A few days ago iRacing has reached a new and shiny build, which means a new season has started. As always, have been some new content pieces available but maybe this time we must stop to check out the many details developers have included. As the team works in the upcoming night and day transitions some of that new findings along the development are showing us what we are going to see in the next months.
Of course if this build has stars, that would be new cars and tracks:
Porsche RSR is the addition many people expected to complete GTE grid and to resemble its real counterpart. The car seems to offer that kind of pleasant driving of the GTE cars and comes with an incredible sound which proves a great work has been done.
Belle Isle, the urban track at Detroit, is the finest and most detailed track ever built in the sim and therefore first days have been kind of messy for some players suffering a big FPS drop. After a few changes and adjustments everything seems to be normal again and track starring this week in IMSA series as first test to the most adventured simracers. Bumpy and narrow, definitely not a fast track but with an strong personality and full of challenges.
Subaru enters as a new motor brand to the company roster. Adds a third and last car to the Rallycross catalog and, of course comes with the usual iRacing curse. Global Rally Cross has disappeared as a real motor sport competition and we will see what happen in the next months to the current rallycross panorama. In service, rallyx simracers, expect to see more tracks in the next development stages to check how the participation increases after a unmet expectations in this last one.
Radical SR8 now its free. One of the oldest cars in iRacing now is available to all members and personally I must say is a blast to drive, a totally awesome car. A C level series with fixed setup is getting more and more attention since it started and some of the old good fellas have come back to race the car again.
Lighting works to understand and reflect a trustable day night transition environment are paying off with new additions to the graphics. Now every object has its own shadow. Something that could be apparently superficial, but it is a key of the authenticity with a real light changing environment.
Distortion and water effects try to add more life to the track environments, which are usually filled with some lakes, ponds and fountains. As the VR progress with better tracking, resolution and immersion, track surrounding has to be better and more detailed allowing also astounding TV style replays.
Also car graphical effects like blooming equals some of the competition titles and add coherence with the rest of lighting and shadow improvements.
We also had marbles and effects of the tires on tarmac. Grass and sand got its ration too with impressive results. A slightly adjustment has been done after the last patch yesterday to be less cheerful.
Crowds have been also revamped forgetting the old 2D model. Now crowds are moving considering the location of the car on track and this creates a fake effect of volume helping to get more immersion. Windshield has also better reflects than before.
And last, swaying trees. Depending of the wind speed, trees can oscillate in a very and realistic way. This should be a nice touch to imagine how a track session with unpleasant weather can be.
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