iRacing Working on Day/Night Transitions (Kinda?)

[Paul Jeffrey]

iRacing.com have confirmed work is well underway to bring day/night transition to the simulation, releasing a short preview video to highlight the progress made so far.

Now before you all get too excited, the video doesn't exactly look like the very dead of night will be simulated in true 24 hour cycle, more something along the lines of early evening / early morning to full daytime from what I can see. Regardless of this however, I'm sure I speak for many within the sim racing community when I express my pleasure that the developers are at least looking toward some kind of time of day inclusion within the simulation.

With a premium placed on realism (to varying levels of acceptability), and with a growing list of endurance specification cars and sanctioned 6, 12 and 24 hour events, it is only right that iRacing make a move towards providing some level of atmospheric day/night transition within the title. After all it always felt a little bit awkward having to compete in 24 hour race events set either solely in full day or full night conditions.

Being something of a surprise to many within the community, iRacing have taken to social media with a new video showcasing the secretive work in progress of time of day transitions within the simulation. Judging by the brief video clip made available by the developers, it looks very much like development is well underway and could be close to something like a public release in the near future.

Now as stated earlier in the article, it doesn't look too likely that full 24 hour day cycle will be present, at least at first, but it is no doubt reassuring to know the developers have acknowledged this blatantly missing feature from their title and are actively looking to improve this aspect of the sim.

However you feel about the current time of day settings in iRacing, feast your eyes on the preview video below and make up your own mind on the direction the studio have chosen to take in the coming weeks and months. I for one feel it is an excellent piece of news for the players of the sim, and should go a long way towards keeping what is essentially one of the oldest titles on the marketplace something like fresh in the imagination of the sim racing public.

iRacing is available exclusively for PC, and can be downloaded either independently or through the Steam network.

Check out the iRacing.com sub forum here at RaceDepartment for the latest news and discussions regarding the simulation.

Pleased to hear of time of day transition in development for iRacing? Could this feature encourage you to spend more time in the sim? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[snyperal]

You are right about the price and about what we have by now. iRacing started from scratch with their old NR2003 engine and reprogrammed it completely. I´ve never understood why they haven´t used a licensed graphics engine like Unreal whatsoever. I have never understood why it took so terrible long for iRacing for such a thing like day/night transition. It makes me feel their technical progress is very very slow but throwing out content like hell to compensate the costs.

I predict to see this full feature to be released somewhere in Q3 or Q4 2018.

I wouldn't say they've exactly been throwing out the content, compared to r3 and ac their release of content is pedestrian at best. Frustrating when what they do release is top drawer.

 

[Conrad Miller]

Shadows are very weak in this sim, 15 Seconds into the video, while the shadows are moving away from the rail crash barrier on the right, there was no shadow casting, seemed like the shadows was appearing from under the crash barrier, and only casting on the asphalt, grass and sand.

I remember watching a video over a year ago, Kaemmer, had a dream of racing sims eventually having photo realistic graphics, iracing has a long way to go, rFactor 2 has over taken it visually.

personally i think Iracing looks great and in some cases a good screen shot looks life like. every other sim, a good screen shot looks like a video game.
iRacing uses a pretty good color palette that can make it look photographic in some shots.

 

[Jeffers58]

personally i think Iracing looks great and in some cases a good screen shot looks life like. every other sim, a good screen shot looks like a video game.
iRacing uses a pretty good color palette that can make it look photographic in some shots.

I agree, personally I don't mind the look of iRacing. I'd be surprised if they weren't simulating a complete 24-hour cycle considering that they have some prominent 24-hour races. Granted, it does seem to take a while for iRacing to release new features, and though this may be frustrating at times it can't be denied that their recent releases have undoubtedly enhanced the sim. Hopefully we see this added to the sim 'soon' (no pun intended), for me this is more of a fundamental requirement than rain.

 

[snyperal]

Rain or even dynamic changing weather in sync with the time of day would be an amazing accomplishment. Tyre compounds would surely follow?

I think they've started in the right way, and this looks like a huge step in the right direction.

 

[leseb64]

5 years after RF2, wait more 5 years for weather #soon









Http://hpics.li/7fdf2aa

 

[randMracer]

personally i think Iracing looks great and in some cases a good screen shot looks life like. every other sim, a good screen shot looks like a video game.
iRacing uses a pretty good color palette that can make it look photographic in some shots.

I'm at work, but I had to login just to laugh at this comment. Are you serious? I know it's your personal opinion, but I've seen a lot of screen shots from other sims that make iRacing look outdated.

 

[Dave_6]

Guess most folks don't read the description in the video:
"You asked for it! Day/Night Transitions are in development on iRacing. Please note: this video displays only a partial implementation with a focus on a clear day sky model. We are still working on volumetric clouds, dynamic exposure, etc!"

Partial implementation, focus on a clear sky model, etc. It's a work in progress that when final will be a fully working day/night transition. Sim racers kill me, can't wait to hate on something (or everything).

 

[Ryan Robbins]

When you pay hundreds of dollars or more for a game, you tend to judge it by a higher standard.

 

[hitm4k3r]

personally i think Iracing looks great and in some cases a good screen shot looks life like. every other sim, a good screen shot looks like a video game.
iRacing uses a pretty good color palette that can make it look photographic in some shots.

The reason why iRacing looks better and allmost life-like in some cases is due to it's static nature. It's easier to set up static lighting. I think it is great to see iRacing moving forward with the dynamic TOD transition, but in the preview video it is actually quite easy to spot that they go easy with the amount of shadow casters and with stuff like clouds. Will be interesting to see how it turns out, but I suspect many people will complain about performance. With dynamic lighting the times of extremely high FPS are pretty much over

 

[rw3]

You are right about the price and about what we have by now. iRacing started from scratch with their old NR2003 engine and reprogrammed it completely. I´ve never understood why they haven´t used a licensed graphics engine like Unreal whatsoever. I have never understood why it took so terrible long for iRacing for such a thing like day/night transition. It makes me feel their technical progress is very very slow but throwing out content like hell to compensate the costs.

I predict to see this full feature to be released somewhere in Q3 or Q4 2018.

There's a LOT of "not invented here" syndrome at iRacing.

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

very good news, makes so much sense with tracks like nordschleife, lemans and daytona on their roster. so far the way weather influences track is reproduced fine, so i suppose this will be fine, too.

 

[melanieuk]

I remember watching a video over a year ago, Kaemmer, had a dream of racing sims eventually having photo realistic graphics

If you talk about photorealism, then we must be playing different games.

Sure am, because I'm not talking of any specific racing sims, just mentioning a video I watched over a year ago, where he spoke about racing sims eventually having photo realistic graphics.

 

[rw3]

very good news, makes so much sense with tracks like nordschleife, lemans and daytona on their roster. so far the way weather influences track is reproduced fine, so i suppose this will be fine, too.

Apart from when they cocked it up and gave some people weather 2s faster than others in the same race

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

did they, ouch. never heard of that before. own experience? hearsay?

 

[rw3]

did they, ouch. never heard of that before. own experience? hearsay?

It's well documented though mentioning it on the forums there tends to lead to a ban. I have experience of it, as do plenty of iRacing notables. Basically the server wasn't doing a particularly good job of ensuring that each client had the same conditions, and the end result was an absolute farce. This was back when they first introduced dynamic weather.

 

[snyperal]

I remember that, pretty bad.

But not as bad as the rfactor 2, fastest racer competition where the fan boost got stuck on and dude started lapping 4 secs quicker.

 

[Steve Bird]

I'm sure iracing as had night since 2014, it isn't dynamic like Project cars, it is understandable why people would think it doesn't have night racing, because there really isn't much videos of it, and the ones I've seen they are all Spa at night.

It has had night racing for some time but the title of the post says Day to Night Transitions which is what iRacing didn't have.

 

[Ernie_Cai]

Someone send me a PM when all that is promised are out and I'll renew my subscription...

 

[TR_S]

It's a useless 20+ year old engine. It ain't doing anything much new. Ooooh! Dirt! Wonderbread! Yay!

F1C had day/night transition, rain, pits with animations which for the time and how well it worked, it was already eons beyond iR back then. iR is junk. Not just the on the edge of killing you at all times crap tire model but the physics are absolutely arse backward. iR and all the advocates need to brush up on their sim history and accept it's dated, stretched, garbage. NR2003 was quite possibly the last best thing Paperyass ever did and let's face that too. It's now quite DATED!

 

[Troy Eddy]

It's a useless 20+ year old engine. It ain't doing anything much new. Ooooh! Dirt! Wonderbread! Yay!

F1C had day/night transition, rain, pits with animations which for the time and how well it worked, it was already eons beyond iR back then. iR is junk. Not just the on the edge of killing you at all times crap tire model but the physics are absolutely arse backward. iR and all the advocates need to brush up on their sim history and accept it's dated, stretched, garbage. NR2003 was quite possibly the last best thing Paperyass ever did and let's face that too. It's now quite DATED!

Dude, hate iRacing much? Just don't play it.