Calspan.

Anyone know any info on these guys? I hadn't heard of these until Dan mentioned them.

Doing a quick Wiki on them proved insightful.
American based company that's got it's fingers into many pies.
There crash simulation and component structure damage info could be useful in future Forzas.
Aero dynamic's and many more subjects are covered by them.

Good partner to have.

Anyone know any employees or have first hand knowledge of them?

Taken from Wiki. Big list sorry.

Calspan offers a variety of products and services:

AEROSPACE-RELATED

Aircraft Modifications and Certification
Flight Test Services and Airborne Testbeds
Test Pilot and Flight Training
In-flight Simulation
Flight Control and Handling Qualities
UAV Surrogates
High-Speed Wind Tunnel Testing (up to 1,000 MPH)
Low-Speed Wind Tunnel Testing (up to 75 MPH)
Aerodynamic Analysis and Research
Wind Tunnel Operation and Maintenance
TRANSPORTATION-RELATED

Active Safety Research and Testing
Autonomous Vehicle Research and Testing
Crashworthiness and Crash Test
Safety Research and Data Collection
Proving Ground Rental
Tire Research and Tire Test
Sled Test and Impact Simulation
Component and Subsystem Testing
Crash Investigation
Accident Re-creation and Litigation Support
Crash Seminars
First Responder Training
Dummy Rental
Dummy Purchases
Dummy Calibration Services
Certification/Homologation
GENERAL:

Consulting
Test Services
Equipment
High-Speed Video or Camera Rental
Instrumentation and Electronic Systems
Machining and Fabrication

Actually, instead of being a knob (re: my unedited post), I'll contribute. Here's what turned up by searching "calspan" on YouTube. Looks like goofy tires and whining machinery will power FM5.

You mean real life tyre physics and reactions to the different scenarios they will can be in? ^ Yeah seems goofy to me.

HELLAFLUSH240SX

You mean real life tyre physics and reactions to the different scenarios they will can be in? ^ Yeah seems goofy to me.

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Give me one scenario where a tire will have that much weight on it in a Forza game. Just one.

GTMail

Give me one scenario where a tire will have that much weight on it in a Forza game. Just one.

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How much weight, exactly? For all you know it's a test with low tyre pressures, which are extremely relevant when people try to game the setup system.

I don't think low tire pressure is the case there. It appears to me to be extreme weight because of the noise, what appears to be a machine pumping air in the tire and because of how it looked before the weight was put on compared to after it was put on. Oh and it's also appears to be a plane tire.

GTMail

I don't think low tire pressure is the case there. It appears to me to be extreme weight because of the noise, what appears to be a machine pumping air in the tire and because of how it looked before the weight was put on compared to after it was put on. Oh and it's also appears to be a plane tire.

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You heard it here first, folks. Forza 5 will feature an aviation mode. I guess that's the real reason they courted Top Gear; so they could model their precious runway.

GTMail

Give me one scenario where a tire will have that much weight on it in a Forza game. Just one.

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When a tank like a Hummer H1 takes to the air, it'll eventually have to land.

There's your scenario.

GTMail

I don't think low tire pressure is the case there. It appears to me to be extreme weight because of the noise, what appears to be a machine pumping air in the tire and because of how it looked before the weight was put on compared to after it was put on. Oh and it's also appears to be a plane tire.

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Generally, that connection in the middle of the tyre monitors the pressure. (There's a good BBC doco on Youtube about the production of the Veyron that has quite a bit of tyre stuff in it, including these machines.) And how would you tell what that particular connection was doing if it were? Inflating the tyre? Deflating it? Replacing the nitrogen with atmosphere? Filling the tyre with jelly?

The tyre doesn't look like anything before the weight was put on. Completely deflated tyres without load on them look like what? Tyres with no air in them at all being spun in the air look like what?

Stop looking for reasons to justify your assumptions. You know nothing about how the test was being conducted, and there's very little observable from that short clip. It's just a clip of a tyre testing machine, nothing more.

A clip that's not even directly related to Forza in any way, apart from being the same sort of testing that a company that is doing collaborations with Turn 10 might be asked to do by one of their customers. For all you know Forza won't make use of that particular tyre data at all.

GTMail

Give me one scenario where a tire will have that much weight on it in a Forza game. Just one.

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And that's the only possible input Calspan could have had into FM5 right? The ridiculousness of the arguments in the eternal GT v FM debate get more pronounced with every passing day. I doff my cap to you sir, you've just taken the lead.

Next you'll be asking how the collaboration with Pirelli is meaningful because they make a calendar of scantily clad women each year.

Come on, guys. I wrote that first post facetiously.

Let's keep the bile out of here and in the brain-dead VS. thread.

Kake Bake

Actually, instead of being a knob (re: my unedited post), I'll contribute. Here's what turned up by searching "calspan" on YouTube. Looks like goofy tires and whining machinery will power FM5.

Click to expand...

This is a really great video Kake Bake, good find. The caption for the video says it all "The only way to get information on tires, not from books and theories, but from tests"

I have had some limited exposure to one of Calspan's aero-space related programs. My experience has led me to hold the company in the highest esteem from an engineering perspective. They are experts in instrumentation, in test design, execution, and data analysis, and in modeling and simulation. All of these areas are relevant to the development of a "realistic as possible" driving and racing game.

Consider this: When T-10 partnered with Pirelli, I would speculate that Pirelli offered T-10 a set of tire data that included data within the "design use" of a given set of tires. This data set most likely would not include data for skinny street tires at high speed, at high load, or under low tire pressures. It also would not have included tire wear or tire temperature change data for those conditions. I would also speculate that data on their most high-performance racing tires would not have been included. Such data would be considered "proprietary" and I doubt they would trust T-10 with it. With such limited information, T-10 would have been forced to extrapolate their FM4 tire model from the limited data on hand, and their model may not have been very accurate outside the actual data.

Calspan, on the other hand, is not beholden to any tire manufacturer, and can freely test any tire that can be purchased off of the shelf. They can test the tires in much more extreme conditions than a tire manufacturer would even consider (as shown by the video).

The data set that could be extracted from the test rig as depicted in the video:

Sideforce vs. slip angle (both static and dynamic, at various speeds, tire pressures, and load factors). Tire temperature and temperature rate at various slip angles, tire pressures and speeds. Maximum tire longitudinal force at various conditions. I could go on, but basically Calspan could, on the rig shown in the video, develop a tire model for any off-the-shelf tire that could greatly exceed the scope of any tire model that a manufacturer would be willing to distribute.

So, it's possible that T-10 contracted with Calspan to develop a data set for a specific series of tires with a certain scope of pressures, loads, and speeds. It's also possible that T-10 simply purchased from Calspan the data that they had on the shelf from their long history of tire testing. The former would be extremely expensive, and the latter likely less expensive.

I must say that I was extremely glad to hear that T-10 worked with Calspan on this project, because I am confident that T-10 will receive some amazing data from Calspan, and I am betting that this will make FM-5 an amazing game.

Good day to you all.

Good thoughts there Yakie, I suppose I'm correct in thinking that Calspan are a pure independent company that are not tied to any outside company.
I imagine that the T10 partnership is just a paid for service that any other developer (PD for example) could sign up for?

I'd never heard oif these guys, my interest piqued when I read about crash simulation and aero simulation too. Could be great for the series.

I know that one of Dan Greenawalt's pet peeves with Forza 4 is they didn't have enough (any?) data about how tires behaved in extreme scenarios. I think it's awesome that Turn 10 hired Calspan to perform tests for them. It makes me wonder why more sim developers don't do this. I'm guessing it's cost. When you're an exclusive first-party studio making a flagship game, you probably get to play with Microsoft's money, especially if your title is a system seller.

I did a little Googling, to find out who else uses Calspan.

iRacing: http://www.iracing.com/the-sticking-points-in-modeling-tires/

ARCA Sim Racing (data as provided by Hoosier): http://www.thesimfactory.com/main/index.php?option=com_moofaq&view=categories&id=3&Itemid=72

Crikey, that iRacing link was a heavy read.

Some good pedigree sims have used Calspan.

GTMail

Give me one scenario where a tire will have that much weight on it in a Forza game. Just one.

Click to expand...

Implying the deformation is from weight and not low tyre pressure.