rFactor2 – Build 125 Released.

Image Space Incorporated released build 125 of the rFactor 2 simulator beta.

HTTP links will be added as I get them up. Also, patience with the torrents. Expect to go to bed tonight and race it tomorrow.
You may want to press I (by default) the first time you exit the pits, so that the AI can show you where the exit from the paddock is at Lime Rock.

Content:

• – Skip Barber Formula 2000 (2 configurations, National and Regional).
• – Lime Rock Park (4 configurations: uphill chicane, west bend chicane, both chicanes, no chicanes).

Known issues:

• – Black boxes on cars for some video cards, current fix is (in the session) settings, then set HDR profile to none.
• – Car skins aren’t working yet (Gjon decided to release 125 anyway).
• – Pit speed being 62mph instead of 36mph when you use the ATAC ‘mod’ as it now is called. Fix is to use the Skip barber mod itself, we think.
• – Readme says Build 124, you have 125.
• – Anything else we didn’t fix yet.

Links:

– Resume from replay feature info.
– Skip Barber Formula 2000 profile page (this whole section is very WIP, but I thought the technique section might be helpful now).
– Lime Rock Park profile page (again, very WIP, download links video links won’t take you anywhere special).
– Screenshots of new content. (these are from the profile pages anyway)

• – Torrents – Full installer – Update 118 to 125 – Skip Barber + LRP rfmod
• – HTTP downloads – Full installer – Update 118 to 125 – Skip Barber + LRP rfmod

Auto Updater:

This build may not be going on the auto updater AT ALL. We have effectively released an ‘unofficial’ build, you will be able to update from this to the next official one.

Build notes:

UPDATE 9 (Build 124) Changelog (November 30, 2012):

GRAPHICS:

—————————
Improved lighting in car paint shaders
Fixed a bug with generating bboxs for procedural meshes, which was causing problems with shadows
Leaf wind now working again in shaders
HDR profiles are again active; packaged profiles will be auto loaded from track component mas files; user-defined profiles are loaded from Player\Settings\track_layout dir
HDR profiles can be loaded from the Settings menu in the real-time monitor
prevent ‘Auto Detail FPS’ from LOD’ing the currently viewed vehicle
Added support for loading user shaders
Attempt to improve LOD level flashing while regulating frame rate
Re-enabled transparency AA setting
Fixed issue with visual tire wear on AI vehicles

GAMEPLAY:
—————————-
Fixed/changed behavior where we wouldn’t use weather settings unless you had actually visited the weather settings page; this was confusing so we always use your saved weather settings now.
Made track-cutting thresholds configurable in the GDB.

PHYSICS:
—————————-
Fixed some RealRoad setting issue and uninitialized data if file couldn’t be read. Note that we had to add a checksum to RealRoad files so the format has changed slightly.

AI:
—————————-
fixed a bug where AI ignored pit strategy needs while out on track.
fixed issue of AI cars constantly trying to pit for tires if the only tire compound available is a wet road compound.
added two new variables for AI to the RCD files "UnderSteerEffectOnThrottleMulti" which you can raise higher than 100 if you want AI to more quickly get off throttle when he detects understeer & "UnderSteerEffectOnLineMulti" which you can raise lower than 100 if you want AI to more quickly adjust line wide when he detects understeer.
hopefully improved AI trainer tendency to spin on high speed corners by lengthening distance we look ahead for disappearing road and slowing rate of lateral movement based on how much lower than 1.0 new RCD parameter "UnderSteerEffectOnLineMulti" is.

UI / HUD:
—————————-
added code that hopefully prevents un-selectable (according to the veh file) cars being selectable
fixed event picking bug when a MOD with multiple updates has multiple versions of some events
fixed bug in HUD editor that had mismatched global parameters.
Made RFM picker scroll in when ARAC button is selected.
fixed extra character being drawn for newlines in the garage notes
Add selectable HDR profiles to settings page
Added a new Options Button to select "All Tracks & Cars". Also removed "All Track & Cars" mod from the spinner.
Added version numbers to RFM, VEH, & track selection gizmos.
Fix for showroom not loading first time through
added gizmo to off-line player monitor page that lets you pick specific AI to add to game.
made the "leave track" gizmo from the maximized monior page into a new gizmo type that hides itself if no in the dedicated replay mode.
changed the vehicle labels font to a true type font (to hopefully catch all the foreign characters)

BUG FIXES:
—————————-
Fixed problem where upgrades didn’t work first time after installation
fixed potential deadlock when adding or booting AI in single-player mode
Fixed a bug to allow mas’d sounds to be loaded in moddev mode

MULTIPLAYER:
—————————-
Fixed it so client gets message if they are being kicked out due to vehicle upgrades changing their class to a disallowed type. Also added to the message what the allowed classes are.

CONTROLLER/FFB:
—————————-
Now also resetting steering wheel range whenever ‘Reset FFB’ is pressed.
Bumped up maximum number of controllers from 4 to 6.
Added logging and potential fix for problem where people sometimes lose keyboard input.

PLUGINS:
—————————-
We continue to recommend not releasing plugins based on V05 of the interface until it is considered final.

REPLAYS:
—————————-
Added ability to resume a session from a replay, which acts like a continuous save file. You can choose any car at any point in the session. While you can use a replay of a multiplayer session, you can currently only resume it as a single-player session. Note that the replay is not and will never be a "perfect" save file, and currently there are some vehicle states that are not properly restored, in particular the state of your tires. Note also that this feature changes the replay format and is not backwards compatible.

MODDING / PUBLIC DEV
—————————-
Fixed a bug in Mas2 with crashing during mod install
Fix for viewer to support no dyn vbuf
Removed confirm dialogs from Mas2 for mas’ing and packaging components and mods
Changed multi-cmp file extension to .rfcmp

Minor changes made to improve meshmender tangent basis generation
Alternate tangent basis generation is now available, this may be a better choice in certain cases, but most likely won’t be
gMaterial plugin now only requires .GFX (shader description) files, complete shader code is no longer necessary to get shader list
gMaterial plugin now prompts (first time only) for location of .GFX files or MAS file containing .GFX files
gMaterial plugin now searches all MAS files in the GFX file location for shader desc files
gMaterial plugin has a "Reset Shader Location" button at the bottom, after restarting 3DS Max, you will be prompted again for shader desc file location
Added fix for loading mas’d sounds in mod mode
RealRoad loading dev-mode fix, plus a slightly forgiving checksum for RealRoad files in case track makers make minor tweaks to vert locations for seams or whatnot
fixed corner cutting corridor manipulation to match regular corridor manipulation (moves 10 times faster and left alt to slow it down)
made changes so that you can adjust Message center and chat fonts on the fly from HUD editor.

Added sample vertex and pixel shaders in Moddev\Shared which demonstrate how to use ISI macros in add-on shaders