Assetto Corsa fans have argued over everything from trees to the number of light sources within the game engine, but I think this new argument cements itself as number one with a bullet for the most retarded forum drama to occur on the game’s official forums. In a few days, AC players will receive a pretty significant Version 1.2 update, that comes with five free cars and one free track – the cars being a total mix of everything from beastly Japanese sports cars to an 80’s Audi sedan, and the track being none other than Zandvoort, former home of the Dutch GP.
During one of Stefano’s Livestream sessions a few days ago, near the end of the broadcast it was revealed that Zandvoort would be the first modern track in Assetto Corsa that wouldn’t be laser-scanned. Until now, all modern tracks available in the popular italian-based racing simulation have been laser-scanned and generally regarded as the most accurate tracks in sim racing, even compared to iRacing which charges an arm and a leg for each individual track.
Anyways, it doesn’t particularly bother me that Zandvoort won’t be laser scanned. Monza 1966 isn’t laser scanned either due to time traveling equipment being far outside of the dev team’s budget, and the Kunos guys are known for quality 3D models, which is all a track is (compared to a car where you need pages and pages of data for it to behave right in all circumstances). It’s also no longer 2005, and 3D modelling has evolved into an art form – no longer do we live in a time where the difference between a good rFactor track and a shitty rFactor track is night and day – for example, R3E has zero tracks that are laser-scanned, and the complete lack of millimeter-accurate tracks in Sector3’s flagship sim is a non issue. Unless your obsessive compulsive tendencies flare up and you’re simply unable to boot the game at all because Kunos didn’t laser-scan Zandvoort, I’m sure 99% of the people who turn laps at the track won’t even notice. Of all the things people could be criticizing Kunos for, this isn’t one of them.
Yet, a 35 page thread on the official forums doesn’t echo that sentiment:
Am I missing something here?
I mean it’s 2015, people. It won’t look like a shitty rFactor rip.
And finally, Stefano gives as much of an official reply as he can without losing patience:
Mark my words, the update will drop in a few days, and everyone will unanimously wonder why they got all their panties in a twist over a track not being laser-scanned.
The “Don’t make me go all Ian Bell on you” made me smile.
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It is rather funny, wasn’t it. Ian Bell certainly has earnt his reputation.
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I read through a few of the 35 pages full of cry babies bitching and moaning about the non laser scanned Zandvoort and I don’t think there is a single pair of descended testicles in the entire bunch of those whining little entitled cunts.
Here’s a solution for you little twats. Go to your tracks folders after the update comes in and delete the then newly acquired Zandvoort folder, wipe the running mascara off your cheeks and insert a fresh tampon. Problems solved you fucking candy ass piece of whiny shits.
I know I feel better now. Have a nice day!
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The resolution of Assetto Corsa’s physical Nordschleife is like 10 times lower than what’s falsely advertised on this screenshot https://i.imgur.com/He4uMJc.png and spans at most 5 vertices across the width of the track surface and is proportionally equally low res across its length with meters between the vertices, therefore missing all of the crucial high frequency bump information, it might as well not be laserscanned.
It has around 33K verts in total (see description and comments on the following conversion video)
which is way too low for such a large track and multiple times lower than a standard rFactor 2 track. You can check it for yourself if you know how to.
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Why you say 33k vertices is a low number? It contains all the road details needed for the road surface, curbs, and off road. Driving on the real Nordschleife road and in the AC Nordschleife road with a car, you feel the same things on the same places, with the same amount of details. This track was also done in collaboration with RSR Nurburg (company that rents and instructs people on track days for Nordschleife and Spa). Some of their instructors have been race drivers for many years, like in the VLN, one of them even participated in this year’s 24h nurburgring in porsche gt3 rs, Sabine Schmitz.
The AC tracks dev and RSR Nurburg are able to tell if the AC track contains all the necessary details on the track built on the game from the laserscan.
Why are you the one to say what’s the standard supposed to be in terms of track detail from laserscan technology. These are highly skilled persons working on the game, and also test in real life with cars on the race tracks. Especially when done in collaboration with RSR Nurburg, a company of people that have drove and raced on Nordschleife for many many years. So why are you saying that the detail on the AC track is not enough, only based on the number of vertices?
Why can you say that a modded track that has 100k verts vs a laserscanned track with 33k verts is better? The track built upon laserscan has all the camber, elevations, curbs, all the details you feel with a car in the exact places as the real track. A modded track may have tons more vertices, but what’s the purpose if the recreation is not accurate with the real track. That’s what laserscan enables, all the specific details and feel of the real track in all the right places for the race track in game.
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As Quffy said,
You can watch the ~ time synced real lap along with AS split screen. I’ve yet to see any game produce such a close approximation. Two fold cause; track detail of sufficient levels and a good physics engine.
Granted, the e30 may be one of the best cars on AC in terms of accurate simulation.
Now, there’s a lot to like about rf2. That said, I still find AC more immersive and closer to what I experience daily. When I drive I go around a corner in my car and think ‘damn, this feels like AC’, then I really can’t ask for much more.
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Aris posted a lengthy response on the official forums which had been posted in the comments once before: http://www.assettocorsa.net/forum/index.php?threads/zandvoort-not-laserscanned-rumor.25043/page-22
A small selection: “It’s a simple experiment. The track is made by a modder with GPS and CAD data, although it was never released in public. Simone obviously made the necessary improvements and we tried to bring the track up to par, but without losing too much development time. Thus the release is free.
As I said it is an experiment. We want to see your reaction, we want to see if it’s a yes or no. If the community thinks that a non laser scanned circuit made by modders is a good thing to have, then we might contact more modders and ask the license from the respective real tracks owners. Tracks like Donington or Paul Ricard could be great examples… but we’ll see.
If you guys do not appreciate it, then the experiment is a failure and we won’t waste more time with things like that. So thank you for voicing your opinion on this”.
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Did Stefano just thug life that thread?
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Probably one of the oddest (That a word?) things that I’ve seen argued about, But I’m pretty sure that this track is gonna kick some serious ass. I mean, It’s Kunos. Everything that they’ve made has put a massive smile on my face.
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Good lord, Ian Bell is an anecdote now! LOL But Kunos is totally right, people is just being very silly with all this crying.
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It would not surprise me if Stefano reads this blog judging by that Ian Bell comment :)
On the topic, I am actually slightly mad at the fact Zandvoort is not laserscanned because its a very interesting track to scan imo. Crazy elevation changes, cambers and bumps. A lot more interesting to scan this one than some of the ones that they actually bother to scan. Im sure they will do a great job and I will love it but its still a bit disappointing.
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Over time, I’ve seen Ian Bell talk a plentiful stream of derogatory shit about Kunos over on the pCars forum before now, so I’m not at all surprised and entirely supportive if they feel the need to make an occasional discrete jab back at him :-)
It’s truly astounding how one finite-element tire physics model can give the guy so much sense of towering superiority over every other sim developer, in spite of the fact that most others are more dependable, stable and far less prone to odd idiosyncrasies.
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…and if Ian Bell happens to be reading this –
See – when these guys feel the need to tell people in the community they’re acting like entitled brats, it’s not over basic functionality fixes which they consider nevertheless constitute a laudable favour to their idiot customers.
There’s a world of difference between not-putting-up-with-shit, and being-a-narcissistic-shit :-)
Difference is, I wouldn’t feel like a snivelling weasel clicking the “like” button in support of their post.
I make a point of supporting Kunos by buying any DLC they produce without waiting for offers, simply because of their enduring good natured approach and openness. Something I will absolutely never do beyond my initial cheap-steam-key sourcing of Project Cars.
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Say it aint so D
One aspect that was incredibly annoying on the WMD forums during the development of the beta release currently on Steam – the constant need investors and some of the dev team felt to analyse and belittle at every sim that wasn’t the “revolutionary” pCARS and actively and openly rip off ideas from other sims too (although this is hardly confined to SMS).
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The level of entitled neckbeardism on that thread was reaching cancerous levels.
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Don’t really give two shits that it’s not laser scanned. If they were charging $10 for the track, then yeah it might bother me more, but free is free. Laser scanning is something that’s not being done in most sims (SCE, R3E, etc) and the tracks are good.
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I find it slightly weird…as if the laser scanning is giving you millimeter by millimeter accuracy, which I am damn sure it isn’t. It’s mostly a feel good, psycological thing IMO…someone gets told it’s laser scanned, well that has to be way better. Course it’s accurate, and you will tell yourself that when using the product. Hence this big shitstorm going on. As if anyone there will be able to tell me the difference. They could have just lied and I bet very few would ever know. Course that’s a bad move, but you get what I mean…I hope hah!
Besides, when it comes to track surface, it changes so much over the course of a year. If higher downforce cars are run on it, that can affect the surface. Bumps can change shape and appear in different areas, corrugations might start to show in hard braking areas and linger for a long while after, you have a stupidly hot day and it will change shape slightly and very small bumps can smooth off. No sim can represent that yet.
I’d be pissed if say they scanned a track after an F1 event…how many series I’ve seen hit the track not long after and complain about heavy bumps and ripples from the F1 stuff…and then it’s like that for life in the sim lol.
If you can legitimately show me the difference between AC’s Silverstone and rF2’s Silverstone, I’d be pleased and amazed XD. As it stands, they are both excellent representations of the track…one scanned, one surveyed and mapped. I’ve done a lot of laps in both, and I’m yet to have that moment of truth.
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Having actually used laser-scan data myself many times in my professional work… it makes me laugh how much people just *know* that it’s implicitly some vastly superior process.
Most laser-scan data I’ve used, I’ve thrown out, because it’s been an absolute mess and a total hinderance to dick around with. Exactly the same deal as “motion capture”… everyone just *knows* that it’s the ultimate way to source sheer-perfection for an animated character… except animators… they know well enough that even when it’s done well, they have to sit and clean it up for days, and if it’s done badly, well they’re far better off throwing it in the trash and animating properly – by hand.
At the end of the day, a carefully and meticulously surveyed and photographed track is going to be vastly superior to a *badly* laser scanned one, and likely hard to even differente from a well-scanned one.
As with all creative processes… the tool doesn’t define the art. You should look at the art itself and decide how much you like it. You wouldn’t write off a painting’s worth because they used acrylic instead of oil.
Well, maybe you would, but you’d be a fool.
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IIRC kunos both laser scans AND surveys and photographs, as, i imagine, would most other decent companies.
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This is what I was thinking, based on some photogrammetry software I use. Takes a while to get good data and clean it up. It also takes good software. Went through 6 programs before I found one that handled larger datasets.
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well, my post with the link to your podcast with the timestamp to where you discuss about this subject was deleted from the thread. :P
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Am I the only person who can easily tell the difference between a a circuit that has been laser scanned and one that hasn’t? Laser scanned circuits have so much extra inherent detail, like smooth elevation changes and cambers, bumps, walls that gently rise and fall along with the terrain, and extra imperfections in things like kerbs and runoff areas.
Zandvoort was announced months ago, and was presumably laser-scanned since there was nothing to suggest otherwise. Then Stefano mentions off-hand in a stream that it wasn’t, confusion brews in the forum, Stefano says he won’t explain the decision at all, and calls everyone entitled. Aristotelis finally comes in 24 hours later to clarify that they were simply licensing a mod as an experiment. People were right to be a pissed IMO, since laser scanned tracks have been a selling point of AC since it was announced.
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You only have yourself to blame for assuming. It makes an ass out of…
Considering it’s FREE….wat
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Eh, 3 out of whatever the total will be really doesn’t matter.
I would pay for a scanned version, sure. I hope to see it one day if it becomes possible.
Meanwhile, they are working on the important stuff for MP and general fixes.
They can keep the content artists and everyone else busy however they choose, just don’t release BAD content (pcars track with a goddamn jump for gt3 cars because their mesh is so off) and ask me to pay for it.
Like Chris said in the podcast, proper brake simulation will add a lot of interesting dynamics to the game.
I would put all new content on hold if it would produce such features faster. It wouldn’t, so I’ll take the content while the real core experience is polished.
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I’m going to cut myself every night until every track is laser-scanned by Kunos.
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A shameful display!
Seriously, severe over-reaction. I’m sure Kunos understands track design well enough to produce an excellent non-scanned zandvoort.
Laser scanning isn’t a magical process. There are areas that produce sampling errors, all the data must be quantized and extreme outliers removed… Still a lot of manual work and corrections based on visual observation. You don’t just make UVs for the mesh and work on trackside after scanning.
Maybe I’m under-estimating the accuracy, don’t think so though.
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It will be interesting to see the first comparison videos with iracing’s zandvoort. Until then, all speculation is useless.
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As ( almost) always, you hit the nail on the head, unfortunately, most SIM forums are full of those inconsiderate and immature comments and scarce on common sense. I am glad we have your site to set the record straight.
Would I prefer if it was laser scanned? Yes.
Would still buy a non laser scanned version even if it was not free? Yes also.
If Kunos release it, it is because it brings a plus to my favorite SIM, not an issue.
I believe that since Assetto Corsa is going to be on console, and it might not be possible to add any mods to those, adding a few tracks, even if not laser scanned will make it more attractive, which is a good thing for every one, consoles and PC users.
I was racing the mod Cobra on the Hockenheimring this morning and even if original Kunos cars and track are of very high standards, those two gift from talented modders made me fully appreciative of the immense potential for fun of Assetto Corsa.
Just a few words of advice for the forums cry baby, spend more time driving and less typing, we will all be better about it.
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You know, I would also still buy it.
In terms of enjoyment and time spent actually driving/racing (not just test drives trying to fix stuff), AC has been a fantastic deal.
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I see the elitist mentality within the simracing community is still alive and well.
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Sim racing autists are just obsessed with being MOAR TRUE SIMMERS than the rest, so they want everything to be (supposedly) 100% authentic. Convincing themselves that laser scanning makes the tracks great is like audiophile weirdos convincing themselves that expensive-ass cables make their shit sound better, it’s all a placebo. I bet none of them would’ve noticed or cared if Stefano had never mentioned that it’s not laser scanned.
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but it DOES make tracks great you fucking blind moron
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Sure, just keep telling yourself that. And that crystal makes your speakers sound better too.
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Talking about tracks. The new Project CARS DLC is out, it has the great Ruapuna Park track (in 5 variants), and a whole set of new cars (Audi), including the historic Audi 90 IMSA GTO!! Not free, but for a cheap 5,50€ .
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Fuck off
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Also introducing several new bugs for a new low fee!
Seriously, MP is still completely dysfunctional. It’s not even approaching league ready. Patch 2.5 or whatever they decided to call it made some things worse and only ‘resolved’ a few issues at most.
Even at the most basic levels, the tyre ‘simulation’ is still beyond messed up, too. Temps, grip, wear, AI implementation… All broken, all wrong.
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Hello el23, I play it for like 2 hours per day, I didn’t noticed any relevant bugs so far. Uninstall and install it again, and if you have a OC’ed CPU, set it to default, this is my advice.
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LOL please.
I’m not going to underclock my CPU to run SMS shit code.
I know exactly what’s going on with the game. I saw bugs within seconds and still do. What the F are you playing? Go read the damned forums if you don’t believe me.
You WMD kids really are a shower of bastards.
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Absolutely hilarious. The hardcore AC fanboys go all around the web bragging about AC and its long list of laser scanned tracks, saying that every sim that doesn’t laserscan is shit. Then AC starts with the non scanned tracks and hey-oh! AC is still boss. The hypocrisy is mind blowing. Typical AC fanboy stuff.
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Oh, did they suddenly remove the laser scanned tracks?
I suppose the fact that the game is still very good with non-scanned tracks is a terrible thing?
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ok sure thing hexagramme0.
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Let the idiots complain, Stefano has made his point, it is what it is.
I know the Donington Park mod isn’t laser-scanned, but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable. Having some extra Kunos-derived polish on another ‘mod’, for free, is fine by me. (No different than the Cobra)
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Laser-scan-extremists everywhere. They lead a guerrilla war, nobody can stop them.
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I always get a kick out of the iRacing ones that go on their merry jihad over these kinds of things and then completely ignore when they do shit like completely massacring Sebring’s pit wall to get rid of cone cutting or make New Hampshire travel through time between turn 1-2 and the rest of the track.
Need those changing every day millimetric bumps that aren’t actually in the video game version of the track because of hardware limitations but completely fucking with the layout’s cool.
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James did you just call a sport quattro an “audi sedan”
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