the homepage of the new rF2 forum rather than the actual post, which really sucks... Guess I will find it eventually.

 

[Deleted member 130869]

How do I set up random weather in rF2? It seems that I have to set a certain pattern for the weather to change in advance.

There's no real random settings, it's pre-determined only with the variability coming from the Real Weather plug-in.

 

[David Dominguez]

...

Very good investigation. Indeed those inertia values are way way big. Your suggested values are more believable, and also more in line with other GTs from ISI or Apex. I hope they will take a look at this, as it is something basic, same with the temperature behaviour.

 

[kmanitou81]

Oooo I hope that got you hard.

No one is stopping you from enjoying it. I just find it pretty bad.

 

[The Iron Wolf]

Also are the URD mods worth the price? Is online active with that mod? I see so many people praising the mods and it seems tempting.

To me, it is the best GT mod in rF2. This stuff is a lot of hard work, and compared to how much R3E charges for their stuff, without weather, damage, real road, flags, the price URD asks is very small. URD EGT has very communicative force feedback, which allows precise braking. This is not necessarily realistic, but I prefer communicative FFB to the absolute pure physics based FFB. There's a nice skin pack for this mod which really lights it up. The only downside of URD mod is it ruined some other mods for me, as I don't enjoy them anymore.

Speaking of Enduracers mod - it is awesome v1.0. Thank you guys for your hard work, sounds and visuals are really nice. Looking forward to v2.0.

 

[The Iron Wolf]

The results Google gives me are old isiforum posts, and any isiforum link will now redirect to the homepage of the new rF2 forum rather than the actual post, which really sucks... Guess I will find it eventually.

https://forum.studio-397.com/index.php?threads/rfactor2-weather-tool.37366/
Plugin is a bit confusing, I hope my post on page 48 clarifies how to use it a bit.
I never race without it, but nothing compares to having no control over weather. If it rains, it rains. All the most memorable races were when it started to pour at some point. I once caught myself thinking before going home for a weekend and planning the race "I hope it won't rain"

 

[Jerry McComas]

Very interesting. Methinks you just volunteered to help them ... I hope.

It's the lack of proper Fresnel reflections in this mod, which sadly needlessly plague too many rF2 mods.


I donated around $10 early last year, and I really wanted this mod to be good, and I wish I could say something positive as in "thank you for the effort", but obviously, as with their Flat6 mod, most of the effort went into 3D models with a vast collection of liveries and no real effort was put into the physics, or at least into understanding physics.

Initially I assumed the issues were caused by the tires and didn't look any further into the physics files, since I assumed that a famous modding team like Enduracers, especially with connections to real racing teams would get the basic fundamentals right. How wrong I was.

For example, all the GT cars in these Enduracer mods have yaw inertias of around 3140-3200 kg-m^2 and pitch inertias of 2750-2800 kg-m^2. This is obviously way too high, since even a naïve uniformly mass distributed box with the dimensions of those cars, has way less inertia than this, around 2430 kg-m^2 yaw, and 2270 kg-m^2 pitch and this would already be a very lenient upper bound.
Most cars from the 12xx kg range have around 1900-2300 kg-m^2 yaw inertia. Even the inertia of old road cars is less than the cars in these mods.

Also, the Corvette C6R and Ferrari F430 in this mod have exactly that same inertia values, despite those cars having vastly different mass distributions in reality.
All the LMP2s in this mod have a mass of 980 kg with inertia of around 2130 kg-m^2 yaw and 1880 kg-m^2 pitch. This inertia is obviously way too high for such dedicated race cars.
These issues alone, basically make this and Flat6, fantasy mods without any simulation value, and can't be taken seriously. It's impossible to have proper car behavior when basic fundamentals like this are so wrong.

Then there is the tires not loosing enough grip at temperature issue which still plagues the cars of these mods.

There are many other issues, such as wing center of pressures being located too high, a lacks of many diffuser entries from rF1, let alone rF2, and lack of engine entries like throttle mapping.

All of those issues result in cars with too low responsive initial turn-in and float and cars being able to drive sideways with ease. It's even easier to notice with the LMP2s. The behavior of the cars in both Enduracer mods is nothing like real racing cars.

I know I should be grateful that they're doing this for free, but lets be honest here, those physics are inexcusable in this day and age, especially when you claim to be associated with real race teams, and I do question whether those real race teams actually scrutinized what they're doing.

Please next time, leave the physics up to people who know what they're doing.

 

[Rui Santos]

Really can't understand all the negative feedback about the physics! This mod is great and physics are great too. Remember this is a mod to drive like a real driver, taking care of car and tires, not to overdrive like crazy or like a noob, overheating tires. Give it time like i did and build a solid conservative setup, you'll see the difference...

 

[Alex Townsend]

Really can't understand all the negative feedback about the physics! This mod is great and physics are great too. Remember this is a mod to drive like a real driver, taking care of car and tires, not to overdrive like crazy or like a noob, overheating tires. Give it time like i did and build a solid conservative setup, you'll see the difference...

I'm feeling the same. It feels a little floaty at the start but isn't that due to cold tyres?
Only asking as you put in a good few laps and it stops feeling like that...
Must say that this mod has gotten me back into rF2 and it feels so good!

 

[Rui Santos]

Of course every aspect counts, including cold tires! Car feels much better after 1/2 laps and the right setup settings... main problem is that people are playing modern arcade car games and think you can make amazing times with default setup without even understanding how the car works...

 

[Alex Townsend]

Of course every aspect counts, including cold tires! Car feels much better after 1/2 laps and the right setup settings... main problem is that people are playing modern arcade car games and think you can make amazing times with default setup without even understanding how the car works...

Takes me back to my Karting days. You could always tell the newbies or the indoor karters as they would spin on the first corner as hadn't bothered warming their tyres up...
Bit hard putting the power down on a 115cc direct drive kart without warming up the tyres first...

 

[Rui Santos]

Takes me back to my Karting days. You could always tell the newbies or the indoor karters as they would spin on the first corner as hadn't bothered warming their tyres up...
Bit hard putting the power down on a 115cc direct drive kart without warming up the tyres first...

I've been there too

 

[Alex Townsend]

And the fact that rF2 simulates time of day and awesome weather changes means this is currently head and shoulders above most of the current PC sims due to simulating as much as possible from the sport.
I did a race in the GTE class on a wet track and as it was drying it was just a joy to behold. Sun breaking through the clouds and the drying line making the racing quicker. It just has all I need right now.
Stuck at work and desperately want to get home and fire this puppy up!

 

[David Dominguez]

Of course every aspect counts, including cold tires! Car feels much better after 1/2 laps and the right setup settings... main problem is that people are playing modern arcade car games and think you can make amazing times with default setup without even understanding how the car works...

It's funny that you claim the problem are people that play arcade games, when someone (to make it even more funny, he's maybe the biggest rF2 supporter on this planet) has given objective arguments about certain aspects of the physics that are way off.

 

[kmanitou81]

Gotta love that little echo chamber of feelgoods right there, ahah, always pretending that the problem is lack of speed or cars too hard to drive. If you think any of these broken cars are hard to drive, you're not qualified to assess whether they're realistic or not.

 

[William Levesque]

Really can't understand all the negative feedback about the physics! This mod is great and physics are great too. Remember this is a mod to drive like a real driver, taking care of car and tires, not to overdrive like crazy or like a noob, overheating tires. Give it time like i did and build a solid conservative setup, you'll see the difference...

Yeah sorry I'm such a noob

 

[Rui Santos]

True guys, rF2 has not a slider for optimal road grip or tire blankets, you need to give it time. Pick it up and throw few laps and say it's crap it's a bit stupid...

If you want, join us today and see for yourselves

<mod-edit: link to other sites for racing is forbidden on the public forums>

 

[Jokeri]

And the fact that rF2 simulates time of day and awesome weather changes means this is currently head and shoulders above most of the current PC sims due to simulating as much as possible from the sport.
I did a race in the GTE class on a wet track and as it was drying it was just a joy to behold. Sun breaking through the clouds and the drying line making the racing quicker. It just has all I need right now.
Stuck at work and desperately want to get home and fire this puppy up!

Yes but not exatly, like other things in rf2, it's there but not exactly. When the weather changes does it have effect on aero,fuel usage, or tyre temps (wet weather excluded). Please let me know if this has changed.