Q&A with Slightly Mad Studios: Ian Bell [Read OP]

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kasperski95
pCARS3 in the next 7 years will be just money grab and don't even try to defend them. There is no need to postpone pCARS2. They can slowly but constantly improve it after the release (rain effects, motion blur algorithm, UI etc.).
Moore's law is not working anymore, and there is no such progress in technology to justificate releasing pCARS3 in the nearest future.
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What is this rubbish? 7 years? You cannot be serious. In the next 7 years is a money grab? Get out. Just get out.
 
IanBell
I want to say a bit more on the GT replays. They really are epic. Kaz has blown it out of the park in this area. The importance of them also should not be underestimated in terms of the marketing clout they bring. Sure, it's not as good in-game but that goes over the heads of lots of casual consumers who want to show off their console's 'prowess'. That aspect lessens with console age but with the pro coming it becomes a factor again.

I'm not sure what they are doing, what the secret sauce is, but I'm almost thinking they run an entirely different or upgraded rendering system when they switch to replays. The key win they have on us is the quality of the motion blur, which we're still working to improve for pCARS2 and the way they use focus and bokeh in the replay cams.

Anyway, it's an amazing job, hats off to them.
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The replays have always been awesome in GT games, & was a big part of my gameplay; spend an evening racing online, watch all my glorious expliots afterwards! I'm always bitterly dissapointed when I can't do that in a racing game or sim.

At least you can take solace in the fact that you've blown them out of the water in the audio department. After playing P CARS I couldn't for the life of me go back to GT6, the sounds were so awful by comparison that it ruined it for me. Also, in 2009 I won a trackday at Palmer Sport in a competition (see avatar pic). When I was driving the race cars there, the only thing in my mind was the sounds from the demo of NFS Shift that I had played a while back. It was the closest thing to reality out of anything else on offer. You guys have always excelled in that area.
 
@IanBell and / or @The_American The classic and historic cars are what rocks my world and inspired me and my friends from "Sick's Race Room" to switch from GT6 to PC1 and give up on GTS (no classic or historic content announced for GTS).

I am looking forward to playing PC2, but will we have the same amount or more classic content in PC2? The proportion of classic or historic content in Project Cars GOTY Edition was about 20% (about 25 cars) - if the percentage stays the same in PC2 the number should rise to about 35 cars.

Particular favourites in PC1 include the classic Lotus content, Group A, Group 5 and classic saloons - will there be extra content in these categories?
 
Thank you to whichever mod responded to the reported posts and cleaned them up.

Since a number of posts have disappeared on me, I can only assume that is what happened.

Just wanted to say thanks. Really impressed with the quick response.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled program.......
 
Your team has a keen eye for race cars. I enjoy seeing race cars that are rare or even sadly forgotten. What are your thoughts on adding older/dead manufacturers like Venturi, Vector, Lister, etc? Gran Turismo 2 had a wonderful list of race cars like the Venturi Atlantique, Vector M12 LM and Lister Storm V12.

On the topic of dead manufacturers, do you have an interest in rekindling Pontiac, Plymouth, Mercury, AMC, etc? Project Cars could use a good ol', competitive classic car class. It's begging for it!
 
IanBell
I want to say a bit more on the GT replays. They really are epic. Kaz has blown it out of the park in this area. The importance of them also should not be underestimated in terms of the marketing clout they bring. Sure, it's not as good in-game but that goes over the heads of lots of casual consumers who want to show off their console's 'prowess'. That aspect lessens with console age but with the pro coming it becomes a factor again.

I'm not sure what they are doing, what the secret sauce is, but I'm almost thinking they run an entirely different or upgraded rendering system when they switch to replays. The key win they have on us is the quality of the motion blur, which we're still working to improve for pCARS2 and the way they use focus and bokeh in the replay cams.

Anyway, it's an amazing job, hats off to them.
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Always nice to see you show some respect to the competition as well. 👍 I remember a post (I think in this forum thread) that you contacted Codemasters to compliment them on a job well done with Dirt Rally. :)

Each game indeed has it's cons and pros. And for the real racing fan we just play all those games. :) Never intended to give GT:S a try since I plan to buy a Scorpio later this year but since Horizon Zero Dawn looked so amazing I couldn't resist getting a PS4 Pro right now. So GT:S becomes an option now and if reviews will be good I might get that as well (and a PS4 wheelbase for my Thrustmaster eco system). Of course PCARS2 will be hands down my main racing game. :D

Which brings me to the following situation for PCARS2. I'm going to have the choice to get it for the XBox Scorpio or PS4 Pro. Heck maybe even get a new gaming PC if the PC version has a lot more extras over the console versions.

One question Ian, when we get closer to release date could we get an overview of the main differences between the 5 platforms for PCARS2? (PC, Scorpio, PS4 Pro, PS4, XBox)? I'm sure there will be more players who have the luxury to choose what platform they buy PCARS2 for. Left and right I already read some info that for PCARS1 the PC versions have dedicated servers where the console versions have not and that the maximal number of cars in a race is lower on consoles as well. Apart from the obvious differences in graphical options things like that is what I really would like to know before I decide which platform I want to play it on (and all it's future DLC). A console sure has it's benefits as well for me since that means I can also play it with a controller in the sofa on my 65" 4K HDR TV. My rig setup is on a plain full HD 50" TV.
 
All my friends that were initially wowed by the pCARS 2 reveal have completely lost interest now. Do Ed or Jonz have anything else up their sleeves?
 
Masscot
All my friends that were initially wowed by the pCARS 2 reveal have completely lost interest now. Do Ed or Jonz have anything else up their sleeves?
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New video stuff coming very soon. Ed's been busy as hell (had to get him an assistant), I have calls with him daily about stuff he's working on. Looking good.

re: PC v consoles, there's pros/cons to both. My G27 I bought in 2010 has been working great with previous SMS games (Shift1, Shift2, pC1) and continues to work great (better!) in pC2. I feel really bad for G27 owners that got left out by Sony/Logitech business decisions and had to move up to G29 (which is like 95% same as G27 under the hood). So that's like $400 right there I saved. However my current video card is far, far behind the times so I'm gonna hafta shell out like $300 this year to move up to a newer GPU. It kinda balances out in the end, depends on the crew you run with and other non-technical factors (how nice is your sofa etc.) I will say though that if you move to PC you "get more from SMS", there's just more options (less restrictions) and we try to support all kinds stuff not always available on the consoles.

Finally, I'll make a plug for WMD. If Ian does it again for pC3 (I'm confident he would) then jump into WMD next time. I know it's a bit of money up front (that's mostly to keep out the knuckle-heads) but you learn a lot about how these games are made. It was very educational for me. I started as just a regular WMD member in 2011, then I was pretty active for few years and now they picked me up and I've been on their team for 1 year. Maybe my situation is exceptional but I'm not the only community guy SMS has hired, think there's been like a dozen of us in past couple years (Ed is another community pick up). We also ask WMD guys for help on testing and ideas/feedback and even some in-game artwork (icons, posters, some vehicle liveries) so you can contribute w/o having to be given a job offer from SMS. It's a very cool way for the dev team to be involved with the player community.
 
Back to questions. Had one regarding the Nurburgring Combined circuit. Will we be able to cut the Nordschleife out on a qualifying lap or is this not in?

Also, i'm fairly sure this has been asked before but is it possible to not have certain weather when using a specific Random slot? E.g. It's December and I don't want snow but want Random.
 
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Thank you @IanBell and @The_American for ansewering our questions in your own personalities and not being super political as most devs are.

In pcars 1 the cars seem to have what I would call invisible hit boxes around them. Visually they never touch but they are clearly being affected by one another as if they are touching. I've added a short video I made a while back that better demonstrates what I'm talking about. The video isn't putting down pCars 1 at all it just helps explain my point.

Has this been brought up and/or addressed in pCars 2?
 
As I said, that's probably pcars prediction mecanism that is at fault here.
The game has to "imagine" what the remote cars do between reception of data packets (localisation, speed, direction, etc) which are obviously less frequent than the graphical refresh rate.
Sometimes it is right and sometimes it is not.

Maybe that point has been improved to in pcars2, who knows (well Ian knows ;p)
 
Sch@dows
As I said, that's probably pcars prediction mecanism that is at fault here.
The game has to "imagine" what the remote cars do between reception of data packets (localisation, speed, direction, etc) which are obviously less frequent than the graphical refresh rate.
Sometimes it is right and sometimes it is not.

Maybe that point has been improved to in pcars2, who knows (well Ian knows ;p)
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@IanBell and @American any incite in this
 
@IanBell @The_American

I'm pretty sure you cannot name the brand of this car? Bonus points if you can ;)

C7yZGjeWsAA-DAM.jpg
 
small question about steering. In pc1 i have to set my wheel on 270 degrees manually (dpad+near ps3/4 switch button) to get best direct steering feeljng. I like direct feeling in gt and prototype cars. Do i still have to do this in pc2? Also, like it when my wheel weight is quite strong, when do we get to see the new steering wheel options?
 
The_American
Timed Race duration is a clock now HH:MM in increments of 5 minutes up to 24:00

(Can still do laps up to 999 laps also)

Time acceleration choices: "x2, x5, x10, x15, x20, x25, x30, x40, x50, x60"

GT3 class we are already in double-digit for vehicle count including all the major brands. You'll be fine ;)
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@IanBell, @The_American, any chance of a SRT Viper GT3-R or even the GTS-R?!
 
nrosko
Ian, Owl, The American the interaction of sms with the community has been very good so far, what are the chances of getting a Q&A with one of the race drivers working with sms at some point? I think that would be very interesting but realise they are very busy people.
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Join WMD next time. Our pro driver consultants do this already at our forum.

RoadRageDudez
@IanBell, @The_American, any chance of a SRT Viper GT3-R or even the GTS-R?!
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Cannot answer specific car & track questions, sorry. Keep an eye on our Instagram and Facebook for hints.
 
minimoi
small question about steering. In pc1 i have to set my wheel on 270 degrees manually (dpad+near ps3/4 switch button) to get best direct steering feeljng. I like direct feeling in gt and prototype cars. Do i still have to do this in pc2? Also, like it when my wheel weight is quite strong, when do we get to see the new steering wheel options?
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I think even in pC1 it is unnecesary to do this because the game automatically adjusts the max steering rotation per car (we define this in vehicle data files). Therefore You should set your steering wheel to the max rotation and never change it, game will handle the changes. Also most cars you can speed up and slow down the Steering Ratio (i tend to slow down slightly) for more/less steering response per your wheel rotation. But always leave your steering wheel at the max rotation.
 
[QUOTE="The_American, post: 11757052,Cannot answer specific car & track questions, sorry. Keep an eye on our Instagram and Facebook for hints.[/QUOTE]

I guess we'll have to wait with 6 months of teaser pics and trailers coming :D
 

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