Paul Jeffrey
Premium
A new update for rFactor 2 has been deployed today, now featuring enhanced rain visuals amongst a sizeable number of improvements and fixes.
As detailed in the final development roadmap post of 2017 (HERE), Studio 397 have today deployed a fairly sizeable new build release for rFactor 2 that amongst other things offers players the opportunity to sample the first pass of the enhanced rain effects introduced to this venerable racing simulation. Benefitting from significantly improved visual representation over the previous rain simulation, the new build is a major step forward in one of the few remaining areas where rFactor 2 fails to live up to expectations in comparison to other similar simulators available on the marketplace today.
As well as the very visually obvious changes to weather effects, Studio 397 have committed to continue developing the wet stuff in rF2 as they look to improve the overall experience and introduce physics interaction with dynamic puddle formations and other interesting and exciting elements found in wet weather racing.
Due to the nature of the new build and visual improvements brought to the simulation, vanilla and mod content will need to be updated to make best use of the new technology employed by Studio 397. As such the Dutch developers are actively working to update all the base content of the simulation, with the following items already having been given the update treatment, with more to follow in the coming weeks and months;
Cars
- Bentley GT3 - v1.97
- Radical GT3 - v1.993
- Mercedes GT3 - v1.99
- McLaren GT3 - v1.993
- Callaway GT3 - v1.97
- Formula E - v1.993
- Dallara - v1.96
- USF 2000 - v1.94
- Camaro GT3 - v1.94
- Corvette C6R - v1.93
- Nissan 370Z GT4 - v1.93
- Brabham BT44B - v1.95 >>>You need to manually subscribe HERE
- Brabham BT20 - v1.95
- Stock Car - v1.96
- EVE -v1.98
- Spark - v1.98
- Formula Two - v1.95
- Honda Civic BTCC - v1.99 (Physics Update: New tires)
- Kart Cup - v1.92
- Nissan GTR GT1 - v1.93
- Howston G4 - v1.96
- Howston G6 - v1.96
- Megane 2013 - v1.95
- Clio 2010 - v1.93
- Howston Dissenter - v1.94
- LimeRock - 2.02
- Mores - v1.82
- Nola - v1.30
- Indianapolis - v2.04
- Silverstone - v1.84
- Brianza - v2.04
- Malaysia - v1.82
- Important: Make sure to update any SteamCMD servers to get the latest!
- Delete contents of the folders CBash and shaders located in \Steam\steamapps\common\rFactor 2\UserData\Log
Improved Lighting
- We developed an Image-Based Lighting for Ambient (IBLA) solution that substantially improves lighting in our graphics engine.
- IBLA acts on the colors of the scene, taking into account information from the surrounding environment when drawing each object.
- The resulting lighting system gives the final image a more realistic look and it improves the perception of depth for the driver.
- This new system uses new ambient probes that have been added to most of the tracks. It is recomputed dynamically as weather or time conditions change.
- IBLA does not introduce any noticeable performance penalties and its features have been exposed to Mod Dev. Furthermore, tracks that do not have set IBLA yet will automatically have a default set of probes assigned to them.
Cars
- Added dynamic drops on the windshield and the body of the car.
- These drops respect gravity, so they will run down the sides, and each single drop will have its own lifespan.
- The drops also respect airflow around the car when driving, making them move in appropriate directions.
- The effect is not scripted but generated in real time, and it varies depending on factors like the amount of rain drops falling from the sky, the speed of the vehicle, or the particles generated from another car in front of you.
- Wipers on cars are now functional and will clear the windscreen in two different user configurable speeds.
- Vastly improved reflections of the surroundings that become visible as the track gets wet.
- Added blurred reflections for the “Ultra” Road Reflection setting.
- Improved shaders for the real-road surfaces and added new shaders to match closely the properties of elements like curbs in dry/wet conditions.
- Added highly detailed puddle maps that allow puddles to form in the appropriate places on tracks.
- Added options to show tire wear and ride height as text parameters.
- Added tire wear percentage to the vehicle status MFD.
- Increased the accuracy of fuel consumption with an extra digit.
- Fixed a bug with TireAverageTemp text parameters, which would not show up in the HUD because of a space in their names.
- Added a “delta best” parameter that you can add to a HUD, showing time lost or gained compared to your fastest lap in milliseconds. Works for all cars (not just player). Included optional text coloring of the text output so positive and negative values can result in different colors.
- Added a more accurate fuel indication as well as one that shows the fuel you used in your last (full) lap, or zero otherwise.
- Added a gauge for showing the “delta best” with a range of -1.0 to +1.0 seconds.
- Added predicted number of laps remaining based on fuel used for last lap.
- Added current rain percentage.
- Added minimum and maximum track water depth.
- Added an option to disable font scaling for the chat and message box (apart from using comic sans, non-linear font scaling is about the biggest sin a designer can commit).
- Added weather info (rain intensity and min/max water depth) into the MFD for HUD and in-car use.
- Designed a new default HUD that takes advantage of the new features. (Coming soon)
- The plugin API will no longer invoke callbacks that provide ScreenInfoV01 data that used to allow plugins to render to the screen. Doing this directly has been deprecated with the release of DX11, and alternatives are to either use information that is available in the updated HUD or wait for a new plugable HUD system to be released in 2018.
- We have removed the “cache” folder from our install, so all content will now be downloaded from the workshop. This means the base install is much smaller. Upon first launch you will be automatically subscribed to all Studio 397 content and while that is downloading the Launcher will show a progress dialog window with screenshots of all content items it is downloading for you.
- Generating Mip Maps from reflections, this gives smoother reflections as a result.
- Formula E liveries for TeCheetah, Mahindra and Venturi updated to 2018.
- Formula E driver helmets updated.
- Formula E driver suits updated.
- Rain effects are visual currently. However, we are working on physics impacts.
- Some content is still to be updated to include the rain effects such as cars and tracks.
- Performance is constantly being reviewed
- Rain drops on external cameras under review
- If you are experiencing strange graphical issues, delete the contents of your cbash and shader folders located in \Steam\steamapps\common\rFactor 2\UserData\Log
- Important: Make sure to update any SteamCMD servers to get the latest!
rFactor 2 is available from Steam as a PC exclusive title now.
Check out the rFactor 2 sub forum here at RaceDepartment for all the latest news and discussion with regards to the simulation. You can take part in lively debates with fellow rFactor 2 fans and take part in some great Club and League racing events..! Head over to the forum now and share the love this simulation so very much deserves...
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Tried the new build yet? What are your impressions of the new rain effects? Like the new direction of the sim? Let us know in the comments section below!
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. As far as I know track cams have some kind of multiplier which moves the lod switching distance so that highest lods are used at longer distances. I don't remember the specifics but last time I adjusted lods for car in rf2 I edited the track cam files to get rid of that multiplier so I can use track cams for adjusting lod distances. And it definitely worked.
