Dirt Rally 2.0

[MrTulip]

Why I expect SMS involvement in WRC game is that EGO engine does not do all that Codies have wanted to achieve in rally simulation. Since DR1.0 they have been talking about shifting conditions for drivers, and how the games are still too far away from reality in that. While DR2.0 has some attempt to it, the limits of the current engine prevent them from going further, unless EGO is developed much more.

We know that Livetrack 3.0 already calculates surface temperatures so that areas in the shadows are colder than areas in sunlight, water flows, dries up etc. By now I expect that Livetrack can also calculate water freezing and melting in those areas too (was not in PCARS2 yet). It would finally be possible to do Monte Carlo properly without the need for baked-in shadow maps and manually setting up the conditions inch by inch.
For the gravel tracks Livetrack also simulates sweeping dirt on the surface, again dynamically, so you can simulate any starting order in rally.

At least currently EGO engine does none of these. Properly modeled rally stages are longer and much more evolving than circuit stages, and manually doing this kind of stuff gets cumbersome really fast. For instance it took months for Codies to release more day and weather settings for some of their existing stages.
And currently in DR2.0 there is not much point in variations in the conditions of Monte after you learn the spots where there is ice or snow; they never change.

I also expect that all stages in new WRC game will be real ones, and SMS already has lots of experience with photogrammetry from PCARS2, and PCARS3 too I suppose.

Apart from just developing tyre model from circuit racing perspective, SMS has put incredibly amount of effort for creating this versatile engine from the scratch. For the players snow stages in PCARS2 have not made much sense, but for SMS it has been there because they needed to develop it anyway for their grander vision. PCARS2 was just a good opportunity to showcase it to everybody in the business on the same go.

[rich1e I]

Why I expect SMS involvement in WRC game is that EGO engine does not do all that Codies have wanted to achieve in rally simulation. Since DR1.0 they have been talking about shifting conditions for drivers, and how the games are still too far away from reality in that. While DR2.0 has some attempt to it, the limits of the current engine prevent them from going further, unless EGO is developed much more.

We know that Livetrack 3.0 already calculates surface temperatures so that areas in the shadows are colder than areas in sunlight, water flows, dries up etc. By now I expect that Livetrack can also calculate water freezing and melting in those areas too (was not in PCARS2 yet). It would finally be possible to do Monte Carlo properly without the need for baked-in shadow maps and manually setting up the conditions inch by inch.
For the gravel tracks Livetrack also simulates sweeping dirt on the surface, again dynamically, so you can simulate any starting order in rally.

At least currently EGO engine does none of these. Properly modeled rally stages are longer and much more evolving than circuit stages, and manually doing this kind of stuff gets cumbersome really fast. For instance it took months for Codies to release more day and weather settings for some of their existing stages.
And currently in DR2.0 there is not much point in variations in the conditions of Monte after you learn the spots where there is ice or snow; they never change.

I also expect that all stages in new WRC game will be real ones, and SMS already has lots of experience with photogrammetry from PCARS2, and PCARS3 too I suppose.

Apart from just developing tyre model from circuit racing perspective, SMS has put incredibly amount of effort for creating this versatile engine from the scratch. For the players snow stages in PCARS2 have not made much sense, but for SMS it has been there because they needed to develop it anyway for their grander vision. PCARS2 was just a good opportunity to showcase it to everybody in the business on the same go.

The EGO engine has its limitations, sure. One of them is, you can't have ultra long stages, that's why we don't have the whole Col de Turini e.g. That would have to change for the WRC game. It'd be great if they used the Madness engine for that. The problem is, they would have to re-do everything from scratch, while, if they further develop their EGO engine they could use most of the assets they already have, which are great.
Despite all the limitations I'm still blown away by what they managed to do physics wise. I can even feel the wheels sink into the gravel while the car understeers. I think it's fantastic. I've played it almost every day since launch and I must say, it has been tons of fun. You can argue that hardcore damage isn't hardcore enough, downshifting like crazy should cause some damage to your engine and eventually blow it. That's true, it's too forgiving in that regard, but if anyone who drove more than a few kilometers then comes here and says it's arcade and too easy, then they're fake news, plain and simple. Whenever I watch onboard videos, no matter if from the old McRae days or modern R5s, I see DR2.0 gameplay, 100%. They absolutely nailed it.
Anyway, the WRC thing is still far away. The deal starts in 2023. In the meantime we'll see DR3 which is already being developed.

[MrTulip]

Yup, DR2.0 gravel handling feels completely fine by me too, and there is lots of gravel in the package. Of tarmac stages only Spain feels too numb. Germany surface has slightly more feeling to it and Monte is ok.

It's not even that WRC could replace it (or DR3.0 if latter ever happens), because official WRC game is not likely to have plenty of historic classes like DR does. I simply love historic rallying and I consider DR2.0 more like Rally Trophy 2.0 to me.

[rich1e I]

Yup, DR2.0 gravel handling feels completely fine by me too, and there is lots of gravel in the package. Of tarmac stages only Spain feels too numb. Germany surface has slightly more feeling to it and Monte is ok.

It's not even that WRC could replace it (or DR3.0 if latter ever happens), because official WRC game is not likely to have plenty of historic classes like DR does. I simply love historic rallying and I consider DR2.0 more like Rally Trophy 2.0 to me.

Yeah, I love the historic cars too. Their entire car roster is pretty damn good. WRC8 has added a few historic rally cars so there's the chance to have some of them in a Codies WRC game. The updside of not being the official WRC game is definitely freedom of design.

[kennystone]

Hello, everyone! I'm glad I found a theme for my favorite game, I can't wait to release it...

[MrTulip]

From the guy who created VR support for Richard Burns Rally, a small fix to brightness levels in VR for DR2.0:
https://www.kegetys.fi/dirt-rally-2-...tion-fix-v1-0/