Richard Burns rally video - amazing physics

This short video has been out for a month, but I've only just seen it. http://www.bhmotorsports.com/movie/296 Note the way the car is been driven really well in the first section, taking advantage of the camber. The way it moves on its suspension and against the camber appears spot on. There is another, more subtle thing. The physics model appears to model tyre/soil interaction well. The tyres are actually digging into the road and resiting the lateral movement against the gravel, just like in real life. This is the one thing I'm looking forward to more than anything else. The problem with every rally based game/sim that I've tried, is that the gravel surface is moddeled 2 dimensionally, and feels more like wet tarmac than gravel.

In article <O7qpc.176$[email hidden]>, [email hidden] says...

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> This short video has been out for a month, but I've only just seen it. > > http://www.bhmotorsports.com/movie/296 > > Note the way the car is been driven really well in the first section, taking > advantage of the camber. The way it moves on its suspension and against the > camber appears spot on. > > There is another, more subtle thing. The physics model appears to model > tyre/soil interaction well. The tyres are actually digging into the road and > resiting the lateral movement against the gravel, just like in real life. > This is the one thing I'm looking forward to more than anything else. The > problem with every rally based game/sim that I've tried, is that the gravel > surface is moddeled 2 dimensionally, and feels more like wet tarmac than > gravel.

Oh man, I can't WAIT for RBR to come out. Any word on a possible release date? -- __________________________________ Todd Walker __________________________________

says... Oh man, I can't WAIT for RBR to come out. Any word on a possible release date? -- __________________________________ Todd Walker __________________________________

Early July. Andi. -- Remove only one zero to reply. "Todd Walker" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]... > In article <O7qpc.176$[email hidden]>, [email hidden] > says... > > This short video has been out for a month, but I've only just seen it. > > > > http://www.bhmotorsports.com/movie/296 > > > > Note the way the car is been driven really well in the first section, taking > > advantage of the camber. The way it moves on its suspension and against the > > camber appears spot on. > > > > There is another, more subtle thing. The physics model appears to model > > tyre/soil interaction well. The tyres are actually digging into the road and > > resiting the lateral movement against the gravel, just like in real life. > > This is the one thing I'm looking forward to more than anything else. The > > problem with every rally based game/sim that I've tried, is that the gravel > > surface is moddeled 2 dimensionally, and feels more like wet tarmac than > > gravel. > > Oh man, I can't WAIT for RBR to come out. Any word on a possible release > date? > > -- > __________________________________ > Todd Walker > __________________________________

Andi Cole wrote: > Early July. > > Andi. > Barely related except that it's another Rally game and I don't feel ingrained enough in this newsfroup to post a new article, but I got the chance to try out Xpand Rally at E3. They had a setup with a racing-style seat and the Logitech GT3 wheel (ostensibly for the PS2, but it was hooked up to a PC). I noticed the game is getting a lot of attention on bhmotorsports.com, so I had high hopes for it. Suuuuucked. At least as far as I could tell. I only played a tarmac stage, and to be honest, I'm not even sure what car I was using. That being said, I couldn't tell at all from the handling whether it was supposed to be FWD, RWD, or 4WD. Hitting the throttle hard enough to spin the tires (or at least I assume spin the tires, as the sound of tires squealing blasted forth from the speakers) did nothing to the handling. No rear-end snapping out, no front-end washing out, nothing. Admittedly, you could slam on the brakes and get the car to wash out, though trail-braking seemed nearly impossible. Part of this may be due to the wheel that was hooked up to it. The force feedback could be conservatively described as "notchy", with a deadzone that probably took up about 20 degrees either direction on the wheel. It literally was impossible to get a smooth correction on a straight out of the car, and the wheel wanted to leap to each of its notches when the FF kicked in, so a smooth turn was also out of the question. To go back on topic, bring on Richard Burns Rally. It has to be better than Xpand.

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> Barely related except that it's another Rally game and I don't feel > ingrained enough in this newsfroup to post a new article, but I got the > chance to try out Xpand Rally at E3. They had a setup with a > racing-style seat and the Logitech GT3 wheel (ostensibly for the PS2, > but it was hooked up to a PC). I noticed the game is getting a lot of > attention on bhmotorsports.com, so I had high hopes for it. > > Suuuuucked. > > At least as far as I could tell. I only played a tarmac stage, and to > be honest, I'm not even sure what car I was using. That being said, I > couldn't tell at all from the handling whether it was supposed to be > FWD, RWD, or 4WD. Hitting the throttle hard enough to spin the tires > (or at least I assume spin the tires, as the sound of tires squealing > blasted forth from the speakers) did nothing to the handling. No > rear-end snapping out, no front-end washing out, nothing. Admittedly, > you could slam on the brakes and get the car to wash out, though > trail-braking seemed nearly impossible. > > Part of this may be due to the wheel that was hooked up to it. The > force feedback could be conservatively described as "notchy", with a > deadzone that probably took up about 20 degrees either direction on the > wheel. It literally was impossible to get a smooth correction on a > straight out of the car, and the wheel wanted to leap to each of its > notches when the FF kicked in, so a smooth turn was also out of the > question. > > To go back on topic, bring on Richard Burns Rally. It has to be better > than Xpand.

Uggg, this is bad news. Was it at least as good or fun as Rally Trophy? How were the gfx? What hardware was it being shown on at what res? We rally sim dudes want info!!!! :)

Destroy wrote: > Uggg, this is bad news. Was it at least as good or fun as Rally > Trophy? How were the gfx? What hardware was it being shown on at what > res? > > We rally sim dudes want info!!!! :) I'm not sure what hardware it was on, it was just on a PC sitting on the floor in front of me. Given that it's E3 though, I'm willing to bet it was very high-end, probably top of the line stuff. Lots of people there were running Falcon Northwest systems (with the big glowing falcon head on the case, just to make sure you knew what it was ;). The graphics were excellent. The viewpoint it was set to was like the TRD2 psuedo-in-car-cam, so it wasn't a true cockpit view, so that I can't comment on. The track graphics were amazing though, it was very, very pretty. The little bit where a small animal went darting across the road in front of me was a nice touch too. I have no complaints as far as the video games. The audio was decent, though it sounds like the exhaust note was a little too echo-ey to me. It sounded fine at first, but it got really, really irritating as time went on. I felt bad for the girl manning the booth, having to hear that noise for a few days straight. It was turned up very loud as well, so that might just be them trying to impress with the subwoofer, so it might have been drowning out other noises. I wish I could compare it to Rally Trophy, but I've never had the pleasure of playing that game, I haven't been able to track down a copy. Know where I can get one? Again, some of this may have been due to the wheel it was setup with. The wheel probably travelled a good 8-9 degrees between notches in the force feedback, so it was absolutely impossible to actually get a good turn out of the thing. I imagine if I had had a chance to play with the deadzones and such, it might have gotten better. (The Wheel was the latest Logitech PS2-aimed GT3 wheel, with the little back and forth sequential shift lever on the right side). The biggest thing that really caught me was the way the car behaved when you gave it too much throttle. The audio was clearly telling me that I was spinning the tires with a loud shriek, but nothing through the force feedback and I could crank the wheel into a turn all while my foot was to the floor and the tires howling and it drive like I was coasting. Hopefully it was just bad equipment (the Thrustmaster wheel I tried out at TM's booth was in horrid shape, as is, the d-pad thing wouldn't register down or left, so it was obviously abused), but it struck me as very arcade-y. Is there an arcade mode to the game vs. a sim mode? I had no chance to go through any of the interface, it was just sit down, drive, finish, get up. I want to give the game a chance, since it and Richard Burns' Rally seem to be our only hopes with CMR being such a painful mess, so I hope I'm giving it a fair shake. I was just so excited to try this, but it ended up really disappointing me. It was no GTR, at any rate.

> I want to give the game a chance, since it and Richard Burns' Rally seem > to be our only hopes with CMR being such a painful mess, so I hope I'm > giving it a fair shake. I was just so excited to try this, but it > ended up really disappointing me. It was no GTR, at any rate. Much thanks for the write up.