Hands-On With Project Cars two In VR
Hands-On With ‘Project Cars Two’ In VR
Last week, I got to drive an Acura NSX GT3! Well, not indeed, but for a fleeting moment I felt like I did. What indeed happened was I played a preview demo of Project Cars two . It was in VR, but with a special twist.
Slightly Mad Studios provided CXC Simulations an early build of Project Cars two for a hands-on preview event, which took place at CXC’s headquarters in Los Angeles. CXC had several of its Movement Pro II simulators set up, and to call these systems mere gaming seats would be a disservice. The Movability Pro II uses hydraulics to simulate almost every sensation you would practice while driving a spectacle car, including the revving of your engine, the types of terrain under your tires (whether it be tar or filth), and collisions with walls and other cars. The response you receive from roughing up against other vehicles or colliding with a wall at high speed is so aggressive that the Movement Pro II includes a seat belt so that you won’t be forcibly ejected. The only things missing were the g-forces and the ache.
Typically, the Motility Pro II is used in conjunction with a triple monitor setup, but the folks at CXC had us use Oculus Rift headsets. Sure enough, my mind and bod felt like I was actually driving a car and not just playing a game. For example, braking at high speeds required me to stomp on the brakes aggressively because the Motility Pro II’s braking system fired back with a ton of force. Crashing into a wall made me wince in anticipation, and the jiggling seat augmented this sensation even further. The extent of my real-world racing practice involves driving go-karts, so within the VR practice, I crashed. often.
There were several Motility Pro II stations that didn’t have Rift headsets, and albeit playing with a triple monitor setup was a look to behold, the immersion wasn’t fairly the same.
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Several cars were represented on the Motility Pro IIs: an Acura NSX GT3, a Dallara Honda IndyCar, a Honda Civic Coupe, and an Olsbergs MSE Supercar Lites, the last of which will join the Project Cars two roster along with several other rally cars. Each of the cars provided a unique practice, even if the tracks were identical.
For example, the GT3 accelerated quickly, and slowing down to turn around corners left my brake gam sore later that evening. By contrast, the Honda Civic didn’t feel as aggressive, but it still felt like a tuned street car with abundant horsepower behind it. The IndyCar felt like a silent brute in comparison to the GT3, and turning around corners was much lighter. Ultimately, the rally car took the most getting used to because the track had numerous paths, numerous hills, and switches in terrain.
After racing with each car, I had a brief moment to speak with Rod Chong from Slightly Mad Studios and ask him some questions.
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Tom’s Hardware: Back when Project Cars was very first developed, VR wasn’t mainstream yet, but it’s come a long way since and is now lightly accessible. Given that, how much emphasis did you place into VR when developing Project Cars two ?
Rod Chong: VR was a massive part of Project Cars . We worked with Oculus for three years, so we had access to DK1s and DK2s. The very first time we attempted DK2, we were fairly shocked; we were expecting something further developed, but by the time Oculus launched the retail version, VR had evolved beautifully. That relationship has been very significant to us, so we invested a lot of time into it and made sure we were involved from the very beginning. We were one of the Rift’s thirty official launch titles, and the only official racing title.
Since then, we’ve been working hard to make sure that Project Cars two is as immersive as possible. There’s a lot of fresh things we’re doing in Project Cars two , such as fresh rendering technologies, which will sleek the VR practice and make sure everything is fully optimized for both Oculus and HTC.
TH: Speaking of fresh things, what are some features that were missing from Project Cars that fans want to see in Project Cars two ?
RC: We took the feedback from our community very gravely. One of the key elements we focused on was the gamepad practice; if you’re a console proprietor, we want to make sure that the way you control your car in Project Cars two is joy and immersive, but still precise. It’s actually fairly challenging, because you don’t just want a car that slips around sloppily while oversteering. We wished to capture the essence of driving a spectacle car with precise steering and translate that into something like a gamepad.
Another area is enhanced functionality in online competitive play and esports. In Project Cars , when you race online, it’s like the wild west. You don’t know who you’re going to race against, and what type of racers they are. There are some racers who like to make matches hell for everyone. They crash around deliberately. They drive the wrong way around the track. Or, if they’re not in the lead after the very first corner, they just abandon.
In Project Cars two , we have a fresh licensing system which tracks how you drive in multiplayer. It tracks how swift and how cleanly you drive, which is determined by how many accidents you’re in and whether you wreck other players or not. With the fresh grading system, as you race, you’ll begin to find players similar to you. If you like demolition derbies, that’s what you’re gonna find. If you’re a clean racer, you’re going to find other players who are clean racers.
There are also fresh features focused on online championships. In Project Cars , if you want to have an esports championship, you’ll have to track points on your own spreadsheet. In Project Cars two , you can organize a championship, and the game engine will track your points. There’s more functionality around Broadcast modes, too. You can be a race controller and broadcast to Facebook, Twitch, or what have you.
Eventually, the treating model has evolved considerably. We feel that the advances are way more accurate, but also more joy for players. We found in Project Cars , when you went over the limit, you couldn’t bring the car back under control; it would just spin. This isn’t how real-life cars [work].
The same applies when you drift a car; a very good driver will be able to drift, but the model wouldn’t support that. We’ve added a lot of fresh technicalities in our simulation that are more joy and forgiving, but also more accurate.
TH: How will the Project Cars two VR practice differ from a traditional, monitor-based practice?
RC: It’s very significant for us to look at all of the different types of practices and different hardware [that] players may be using, from consoles all the way up to high-end PCs. For example, we have a fresh triple-monitor support that we’ve been working hard on. You’ll be able to adjust and customize how you use extra monitors. One thing that’s significant for us as a studio is to interface with all of the latest gadgets, add-ons, and hardware, from the higher-end expensive systems to the more consumer grade stuff. We want to make sure that we’re compatible with as much as possible.
TH: Speaking of hardware, what sort of work was done to give CXC Simulations’ systems such an immersive feedback?
RC: Immersion is something we’re very focused on, and we want to interface with the best hardware. We’re a fucking partner with CXC Simulations, and we make sure that they have early access to our builds so that they can tune their hardware with our physics systems. It’s the physics system which creates signals for haptic feedback on your controller, or in CXC’s case, the immersive feedback. We have fresh functionality that’s simplified so you can control and adjust the force feedback to your liking, and CXC used that to tune their systems.
TH: What do you think is the future of racing games, especially now that VR is mainstream?
RC: We think that VR is a paradigm shift, because now, you’re in the activity. You’re no longer just translating to a plane screen, or even three plane screens. You’re driving a car, and your assets thinks it’s driving a car after a while. We’re always thinking of fresh ways to progress that, and we think palm tracking will be the next step. Right now, if you look at your arms with a headset on, they’ll be glued to the position of your steering wheel, and your forearm will only budge when the game detects a gear shift. Presently, hand-tracking is too slow. If you were to pull a physical handbrake, the animation would be behind you. We believe that when VR systems catch up, you’ll be able to interact with different parts of the car in real time, and we look forward to watching that in the future.
Project Cars two doesn’t have an official release date yet, but it’s slated for late this year.
Hands-On With Project Cars two In VR
Hands-On With ‘Project Cars Two’ In VR
Last week, I got to drive an Acura NSX GT3! Well, not indeed, but for a fleeting moment I felt like I did. What indeed happened was I played a preview demo of Project Cars two . It was in VR, but with a special twist.
Slightly Mad Studios provided CXC Simulations an early build of Project Cars two for a hands-on preview event, which took place at CXC’s headquarters in Los Angeles. CXC had several of its Mobility Pro II simulators set up, and to call these systems mere gaming seats would be a disservice. The Movement Pro II uses hydraulics to simulate almost every sensation you would practice while driving a spectacle car, including the revving of your engine, the types of terrain under your tires (whether it be tar or filth), and collisions with walls and other cars. The response you receive from roughing up against other vehicles or colliding with a wall at high speed is so aggressive that the Movability Pro II includes a seat belt so that you won’t be forcibly ejected. The only things missing were the g-forces and the agony.
Typically, the Movement Pro II is used in conjunction with a triple monitor setup, but the folks at CXC had us use Oculus Rift headsets. Sure enough, my mind and assets felt like I was actually driving a car and not just playing a game. For example, braking at high speeds required me to stomp on the brakes aggressively because the Mobility Pro II’s braking system fired back with a ton of force. Crashing into a wall made me wince in anticipation, and the wiggling seat augmented this sensation even further. The extent of my real-world racing practice involves driving go-karts, so within the VR practice, I crashed. often.
There were several Motility Pro II stations that didn’t have Rift headsets, and albeit playing with a triple monitor setup was a view to behold, the immersion wasn’t fairly the same.
IMG_0943
IMG_0946
IMG_0950
Several cars were represented on the Mobility Pro IIs: an Acura NSX GT3, a Dallara Honda IndyCar, a Honda Civic Coupe, and an Olsbergs MSE Supercar Lites, the last of which will join the Project Cars two roster along with several other rally cars. Each of the cars provided a unique practice, even if the tracks were identical.
For example, the GT3 accelerated quickly, and slowing down to turn around corners left my brake gam sore later that evening. By contrast, the Honda Civic didn’t feel as aggressive, but it still felt like a tuned street car with abundant horsepower behind it. The IndyCar felt like a silent brute in comparison to the GT3, and turning around corners was much lighter. Eventually, the rally car took the most getting used to because the track had numerous paths, numerous hills, and switches in terrain.
After racing with each car, I had a brief moment to speak with Rod Chong from Slightly Mad Studios and ask him some questions.
PC2_SS_mini-apr-00005
PC2_SS_ford-apr-00013
PC2_SS_vwford-apr-00002
PC2_SS_honda-apr-00033
cover
Tom’s Hardware: Back when Project Cars was very first developed, VR wasn’t mainstream yet, but it’s come a long way since and is now lightly accessible. Given that, how much emphasis did you place into VR when developing Project Cars two ?
Rod Chong: VR was a massive part of Project Cars . We worked with Oculus for three years, so we had access to DK1s and DK2s. The very first time we attempted DK2, we were fairly shocked; we were expecting something further developed, but by the time Oculus launched the retail version, VR had evolved beautifully. That relationship has been very significant to us, so we invested a lot of time into it and made sure we were involved from the very beginning. We were one of the Rift’s thirty official launch titles, and the only official racing title.
Since then, we’ve been working hard to make sure that Project Cars two is as immersive as possible. There’s a lot of fresh things we’re doing in Project Cars two , such as fresh rendering technologies, which will sleek the VR practice and make sure everything is fully optimized for both Oculus and HTC.
TH: Speaking of fresh things, what are some features that were missing from Project Cars that fans want to see in Project Cars two ?
RC: We took the feedback from our community very earnestly. One of the key elements we focused on was the gamepad practice; if you’re a console possessor, we want to make sure that the way you control your car in Project Cars two is joy and immersive, but still precise. It’s actually fairly challenging, because you don’t just want a car that slips around sloppily while oversteering. We dreamed to capture the essence of driving a spectacle car with precise steering and translate that into something like a gamepad.
Another area is enhanced functionality in online competitive play and esports. In Project Cars , when you race online, it’s like the wild west. You don’t know who you’re going to race against, and what type of racers they are. There are some racers who like to make matches hell for everyone. They crash around deliberately. They drive the wrong way around the track. Or, if they’re not in the lead after the very first corner, they just abandon.
In Project Cars two , we have a fresh licensing system which tracks how you drive in multiplayer. It tracks how rapid and how cleanly you drive, which is determined by how many accidents you’re in and whether you wreck other players or not. With the fresh grading system, as you race, you’ll embark to find players similar to you. If you like demolition derbies, that’s what you’re gonna find. If you’re a clean racer, you’re going to find other players who are clean racers.
There are also fresh features focused on online championships. In Project Cars , if you want to have an esports championship, you’ll have to track points on your own spreadsheet. In Project Cars two , you can organize a championship, and the game engine will track your points. There’s more functionality around Broadcast modes, too. You can be a race controller and broadcast to Facebook, Twitch, or what have you.
Eventually, the treating model has evolved considerably. We feel that the advances are way more accurate, but also more joy for players. We found in Project Cars , when you went over the limit, you couldn’t bring the car back under control; it would just spin. This isn’t how real-life cars [work].
The same applies when you drift a car; a very good driver will be able to drift, but the model wouldn’t support that. We’ve added a lot of fresh technicalities in our simulation that are more joy and forgiving, but also more accurate.
TH: How will the Project Cars two VR practice differ from a traditional, monitor-based practice?
RC: It’s very significant for us to look at all of the different types of practices and different hardware [that] players may be using, from consoles all the way up to high-end PCs. For example, we have a fresh triple-monitor support that we’ve been working hard on. You’ll be able to adjust and customize how you use extra monitors. One thing that’s significant for us as a studio is to interface with all of the latest gadgets, add-ons, and hardware, from the higher-end expensive systems to the more consumer grade stuff. We want to make sure that we’re compatible with as much as possible.
TH: Speaking of hardware, what sort of work was done to give CXC Simulations’ systems such an immersive feedback?
RC: Immersion is something we’re very focused on, and we want to interface with the best hardware. We’re a fucking partner with CXC Simulations, and we make sure that they have early access to our builds so that they can tune their hardware with our physics systems. It’s the physics system which creates signals for haptic feedback on your controller, or in CXC’s case, the immersive feedback. We have fresh functionality that’s simplified so you can control and adjust the force feedback to your liking, and CXC used that to tune their systems.
TH: What do you think is the future of racing games, especially now that VR is mainstream?
RC: We think that VR is a paradigm shift, because now, you’re in the activity. You’re no longer just translating to a plane screen, or even three vapid screens. You’re driving a car, and your figure thinks it’s driving a car after a while. We’re always thinking of fresh ways to progress that, and we think mitt tracking will be the next step. Right now, if you look at your forearms with a headset on, they’ll be glued to the position of your steering wheel, and your forearm will only budge when the game detects a gear shift. Presently, hand-tracking is too slow. If you were to pull a physical handbrake, the animation would be behind you. We believe that when VR systems catch up, you’ll be able to interact with different parts of the car in real time, and we look forward to eyeing that in the future.
Project Cars two doesn’t have an official release date yet, but it’s slated for late this year.
