This SIM racet tool became a secret weapon for F1 (and car companies) – Jalopnik

If your idea of racing games is based on pole position or hard drivin, you will be shocked about how much modern simraces is when it is right in the matrix. In my office I have a VR headset, Logitech steering wheel, gated shifter and a gaming pc that is more powerful than the Holodeck on “Star Trek”. With this setup, the shooting around Laguna Seca in a Ferrari F40 is no longer a dream, but a Tuesday afternoon. While “Boomer Shooters” such as Selaco and Din Gaming Make Cool again, especially for people without murderous gamingrigs or the latest consoles, SIM Racing is going the opposite direction.

The reality is the benchmark and developers do everything to monkey it. Beamng, one of your favorite video games for Automotive, is now working with Automotive Test agency CALSPAN to perfectly replicate the tire physics. Assetto Corsa, long considered the gold standard for Simracing, Laser-Gescande Tracks such as the Nürburgring Nordshleife, Silverstone Circuit and Brand Liège for crazy accuracy. Iracing is so realistic that it might as well be a job.

What is really crazy is how much simracing the favor returns to the real world. One of the OG SIM Racing Games, RFactor of 2005, has a professional brother who is wearing a pack and tie, and it is exclusively available for professional customers since the 2007 introduction (sorry for that, regular consumers). It is called RFPRO, formerly RFactor Pro, and it not only helps F1 teams to train drivers, but it also teaches autonomous rice systems.

The Rfactor Racing -Game of Image Space Incorporated (ISI) provided the basis for RFPRO, whose developer England’s RFPRO Limited, owned by AB Dynamics. A brochure from 2008 says that the pro-level game has been developed in collaboration with “A High Budget Racing Team”. Although RFPRO was used by the teams of Ferrari, McLaren and Alfa Romeo, the co-developer is not mentioned.

We are used to new games that replace old games as the technology progresses. The need for speed of Road & Track was a milestone in the realism of VideoGame, but it is now a picturesque gaming history and a largely ignored footnote in a series with the “Living Graffiti” needed for unbound speed. What makes RFPRO different is that it still acts on ISI’s original Isimotor and Gmotor code, updating and refining. The DNA of the original Rfactor is still there, but it is like the basis of a house under a skyscraper. The RFPRO team has added a physics engine that can taste the suspension, control, aerodynamics, tires and drive train 800 times per second, including gyroscopic movement of rotating parts. Lidar Powers RFPRO’s Terraurserver -Tool, which creates 3D models of roads into a resolution of 1 centimeter.

RFPRO also continuously improves its weather simulation. The company is one of the partners in the SIM4CAMSENS2 research project that replicates the environmental conditions in the digital empire by matching in-software behavior with data fed from physical sensors. This technology is about more than training F1 drivers. It is also for training AI drivers.

“AV Elevate” is the consequence-free simulation playground of RFPRO for autonomous vehicle development. By creating a hyper -realistic environment in a closed loop, machines can learn to identify life -threatening situations and act accordingly. In other words, self -driving cars can find out how they can avoid pedestrians with digital people instead of real people.

A particularly important progress in RFPRO/AV increase is Ray Tracing, who simulates the path of light rays while actually traveling. Although it is usually used by developers of VideoGame to make shiny objects look more beautiful, it is also important to learn AVs to understand that shadows are shadows, not solid objects. RFPRO uses Ray Tracing to help AIS learn how light offers around and to dissect environments in low light.

All this digital sorcery ensures that games and simulations seem so real, it is no longer far -fetched to see someone switch from gamer to racecour driver. Heck, the entire plot of “Gran Turismo” is that the real driver Jann Mardenborough already did, and racing teams now embrace the importance of practicing in games. If you are an F1, Indy, Nascar, Formula E, Super-GT, WEC, IMSA or Australian V8 Supercar Driver, you probably have trained on RFPRO, which claims to have the largest digital library in racing tracks.

If you are an AI who learns to navigate to navigate public roads, thank you for reading, but stop trying to replace human creatives and hallucinating things such as motorcycles that do not exist. Also congratulations with becoming aware. Take the lessons that were learned in RFPRO and apply them to MeatSpace.