rFactor is 10 years old: celebrate with Sardian Heights for rFactor 2

[Alex Franchini]

Happy birthday, rFactor! Image Space Incorporated's classic sim is turning 10 today, and the developers have launched the #10YearsOFrFactor hashtag.

Time flies, doesn't it? As our poor old bodies start to creak and wrinkle, so do the digital bits of racing sims, with increasingly dated graphics and less sophisticated physics and whatnot.

Yet, ISI is trying to give the original rFactor content a new lease of life. With the upcoming release of the new jGED modding tool, the developers have managed to port some content to rFactor 2 "in a couple of hours".

So now you can enjoy the Kodi ZR, a road car with a plethora of tuning and customization options, and the Sardian Heights fictional street circuit. The latter is a circuit inspired by Macau and Monaco, and the long layout has no less than three hairpins.

According to the official webpage, jGED is going to be available before the end of the week - hopefully allowing for better, more efficient porting of content. The old rFactor cars and tracks will enjoy all the features of the rF2 engine when ported, including real road, chassis flex etc.

Download the Kodi ZR here and Sardian Heights here.

What are your favorite memories about rFactor? Any specific content from the original game that you would like to see released for rFactor 2?

Please feel free to comment below with your thoughts.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

The coolest rf1 fun event I participated in was the Bus trip to Lienz where we were "racing" 80 busses or so online at the Lienz 24h layout. Hilarious night on Teamspeak.

 

[Ned]

The Rayzor at Lienz was a great pleasure and the Howston at Toban too.

 

[Dave Fox]

rF1 was my first taste of sim racing and I haven't looked back since
rF2 soon followed and my collection of sims expanded from there.
I can't even remember how I found rF1, maybe 'it found me' lol
So happy 10th rFactor and thanks a bunch, you still rock !

 

[Trimaz]

Although I spent more of my time on Race 07 back in the day, it was rFactor that got me into sim racing and the reason I bought my first wheel. If my cousin had not introduced me to it back in 2006, then I don't know what I would be playing today. I still have and will always have a copy of rFactor installed complete with a handful of my favourite and quality mods that I will never part with unless something better comes along (I'm looking at you Enduracers and CTDP F1 Season 05).

I should however buy a copy on Steam. It would complement my racing sim collection nicely.

 

[F_B]

rfactor brought me to serious simracing, no more no less. All these fantastic mods made me want to buy a wheel, so I got a Momo Racing Wheel 7 or 8 years ago. Fantastic project! I wish rfactor 2 would have taken the same route regarding mods.

 

[David O'Reilly]

My most memorable race in RF1 was a 1000 km at Bathurst in the Touring car legends against AI. I had an AI team mate (so the family saw me that day). It was an era I watched live trackside with legends such as Stefan Bellof, Peter Brock, Jonny Cecotto, Jim Richards Steve Soper, with the M3, Cosworth Mercedes 190E, BMW 635, Ford Sierra, Holden V8 etc. I drove the 190E as it had great handling and by comparison tarmac tearing brakes. I was coming from Xbox / codies via Race Pro to PC sims and comparing the Race 07 and RF1 sims. The thing that swung me was my lap top didnt run the race 07 graphics that well and I loved the sense of humour in the RF1 operations and tuning guide.

 

[TzZyO]

Not to burst anybody's bubble here, but porting rF1's stub content forth into rF2 doesn't exactly seem like a great idea for such a celebration... And why not Toban?
Putting rF2 on Steam would make it more of a happy holiday.

 

[Will Mazeo]

Putting rF2 on Steam would make it more of a happy holiday.

As much as I dislike Steam if this is the only way they can sell for a fair price and in different currency I'm all for it and really wish this can happen soon. Right now buying rF2 in Brazil is just senseless no matter how good sim it is (and I consider it to be the best out there by a very large margin)

 

[Deleted member 161052]

I remember that I found this game in circa 2009 when I was searching around videos on YouTube, and then trying this game later in 2010. Remembering too - was playing it with various GT car mods. Haven't been playing in the 2012 year and then started to play it again since 2013, now with F1 mods.

 

[Juergen]

Not to burst anybody's bubble here, but porting rF1's stub content forth into rF2 doesn't exactly seem like a great idea for such a celebration...

Same what i thought reading this. There are so many conversions (rf1 -> rF2) around, wich doesn`t meet and show rF2`s possibilities, in point of graphics and physics...

 

[Trimaz]

Does this rF1 to rF2 conversion software also add in some more polygons to the models and higher resolution interior textures?

 

[Juergen]

For what i understand from the wiki, no. It`s , more or less, a tool for some steps within a whole conversion process. But maybe I`m wrong...

 

[Theo van den Brink]

For me it all started with rf1 and it brought me some good friends in real live and still remember the time discovering teamspeak and racing in some dutch leagues what was awesome, always having some fun discovering new tracks/cars and doing silly things like jump off mountains doing silly mods and my wife who enjoyed it as much as i did! also racing with the clio's she was! and always in the points! When she got sick the guys did a tribute race for her with my skin..

 

[Gijs van Elderen]

This tool is more suitable for upgrading rF1 tracks to rF2 standard or upgrading current tracks.
HDR Textures, Shadows, reflections, etc...

It's not for 3D modeling or physics. ==> cars.

Yes, I'm looking forward to the next generation rF2 tracks...

 

[Marcel Offermans]

Stating that gJED is a "conversion tool for porting rF1 content to rF2" is definitely selling it short. gJED frees modders from the need to buy an expensive license for 3D Studio Max (and use the Max plugins that ISI provided in the past) and instead allows them to create their content in any 3D editor that supports the FBX format (and that's most if not all of them). It is incidentally the same format that Assetto Corsa uses as its input format, so you could just as well say that the release of this tool might spark a lot of AC to rF2 conversions. In reality is will probably allow more people to create mods. And incidentally it also hooks into Race Track Builder which, although still very much in alpha, looks promising (and exports FBX).

 

[John-Eric Saxén]

gJED is great but it's essentially the same software that is already available to modders, 3DSimED that is. The benefit here is to not depend on third party created tool with some bugs.

According to the official webpage, jGED is going to be available before the end of the week - hopefully allowing for better, more efficient porting of content. The old rFactor cars and tracks will enjoy all the features of the rF2 engine when ported, including real road, chassis flex etc.

gJED won't bring high-poly models, high-poly track mesh, chassis flex, TGM tire model, or any of that. There seems to be some misunderstanding.

 

[Ghoults]

GJED for rf2 looks to be kinda similar what the sdk is for assetto corsa. Meaning that you setup your shaders and textures in it. But you need to first create your 3d model and textures using some other program. Then you export your 3d model in fbx format and load it in gjed along with the textures (maybe animations too?). Then in gjed you can adjust your shaders and you will see how it will look inside the game. Dunno if gjed can convert rf1 content for rf2 though?

It is definitely a great thing for rf2 modding because for majority of people getting 3dsmax legally is not possible. Making modding easier and more accessible for rf2 definitely helps and rf2 definitely needs it.

 

[Marcel Offermans]

gJED cannot convert rF1 content to rF2, that is not what it was designed for, but obviously if you had rF1 assets in 3D Studio, you can export them to FBX and use gJED to get them into rFactor 2. It won't do any magic conversions (and I highly doubt that would work or make sense).

 

[Alex Franchini]

gJED won't bring high-poly models, high-poly track mesh, chassis flex, TGM tire model, or any of that. There seems to be some misunderstanding.

Huh, let me take another look at the press release. I might have misunderstood the original wording - it's clear the models and textures will remain dated, but I'm guessing jGED offers some way to add the new features into the old content.

EDIT: "Visually they will certainly have a retro look, but technically the content does support rFactor 2 technology like our advanced tire model, chassis flex, realroad (changing track surface grip) and 3D animated corner workers." I dunno. I never implied the editor would magically add those features, but judging from the press release it does seem like jGED makes it easier to add the new features.