Reiza Hints at the Future - rFactor 2 Engine to be used in 'Reiza 2018'?

[Paul Jeffrey]

Reiza Studios have released an interesting teaser on social media recently, hinting at "some exciting new things coming up on the horizon"..

Now to my eye this teaser image looks very much like a Reiza game using the rapidly improving rFactor 2 gMotor2 game engine, potentially hinting for the very first time that the upcoming and under development "Reiza 2018" project could be taking further advantage of the already close relationship between Reiza Studios original rFactor developers Image Space Incorporated.

Although purely speculation at this point, it is still rather refreshing to hear (or see) some news from Reiza Studios following wrapping of development of their Automobilista title, and this could well be the very first early signs of what's been going on behind the scenes of the well regarded Brazilian development team.

Now I'm only speculating that this is the rFactor 2 engine here, and frankly I could be well wide of the mark with this one... so I'll leave it to you to throw around your opinions in the comments section below!

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What do you make of the cryptic clue from Reiza? Looking forward to the new project? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[Boby Kim]

Whatever choice Reiza makes, it seems the wrong one beforehand. With all love and dedication we had from them with AMS they are presented with a overly spoiled comunity

 

[M D Gourley]

Whatever choice Reiza makes

...absolutely agree as I personally will be happy with what ever Reiza does with their next title as they knocked it out of the park with Automobilista (my personal opinion)....my money is ready to be dispatched from my wallet...lol

 

[mibrandt]

As long as it has VR I will be happy Seeing what they have done with RF1 engine I am sure they will make a good product with RF2 as well if thats the new engine they have chosen. RF2 in current state is still a mess sadly - but I am sure Reiza know what they are doing

 

[MarcG]

Whatever Reiza do for their next Sim it's an instant buy for me...but only if it has VR of course! RF Graphics engine is fine with me, Unreal Engine is fine with me, Mario Kart Engine is fine with me as I know Reiza will do their best to get the best from whatever graphical engine they chose to work with.

Bring It On Reiza!

 

[Patrik Marek]

I guess cheaper then making their own engine

 

[Antonio Castagna]

I want dynamic meteo

 

[RichardHessels]

That flat terrain isn't very promising, it's an ISI inheritance for sure.

This is a very early ingame screenshot, whats flat is just not modeled at all.
Sebring is not really surrounded by lush vegetation and spectacular mountains anyway.

 

[DaVeX↯]

This is a very early ingame screenshot, whats flat is just not modeled at all.
Sebring is not really surrounded by lush vegetation and spectacular mountains anyway.

I think this is a mesh up of their content just to tease they are working on both stock and DLC content at the same time, track looks like a Brit pack DLC one and AJR is stock content...

 

[Spinelli]

The RF2 engine definitely will enhance Reiza physics as long as Reiza can extract as much (or therabouts) out of the RF2 engine as they did with the RF1 but I was honestly really hoping for another physics engine due to still long-standing physics issues with ISI engine.

Niels H. himself verified and slightly improved some of the ISI physics engine issues others and I have been pointing out for probably 10 years now (these Reiza updates included the throttle/engine torque physics update and some inertia updates) but still a lot off. I was really hoping for a new physics engine or at least an ISI engine that's massively improved/modified/upgraded by Reiza.

If, in the end, Reiza does get access to the RF2 engine, I at-least hope that Reiza gets full access to the core programming of the engine itself so they can modify it to their liking.

 

[EIREXE]

Nice, rfactor 2 has been getting better and better with more quality content and a lot of work being done, more games in such a great engine is always a good thing.

 

[ouvert]

Reiza licenced rF1 engine, invested a lot of time and work into improving it to one of best .. they will probably stick with it for next game .. them paying for rF2 engine (unless there will be some deal behind the scenes), trying to "fix" it and adopt to it would be strange move ... hopefully they will just improve what they have, wrap it into new graphics that would not limit them, implement weather or advenced dyn.road or whatever they plan to do ...

I think we are past the time of praising rF2 as holy grail of physics .. needs to be consistent, fully under control, and cured by its issues first

 

[David Dominguez]

What I can say to people who are leaping to the conclusion that Reiza will use S397 graphics engine for AMS2 is (copied from other thread here): Horrible idea in my opinion. If I were Reiza, I would stay as far away from S397 and rF2 as possible at the retail level. Why tarnish your perfectly polished product by associating it with (making your customers deal with) a still-terrible product from a typical user experience perspective. Reiza can run circles around S397 in almost every way that counts.

If we consider both rF2 and AMS as evolutionary of rF1, AMS is superior in every single way except for the graphics required for real weather and day/night transitions. Superior--really? Yes, because even though rF2 has some advanced technologies compared to AMS, none of them are implemented properly or consistently. Everything that AMS has implemented works well. It is a much better base to evolve from, first with a new graphics engine and then by incrementally adding more technologies that were for whatever reasons not easy to do or impossible in the current engine.

I understand your point, but it's always easier to be consistent when you are working with an engine that has been used for over a decade, than when you are trying to push tech forward.

 

[David Dominguez]

Niels H. himself verified and slightly improved some of the ISI physics engine issues others and I have been pointing out for probably 10 years now (these Reiza updates included the throttle/engine torque physics update and some inertia updates

That's already in rF2 since pretty much day 1...

 

[Rastas]

For [Beep] sake, yet another ISI motor engine powered title, that will feature fake dx 11 graphics, using old dated dx 7 and 8 shader model

Such a BS statment,i do like to see your proof that RF2 DX11 is fake........and i hope someone from S397 read that and sue you for false allegations....
And btw,Reiza take my money too

 

[Steve Worrell]

I for one would be happy if they use the rf2 engine.

 

[Andrew Harper]

I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong on this but from what I've read and understood over the last few years the biggest issue with the RF2 engine, is it's the complexity.

A lot of modders don't want to touch it because the amount of detail required to make something work well requires an enormous amount of time and effort.

The suspension and tyre model is massively more complex than most other sims. Which is great for us as far as realism goes but a nightmare for anyone wishing to develop a car(s) for it.

However Reiza have worked miracles with the original engine in AMS so they more than anyone should be able to do a great job if they've decided to use this engine as a base for their next title.

With regards to graphics, yes there is an element of risk here. RF2 does look great with official content or tracks and cars that have been converted to the DX11 setup. However I will admit it still doesn't look as good as something like Project Cars (I would even go as far to say it doesn't look as good as something like Raceroom which although DX9 has so much detail it looks brilliant) and as most Steam racers are attracted by eye candy this could cause issues from a selling point of view.

I'm not sure if Unreal is the way to go. Let's see what ACC produces first. So far it seems for one reason or another every Unreal Engine racing game that's been talked about on here has either not reached production or is perpetually stuck in early access or beta. Believe me you will need a killer PC to run ACC, absolutely no doubt in my mind. Even more so if they decide to run the game in VR. There is a huge difference in GPU/CPU load between a first person shooter and racing game that's trying to display nearly 30 cars and compute AI at the same time. A mid range PC simply will not cut it without quite a large detail drop. As I say though, we'll see

Good luck to Reiza, looking forward to the next game from them. Meanwhile I'll still keep having some good races in AMS, the V8 stock cars are always great fun

 

[Jockey]

I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong on this but from what I've read and understood over the last few years the biggest issue with the RF2 engine, is it's the complexity.

A lot of modders don't want to touch it because the amount of detail required to make something work well requires an enormous amount of time and effort.

The suspension and tyre model is massively more complex than most other sims. Which is great for us as far as realism goes but a nightmare for anyone wishing to develop a car(s) for it.

However Reiza have worked miracles with the original engine in AMS so they more than anyone should be able to do a great job if they've decided to use this engine as a base for their next title.

With regards to graphics, yes there is an element of risk here. RF2 does look great with official content or tracks and cars that have been converted to the DX11 setup. However I will admit it still doesn't look as good as something like Project Cars (I would even go as far to say it doesn't look as good as something like Raceroom which although DX9 has so much detail it looks brilliant) and as most Steam racers are attracted by eye candy this could cause issues from a selling point of view.

I'm not sure if Unreal is the way to go. Let's see what ACC produces first. So far it seems for one reason or another every Unreal Engine racing game that's been talked about on here has either not reached production or is perpetually stuck in early access or beta. Believe me you will need a killer PC to run ACC, absolutely no doubt in my mind. Even more so if they decide to run the game in VR. There is a huge difference in GPU/CPU load between a first person shooter and racing game that's trying to display nearly 30 cars and compute AI at the same time. A mid range PC simply will not cut it without quite a large detail drop. As I say though, we'll see

Good luck to Reiza, looking forward to the next game from them. Meanwhile I'll still keep having some good races in AMS, the V8 stock cars are always great fun

It's expected that you will need a better PC to run ACC. Since they are on a CURRENT gen engine.
And to be frank. Thanks to the improvements from S397 on rf2. I'm already forced to upgrade my system.

 

[Leonardo Ratafiá]

There's still no confirmation, just a presumption by the OP.

 

[Ghoults]

Back in 2015 for Reiza's crowdfunding campaign, they were advertising that their next title would be using a DX12 engine.

It also said:

• Initial release planned for Q4 2016;

Just like many others I pre-ordered my copy when reiza had their sim bonanza at indiegogo (it is a pre-order if you pay for something in advance) but reiza are surely taking their time. Not telling why it is 1.5 years late already. I hope this is not one of those kickstarter disasters. But maybe that money does last forever...

As for using rf2 I surely hope not. I think studio 397 would have been much better off killing rf2 and taking couple of years off to develop it into a working product called rf3 or studio397sim. The massive delays in rf2 development (dx11 took very long time and still not that good, ui is taking forever) plus the massively flawed product rf2 is in so many ways really just highlights what kind of bunch of rotting of noodles that sim is. S397 needs to do well just to survive with that mess of garbled code they have bought. During their time isi made sure to make every decision wrong. I just don't see how you can save something that like. Maybe s397 can.

That being said it is not like reiza has many options. In reality they have just three. Keep using and improving on what they have (rf1). License rf2 engine. Or develop their own engine. I don't think rf1 has any future left. Regardless of how good it gets it is still rfactor 1 engine which is old old old old. You can patch it up, dress t up but it is still old rf1.

Developing their own engine would be a massive undertaking. Lots and lots of programming and content creation. Sure you can get unreal 4 for free (you pay royalties if you make profit above x amount) and you can get the source code. But even if you take your rf1 physics code (assuming they have the license to do it, probably they don't) you still need to create massive amounts of code to make unreal 4 racing sim out of it. Kunos can do it because they have $$$ and coders. Reiza doesn't.

That leaves rf2 option. I think the interesting thing is that reiza can possibly go many ways about this. They could just license the rf2 engine as it is now, do some own development and drop their own content into it and release it. They are familiar with rf1 and rf2 works very much the same. Except tires. Problem here is not just that reiza would compete against rf2 but they'd be stuck with rf2 issues as well. How well can you build on top of it is a challenging question.

Other rf2 option is to buy the code and simply do what s397 should have done. Go away for couple years, fix all the horrible things rf2 is filled with and then release it as automobilista 2: senna edition. Pro here is that you are in full control of the project and can do whatever you want. Bad thing is that you need to do everything you want yourself. You are not just competing against rf2 in sales and content but also in how fast you can develop that codebase.

Reiza could also just buy rf2 engine and make their own game for it without any additional code added. Easiest solution for a small team but at the same time they are at full mercy of s397 and need to compete against them as well. Maybe it could work. Maybe not.

Last rf2 option is the kartsim route. Release your game on rf2 as dlc. While there sure is lots of meme-potential in buying a racing sim to be able to buy a racing sim (simception, too soon?) I can't imagine it being a working business model. Not only would reiza's game be tied to the userbase figures of rf2 (read: small numbers) but you'd essentially need to expect people to buy two games to be able to play your one game. I don't see anything sane about this option.

And all that is assuming s397 owns the full rights to rf2 code. I don't know what exactly did s397 buy from isi? Was it the full code and full rights to do whatever they want with it including license and sell it for/to others? Or was it just the code for rf2 but you'd still need to go to isi if you want to buy rf2 source code. But it gets massively complicated if isi is still in some way involved. Rf2 codebase is worthless without s397's additional work and reiza can't code such a complicated product on their own.

 

[Will Mazeo]

It also said:

• Initial release planned for Q4 2016;

Just like many others I pre-ordered my copy when reiza had their sim bonanza at indiegogo (it is a pre-order if you pay for something in advance) but reiza are surely taking their time. Not telling why it is 1.5 years late already. I hope this is not one of those kickstarter disasters. But maybe that money does last forever...

The indiegogo was done to cover AMS, the plans for the future sim were writen there but very clearly stated the money would be used in AMS, thus the kickstarter was a success and the mission is accomplished (except for the VR part).
I dont understand why this kind of comment appear from time to time... people need to pay more attention to what they read.