Reiza Studios Automobilista VR Statement

[Paul Jeffrey]

With Automobilista now out of Early Access, many fans have been left wondering if the proposed support for Virtual Reality headsets will appear in future AMS builds. Although the studio have been very vocal in their communications on this topic, Reiza Studios own Renato Simioni has now released an official statement on the subject.

Since VR implementation was promised during the initial Crowdfuning campaign, many fans have been questioning whether Reiza still plan to implement support within Automobilista, or if the idea had slowly died out at the studio. Simioni and others connected to the project have stated many times that, although somewhat delayed, VR support will be looked at closely for AMS, and even went as far as to offer a lengthy period of time for backers to leave the programme and receive a refund if the delayed implementation was not to their own liking. In todays statement, Simioni has further explained the reasons for the delayed support of VR headsets, and promised fans that work is already underway to pick back up on this subject and look to develop a solution going forward.

The full Reiza statement can be read below:

"Some may recollect that we did initially propose support for VR towards the end of last year´s crowdfunding campaign for further SCE development, which eventually became AMS - unfortunately a few months after the campaign wrapped, circumstances developed both in the VR front (the evolving nature of this new technology, specifically DX9 no longer being officially supported by OR which effectively moved the goal posts from when we had proposed it) as well as our own (a developer leaving the team), which forced us to put this specific development on hold. When this happened we openly discussed it in Reiza 51 (the forum room specially conceived for communication with campaign backers), and gave an ample window for backers who had entered the campaign with the specific goal of seeing VR supported to get a refund for their investment.

We now are no longer in "wait and see" mode regarding VR, but openly intent on supporting it already with AMS. We are currently looking for developers to join us for this specific task, but until we do and have had the chance to assess it, it´s impossible to make any reliable estimate as to if and when it will actually come in time for AMS.

VR enthusiasts can rest assured that at this point we need no convincing regarding the relevance of VR for sim racing, however we currently have this unfortunate gap between wanting to do something and getting it done. When we have more news on the topic, we´ll make sure to share with you here."
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Keep an eye out on the Automobilista sub forum here at RaceDepartment for more news as it happens, and discuss the game with you fellow sim racing enthusiasts. We host a substantial mods database for you to download additional content for Automobilista, and hold regular, awesome, racing club events using this racing simulator.

Happy to hear AMS will be getting VR in future? Enjoying the sim? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[HRE]

@alexSchmurtz
Yip i know they informed them,if i were a backer i would not have made an issue and would've fully understood,i support reiza and hope they have great success,i just said i can understand people's side of it.

 

[Horrace Foster]

I dont need or want VR, I think it is to expensive for what it its, I will not down anybody who likes it or wants it, but it is not for me, I could build another system for that kind of money, I enjoy AMS for what it is, and what they have done they have pushed dx9 graphics to where it is bleeding from its ears, and their physics has made my driving a lot harder and demanding but very enjoyable because I can tune it. It has also made me more aware of what is on you tube for becoming a better racer, I am sixty one years old and I would never have thought that I can still lower my lap times, but it is because of sims like AMS and rfactor2, and yes project cars, because they have given guys who love sim racing and want to be better and help others get better with their videos. That niche such as hours to have so many dedicated people is truly amazing to see and experience! Graphics are not everything, sure it helps but to feel the difference of different cars and learning how to handle them, that is what is important to me!

 

[REM1976]

LFS has implemented it with no trouble.

 

[Associat0r]

they have pushed dx9 graphics to where it is bleeding from its ears

Please don't equate gMotor2 with the pinnacle of DX9 graphics.
Try Project Cars with the -DX9 switch to see a true bleeding edge DX9 renderer in action.

 

[Associat0r]

LFS has implemented it with no trouble.

They had to go through major trouble to make it work.

 

[REM1976]

They had to go through trouble to make it work.

What trouble? They were well ahead of the game from my reading of their forum.

Here's a video from 2 years ago

 

[Associat0r]

What trouble? They were well ahead of the game from my reading of their forum.

Here's a video from 2 years ago

They had to go through major trouble and workarounds to get it to work when DX9 was discontinued from the Oculus SDK. A whole lot of dev time was sacrificed just for VR.

 

[REM1976]

They had to go through major trouble to get it to work when DX9 was discontinued from the Oculus SDK.

Didn't know that. They certainly didn't make a big deal of it,

 

[jkn87]

I am a vr rift owner and a automobilista long time owner since gsc2012. I only backed for vr support and yesterday I got banned from official forums for typing I was feeling betrayed cause there was no word about vr in August development diary and did same in July and June. They banned me because I was being a "troll" talking about vr so much.
I asked my money back and I got it too and got an email from them stating that they were sorry for my frustration about vr.

I am really sad for this game. This was my number1 game to play prior to vr and I recommended it to everyone who liked racing.

So I believe no vr will ever be implemented otherwise they would have not banned and returned money back

 

[Gringo]

Edit ... sigh, never mind

 

[R Bruno]

Another one here who favors playing on CV1 versus 3 monitors. I have enabled vorpx to play AMS and it does not look bad at all, however no head tracking, so can't be used much. I do think any SIM devs out there should have a short term plan to support VR at some level as of now. It can't be ignored. If you feel this is not needed is just because you don't have one yet...so stop the BS.

 

[arniesan]

Just look at AMS for what it is; a stop gap between GSCE and the new Reiza 2017 sim'.
To complain that there is no VR in AMS is understandable, to those that want it, but their energy for VR would be better placed in campaigning for it to be a "sure thing" in the 2017 sim'...that is assuming they are followers of Reiza sim's.
For myself I wont be getting VR as only one of my eyes are fully working. .

 

[Paulo Gomes]

Since the fund raising so much things evolved and are much better in AMS, and if someone stops playing a game just because they dont have vr support yet, you dont like that game, you simply like vr, and there is games much better in graphics that probably will look much nice in vr.
15seconds google search, and I will quote this guys words from the video description "surprisingly great game for VR"

 

[Will Mazeo]

Am I the only that thinks once one of the "VR reviewers" get into AMS to test this could end up becoming a terrible PR?

 

[Reb.Ellion]

Since the fund raising so much things evolved and are much better in AMS, and if someone stops playing a game just because they dont have vr support yet, you dont like that game, you simply like vr, and there is games much better in graphics that probably will look much nice in vr.
15seconds google search, and I will quote this guys words from the video description "surprisingly great game for VR"

For me, it looks like that "normal" head movements.

 

[xnorb]

Since the fund raising so much things evolved and are much better in AMS, and if someone stops playing a game just because they dont have vr support yet, you dont like that game, you simply like vr

That's what it's really about.
Being able to look around is a big plus and adds immersion, but you launch AMS for the handling, the content, the racing and not for looking around in your average to good, but never great modelled cockpit.

 

[Insert Coin]

Since the fund raising so much things evolved and are much better in AMS, and if someone stops playing a game just because they dont have vr support yet, you dont like that game, you simply like vr, and there is games much better in graphics that probably will look much nice in vr.
15seconds google search, and I will quote this guys words from the video description "surprisingly great game for VR"

FYI, from the comments: "I created my own VR headset and its display is simply seen as a second monitor in Windows.", so it doesn't work with Rift or Vive (out of the box that is).

 

[RaceNut]

Okay, I don't get why some are so set against VR support at all - makes no sense to me but, even IF Reiza manages to implement it, it's not as though they have to sacrifice a lot to make it work. Yes, it requires a person with the right experience, interest and skill-set to do so efficiently and there's a good chance that same person will be involved in the development toward the next render-engine used in 2017.

Reiza has expressed interest in VR for personal reasons and I believe Scawen had a strong interest in VR too, hence the extra effort to make it work despite lack of DX9 support by Oculus. LFS doesn't look "Bad" in VR, it looks like what most would expect from any last-gen render engine; it still works as a VR Racing-title and brought some new life and attention to LFS in the process.

Steam VR is not the same as having Direct game support for VR, and don't be misled in believing that it's truley "Open VR", it's not. For Steam VR to work with Oculus, some sacrifices have to be made that affect the performance negatively and there's no doubt that Oculus is an important player in VR - despite all the negative press it gets.

Pcars/SMS went through a similar issue (losing key employee) and once SMS put the right person in place and they worked on VR, things came together pretty quickly. Once Kunos committed to implementing VR in AC, it also happened pretty quickly; granted, it's not 100 percent in terms of full VR menus but, it's very functional.

I'll play AMS in either case but, it certainly tops my "Most Wanted" list as being the title I'd love to play in VR. The fact that Reiza has made an announcement regarding VR-support speaks to their openness and good communication practices as well as their recognition of evolving technology that, while certainly far from VR being mature - shows great potential in being a game-changer in the not too distant future.

 

[Associat0r]

http://www.develop-online.net/news/vr-momentum-slows-dramatically-on-steam/0223756

 

[Marcel Offermans]

With the immense userbase Steam has, even 0.2% represents about 250.000 users. Still, I agree with your point that we are very early in the adoption cycle of VR technology. That said, simracing is a good fit. Time will tell if VR sales pick up again and if a substantial part of the simracers will start using it.