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

[jake2013guy]

Unfortunately, no. Fuel consumption was either On, Low or real. You could not accelerate fuel usage the way you could tire wear. This limited our options for ensuring appropriate number of pit stops in time accelerated events.

Don't you mean Off, Low or Real?

 

[F1Racer68]

Don't you mean Off, Low or Real?

That's what I said.....

(edited to fix it)

 

[05XR8]

Will the spotter give us "yes" & "No" options during the race?
Spotter: "Do you want to pit for wets?"

Spotter: " Is there a drying line?"

Spotter: "Data shows you've got a puncture in the right rear. Can you make it to the pits?"

 

[HardRock]

While we're on the topic of the spotter/crew chief, any chance that we can talk to them, change their reporting behaviour or ask them questions through voice recognition? I ask because pCARS 1 had an awesome app that allowed for things like this, which made the whole experience so much more immersive: http://forum.projectcarsgame.com/sh...-alternative-race-engineer-for-console-amp-PC

 

[F1Racer68]

While we're on the topic of the spotter/crew chief, any chance that we can talk to them, change their reporting behaviour or ask them questions through voice recognition? I ask because pCARS 1 had an awesome app that allowed for things like this, which made the whole experience so much more immersive: http://forum.projectcarsgame.com/sh...-alternative-race-engineer-for-console-amp-PC

THe good news is that Jim plans on continuing the app, and is in contact with folks at SMS regarding the UDP data stream capabilities. SO even if the in game version doesn't, you will still be able to use the Crew Chief App.

 

[dzidza]

@IanBell @The_American Has spotter audio been fixed when connecting headphones through digital port on PS4!?

 

[HardRock]

We've worked many areas of the pad input for pCARS2 extensively and the consensus among our testers is that it's dramatically better than what we concede was a sub-optimal implementation for the first game.

In the last few days, after reading this post of yours again, just for the hell of it I went and tried pCARS 1 with my Steam Controller (tried meaning I couldn't get away from it for about 10 hours ). Indeed, I couldn't really find a good setup for myself, the stick always felt too sensitive to me for steering, no matter what, probably due to the couple hundred hours of driving done with a wheel (funny thing is that I initially started driving sims, GPL no less, with a controller, but I digress). I'm sure with more effort I could have improved my setup and got used to it more.

I didn't need to however, as I quickly noticed that there's a pCARS preset done by your team for the Steam Controller, which includes the gyro for steering. Boy did that improve my lap times when I could find a good steering sensitivity for low speeds and speed sensitive setting for high speeds. I was only a few tenths away from my then best time with a wheel at Oulton Park with the RUF RGT-8 GT3, not the easiest combo, although my consistency was much worse than with a wheel (again, it's probably down to practice). I was already of the opinion that good gamepad support has nothing to do with how much a title should be considered a sim, since they include all necessary analog axes for driving, but even to me the viability of the gyro for steering was an eye opener. I can honestly see myself matching my times with a wheel if I would really put myself to it.

All that said, I have a question.

How seriously are the team at SMS look at the Steam Controller as a viable control device? Will the Steam Controller preset in Big Picture for pCARS 2 match any of the default controller presets in-game (I think I had to change a few things for pCARS 1, with both in-game X360 controller presets)? Having used the alternatives from Sony and MS I'm of the opinion that Valve completely blew away the gamepad competition, with their software customization alone, in any category of games anyone cares to name. Despite that, sadly, the Steam Controller is probably still being used only by an extremely small percent of people. Ever since I bought it though I felt that it deserved so much more attention that it got from developers in general. It truly is the direct drive wheel of the gamepad world.

 

[Masscot]

Ian, give me tail lights and explosive backfires like these and you can have my money now.



Oops, I forgot it's a Q&A thread.

Erm... what's your favourite colour?

 

[jake2013guy]

Ian, give me tail lights and explosive backfires like these and you can have my money now.



Oops, I forgot it's a Q&A thread.

Erm... what's your favourite colour?

Timing Screen Purple is mine.

 

[FuriousDemon]

Ian, give me tail lights and explosive backfires like these and you can have my money now.



Oops, I forgot it's a Q&A thread.

Erm... what's your favourite colour?

Damn, Ian was right. GT does have better replays.

 

[mister dog]

Ian, give me tail lights and explosive backfires like these and you can have my money now.



Oops, I forgot it's a Q&A thread.

Erm... what's your favourite colour?

Headlights do look great on their replays, but how come they don't illuminate the track?

 

[blowfishrulez]

Very nice indeed, none of the headlights and taillights are emitting any actual light though.

Ninjad :-)

 

[mister dog]

If headlights stay like this for the full version of GTS we'll definitely have more immersive night racing in PCARS 2 as ours actually work .

 

[HardRock]

Headlights do look great on their replays, but how come they don't illuminate the track?

Or anything really, like the cars in front. They don't cast any shadows at all either. This is another great showcase of a statically lit scene. It looks amazing in the one situation the artists modeled it, and it is great for performance, but don't expect anything to be really dynamic. I would bet most, if not all visible shadows are actually baked into the base textures, pre-computed for one of the time of day presets that are available for tracks.

Again, the result looks amazing, but when comparing it to pCARS it's like I'm looking at a picture vs. a video, a whole aspect of the experience is missing. I recently did a 3 hour time accelerated race in pCARS 1, and the sheer immersion added by a moving Sun and cloud cover cannot be overstated. Lap to lap the lighting changed, I couldn't know beforehand if the Sun will be blinding me in a corner or a cloud will move in and block its light. Then as the Sun set it started blinding me with its light reflecting in windows. I would never trade something like this for how GTS looks, not matter how photorealistic it is. PCARS will get there eventually as well (it's not far at all), but in the mean time it still provides a more accurate racing experience, at the very least as far as the environment goes.

 

[queleuleu]

If headlights stay like this for the full version of GTS we'll definitely have more immersive night racing in PCARS 2 as ours actually work .

Well, it's a beta with many features off (no skidmarks) and no night racing without proper headlights. Poly has made a big mistake by giving up the dynamic TOD/weather. Happy to see it in PC2, I can accept some trade-offs for this amazing feature.

 

[mister dog]

Or anything really, like the cars in front. They don't cast any shadows at all either. This is another great showcase of a statically lit scene. It looks amazing in the one situation the artists modeled it, and it is great for performance, but don't expect anything to be really dynamic. I would bet most, if not all visible shadows are actually baked into the base textures, pre-computed for one of the time of day presets that are available for tracks.

I agree, they really did go for that approach.

Well, it's a beta with many features off (no skidmarks) and no night racing without proper headlights. Poly has made a big mistake by giving up the dynamic TOD/weather. Happy to see it in PC2, I can accept some trade-offs for this amazing feature.

We'll see but I doubt this will suddenly appear for the full version of GTS. It would take them another two years to implement that right probably .

Who knows you might get skidmarks though .

 

[The_American]

It's very easy/cheap to make lights that do not actually light up anything or create shadows.

Ian wont accept cheap lighting trickery like this for project cars. All vehicle headlamps and i believe even track lighting will create/cast shadows and properly light the environment and that's for all game modes, not just while driving or while watching replays.

 

[The_American]

While we're on the topic of the spotter/crew chief, any chance that we can talk to them, change their reporting behaviour or ask them questions through voice recognition? I ask because pCARS 1 had an awesome app that allowed for things like this, which made the whole experience so much more immersive: http://forum.projectcarsgame.com/sh...-alternative-race-engineer-for-console-amp-PC

Project CARS 3

Agree with you guys, games need to go to the next level how we players work with them. Some studio will do it soon it might not be racing genre. I can see this happening nicely for an RTS game for example. Honorable mention to iRacing's implementation. And Jim's Crew Chief app is a must-have for anyone playing pc1, we will continue to work with Jim and other 3rd-party app makers for pc2 (the existing 3rd-party apps will remain compatible and we will offer new data in the pc2 api for those that want to take advantage of what pc2 can offer beyond pc1, all is being discussed in the WMD forum).

 

[nrosko]

Ian, give me tail lights and explosive backfires like these and you can have my money now.



Oops, I forgot it's a Q&A thread.

Erm... what's your favourite colour?

They seemed to have nailed the internal sound in that car.

 

[HardRock]

the existing 3rd-party apps will remain compatible

Oh yeah, I completely forgot about this. So even if nothing would change, we would still have the whole PC1 ecosystem of apps.

 

[Dsavage27]

As for weather is there something like blizzard since we have snow now and will wind actually affect cars? As in head winds, will my car accelerate slower of I'm going towards wind?

 

[F1Racer68]

As for weather is there something like blizzard since we have snow now and will wind actually affect cars? As in head winds, will my car accelerate slower of I'm going towards wind?

Wind impact has already been confirmed. No idea about full on blizzards, but let's be realistic.... Even ice racing series red flag their events in whiteout conditions.......

 

[Dsavage27]

Wind impact has already been confirmed. No idea about full on blizzards, but let's be realistic.... Even ice racing series red flag their events in whiteout conditions.......

True was just wondering lol. And I forgot the wind effects was mentioned. Thanks for the response.

 

[breyzipp]

Ian, give me tail lights and explosive backfires like these and you can have my money now.



Oops, I forgot it's a Q&A thread.

Erm... what's your favourite colour?

So what do you guys think about GT:S sound? From the interior I think it's decent but from the outside camera view it's way too sterile, sounds move like a hive of bees than cars in a race IMO.

Also what's up with the driver holding his hands so unnaturally on the steering wheel? his wrists are on the inside instead of straight in line with his arms/hands.

 

[DesertPenguin09]

@The_American In PCars1, visual settins, what does post-processing filters being turned on add? Same with Global Specular Irradiance, and Temporal Level. It would be nice to know what these things are so I know what I'm changing, not just change it and look to spot the differences.

 

[proterra1]

Wind impact has already been confirmed. No idea about full on blizzards, but let's be realistic.... Even ice racing series red flag their events in whiteout conditions.......

But we had thick fog, storms and thunderstorms in PC1.
I don't think I've ever seen a race in thunder and lightning but I've definitely seen races red flagged due to fog.
I think a blizzard would be a bit of extra fun without being too unrealistic!

 

[HardRock]

But we had thick fog, storms and thunderstorms in PC1.
I don't think I've ever seen a race in thunder and lightning but I've definitely seen races red flagged due to fog.
I think a blizzard would be a bit of extra fun without being too unrealistic!

Maybe we could even have a weather safety setting for our custom events, specifying when will the event be red flagged.

 

[SGETI]

And Jim's Crew Chief app is a must-have for anyone playing pc1, we will continue to work with Jim and other 3rd-party app makers for pc2 (the existing 3rd-party apps will remain compatible and we will offer new data in the pc2 api for those that want to take advantage of what pc2 can offer beyond pc1, all is being discussed in the WMD forum).

Crew Chief , I agree is a must have. Glad you confirmed 3rd party apps will remain compatible.

 

[bleeder]

So what do you guys think about GT:S sound? From the interior I think it's decent but from the outside camera view it's way too sterile, sounds move like a hive of bees than cars in a race IMO.

Also what's up with the driver holding his hands so unnaturally on the steering wheel? his wrists are on the inside instead of straight in line with his arms/hands.

I noticed that as well and it bugged me. There's no way someone would drive a car with thumbs in that position for a whole race. It's way too relaxed.

 

[F1Racer68]

But we had thick fog, storms and thunderstorms in PC1.
I don't think I've ever seen a race in thunder and lightning but I've definitely seen races red flagged due to fog.
I think a blizzard would be a bit of extra fun without being too unrealistic!

Petite Le Mans 2015. And several others.

If however there is lightning, in the immediate area they will usually red flag due to corner worker safety, not for driver safety.