An Interview with Brent Erickson, Lead Designer of Skip Barber Racing

1) Tell us a little about yourself and the team developing Skip Barber Racing.

I am currently VP of Product Development for Bethesda Softworks. I have developed over sixty titles in my 20 years in the industry. Skip will be the fifth racing title I’ve produced. The rest of the team are veterans of Bethesda’s previous racing titles.

2) I have a bit of SCCA experience myself and had a video from the Skip Barber School. Could you tell our visitors a little about Skip Barber Racing and the school.

Skip Barber started the racing school back in the early 70s. Skip himself was a successful driver and saw the need to share his knowledge with others. That original school has grown into a driving school, a racing school and two race series. The program was created to allow an aspiring driver to easily move up the ladder from school, to amateur racing (the Formula Dodge series) and into the Pro Dodge series. Many drivers go on to a successful racing career from there.

3) PowerSims.com is a site for the more serious sim racer, so lets cut right to the question 99% of our visitors are going to ask. What about and how complex is the physics? Will it have 6 degrees of freedom like GPL? Are the tires and friction modeled individually? How about braking?

The physics model is very complex, the most complex I know of. Yes it is 6 degrees of freedom. The tire model we use is very complex and is based on research from race engineers. Each tire is modeled individually and is affected by driver inputs such as throttle, brakes and steering as well as terrain, suspension, aerodynamics and everything else. The suspension really moves, springs, dampers, and anti-roll bars are actually modeled by algorithms derived from experimental data on the component. We received a tremendous amount of data the Barber engineers that has allowed us to create some of these systems accurately.

4) What kind of adjustments to the car will the driver be able to make in the garage?

The amateur series Formula Dodge cars are all equally prepared and the driver is not allowed to make any adjustments. The Pro cars are however adjustable by the driver. Suspension, wings, brake bias are among the components the driver can modify.

5) What is the most difficult part of getting a racing sim to “feel right”?

Probably the most difficult part is trying to adjust for the unknown attributes of the car. Things such as inertias and aerodynamics (aside from wings) that are not typically measured are difficult to narrow down. The only way to do it is to tweak them until the car does what it’s supposed to based on experience. I have a bit of racing experience in closed wheel cars and karts and I’ve probably spent ten to fifteen hours driving these cars and many more around them talking to drivers and mechanics. Without that experience it would be much more difficult to make the car behave as the real one. The math and physics make it “real”, the “feel” comes from experience.

6) Most sim enthusiasts consider Grand Prix Legends to be the best sim, in terms of physics, to date. How would you compare Skip Barber Racing’s physics to GPL?

That’s really difficult to answer. I don’t know what type of system GPL is using. I can only say that as far as I know, Skip will have the most advanced system I know of. I have played with GPL and have found a few unrealistic things- things that aren’t quite right. It’s more realistic than previous sims but I think there are still some short comings. I know what’s in Barber and I think it’s closer.

7) Tell us about the graphics in Skip Barber Racing.

Skip will be Bethesda’s first racing title to use the new DirectX based engine. The engine supports any hardware accelerator supported by DirectX. Everything is at least 16-bit color.

8) Could you tell us about the sound in Skip Barber Racing?

The sound is digitized sound from the actual cars. The sound is played back through the Aureal 3D sound system.

9) Tell us a little about Controllers, setup, and the general interface

The interface was designed to mimic the corporate look of Barber’s programs. It very clean and is designed around the color scheme and trapezoidal logo of the Barber image. Controllers are fully customizable by the user as are many sound, video and game features.

10) Will Skip Barber Racing Include FF and if so, how is it implemented?

Skip will support force feedback through Direct Input. Whatever the user has setup there, Skip will utilize.

11) Personally, I think in-car should be the only view included in any “sim”. What views will be available in Skip Barber Racing?

There are four views in Skip. The in-car view is actually the most realistic and useful. The other views are good for watching some of the neat stuff happen on the car like the suspension movement and over or understeer. It’s sometimes hard to sense this from the cockpit view.

12) Will Skip Barber Racing model dynamic weather conditions?

The Barber races will occur under wet or dry conditions. The game will support both. The weather can and does change from race to race.

13) Can you tell us what tracks you have licenses for and what vehicles from the school will be included?

Negiotations for track licenses are still in progress. Hopefully we’ll be announcing the complete lineup soon.

During the school you will drive the Dodge Dakota truck, and the Dodge Viper. You can practice or race in the Formula Dodge and the Pro Dodge race cars.

14) Some of the best aspects of Papyrus titles like N3 and GPL are the add-on friendliness of the titles. The sim racing community has a myriad of talented people in it who work on providing extras to the sim racing community whether it be paint jobs, setup and driving guides, new tracks, new cars, and general utilities. Could you touch on the ‘friendliness’ of Skip Barber Racing in these terms?

Skip is setup to be add-on friendly. Tracks, cars and other items are created in conjunction with a script that details how things are put together. It is conceivable for someone to get in there and add or modify many aspects of the game. There are some security measures built in for the on-line aspects to prevent cheating but otherwise it’s pretty open.

15) What do you see for the future of sim racing?

I think the largest factor in the advancement sim racing is the video hardware. Not just because it looks better, but it frees up processor time that can be dedicated to more realistic physics, better AI, and better effects. The other major change will be in on-line racing. There is still a ways to go before it works really well but there is nothing like racing with a real human. Things will only get better from here.

16) Many people claim that developers are shying away from the ‘serious sim’ because sales are hindered because of the ‘too hard’ effect. How do you feel in regards to sims meeting the demands of the serious sim racer and do you think developers will return to the ‘push the envelope’ mentality in terms of designing a complete simulation vs. a more ‘dumbed down’ approach?

Honestly I think most sims will have a “dumbed down” mode. There are a few reasons. First, as you mentioned, there are those users that just don’t like it to be realistic. They don’t want the car to be disabled because they “bumped” into the wall. That’s not fun to them. Second, there are limitations to the hardware, mostly in controllers and sensory feedback. It is very difficult to sense when a car starts to oversteer in a game. In real life, on racing slicks, if you wait for even an instant to correct an oversteer, you are spinning. Compounding the problem is the controllers we have. Some people play with the keyboard. It’s impossible to simulate the subtleness required when driving a racecar when a control is either on or off. Try controlling your car if all you can do is have the steering wheel strait or at full lock. That’s not to say that there isn’t good hardware out there. But it is owned by the very few and we, as an industry, must support the market that will pay the bills.

17) What kind of multiplayer capability will Skip Barber Racing employ?

Skip will support multi-player through our own server. The user will be able to login and join or start a race or chat with other drivers. We are predicting that about 16 players should be able to race, depending on latency and such.

18) Anything else you would like to add?

Just this, if you ever get the opportunity to go to a real racing or even a driving school, take it. You will learn a lot, be a safer driver, and have the time of your life. If you can’t afford to go, then this game is the next best thing to being there.

Bonus: What do you think of Powersims.com?

I logged on for the first time the other day and looked around. I thought it looked great and was well laid out. It has a lot of potential to be a great meeting place for sim racers. It certainly covered all the genres.

Originally posted on powersims.com. Reposted with permission.