SIMBIN Interview on GTR Technicalities

It’s with great pride we present you with this killer interview. BigBen and the 3 SBDT developers hooked up a few days ago and the outcome is… well, read it for yourself.

I for one am extremely exited about the GTR release, can’t wait to be contacted and asked to betatest [ Hint Hint Hint !!! ]

BigBen – Ben Jones, RSC writer & reviewer
IB – Ian Bell, Managing Director
EB – Eric Boosman, Art Director
SB – Stephen Baysted, Sound Director

BigBen – First of all, thanks for taking the time to answer our questions!

BigBen – SBDT is new to the corporate world, but that doesn’t mean you’re new. What’s been the biggest change you’ve seen from SBDT the mod group to SBDT the company?

IB – Getting paid for what we do and the ability to dedicate ourselves fulltime to this project.

BigBen – Do you feel like all the partners in SBDT have taken a big risk in pursuing commercial status?

IB – Of course there are always risks associated with any commercial enterprise, but we strongly feel that we can deliver in many areas that are lacking from current racing games.

BigBen – What resources to you have access to now that you didn’t have before?

IB – The fully licensed GT series and inclusive famous supercars with direct physics data (motec telemetry), images, direct sound samples, and constant ongoing interaction with the real FIA GT teams. Complete track access and data to enable us to model them as accurately as possible. Video track guides by the real drivers, as well as other official media. We also have the financial resources to purchase all the professional equipment required to gather data properly. At least 3 members of the team have been to each race and we have gathered a mass of relevant data. We are in constant contact with many of the teams who have been extremely helpful. Real up to the minute manufacturer tyre data is a major help.

BigBen – Did SBDT become a commercial developer so that you could produce GTR, or did you become a company for other reasons, with GTR just being your first product?

IB – We are in negotiations regarding a few simulation products at the moment. We became a commercial developer because we are all massive racing game fans and this was the next logical step to enable us to create the sim we all dreamed of with no limitations beyond technology.

BigBen – The GT Racing 2002 mod was very well received, and attracted quite a following. Now that you’ve started development of GTR the commercial release, how do you view GT Racing 2002?

IB – We are all proud of what we achieved with the mod and it was as good as we could have possibly made it given the constraints associated with working on a fixed engine, and limited time (as we all had day jobs). Those constraints are gone now and the horizons have expanded greatly, and with it, our goals.

BigBen – On to the new game, what made you decide to create an FIA GT sim?

IB – We feel that the FIA GT series offers everything that a race fan could want — a host of famous supercars and international circuits in a mixed-class, competitive series. You get to race your dream car against a full field of similar dream cars, what could be better? J And unlike formula one for example, you just might be able to own the road-going version of these cars someday…

SB – Also, unlike open wheel racing, you race at much closer quarters and inevitably there’s always a little bit of contact which adds to the excitement and danger.

BigBen – Is the game going to be produced 100% by SBDT, or are you procuring a game engine to start with?

IB – We are making use of middleware and working with the providers to tweak and hone it to our exact needs. We had the option of locking our programmers in a room and having a game after 2-3 years or sourcing some excellent middleware and working the source to our needs. We chose the latter option which is increasingly common in software development recently, as there are several benefits. This can be seen with the use of the Id engine, or the Havok or Renderware engines. Large companies like Sony and Microsoft make extensive use of middleware as it simply makes so much more sense when you have a set development period and budget. Mature technology helps alleviate the risk of time overruns and allows the development team to concentrate on game content. There’s no point in building a camera every time you want to make a film, unless of course that camera can’t be made to do what you want.

BigBen – What will be the biggest difference between the GT Racing 2002 mod and the commercially released GTR?

IB – Great differences in just about every area. We have really upped the ante in graphics, sounds and physics. Online will be massively improved and many unique circuit details that add greatly to the immersion factor have been simulated for the first time. Source code gives infinite flexibility.

SB – from a sonic perspective, simply being able to position microphones inside the cars, at the exhaust pipe, and onboard during running gathering samples that are way beyond CD quality totally transforms the in game driving experience and the sense of realism in general. Moreover, these samples can then be mapped in a 5.1 surround environment to further simulate all sounds the driver is actually hearing during the cut and thrust of a race.

BigBen – The screenshots you’ve released show cars from a few different classes. What categories of cars do you all intend to include with the game?

IB – All of the cars and teams from the FIA GT Championship, as well as all the teams that competed in the 24 hours of Spa (and some that didn’t even race) are represented in the game. The car makes and models are:

* Ferrari 550 Maranello
* Ferrari 575 GTC
* Ferrari 360 Modena
* Chrysler Viper GTS-R
* Lister Storm
* Lamborghini Diablo GT-R
* Lamborghini Murciélago R-GT
* Saleen S7-R
* Mosler MT900
* Chevrolet Corvette C5-R
* Stealth B6 MK1
* Porsche 993 GT2
* Porsche 996 Turbo
* Porsche 996 GT3-RS
* Porsche 996 GT3 Cup
* Seat Toledo
* Morgan Aero 8
* BMW Z3 M
* Lotus Elise
* Vertigo Streiff
…. And some very interesting bonus vehicles

BigBen – Consider the statement “100% simulation is not possible on a computer”. Do you agree or disagree?

EB – Agree fully. Unless we can get IV adrenaline pumps, full 360 degree rotating pods, and the new iFumes® “Stenchalizer™”, the visceral experience of racing will elude us. The fear factor is missing, and is a major component to the experience. In fact, Andy Mahood wrote a nice sidebar about this very subject this month in PC Gamer’s December issue.

SB – I’m with Eric on this one, though I would add that it doesn’t stop us trying to get as close as possible with current technology.

BigBen – What are the biggest challenges to conveying the experience of driving a GT car to a person sitting at a desk in front of a computer?

EB – Aside from what I said above, it really comes down to the individual user, which is something we can’t control. The more the user takes time to properly set up a nice force feedback steering wheel, and really treats the virtual car as something precious, the better quality experience they will have. GTR will be an incredibly immersive racing world, but if the user sits down and just mashes the up key on a keyboard, it’s not going to be the stellar experience we wish them to have.

SB – put it this way, if you stand in a pit box next to a Ferrari 550, a Viper or a Saleen S7R when it’s being revved to the limiter by a mechanic, you’ll soon realize that – short of installing a 10 kilowatt sound system in your bedroom and cranking the volume right up – it’s going to be extremely difficult to convey the sheer brutality of the noise these beasts dish out. And consider that a driver sits behind or in front of one of these engines for extended periods during a 3 hour race and you get some idea of the challenge we have set ourselves…

BigBen – Compromises are inevitable in game development. Is there anything you’ve had to leave on the cutting room floor at this point?

IB – Nothing so far and we are doing everything in our power to ensure that continues. A career mode was a tentative option, but by not including it we are able to bring some unique single player modes to the game.

BigBen – What the biggest challenge you’re facing right now in the development of GTR?

IB – Getting some sleep. Beyond that everything is going according to plan and we are confident that we will be able to achieve all of the goals we planned for initially. Coordinating a distributed team of 26 personnel is quite a challenge, but we have plenty of experience doing that.

BigBen – What’s the feature your most excited to be able to include in GTR?

IB – It’s a secret J

BigBen – Coming from a background of mods based on ISI’s game engine, what will be the biggest difference between GTR and previous ISI powered games?

IB – With the caveat that we haven’t announced the engine yet as it isn’t quite finished yet, we feel there are a number of areas in which we go beyond any previous sim. We have the most accurate and detailed cars, circuits, and physics currently possible. Having the official license on the series, cars and circuits has helped us greatly here. The variety and depth of the simulation is enormous.

BigBen – Online play has been a hit or miss thing in the computer world. What are your goals in regards to the number of players per track?

IB – We are aiming for 30+ on a dedicated server.

BigBen – What are your strategies to combating the effects of lag?

IB – First and foremost, the elimination of issues in the current technology and the work being done on the code following extensive testing. The fruits of this should be a dramatically improved online system. To deal with the dreaded lag from narrowband users, etc., we have the ghosting system outlined below.

BigBen – Do you intend for GTR’s online experience to be evolutionary, or revolutionary?

IB – Both actually, it is evolutionary in that it builds on established technology, but revolutionary in that some issues with that technology have been eliminated and we feel that with the dedicated servers, we will be able to have as many cars running online smoothly as the circuits can comfortably accommodate. We are also implementing lag dependant ghosting where appropriate and, of course, the online competition culminates in someone driving away a real supercar. The competition will have 5 divisions and the winner of any division can win the car with the ballast system we have planned.

BigBen – Will you be offering something we’ve never seen before, or improving on time tested features?

IB – There are a lot of never-before-seen features in the sim, but we can’t go into them yet

BigBen – For the single player, what steps will you take to immerse the player in the experience?

IB – We have 2 new single player game modes that add a great deal of playability. Beyond this, immersion is a given when the physics, graphics and sound combine to suspend disbelief. There are a lot of additional extras including circuits that are available logically when you meet certain goals, but these are beyond the core product and the 10 officially licensed tracks (and 1 fictional) that are all available from the word go.

BigBen – Will there be some sort of career path available?

EB – We considered having a full career mode available in GTR, but the implementation would have meant sacrifices in other areas that we weren’t willing to compromise. We have been tossing around the idea of presenting it as part of an add-on in the future.

IB – We do have some really interesting game modes, although not exactly career oriented, that do add increased playability and tie in specifically to the FIA GT series.

BigBen – Do you intend for all content to be available from the moment the game is started?

IB – All core simulation content will be available from the start. (see below)

BigBen – It’s difficult for the majority of casual gamers to come to terms with a hard core driving simulation. Will you be making concessions to allow them to enjoy the game, or are you targeting a more skilled player base?

IB – Similar to Sony’s Gran Turismo series, we will have two distinctly different modes of play available from the main menu. Our primary focus will, of course, be the simulation mode, but for the initiates and those that don’t want to invest time learning the nuances of controlling a simulation, we will have a straight up arcade mode, complete with unlockables and a lot of rock and roll. There will also be some exciting extras implemented in the simulation mode that will really appeal to those who love the old circuits, when racing was racing…

EB – I personally am a huge fan of arcade racers and I love gnarly drifting, so expect to see plenty of sideways action, high speeds, and lots of overtaking from the arcade mode. And once players finish the arcade mode, there might be something at the end that will entice them to explore the simulation side of the game…

SB – my view is that the more realistic the driving model, the more intuitive it is to drive in game, particularly for those who’ve actually driven a real car before. If our model is intuitive, then, for those running in the full simulation mode, it will not be a question of learning the driving model, but learning to push the racing envelope to 90% and beyond. The driving model should, therefore, be as transparent as possible.

BigBen – Who is the intended buyer of GTR?

EB – First and foremost, the racing sim fanatic. From there, any racing fan, especially lovers of closed wheel racing, then the arcade racers that want to try something with a little more depth, moving on to your little sister, and some species of aquatic animals.

BigBen – What kind of graphical improvements to you intend for GTR to have over the current crop of racing games?

EB – The big graphics advantage will be in the details. GTR will have insane details, like fully modeled engine bays, taped vents, and practically every bolt in its exact location.

IB – We obviously can’t run the polys on each car that games like Project Gotham Racing or RalliSport Challenge have, since they’re running 6 or fewer cars at once, so we have had to tweak our cars and normals tuning over and over to achieve the detail we have. At Spa for example we have 56 different cars running simultaneously which is more than any racing sim has achieved before to the best of our knowledge. Another great improvement is the DDS texture format that we’re using, which allow us to go higher resolution without breaking the texture memory budget as well as reducing load times and disk space requirements.

With regards to circuits we have 3d people (marshals, crowds, etc.) and detailed 3d trees, variable camber, offline dynamic marble build up, shadows lengthening with time at the 24 hours of Spa, etc., etc., and are working extensively on LODs to keep it all running smoothly on a good system.

EB – The only real graphics compromising we’ve done is due to hardware limitations. Even taking that into consideration, the recommended PC specs will undoubtedly be above average. GTR is not intended to be a quick cash-in. The FIA GT portion will be a core product, which is added to over time, and should sit happily on your hard drive for over two years. Therefore, it’s being built to compete with games well down the road, some of which haven’t even been thought of yet, and being built with future hardware in mind. We have some add-on series planned where we may go to 30K polys per car.

BigBen – Is there a compromise between being able to produce “eye candy” features like animated track marshals and 3d grass, and focusing on the accuracy of the fundamentals of the game?

EB – We are in a great position of having individual SimBin devs working on physics (the most important part), mode implementation, and the eye candy features. This prevents us from having to compromise in any area. However, if a feature jeopardizes playability or realism, then it will not be included. For example, we could render each blade of grass on the circuit, but then you wouldn’t even be able to get 5 fps in the game. That would be fine if we were creating Myst, but obviously with a racing game that’s unacceptable.

IB – On specifics, we will have animations where we feel they are warranted. 3d animated pitcrew, marshals, team manager with pitboard, crowds, FIA stewards etc. We are working extremely hard on things such as 3d crowds and will be able to implement them in a way that does not kill FPS. In fact we are increasing our personnel in this area right now to allow us to deliver the breadth of animations we want. In the final analysis though, anything that eats frame rates will be switchable for those on lesser systems.

BigBen – What feature of GTR do you expect will elicit the biggest “Wow!” response from the community?

EB – It’s hard to boil it down to just one particular feature that will do it. There will be improvements beyond other commercial products in many facets of the game, and the overall experience will be top shelf. The detail on the cars should grab quite a bit of attention considering the amount of them we have running simultaneously, as well as the accuracy and detail of the circuits. The biggest leap forward, though, will have to be physics and the online play and what we have planned for an online dedicated server and product portal.

IB – Also, giving away a supercar to the winner of the online competition is worth a reasonably big wow. J In the end, we can make photorealistic circuits and cars with physics that feel real in every way. But beyond that, it is the plethora of little details that SimBin pride themselves upon and that we feel really lifts the product. There are so many little inclusions that often are imperceptible in a conscious sense that click somewhere in the subconscious that make a product just feel right. We are tweaking these little details to hell and back… We can’t give away too much but one example would be on circuits where we have variable marbles building up over time during the course of the race and/or the race weekend depending upon how diligent the personnel are at sweeping them away at a particular circuit in reality. Oh, and I love the music. We have a lot of cool original tracks flying out of our sound and music dept led by Stephen which are very inspirational IMO. As this is the first thing that normally gets switched off by users it’s a particular challenge to make it work. I think we’ve nailed that with many different styles in there.

SB – Thanks for that Ian. (How much do I owe you for the plug?)

IB- The usual

BigBen – The list of features that players want to see in GTR is rather massive. How much of GTR’s features will be decided by popular support?

EB -Having followed our progress from the start, you already know GT Racing 2002 incorporated many features requested by the community. GTR will not be different. Many community requests have already been implemented, and we will add as many as time and technology allow during the development phase.

BigBen – SBDT the mod group had their thumbs in many pies. Does SBDT the company have other projects lined up aside from GTR? Can you comment on them?

IB- Yes, we are in negotiations on 3 different titles at the present time and what I can say at this stage is that GTR, although extremely broad and detailed in and of itself, will also become a ‘hub’ product for online racers everywhere that over time will cater to racing fans from many different genres. In addition to major expansion packs that cover completely different racing series, it is our aim to constantly provide circuits and car types that would not necessarily be viable to release in a boxed product. We expect that the GTR dedicated servers will become a major portal for downloadable racing products to cater for all tastes.

BigBen – How was negotiating licensing contracts with FIA? Was it a difficult thing to enter into, or were they receptive from the start?

IB – It was extremely exciting and you don’t sit down with FIA and expect everything to be smooth sailing. We showed them a presentation with our WIP models, tracks and game design ideas and they were impressed with what they saw. In the end it was the personal touch more than anything that sealed the contract for us. FIA saw how enthusiastic we were and caught a little of that enthusiasm. We were able to show them how this title will go beyond current commercial titles in a number of key areas.

BigBen – SBDT has obviously cultivated a close relationship with real racing teams. What do those relationships bring to GTR that GTR wouldn’t have had otherwise?

IB – What we have in terms of real racing team feedback and interaction transcends anything that has been achieved in racing sims up to now. In fact it probably transcends the depth of interaction that any sports game has achieved with its corollary real series before. We have detailed physics spec sheets from each of the teams as well as Motec telemetry data direct from their cars as they raced on each of the real circuits. We also have in-depth tyre data from the engineers of the major tyre manufacturers and have taken quite a leap forward in terms of accuracy of simulation here. In addition to all that, we have the sounds sampled directly from all the cars in a format that is best utilized in a game engine. Static revs at a variety of RPMs, external and internal in addition to onboard stuff that combine to lift this title beyond what could have been achieved without the full interaction of the teams. Also, we have of course thousands of photographs of the cars and cockpits from all angles taken explicitly for texturing and modeling purposes.

Here are copies of the physics and tyre spec sheets that the teams complete for us:

Car data request:

Total Weight empty.
F/R weight %
Front Track
Rear Track
Wheelbase
CGheight front
CG height rear
*Real* HP and tourque numbers @RPM’s
How wide is the torque peak
Front spring rates
Rear spring rates
Front motion ratio
Rear motion ratio
Front bump travel
Rear bump travel
Typical shock rate bump/reb (nm/m/s)
Moment of inertia’s Pitch, Yaw, Roll
Camber gain in 50mm bump Front
Camber gain in 50mm bump Rear
Front roll center
Rear roll center
Front / Rear ride heights
Total downforce in Newtons @160mph (245km)
Downforce of the underbody (good guess)
CD (coefficient of drag) in typical Aero package
Top speeds at most average tracks
Top speeds at a fast track like Monza
How many different aero setups? Splitters?
Is your car pitch sensitive and whats the optimum rake in millimeters front to rear.
What makes your car uniquely better or worse compared to the competition?
What compound tires do you typically run or be more specific on a track by track basis if you like.
Differential slip ratio power/decel % (is 40/60)

Tire data:

Tire spring rates
Tire dampening rates
Tire slip curve at various loads – lateral and longitudinal (to show peakslip changes with load)
Tire slip curve at various speeds – lateral and longitudinal (to show peakslip change with speed)
Self aligning torque curve
Relaxation lengths
Load sensitivity curve
Coefficient of friction at various temperatures
Optimum tire temperature
Optimum recommended pressure (cold/hot)
Optimum camber for grip (ie: qualifying)
Optimum camber for wear (ie: the race)
Rolling resistance (nm)
Radius change with speed.
An idea of how much heat is generated by the carcass deflection versus puresliding friction
How many compounds
If so what are the differences in grip and temperatur/wear.

The teams are all really fired up about GTR having tested our WIP stuff, and all have been extremely helpful in feeding us the detail that we want. For example, here are the Creation Lister guys talking about the relationship: http://www.creationsport.co.uk (9th October news).

BigBen – We’ve seen several instances in the sim world lately where “games” are being used as test beds for real life race teams. Do you see GTR fulfilling a role in the racing world beyond entertainment?

EB – GTR will be a terrific resource for drivers to develop racecraft and concentration, as well as learning circuit layout, the latter being useful to many veterans as well, when racing venues change.

IB – We have already provided some work-in-progress tracks to FIA GT drivers to enable them to learn circuits before going to them. One veteran driver said that his hands were sweating as he drove around a circuit as he was immediately transported back to the last time he raced there which we feel is a nice indication of the accuracy we have achieved.

EB – Pro racing teams require a higher degree of telemetry feedback and number of variables than GTR will be able to provide. Although it will serve well as a test bed for overall setup changes, it won’t be a suitable replacement for their standard software. That’s not to say that SBDT won’t create a product like that in the future, however.

BigBen -…and the million dollar question is: Do you have an idea when the public will be able to get our greedy little hands on GTR?

IB – We are aiming for a release around summer next year or earlier, development is flying along at the moment so we won’t have a problem meeting that schedule unless there are any major changes.