rFactor 2 December, 2019 Roadmap And Update Adds Two Cars + Eight Tracks

Studio 397 posted their December, 2019 roadmap back on December 19. It featured a nice round-up of their 2019 developments along with some previews of 2020, but perhaps most surprising was a number of content releases…

The Audi R8 GT3 2019 was given free to anyone who already owns the previous Audi R8 GT3 release. It features a new front-end with bigger dive planes, changes to the rear wing size, and profile and other modifications (which resulted in a new rev limit, now at 8600 rpm in 6th gear).

Probably called Circuit d´Azur for licensing purposes (Côte d’Azur in Gran Turismo), the Monte-Carlo GP street circuit is now available for rF2 ($10). I love street circuits, so I’m pretty excited about this.

As well as updating the Tatuus TRS FT-60, they released (for free) five new tracks from New Zealand: Highlands, Teretonga, Pukekohe, Manfeild and Hampton Downs.

The BMW M2 Clubsport, the 450 HP street car, has joined the recently released BMW M2 CS Cup car (appears to be a free addon).

Le Mans got a nice update, upgrading all materials.

There were several updates for the existing KartSim content, but another three new tracks were added as well! The Adria, Kristianstad and Alahärmä tracks are now available.

They detailed improvements in graphics:

This release marks the 3rd major instalment of our PBR revamp of the graphics engine. Last winter, we introduced PBR to vehicles via a new car paint material system, and in the summer we released Le Mans, our first track to make use of the technology. This winter, we bring the next step in the evolution of the environment shaders.

The major feature of this release is the introduction of pre-processor defines for shaders. This means we now can have a handful of shaders with many configurable options. We can enable and disable maps, configure which UV each map uses and change large parts of the logic carried out by the shader on a per material basis. This allows artists much greater freedom to achieve the results they are looking for.

As a result, we’ve added various tweaks and improvements to the full suite of PBR shaders, improving our solutions for Terrain, Road, Foliage and more.

On Roads and Curbs it is possible to fully configure the strength and full PBR profile of Dust, Marble and Groove effects as well as controlling the impact of detail maps across the road. It is possible to pre-bake wear into the road, allowing for a more natural feeling “green” road with subtle variations. It’s all real road compatible too, dusty parts of the road will clear off as vehicles drive over it!

The terrain shader is now more powerful, allowing more maps to be blended and the option to use a “splatter” map input in addition to vertex colour, as was used in the past to control the blending. Distant shadows can be pre-baked, and we have added translucency options to give an improved low light look. This all allows for more natural blending patterns and adds more depth to the scene.

We’ve taken the time to improve billboard lighting on foliage, adding more depth to trees, as well as giving a silhouette glow to them as the sun goes down.

Finally, a complex blend shader gives us the ability to blend different materials together. This is put to use across the scene Gravel Traps to Advertisement hoardings. For example on Gravel Traps we can input two sets of maps, one for the fine pebble details, and a second to achieve the raked pattern. These blend together to add more depth and allow the lighting to be more accurate. Advertisements can be setup with profiles, so a single albedo map with the sponsor logos can be used across all kinds of different surfaces whilst being able to configure a unique profile for each surface.

In terms of lighting, we have taken some small steps here after the preliminary results of the lighting review. The whole pipeline has been adjusted to work with real life albedo values, which meant existing content had to be completely reworked from the assets side. We have also addressed some issues with the direct light and ambient light balance.

All that said, there’s still much work to do. We intend to complete our lighting review in the new year, and also look at improving the PostFX.

Finally, a common question we receive is when will we offer modder support. This is a very important subject, and we want to offer that support as soon as we can. When we roll out modder support, we wish to have proper documentation and be sure that we are not going to make wholesale changes to the way things are setup shortly afterwards. As such, we expect that modder support will not come before the next stage of the graphics pipeline development is complete. As there is still a large chance that things maybe significantly re-balanced and cause major work to content already making use of these developments.

The new UI was released via an opt-in public beta (right-click in Steam, Properties, Betas, Opt-in via dropdown).

Lastly, they updated every car with new icons for the UI and descriptions as well. Some cars also had minor fixes.

Changelog Cars
ALL cars have been updated with new icons and logos compatible with the new UI.

Workshop Items
StockCar 2015 – v2.00
Howston G4 1968 – v2.00
Howston G6 1968 – v2.00
Indycar Dallara DW12 2014
Nissan GT500 2013 – v2.03
USF2000 2016 – v2.00
AC Cobra 427SC 1967 v2.01
Chevrolet Camaro GT3 2012 – 2.00
Corvette C6R GT2 2009 – 2.00
Kart Cup – 2.01
Honda Civic BTCC 2013 – v2.00
Formula Renault 3.5 – v2.00
Renault Clio Cup 2010 – v2.00
Brabham BT20 1966 – v2.00
Howston Dissenter 1974 – v2.00
Panoz Roadster 1999 – v2.00
Nissan GTR 2011 – 2.00
Formula 2 2012 – v2.00
Skip Barber – v2.02
– Added rain effects

Tatuus Pack
– ALL Tatuus – Added upgrade.ini into unencrypted .mas for league use
Tatuus F3 T318 2018 – v1.06
– Separated WSK and Asia as opponents
Tatuus USF-17 – v1.07
Tatuus PM-18 – v1.07
Tatuus FT-50 – v1.07
Tatuus MSV_F3-016 – v1.07
Tatuus F4 2018 – v1.07

Steam Store Items
GTE
– ALL: Diffuser adjustment in GTE cars to reduce aero push oversteer of leading car.

Porsche 991 RSR GTE – v1.99
Chevrolet Corvette C7.R GTE – v2.05
BMW M8 GTE – v1.81
Aston Martin Vantage GTE – v1.11

LMP
Oreca 07 LMP2 – v1.69
Norma – v1.76

GT3
Audi R8LMS GT3 2018 – v1.51
– Changed naming to reflect 2018 in the car list
Bentley Continental GT3 – v2.55
Callaway Corvette C7 GT3-R – v2.51
Mercedes AMG GT3 – v2.51
McLaren 650S GT3 – v2.43
Aston Martin Vantage GT3 – v1.47
BMW M6 GT3 -v1.45
McLaren 720s GT3 – v1.43
Porsche 911 GT3R – v1.41
Radical RXC GT3 – v2.55

Other
BMW M2 2020 – v1.31
– Fixed collision box
– Added ‘Clubsport’ upgrade

Formula E 2018 – v2.03
McLaren Senna – v1.07