Latest news about Reiza developments. Full report with lot of info and packages that will be deployed in rF2, AMS and Automobilista 2.
Automobilista – Final DLC tracks & Update
Our long overdue final AMS update is finally ready – those of you with access to AMS Beta can already enjoy v1.5.2, which among other things includes the two final DLC tracks – Donington Park and Snetterton, each selling for US$ 5.99 but free to those who already own the AMS Season Pass or Reiza backers on any current or past campaigns.
Unfortunately the DLCs didn´t get submitted for review in time for Steam to greenlight it before the weekend, so release will remain on hold until Monday when it should finally be deployed.
Both Donington Park and Snetterton have been modelled with the aid of LIDAR data and represent some of our finest work. They also bring our roster of british tracks up to a total of 5, all of which carry over to AMS2 and serve as a baseline for further very interesting brit-centric series… But we´ll get to that later
In addition to the two brand new tracks, the final AMS1 update packs some extra values with some bug fixes and an extensive update to controller support, with wheels from all 3 main manufacturers receiving attention – highlights include support for the newer Fanatec Podium DD wheels and for a bunch of features from the latest Fanatec models. AMS v1.5.2 allows Logitech G29 – G920 owners to run the game from its main branch, no longer requiring a separate branch.
While another hotfix for minor glitches that pop up post-release is likely, by and large this update marks curtains finally coming down for Automobilista, almost exactly 3 years after its v1.0 release back in August 2016. Automobilista exceeded our expectations in every way and opened doors for us to take bigger steps in the future, and for that we´re very thankful – but it´s the fact many of our fellow sim racers remain so engaged with it is what is most rewarding for us. We hope v1.5.2 is a proper send-off it and that people continue to enjoy it for a while longer!
rF2 Bundle Update
The update for the rF2 Bundle is likewise wrapped for release but on hold for a few more days until S397 has a window to review and prep them for deployment. These cover mostly fixes for minor bugs reported since our last update a couple of months ago.
E-Stock
Over the course of August Reiza together with Stock Car Brasil promoted the very first E-Stock competition – the first official E-Sports event for the main brazilian motorsports series.
The event consisted of a week-long Time Trial from which 10 top drivers earned a sit to a single multiplayer race along real drivers and other invitees, with the top prize for the winner being an Extreme P1 Seat. Due to logistics the event was restricted to Brazilians only, but it still proved an intense battle with top 30 in Time Trial covered by less than 1s, and the race itself a fierce battle between Gustavo Ariel and Bruno Fernandes, with the latter eventually coming out on top. The full race was streamed from the official series Youtube channel as per the link above.
There is a lot of buzz for E-Motorsports lately and other series besides Stock Car are looking to explore this further to create venues for sim drivers to make the jump into the real series. Expect these to become regular fixtures next year with Automobilista 2.
Automobilista 2 – the new & improved Formula Classic
You may recall from the AMS2 intro trailer that we already have a few historical Mclaren F1 cars lined up for release in AMS 2 (a lot more to come on that front) – as exciting as it is to be bringing those great classics back to life in AMS2, we find it´s important to give them some proper competition to race against.
Enters the new, improved and substantially expanded F-Classic series, going from one single model from AMS1 to a total of six, fully scratch built models, spread over 3 generations covering different regulations and engines ranging from massive 1400 BHP monters, to glorious sounding V10 and V12 3.5l with everything in between.
This means teams will have unique performance and handling providing a lot more variety and very real challenges within these fictional series. Other fictional series from AMS1 will receive similar treatment for AMS2.
Updating car and track assets for AMS2
With AMS1 being limited by its 32bit architecture and some of its cars and tracks showing its age, porting them over to the Madness engine is far from a copy&paste move – all cars and tracks from AMS1 in fact need substantial rework to be suitable for the new engine, and with AMS1 featuring a roster of over 50 unique tracks and over 40 vehicle models, upgrading and exporting most of these into the new engine is by itself a project of massive scale. To the team´s credit we are not only managing it within schedule, but doing so parallel to development of new cars and tracks.
We spent a good chunk of August focusing on doing these updates, ranging from creating new trackside objects, upscaling models and remapping textures to a complete top-to-bottom overhaul, to outright remodelling them from scratch in the case of the most dated assets.
The upgrades while considerable may still alow sharper eyes to tell which are not quite to the same level of the fully scratch-made models, but they should hopefully be enough to reduce the difference to almost negligible, ensuring we retain a consistency across all cars and tracks, which is crucial on several levels.
As in previous updates we´ve dedicated a lot of space to presenting how we have been going about upgrading old content and bridging the gaps from one engine to another – this has obviously been a big part of AMS2 development so far, in order to ensure it´s a natural progression from AMS1.
This however will be it for talking about the familiar stuff – from next month onwards we´ll start presenting a bit more about what´s fresh incoming with Automobilista 2 – features, physics and of course, some of the new cars and tracks that will come on initial release and beyond – those taking part in the AMS2 Early Backing Campaign can be assured the funding boost is being put to good use.
That´s it for August! I´m out now to catch some of the ongoing track action and then to check out what´s going on at the Sim Expo – we just missed making it with Automobilista 2 this year, but Reiza is still present with some partners running Automobilista 1. If you spot me with an Automobilista 2 shirt walking about feel come say hello.
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