A couple questions, AC Comp, UE4, etc.

As an owner of a studio that primarily focuses on UE4 development I'm probably more excited than most could be due to knowing the real capabilities of UE4 and what it means to AC. There should be zero issues retaining all assets and Kunos could still use their own physics systems if transitioning them to UE4 proves to be too difficult. But after reading all the announcements I'm left with a few quetions;

1) "You can participate in 'moments' of an event" - Will there be a full 24 hour real-time transitions? The word "moments" vs how weather is clearly stated as dynamic makes me wonder. Is time of day and weather dynamic? Was this a translation oddity?

2) "Real Drivers from the series" - Does this mean we'll have individual AI brains now that can adapt and has variable attributes? And a stretch question; might this be modable? This might be a rather revealing question but having read all the topics on AI and the devs responses has me curious. This isn't a small amount of work by any stretch of imagination.

3) "Blancpain" - Summer 2018?! Ok, one of the leading reasons sim devs don't tend to adapt real world licenses is because of the fact that they are all annual. You need to get a game done each year do to how much can change between seasons. Especially with title and contingency sponsors etc.

4) "Assetto Corsa Competizione" - Is this game a sub IP or is this the next big installment to the AC brand? OR perhaps this is a segway into AC 2 once the new tech platform is established? Licenses can be just as restrictive as they can be opportunities in my experience.

5) "Insider question" - Stephano, in my experience a engineer, using a bit older, that has done their own engine that shipped in commercial products, tends to really struggle to adapt to a middle-ware engine like UE4 or Unity because they tend to see all the limits and whats wrong with them long before the advantages. How are you doing?

Thats it for now, and if you guys want this ported to Switch, Xbox, and PS4 just give me a shout.

 

I took the "real drivers" part to mean that some Blancpain drivers will be behind their sim rigs for some of the competitions.

 

Great questions!

I add another question to the list.

Is VR support planned for the Early Access launch or does it come later in the roadmap?

If the latter, where does it stand in terms of priority to other features?

IMO VR is key to be a realistic sim nowadays.
This is why:

 

UE4 has GREAT native VR support so no worries there. I also think with the rate at which sim racers are converting over to VR it's now a standard. In fact, sims are the main drivers of VR becoming mainstream. Once you go VR, it's really hard to go back to 2D flat panels. Case in point, my sim rig is now off to the side of my desk with an HMD setting on top of the wheel, so when I want to drive I just fire up a sim and go sit in my chassis. There really isn't an option for me to go back to panels and I've really grown used to my triples being used for work now.

 

1) "Sprint, Endurance and Spa 24 Hours races will come to life with an incredible level of realism, in both single and multiplayer modes."

"Assetto Corsa Competizione is VR Ready, and ensures full compatibility with a wide range of peripherals from gamepads to professional steering wheels."

Source: https://www.assettocorsa.net/forum/i...ione-official-blancpain-gt-series-game.49130/

 

With iRacing and PC1/2 making similar claims I can understand that interpretation for sure. But neither really panned out and I can't the real drivers doing anything more than setting a lap time unless by some miracle this version of AC became the teams primary training sim. Not to mention, scheduling it would be hell... But if they used brains, they could write a system that monitors their laps, an antilogarithm is determined based on preset attributes, then is formulated into a primary personality set... But access to all the drivers performance data like that would be highly unlikely. Teams are already monitoring their nearest competitors as much as their own drivers. That's the secret sauce right there... a guy can brake 4 inches later and still get off the apex with more speed? Yeah, that's coveted data right there.

An example of AI brains can be seen from as far back as Forza 3 if I remember correctly. Anyone remember "Rossi"? That bastard was fast and aggressive and always in a red car But the AI "brain" is key to leveling a believable field of racers so a championship feels more real and top guys are always fighting for top spots etc. A non specific or shared brain leads to pretty much random results all influenced by the circumstances of the first turns. No car is predetermined to push to the front any more than the next.

I believe the F1 games have a good degree of detail in their AI brains also but I haven't played that series much. I just remember someone modding it so certain midfield drivers started running closer to the front, after their car got developed enough.

 

"Antilogarithm". Word of the day

 

"Assetto Corsa Competizione will give players the opportunity to compete in different moments of the entire 24-hour arc under a dynamic weather system thanks to a highly realistic graphical reproduction of weather conditions and visibility."

It's that word "moments" that throws things off. There are much better ways to say "Full dynamic weather and time of day to relive an entire 24 hour event just as in real life", but when you use words like "moments" its either odd translation or very careful wording. Something I might over look if Forza and GT didn't start doing weather and time of day in fixed modes. I'll even give a game design example, say you have driver swaps but you're living hte life of a real racer so you need to take a nap in game, the sim fast forwards to your next stint and now the sun is down. But there is no real limit to this in UE4, it's all about lighting, but lighting effects everything and the combination of dynamic lights, static lights, reflections, and glare all factor into getting the visuals correct in all weather and daytime conditions.

 

I'd think the simplest answer is just that the AI will have the names of the real drivers, nothing more.

 

Hi Dookie,
I totally missed that. Thanks for the hint.

Interestingly it is not mentioned under the “Key Features” in the website, see screenshot.



PS:
I like your YouTube channel.

 

And inclusion of mid race saves?

Please.

 

Nope, you'll have to do the 24H race in one shot

 

Filthy casuals...

 

Surviving the experience

I guess that "moments" was a very unfortunate wording, I see a lot of people getting wrong ideas about this. The answer is very simple: time of the day is fully supported.. so just erase that "moments" word and be happy

As the other questions, too early to talk about it.. there are things that we want to do and will try to do, but until the day comes and fingers have to come away from the keyboards you really can't know what you really have and what you don't.

 

Is there a chance of the comeback of the dev streams maybe?

 

Stefano was asked about live coding in a FB thread; here is what he said about it:
Stefano Casillo Live coding will be very difficult with a game that has not been released yet.. it'll give Marco Massarutto an heart attack

 

Thanks for the quick reply, Michael. The answer seems legit. :-D

 

Hey guys, i would like to know if we will get HDR support for the game when playing under Win 10

 

Thank you very much for clearing this up Lord Kunos. I was a little bit worried about this to be honest...

Damn.... a full experience endurance sim racing title with Blancpain GT licence.... never expected this