Project Cars physics (maybe asked before)

You made it sound like all SMS does is listen to what Ben Collins said. No, they did not and they are doing everything else that other developers did with their game.

SMS had access to detailed CAD files that some manufacturer such as Mclaren, Ginetta, Mercedes, Pagani, and BMW sent them with all the measurements they need where they can measure it off Pro-E or some engineering drafting software. It is the same detailed computerised model that manufacturer used for their own analytical usage such as wind tunnel computerised analysis before they build physical wind tunnel models. They had been putting some parts of the manufacturer CAD files in the backers forum for a while with some internal components like engines and suspension removed just to model the exterior of the car without 3D max crashing due to extremely high poly count. Even having the right measurements of the vehicle, it does not ensure good results as the programming of physics engine and also the mathematical model used is extremely important. Consider the fact that even the best data input into a rubbish engine will still produce rubbish results while a less accurate measurements input in a decent engine might produce better results than former. Unless you are an actual professional race driver, how would you know which sim provides the closest experience to real life?

Also, for almost every car, SMS always send a staff to the manufacturer's factory for photography referencing and also geometry measurements. I still remember there was a time they sent a staff to Ruf and Ruf gave them the wrong RGT8 which they could not do much about it and return to the factory on another day with the right car. They dont just sit in the office and model the cars based on images from Google. They had also sent staff or senior backers to major races, like Le Mans to collect race data from race teams. There are still quite a lot of cars that they have not started producing because they have not received or collected enough data.

Some cars like the BMW 320i Group 5, Yellowbird, BMW V12 LMR LMP1, 1M or the IMSA Mustang are fully laserscanned with every little detail from the car captured and put into the game. It is also why pCARS version of BMW 320i Group 5 has a few odd holes on the body that no other games has due to the specific model that BMW provided for laser scanning which they decided to leave them for the game's model. At the same time, laser scanning sounds cool and advanced, however, it does not produce accurate results all the time. pCARS's BMW V12 LMR was laser scanned and they did not use the laser scanned data as the results the surveyor sent was completely different from the real car due to a mistake by the surveyor.

More importantly, any surveying techniques including laser scanning has potential pitfalls as it does not ensure that you'll have a perfect digital replication of the object. The accuracy and authenticity of any surveying techniques also depends on the skill of the surveyor and also the quality of the algorithm of the point cloud generation for laser scanned results. You also had to deal with errors and noises with distortion from motion or even change in temperature of air will affect your results. Then, also on the skill of the modeller in converting the complex point cloud with billions of nodes into a mesh that the game can use. Just because a game claimed that they used laser scanning in their content, it does not guarantee its accuracy to the actual object, namely how Forza 5 claimed that they had laser scan for Nords and yet their Nords is even worse than the version in rFactor 1 that modders made without any surveying techniques. The main benefit of laser scanning is that it's results are computerised in easy to use point clouds and higher accuracy as you can go as low as tens of micrometers in actual field work. It does not guarantee the accuracy of a content in a game as there are too many factors that might altered the results while it is not something that you leave it there for 5 minutes and get extremely accurate data at the end.

It is just like mocap in action games does not guarantee fluid animations while conventional animation or animation physics engine like EA's Impact engine for FIFA could still produce good results.

Source? I am a practicing engineer who deals with survey data and various mathematical model for work. I had received surveying better data that is surveyed with conventional leveling method than "advanced" laser leveled results.

/r/simracing Thread Parent