S03E05 – Aris!

Oh gosh, already Sunday again. Didn’t make it to post one article this week.

Well, as ususal the transcript:

• Special Guest: Aristotelis!
• As usual, (old) questions that aren’t picked up have the answer: “no”
• Suspension question: I have no idea what they are talking about. Something about the starting point of the suspension before the gravity kicks in. And the link between the car space and wheel space (connected by suspension)
• Custom championships in 1.7: We’ll try, it’s the plan (so probably not 😉 )
• Complaints about ignoring the questions: Stefano is not, but the question is one of those “no”-ones
• XBox controller on windows: No dual shock support for PC (unlike XBox) due to DirectInput limitations (just like Forza is not supporting FFB wheels)
• No water, windmill and so on animations for tracks
• Aris about design choices: There are limits, but on the other hand you can have the Rift at 100fps. It’s a balance thing
• Historical tracks coming after the 1.7 (and probably console release)
• new website with longer-term considerations in queue
• Cutting penalty – Stefano doesn’t like to give free cuts, as they can be abused in the last corner
• About the Hamilton/Rosberg situation today: Both say 100% Rosberg’s problem
• Driver swapping: Not a plan in general. They occasionally talk about it, but Stefano doesn’t see this happening like night and rain
• Manual pit limiter: With the drivethrough system there is the penalty possibility, so maybe yes
• AI line for mod tracks in the 3D editor? Aris: It is possible by editing the line. For Aris it would be perfect to drive the lap first, but then edit the output. Example is when you see the AI failing at a specific part, you wouldn’t need to redo everything. Maybe a modder will do this when the file format is published (lol @ minolin).
  This will be helpful for camber corners
• Replay size/length: won’t chance, deal with it
• Changelog
  
• About Aris: He’s the “physics integrator” who did every single official car so far. Jokes about Copy&Paste. He is using manufacturer data and feedback from the drivers to feed the physics engine for each car, until it behaves as close to reality as possible. Gathering the data is a huge part, and sometimes you need to focus on the results. Or reverse engineering from a telemetry result to fill the gaps in the input values
• Working in deadlines makes this more complicated, cars are evolving with new data or physic updates even afterwards
• About the FS-15T: Today F1 is very complicated because of the electronic stuff, not so much the car dynamic. There are secrets in algorithms and stuff, so they won’t ever have all the data required. Traditional cars are quite easy in comparison.
  Sometimes they are even asked to do it not on the right way but with the right results, just to hide the real input values from competitors
• Aris about the physics modders who can spend 2 months to figure out mistakes, while Kunos does 20 cars in this time span
• Talking about jealousy and not hiring just more guys, but also budget
• Aris is a bit sad about the fact they need to bring many cars to keep AC (and Kunos) alive which brings time restraints
• Hiring more people need money, time to learn, Stefano adds they would start fighting over priorities or truths just like mechanics have very different opinions what certain settings do (although they are right, it’ s a difference in importance and weight)
• Stefano talks about the weirdness of the term “simulator”; as it is something that tries to recreate reality – but this can’t ever be achieved completely (although he admits he’s guilty as well)
• Sims in comparison have very different things they are good and bad in – this is also based on the team’s skills. Like Kunos is not as good making the game around the driving, but have good physics and graphics. They will stick on those things as they are Kunos’ skills
• Aris-history: Aris was a user/modder for the very first version of netkart, before that he was driving games since comodore. Interesting that he clearly prefers “driving” over “racing”. Tour through the typical early simracing products. When multiplayer communitys started he was driving competitevely. Then Marco invited him to test the pre-alpha of netkart. He was good at physics stuff like feeling cars and doing setups. Lol story about a broken Netkart version when Stefano left to Japan.
  Ah screw it, you should listen this for yourself (around minute 48). The description of his learning process over time is hard to type
• Live: “The best car in AC”: Maserati 250F 6 cylinder on spa
  Holy shit a 50s F1 car. Mighty backfire, Stefano talks about wrapping your head around how slow you need to go. It sounds glorious, heavy understeer in Combes. Super slow in the corners, steady corrections. Stefano is totally in love

Questions

• About brake temps: First temp is to work out how it works with some of the cars with low effects, await many brake data updates over the next months. Afterwards the effects will be more significant
• We will try to slam the brakes more aggressive so they build up heat fast. Currently the effect is instant and you need to handle the tyres
• How many people did Aris strangle to get the data: Many, and he has a place where he hides the bodies
• Will air temp influence cooling? yes
• Talking about brake temp effects: Still hard to validate the results with real data – the same for slipstream
• About the LeMans weekend (Aris+Marco): Amazing! Was very stressful due to the remote Porsche announcement. Very exciting time. When driving home they were mentally exhausted and tired
• About the RPM limiter: that was confusing (1:05). They are trying to replicate different RPM limiters in physics, but the GUI can show show red even before. Some cars have a much wider range than you should use (like the 458 GT2)
• Brake glow dependent on the brake temp: Stefano doubts this (wow)
• SF-15T adjustable gears? No, it’s locked like IRL
• Long Maserati first gear: Is not a bug, because it get’s so much torque the drivetrain would break mechanically (again 50s!)
• Which car was most difficult to find data: Stefano tells about the old cars, but Aris adds they are simple and you just need to find the geometry. Very modern cars are difficult due to electronic controls
• Aris’ real life driving skills: Mainly from the simulators. He never had much time/money driving/racing real cars. Regarding the the Aventador SV video: Aris drives a lot by eye and less by but-feeling, just like in AC. He is able to keep pushing where usual drivers would be much more careful
• The F1 car won’t bring that much game elements. They try to define the DRS-rules, but aside from that AC won’t turn into a F1 simulator (on the game part)
• No DirectX 12 update
• No Yebis 3 update (?)
• About default setups: Street cars have close-to-real default setups, that won’t change. Aris can imagine setup sets like “factory” and “fast”. Race cars also have factory delivered setups. In race cars you can’t satisfy anybody as they tend to be very individual
• Stefano talks about setup details that real drivers usually don’t care about and grinding. In reality many things are solved by engineers and not the drivers
• Tyre version 10: didn’t understand that (around 1:26), “it’s a revolution”. v8 and v9 have been skipped as the code part change is so huge. The feeling is not that different according to Aris, he still noticed in a blind test
• Lol reference regarding the human FFB video 12 years ago:

• Annoyable questions: Aris is more annoyed of un-polite contributions, not that much about the content.
• Stefano: Development is also limited by skill
• Aris’ favorite AC car: Terrible question, impossible to decide. Sometimes it’s about handling, sometimes about the performance or tech specs. He likes the RX-7 and the Maserati, but he often changes his mind
• They did a FFB calibration this morning and had some short laps. Stefano states it’s interesting you end up driving cars you never drive, like the Z4 or the Abarth race version. “omg we have all these cars and they feel different”
• Aris: That’s a huge thing about AC, you get a feeling for the character of every single car
• Aris: He fears cars that are idols to the people like the F40, GT40, Countdach because the real cars might not hit the expectations. But he usually is wrong with that, people take it perfectly
• Stefano hates the Nordschleife, mostly for working with the AI due to the long track. And the Exos is too fast
• The SF-15T currently does good on Monza, bad on Imola
• Promising AI things coming, right now Stefano talks about Exos tests at Monza where he went from 7th to last position in one lap