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Wednesday, April 04, 2007 |
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Kickstart Your Career in Forza Motorsport 2...
By: Che Chou
You've worked hard all week, so now it's time to kick back with a cold one and read all about the progress of Forza Motorsport 2, Xbox 360's complete racing simulator. Welcome to the latest edition of the Turn 10 Pitpass Report, where, each week, we give you a glimpse of life behind-the-scenes of life here at a game development studio. If you feel so inclined, we encourage you to get caught up on our previous weekly updates for some context into how stuff works (or breaks down) 'round these parts. Those of you who have been following the WPR (whoa, does that sound official or what) for a while will notice that we've now arrived at our 40th update since we announced Forza 2 at E3 2006 with a sweet CG teaser trailer. What that means, of course, is that development on Forza Motorsport 2 is in its final stretch and the team are flatout on the throttle now, working insane hours to fix those last bugs and polishing up gameplay to the design team's high bar.
And with the game nearing completion, we here at Turn 10 are also starting to enjoy in abundance the fruits of our labor. "It's funny because people think all you do when you're a game developer is to play games all day and that's not true at all," Dan Greenawalt told me earlier this week. "Most of the time, you're heads down in the trenches coding systems and staring at spreadsheets. Then at some point everything comes together and it's really magical to watch folks on the dev team actually 'play' the game for the first time."
Meet Bob Crocco, Forza Motorsport 2 Addict
Case in point, now that the single-player Career mode is more or less finished in terms of tuning (although Dan and his crew will probably be tweaking this and that right up to the hand-off to the rigorous Xbox 360 certification process) I've embarked on a new career in Forza 2 with a brand new profile. No cheating debug menus and unlimited amounts of credits and cars in your garage -- this is likely the career profile I'll chip away at until we get retail discs and may be forced to start anew on retail 360 kits.
I'm not the only one who has started new careers in Forza 2 with noticeable conviction either. All over the team, folks are playing Forza 2 and discovering cool little touches they may not have known about, being so focused on their own subsystem of the game and all. Take for instance, Bob Crocco, one of Turn 10's systems developers (he's a big part of the reason why Photo Mode rocks in Forza 2, by the way); Bob has been absolutely addicted to single-player, enjoying and getting deep into the open-ended career path in a way only Bob could have devised. That is to say, none of us did what Bob obsessed over for the past week, but after we heard his story and saw his crazy little car, we all wanted to try something equally as decadent.
Like me, Bob started his Forza 2 career in Europe. With his beginning stipend, he bought an unassuming and mostly harmless (at least in stock form) 2004 Peugeot 206 RC hatchback. At first, he felt no real attachment to his starter car -- afterall, aren't these the dispensible stepladders to much sexier and powerful cars? But the more time Bob spent with his trusty little 206, the more races he won with the car, the more upgrades he endowed on his ride, the more he began to be fond of his little hatch that could. At some point, Bob asked himself: "What would happen if I just took this car all the way to the top?" So began an obsessed journey to jack his 206 into the Car Class/Performance Index stratosphere.
Like all upgrade games, it started under the hood, and soon ballooned to ridiculous horsepower multiplying improvements like powertrain swaps (which essentially changes all of your engine upgrade options as well). By the time the haze cleared, Bob's Peugeot 206 RC was no longer the 180 hp, 2,425 lbs FWD hatchback -- what emerged was a stealthy AWD beast that clocked in at 690 hp with 443 lb-ft torque, and sporting a slender weight-reduced chassis of 1,941 lbs. The in-game dyno benchmarked the car's 0-60 mph time to be 2.263 seconds (0-100 mph in 4.463 seconds), with a top speed of 213.9 mph. In other words, Bob's Peugeot was completely ridiculous, but utterly cool at the same time. And it was a blast to drive -- in a straight line, that is.
My Forza Motorsport 2 Career - Week 1
Bob's story illustrates precisely why Forza 2's Career mode is so compelling as the game holds very little back from you once it kicks off in earnest. Like Bob, I began a fresh career this week in Europe (although you have the option later on to relocate your base of operations -- for a price). But instead of investing huge amounts of money into my starter car (an '02 Saab 9-3 Aero, respectable but boring), I sold it off the first chance I got when I was rewarded a vintage 1970 Porsche 914/6 after finishing first in one of the first sets of races in the "Proving Grounds" sector that eases you into the flow of Career.
To be honest, I had never really taken much notice of Porsche's six-cylinder, mid-engine roadster. Sure, I had seen 914's on the road before in real life, and like any vintage car, I always had to temper its sexiness with all the headaches of having to maintain such a fickle (and potentially expensive) mistress. When I crossed paths with the 914/6 in Forza 2 this week, something clicked with me. I began to appreciate its unique, flat, wide-body design, and its sleek sloping lines. I don't know, maybe it's because the car was staring me in the face in my garage and on the UI, but I felt myself drawn to the Porsche 914/6.
With the credits from the sale of the Saab burning a proverbial hole in my Forza 2 bank account, I began upgrading my new baby. Rather than take the path of Bob, I wanted to elevate the 914 in a manner befitting of the car's characteristics -- that is, really take advantage of its flyweight persona and mid-engine RWD virtues. A big part of that upgrade philosophy was realizing that a car like this could probably excel in one of the lower car classes, as long as it was chillin' at the very top of that category. So my goal was to get my 914 to the pinnacle of C Class, focusing more on performance and weight reduction than pure gas guzzling muscle.
Those of you spent time in the original Forza Motorsport's single-player career know the balancing act here of trying to get your car optimized for a class, particularly one that's lower on the rung. With a car like the 914, it's easy to go overboard with no-brainer purchases like top of the line K&N intake systems or race spec AWE Tuning exhausts. Or if money wasn't a consideration, I could have gone straight for the 911/83 Porsche engine or the slightly excessive M64/60R powertrain.
Nope. Moderation was the key. I picked up sport intake and exhaust, gave the engine block a sport upgrade (balanced the crank, rods, and pistons), dropped in Porsche Motorsport sport cams and valves, a Motec race fuel system, some new tires, and I quickly found myself sitting pretty in the middle of Class B. To bring me back down to earth, I began adding penalties such as 115 lbs of downforce, reverting back to stock intake and exhaust, scaling back on my brakes and driveline, and finally, giving myself silly 195 rims all around (this made the tires look super-low profiled).That seemed to do the trick. I was just under the Class B threshold with a performance index of C496. Sure, comparatively, the car wasn't packing that much power, but 179 naturally-aspirated horses with 175 lb-ft torque pushing a curb weight of 1,876 lbs isn't anything to scoff at either. The dyno clocked my 0-to-60 mph time to 5.511 seconds with a top speed of 143 mph. Most importantly, the car felt awesome on the pavement. Armed with this Porsche 914/6, I set out to win races.
I tend to do things in linear fashion, so naturally, I wanted to finish all the events in the "Proving Grounds" area before moving on. The important thing to note here is that you really don't have to be such a completist in that regard. After a few races in the beginner arena, you're free to wander and complete the game's huge matrix of events in any order you like. So it was on one of the test track events where I was first introduced to the concept of Career AI racers.
In Forza 2's single-player mode, you go through career events competing against a decent group of international racers, each with a unique name, driving style, favorite color, and career record. So as you advance through the ranks, chalk up wins (or losses), so do the AI racers. So in effect, you end up going wheel-to-wheel with these guys over many many hard-fought battles.
Soon enough, I found my nemesis and his name was M. Rossi from Italy. Rossi was good, and even while I could often dust the rest of the pack in my nimble 914, I would often find Rossi right on my six after a bad corner, even going as far sometimes to overtake me on the outside. I should also mention that Rossi likes to drive red cars. In the photo above (taken during a replay viewing), you can see how close some of our races have been.
What's even more interesting is the fact that you can also hire drivers (whose cumulative stats also change as they win or lose races) to hit the road for you if you feel like sitting out and watching from the sidelines. The better the driver, the more they'll take from your winnings. A good strategy I've discovered is to basically give your mediocre driver an overpowered car to ensure that you'll get some money if he wins. Of course, it isn't a guarantee, and I've seen the AI do some pretty dastardly things to me and each other.
We're all going to keep playing single-player here at Turn 10. As for me, I'll be giving updates on my career in Forza 2 each week, highlighting some of the advances and stories as I experience them.
In the meantime, may you all dream of the Forza Motorsport 2 demo on Xbox Live Marketplace. See you next week.
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Wednesday, March 28, 2007 |
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Forza Motorsport 2 Tournaments Coming Soon...
By: Che Chou
It's Friday night and that means the Turn 10 Weekly Pitpass Report is back with a vengeance. Hello and welcome to Forzamotorsport.net -- my name is Che (that's pronounced "chay," by the way) and I'm the community manager here at Turn 10 studios, the folks who are putting the finishing touches on Forza Motorsport 2 on Xbox 360. We've been doing this Friday night tango now for almost 40 weeks, so for a full rundown of what we've already covered, I implore you to check out our Pitpass Report index. Those of you who follow my ramblings know that this would be our second update this week due to Internet complications last week when we trekked out to Sebring, Florida, for the 12 Hours of Sebring race. For full details on that and more, check it out here.
First order of business. Many on our forums have already seen Team Xbox's exclusive batch of new Forza 2 Photomode screenshots and an interview on community features with yours truly (see the link in the left sidebar). I've been commenting here and there on the forums about this, but I want to reiterate that these Photomode pictures are pulling images fairly close to the metal within the game. No doctoring or post-processing in regards to the lighting, contrast, and so on and so forth. So as you can see, track lighting and car shaders have come a long way and they'll continue to get polish as we wrap the project. A few of you guys noted there's some aliasing or artifacting in these photos. Those are the results of JPEG compression to keep photo size relatively small so we can upload lots and lots of photos to Forzamotorsport.net for everyone to sign-in and download. The PNG format would have been better (since it's lossless), but it also would have been about 10x as big in size. Anyway, the point is that you won't see the occasional minor aliasing and artifacts that you do in the uploaded Photomode pics.And yes, it's true. I can't stop playing with Photomode. It's so addictive and my photo album is getting ridiculously bloated. But then again, I love leaving my photo album on slideshow mode in the game and just running that in the background all the day long. I'll see what I can do about giving you guys a couple of Photomode pics for every Pitpass Report.
Fridays is also the day when everyone here at Turn 10 engages in a studio-wide multiplayer bug-bash. So right now, as I hammer away on my fancy new black Microsoft keyboard beefed up with functions I'll probably never use, I hear a symphony of car engines driven to its ceiling, screaming and wailing from TV to TV. The reason I bring this up just now is because my office mate Rob Fulwell just ruined his LMP car in an epic four car multiplayer pile-up worthy of a review later in replay mode. It was a true yard sale with parts, fenders, and body kits flying every which way. After the wreck, he tried to get back on the road with his Audi R8 but found that it wasn't behaving quite like it used to.
A quick glance at his damage HUD told him that the car had, among a laundry list of mangled components, a wrecked transmission that was barely working. At first, we weren't sure where that awful gut-wrenching sound was coming from... but then it dawned on us. The audio stream, which went from a mild grinding/wheezing to a full-blown metal rake on chalkboard sensation was actually the sound of Rob's failing transmission, which sounded like it was basically comitting suicide every time it tried to change gears. Since I normally don't make it a habit to thrash my car to such extremes, it was the first time I had heard the stages of our transmission damage audio -- and I was awestruck by the horror of it all.
The story behind our transmission damage sound source demonstrates the kind of dedication we have here on the team when it comes to re-creating audio reality. The problem with recording the sound of damage is that, well... you're sort of required to actually damage stuff in order to get an accurate representation. I've been on plenty of trips with the audio team, including collision sounds (yup, we crashed cars for 3 days and destroyed lots of carbon fiber), renting cars and drifted the crap out of them for tire skid audio, and visited a turbo factory to isolate the sound of boost. But after all that legwork, there was still no transmission damage audio. Not only that, but the team didn't even know what proper transmission damage noise sounded like. So they tried a few things, including mashing various metal gears together on a grinder. But as students of sound, they soon realized that, just like the other components in this game, they couldn't fake out reality.
So what to do? Our audio content coordinator Mark Price (the guy who records all of our engine sounds on the dyno) decided to wire up his car and take sound designer Mike Caviezel for a ride in his beater first-gen Acura Integra. Then while rolling through town, Mark repeatedly threw the car into third gear without disengaging the clutch. The sound they captured was so disturbing, so soul-crushingly wrong, that some on the audio team felt it was almost too unpleasant to use in a videogame. But (un)luckily for the rest of us, the transmission damage audio did make it into the game.
And it sounds absolutely great -- which is to say, it sounds absolutely awful for human eardrums. Grabbing this little slice of reality has its price, of course. Mark's trusty little-red-Integra-that-could never quite recovered from that recording session. According to him and many eye witnesses, putting his car into third gear is impossible without breaking out into sweat and profanities. As promised in the last Pitpass Report, I said we were going to talk more about the game this time around. To do so, I've cornered multiplayer lead designer Bill Giese for the lowdown on Forza Motorsport 2's new online tournament mode...
First Look at Forza Motorsport 2's Tournament Mode
Q: Alright, so when last we met, we covered Forza 2's Auction House. Today, we're gonna take our first look at the other big new feature in the game -- Tournament mode. So, from a high level design standpoint, what was the big idea behind giving tournaments their own official space in the game this time around?
Bill Giese: Well, we had always wanted an in-game tournament system since the first Forza Motorsport. After we shipped the first game and began scoping out Forza 2, tournaments was the first multiplayer system I put down on paper as the multiplayer design lead. After we saw the work that was done by Microsoft Game Studio's tools and technology group to create tournaments for Project Gotham Racing 3, we knew we could easily implement a compelling tournament structure within the game.
Q: So can you explain how these tournaments work?
BG: Each tournament will have a two-day qualifying period. In those 2 days players can go to the tournament select screen and choose a tournament to qualify for. Really, this is similar to a Time Trial and/or Free Run time attack. Players will be shown the Qualification Bar needed to make it into the tournament. This bar is set by the players themselves based on how many people are allowed in the tournament. If a tournament will only allow 128 players in, then the player with the 128th fastest time is that qualifying bar. Players can qualify as much as they want before the cut-off point.
Q: What happens after you qualify for a tournament?
BG: Once you have qualified for a tournament we will place a graphical helmet icon on that tournament in the menu list. Here, you can select this tournament to see the tournament bracket breakdown (as well who is assigned to in each room). You can also see what track is set for each round as well as who you will be playing with in the first round. Players are randomly seeded after the qualifying round into the first round. You can also choose to practice any of the rounds before the tournament by selecting the track on the bracket screen. The number of brackets depends on the amount of players we determine at Turn 10 for that tournament.
Q: How many total players can be in a tournament?
BG: The player size for each tournament breaks down as follows:
64 players = 8 Brackets – 4 rounds
128 players = 16 Brackets – 5 rounds
256 players = 32 Brackets – 6 rounds
To allow more players into a tournament we have branched out some of the tournaments after the qualifying round. This will allow a great deal more people to play and get to experience tournaments. We will take the top third from qualifying and put them into the gold tier tournament, the next 3rd of the qualifying will be put into the silver tier tournament, and the last 3rd will go to the bronze tier tournament. The track and lap assignments are the same, the payout at the end of each race will just be different. We have also incorporated our career payout system to the tournaments. So those who finish 7th or more will still be given a reward. This payout is scaled based on which tier tournament you are in, so no matter what, you are still earning money toward you career profile -- and besides the glory of winning tournaments and getting called out on Forzamotorsport.net, money is the main motivator for joining tournaments.
Q: Wow, sounds like a pretty complex system of automation. So, this is all automated, right? It's not like Turn 10 is going to sit on Xbox Live and create lobbies and rooms for people to join, right? (Please say no).
BG: Yeah, the great thing about Forza 2's tourney system is that everything is automated and we control it with an admin tool here behind-the-scenes. One nifty feature we've included for all this interaction with Tournaments and Auctions is a notification and inbox system all within the game. This notification system essentially helps you get to your tournament race on time. We track your gamertag while you play Forza Motorsport 2 and you'll receive messages in the menu system telling you that you have either 15, 10 or 5 minutes to get to you tournament race before it begins. If you open the message it will automatically take you to the tournaments screen from whichever menu you're currently sitting at. Note that this function does not work in race, only in the non-race menus of the game.
Q: What happens if you fail to show up for a tournament?
BG: Noshowkernal.exe is fired off the DVD and we wipe the players hard drive of all Forza Motorsport 2 data (just kidding -- or am I?). That and you will be given a DNF or instant loss for that race, therefore removing you from the tournament.
Q: What kind of (and how many) tournaments will we see online?
BG: When the game hits retail in May, we'll have 12 weekly tournaments active, with at least one for every car class. The non-race classes will be split into three groups so overall you will see 24 tournaments on the tournament select screen. We designed the faster classes (S, U, R1,R2,R3,R4) to start on the weekends as we felt the best racing action will come from those classes. We are also opening up the player limit to those weekend starting tournaments to allow more people.
Q: So this sort of begs the question you know the community is going to ask -- can we setup our own tournaments?
BG: One of our main goals in Forza 2, was to bridge the gap between hardcore racers and casual racers. Forza 2 is our first implementation of tournaments and we wanted to build an automated system that would allow all players to compete on common ground. We have the ability to setup, change, and tweak tournaments on-the-fly. Our tournaments are designed in-house here at Turn 10 and take all of the hassle of finding good people to play against. Similar to auction house we want people to have a safe and clear environment to trade cars with one another. In that same vein we have removed the middle man from the equation.
This is not to say that we don’t want to have player created tournaments. On the contrary, we do want players to develop their own shared experiences through Forza. One tool we've given players is a much more robust multiplayer server with all kinds of restrictions, settings, and even multi-round racing. But like I said, this is our first attempt at a complex system like tournaments and we want to make sure we do it right by not biting off more than we could chew in one go. We are barely skimming the surface of tournaments and this is an area we are very passionate about.
Q: Will we be seeing sponsored tournaments or win prizes?
BG: Yes, we will be doing some really cool things with sponsored and community driven tournaments.
Q: So we've heard a bit about Forza TV. How does that work into all this?
BG: Forza TV is completely integrated into the tournament system. If a tournament is currently running, you have the option of going into the bracket and watching the action in real-time. We have also built a specific channel off of the Forza TV list called “Featured Races”. These races are hands down the hottest races happening online. This includes sponsored tournaments as well as tournaments containing the higher ranked players. So consider it an honor as well if you find yourself being televised in our Featured Races channel.
Q: Can we record replays or take photos from tournaments?
BG: If you are playing in a tournament you can save the replay after the race, like you can in all multiplayer races. Likewise, during these replays, you can go into Photomode at any time to snap pictures.
Sweet. I can't wait to see the community get a jump on this. Thanks for your time Bill!
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Wednesday, March 21, 2007 |
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Forza Motorsport 2 Triumphs at the 12 Hours of Sebring
By: Che Chou
Hello one and all to the Turn 10 Pitpass Report, a weekly journal of development on Xbox 360's premiere racing simulator -- Forza Motorsport 2. Although our game comes out sometime in May (we're estimating mid-to-late May), the team is still hard at work on polishing every aspect of Forza 2 -- from graphics to gameplay to just about anything you can and would probably never notice. The goal here, ultimately, is to deliver a game that meets the quality bar Turn 10 has set for the game. (If you don't believe me, go ahead and check out all the stuff we've already covered in previous weekly reports in our archive section.) Ultimately, the spirit of the Pitpass Report is to keep our community in the loop as to developments behind-the-scenes here at Turn 10.
This week we follow-up on our showing at the Game Developer's Conference with something completely different but equally as impactful for the franchise. As many of you know, Turn 10 and Forza Motorsport 2 sponsors Risi Competizione, a Ferrari racing team competing in the American Le Mans Series. This past weekend, the ALMS held the first race of the 2007 season at Sebring International Raceway in Florida. The inaugural race of the season, otherwise known as the 12 Hours of Sebring, has been a long running tradition in the ALMS.
The #62 (red) and #61 (green) Risi Competizione Ferrari 430GTs.
The race also marked a turning point in our sponsorship of Risi Competizione, as it was the first time we were able to get the team's drivers actually practicing for the race on Forza Motorsport 2 with the Xbox 360 Wireless Force Feedback Wheel. And of course, those of you who watched the 12 Hours of Sebring on SPEED already know that after 12 grueling hours and more than 1000 miles driven under duress, the race for our boys at Risi Competizione came down to the very last corner. It was a battle for the ages and a legendary upset for Porsche in the ALMS and Sebring record books.
That said, I know many in the community look forward to these Pitpass Reports for new info on Forza Motorsport 2 -- and it's understandable as anticipation for the game has been at an all-time high. So it's to those folks I apologize ahead of time for the lack of game info in this week's belated update. We'll shift focus back to showing more of Forza Motorsport 2 in the next Pitpass Report. For now, however, I have quite a bit to show and tell from the hot, wet, and humid tarmac of Sebring International Raceway!
Welcome to the 12 Hours of Sebring
Since one of the new tracks in Forza Motorsport 2 is the Sebring International Raceway, doing an event (or simply having the game make a presence at the track) was a no-brainer for us. What compelled us to include Sebring in the game are the same characeristics that make Sebring such a unique and hellish experience for an endurance race. Clocking in with 17 turns at 3.7 miles, Sebring was built on top of an old military airfield that was used in WWII as a safety base for fighters and bombers because Sebring was located inland enough to thwart possible attacks from Axis ships and subs. Aside from being an immense source of local pride and way of life for Floridians, Sebring has a reputation for its rough, uneven, concrete slabs that physically punishes both car and driver. I guess airplanes back in the day didn't seem to mind during takeoffs and landings.
Sebring, home of nothing much -- except one of the most challenging and punishing race tracks in the world.
Most, if not all, of the hotels around Sebring were booked for the duration of the race, so we stayed in the far-away suburb of Bradenton, FLA, a sleepy airport town approximately 80-some miles away. Let's just say that the distance from the hotel to Sebring was... a daily source of challenge both to and from the track. By the time we got there Thursday morning, the team at Risi Competizione (who seemed to us more like old friends by this point) were prepping both of their Ferrari 430GT Berlinettas for practice sessions before qualifying rounds in the afternoon.
Although the environs and faces looked as they did last year in the Risi paddock, there were some changes for the 2007 season. The most significant difference was the addition of a second Krohn Racing 430GT in its own flourescent green color scheme. As each car had its own support crew, the Risi paddock was divided between folks wearing the traditional crimson Rosso Corsa firesuits for the #62 FM2-liveried 430GT and bright green attire for the #61 Krohn Racing Ferrari.
One of the appeals of the American Le Mans Series is the open paddock area for spectators to wander and take photos. A series made "for the fans," as it were.
Why run two cars in the ALMS instead of just one? It comes down to series points and economics. Teams run multiple cars in a race in order to bolster the number of points they receive per race -- since each car is awarded a certain number of points based on their finish, the more cars you have, the more points your team takes away. Audi (and many other teams, including Corvette, Aston Martin, and the Penske Porsche RS Spyders) has been able to consecutively dominate its class with a pair of winning R10 LMPs by using this strategy.
The downsides of running more cars are considerable, with the biggest factor being economics and many simply can't afford to double the cost of running a single race. Of course, there's always the possibility that both cars will suffer on-track incidents and fail to podium at all. Although Risi Competizione ran twin Ferraris for a few races last year, putting two 430GTs on the track full-time is most definitely a sign that the team is serious about the GT2 crown this season.
The #61 Krohn Racing F430GT, as prepared and supported by Risi Competizione in the 2007 ALMS season. This is the same car that had a nasty wreck last year at Limerock.
The 2007 ALMS season also saw a change in the field of cars on the track. Audi retired its R8 last season to make way for its successor, the R10, while Acura enters the ALMS in a big way by working with three race teams in the P1 and P2 classes. Elsewhere, we saw the pullout of BMW from the Porsche-dominated GT2 class, and the seachange move by the White Lightning/Petersen Motorsports to go with a pair of Ferrari 430GTs (both of which apparently caught fire during the race) instead of their usual Porsche variety. Overall, more Acuras, more Ferraris, new Porsches (911 GT3 RSRs for everyone!) more Panoz Esperantes all over the place.
Welcome to Virtual Sebring in Forza Motorsport 2
We got the triple-screen Forza 2 action going by the time the Risi drivers finished practice sessions out on the real track. Since this was literally the first time we were showing Forza 2 outside of a traditional gaming event with journalists and PR handlers, we really had no idea how things were going to play out. I can say with a high degree of certainty that, outside of one or two of the younger tech crews, nobody on the Risi team plays (or have played) videogames. This conjecture, combined with the fact that these folks work on and drive the real thing day in and out made me even more apprehensive to pull up the Risi F430GT in the game for hotlaps on Sebring. After all, it's one thing to impress gamers and bystanders with your simulation -- it's another altogether to put the simulation up against the real thing (which was parked literally about 10 ft. away from our triple-screen setup).
Simply irresistible for drivers and tech crew alike. At one point, team manager Dave Sims had to tell his guys to get back to work.
So imagine our surprise when we finally got the triple-screen VRX setup running and folks from team Risi began forming crowds to check out the game in action. The first folks to get behind the wheel were Risi's eager Ferrari techs, taking the F430GT out for some freerun on Sebring in the game. With the 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound volume and Buttkicker LFE transponder cranked up to the max, the triple-screen setup was starting to draw a crowd from both the #61 (Krohn Racing) and #62 (Forza 2) tents. With the game running at full-volume mixed with echoes about 100 yards away from real ALMS cars screaming down the long back straight made the whole experience that much more immersive.
Driver Jaime Melo sets the bar for the other two drivers to beat, while Mika Salo shows Johnny Mowlem the realism of Sebring in Forza Motorsport 2.
It wasn't long before the #62 Ferrari's triumvrate of drivers, Mika Salo, Jaime Melo, and Johnny Mowlem wandered into the paddock to get a look at the game. As far as I can tell (and you can see in the pictures), they were instantly transfixed on Forza Motorsport 2.
"Really incredible picture quality, guys," Salo said of Forza 2's graphics, while wrangling the wheel and tempering the throttle during his first lap. You could tell Salo was getting a feel for the game, soaking in the subtleties of our physics system.
The most eager driver to get behind the wheel was recent FIA GT champ Jaime Melo -- earlier, he had already come by a few times to check on the status of the triple-screen setup, actually sitting down at one point even before the game was running, just to get a feel for the wheel and pedals.
Ex-Ferrari F1 racing giant Mika Salo attempts to beat Jaime Melo's fastest time of 2:07. He does and sets a 2:03 record.
On average, it took the drivers about two laps to nail the feel of the game and dial into both the physics and the handling of the wheel/pedals. It was fascinating to see their learning process happen in real-time in front of my eyes. The impressive thing to note was that none of the Risi drivers battled the game in order to tame a familiar and simulated, yet ultimately different reality with their #62 Ferrari on Sebring.
Two laps to reprogram their training to the weight and feel of the Xbox 360 Force Feedback Wheel and its much-lighter gas and brake pedals. Still, all three drivers were able to recover quickly from slippage and oversteer, as well as hit their lines with regularity. By all accounts, these drivers, who likely never play videogames, were clocking in very competitive times in their GT2 car.
Soon, Melo and Salo began a friendly bout of smack-talking, taking turns on the simulator, chasing each other's ghost on the track, and lopping off seconds with every other go. After about 3 laps each, they were shaving laptimes down to the 2:03 to 2:04 mark. At one point, Mika Salo turns to me and asks, "Do you guys have (the circuit) Long Beach in this game? I've never driven it before and I need to learn it for the next race." Although I had to explain that Forza Motorsport 2 was not a dedicated ALMS game, it felt great to have Mika Salo tell you that Forza Motorsport 2 and the triple-screen setup is something he would purchase to practice for races.
Jaime Melo tries to top Mika Salo's fastest lap while chief technician Rick Mayer (left), Salo and Johnny Mowlem look on.
Melo's feedback on the feel of the #62 Ferrari 430GT was that in real-life, they could go flat out on the throttle in third gear without losing traction in the rear. In the game, the car was fishtailing and needed correcting under the same circumstances.
After some discussion, we discovered why the car was running a little different. We typically demo the triple-screen setup with traction control turned off, whereas in real-life, Risi Competizione runs their cars with traction control turned on. After all, it's better to stay on the track and lose a little power on the corner exits than to spin completely off the track. After we turned on TCS for ol' #62, Melo was back behind the wheel and feeling much better about the car.
Risi driver Johnny Mowlem spends some quality alone time with Forza Motorsport 2 while VRX's sales manager Don Rottiers looks on.
Those of you who followed the 12 Hours of Sebring already know that Melo then went out there on the real track and nabbed pole position for GT2 class. His time? 2:02.439, which was just a second faster than his fastest laptime in Forza Motorsport 2 a couple hours earlier. Incidentally, the second fastest qualifying time in GT2 was Petersen/White Lightning's new F430GT with a time of 2.02.701. And prophetically, third during qualifying was the extremely competitive Porsche 911 GT3 RSR from Flying Lizard Motorsports, driven by Jorg Bergmeister.
Little did anyone know at the time just how much of a foreshadowing this would be for the nailbiting conclusion of the 12 Hours of Sebring.
Only Happy When it Rains? Not So Much.
Thursday's gameplay session with the Risi drivers was an absolute success story for Turn 10. We not only discovered that our game met their quality bar in terms of realism, but also that Forza 2 was actually useful in helping them memorize their lines and hone their reflexes on Sebring. The goal, of course, was to get the drivers to play even more of the game the following day. Friday began promising enough, but soon the same weather system that hammered the Tampa bay area moved inland and started pelting Sebring with the same intensity.
Giuseppe Petrotta -- legendary designer of the Ferrari Enzo and 360 Modena -- takes a virtual Enzo out on the track at Sebring. And for the record, Petrotta is very proud of the way the Enzo handled when "Dietrich" tore the car in half at high speed.
We had the triple-screen simulator setup early morning and the drivers came back, clamoring for more Forza Motorsport 2. Unfortunately, high winds and leaky paddock tents spelled disaster for the triple-screen system. Water, which started as a trickle and quickly turned into a steady stream through the holes in the vinyl tent. We quickly tore down the triple-screen and stowed the Xbox 360s, plasma screens, and amplifiers back into the Risi trailers.
A desperate attempt to try and keep the VRX seat and 360 Wireless FFB Wheel dry during the rain.
With the rain now coming down in sheets, and a rising wind that threatened to blow away the tent over our heads (in fact, one of the crew on another team nearly had two of his fingers sheared off from a wind/tent incident in the paddock area), many of the Risi crew took refuge inside the two massive Volvo tractor/trailers. Risi's chief engineer Rick Mayer had seen it all through the years, but he was concerned about the rain.
He explained that if road conditions are bad but still competitive, the governing folks over at IMSA throws the yellow flag and racers are to proceed with caution. If road conditions are determined to be dangerous, authorities will red flag the race but continue to keep the clocks running.
Practice for the #62 crew was cut short due to rain on Friday.
"My worry is that if the rain doesn't let up come the race, we're eventually going to run out of rain tires for a 12 hour race," Mayer told me. "Sebring can be a *expletive* when it comes to racing in the wet. What happens is that the uneven concrete slabs could collect up to a few inches of rain and before you know it you're running through massive puddles at turn 1. What you get is the GT-class cars dominating the field since the prototypes are running so low to the ground they start floating and hydroplaning like boats."
This particular Star Mazda race car had trouble getting out to the track after it left its tent. The driver, in this case, also became the lead tech. They eventually got the car working -- 15 minutes later.
Which is probably why the Star Mazda cars (which piggyback on top of the ALMS tour and race a day or two beforehand) had a tough time out there on the track that day. Although it's somewhat expected that there are always on-track incidents in the Star Mazda series, the rain certainly helped guarantee that self-fulfilling prophecy.
The Risi Competizione drivers sign autographs in the rain.
By mid-afternoon, with the rain showing no signs of chilling out, the Risi drivers decided to head back to their hotels for some much needed rest before the big race. Soon afterwards, we made our own 80 mile trek back to the Econo Lodge.
The 12 Hours of Sebring
After days of preparation, it was finally race weekend -- and what a weekend it was. The downpour from the day before had ceased and seemed to have rinsed the grime from Sebring's drab veneer. The vibe at Risi Competizione was extremely positive, even though they knew going into the season that 2007 was to field some of their toughest competition yet. "We have a year of experience with the 430GT behind us now and Jaime was very, very good in qualifying for us. We have done a lot of work on the car and we certainly didn’t expect to be slow. I like the results so far, but this year the ALMS GT2 is going to be incredibly competitive, so we cannot let up,” said the team's managing director (and owner) Giuseppe Risi.
The #62 Ferrari, about to take a brutal beating out on the track.
In the paddock, the crew was prepping both cars to take to the track. Although Jaime Melo scored pole position during qualifying the day before, an on-track spinout towards the end of the session at turn 1 flat-spotted his Michelins. As the ALMS rules state, teams have to start the race with the same set of tires that they used to achieve their qualifying time. As a safety precaution, the #61 Forza 2 Ferrari opted to start at the back of the starting grid as a penalty for swapping out new tires for the start of the race.
Whoa, oops!
The decision to swap position for a fresh set of tires was made just before race time. “We have checked the race car over,” noted Rick Mayer, Risi's chief engineer, “it’s in great shape and suffered no damage and the Michelin tires are fine. But we just do not want to take any chances at the start of the race. The car is fast enough for it not to be a worry. Actually, since our record when starting from the back of the pack is so good, it could be more of a worry for our competitors.”
Vital components like suspension and struts are completely replaced before every race.
In attending previous ALMS races as a guest of Risi Competizione, I usually split my time between watching the pit crew and hitting up various corners to get a glimpse of cars. This time was different. Having already met our original goal of getting the Risi guys to play and comment on Forza Motorsport 2, we decided to take advantage of a relative quiet paddock and lots of downtime during the 12 hour race by opening up the triple-screen simulator to the game's first ever public showing.
The #62 Ferrari battles Petersen/White Lightning's 430GT at turn 1.
Well, first public showing insofar as non-press folks were allowed to sit down and do hotlaps in Risi's Ferrari 430GT on Sebring. As a result, I spent most of the 12 Hours of Sebring back at the paddock, sneaking away only to check on the progress of the race on a nearby monitor.
Sebring attendees couldn't get enough of Forza Motorsport 2.
Even before we got the triple-screen actually running in front of Risi's paddock, traffic came to a halt in front of the tent and folks amassed. For race fans, I think it's the natural effect of seeing a simulator cockpit attached to three plasma TVs at a race track. It's an irresistable call for all racing fans, especially when what they see running at 60fps, 150 mph, is a GT2 car at the very track they're standing on. Throughout the day, Forza Motorsport 2 attracted masses of Sebring attendees, all of whom were eager to get behind the wheel.
Folks were equally amazed by the triple-screen setup as they were with the fact that we're the first game they've ever seen to feature Sebring.
There was typically a group of 15 to 25 people at the triple-screen station at all times. Perhaps the most surprising thing to see during the day-long demo session was the fact that the audience for Forza Motorsport 2 ranged from your typical 18-32 year old male, to much younger, much older, and plenty of women to boot. We had ALMS crew techs, racing instructors, racing students, gamers, non-gamers, massage therapists, heck, the whole spectrum of folks who attend ALMS races, jamming away at the game. Often times, I found myself enforcing a last lap policy to make room for others.
Amateur racer Jared McGillicuddy was one of the fastest and most consistent racers of the day. His buddies cheered and jeered in the background.
One particularly skilled player was Jared McGillicuddy, an amateur racer who had done some time on the real Sebring, and easily set the best lap times of the day with a Panoz prototype. He had a group of buddies who egged him on -- first to switch to manual transmission, then it was to turn off traction control and stability management. To his credit, Jared was able to continue shaving off laptimes even with all assists turned off. He was able to finally achieve a hotlap time of 1:53xx with the Panoz LMP. For his excellent show of skill, I promised to send him a copy of the game when it comes out this May.
Back on the track, Petersen/White Lightning's 430GT fends off a pair of Porsche 911 GT3 RSRs.
A pattern definitely emerged from the day -- those who were good at Forza Motorsport 2 on the Wireless FFB Wheel were not gamers but folks who had actual racing experience out on the track. They adapted quicker to the wheel and pedal environment, were able to learn right away that moving the wheel lock-to-lock will only land you into the wall, and that you should never stomp on the gas or the brakes -- modulation is key. This theory was supported by the fact that the Risi drivers were able to "master" Forza 2 so quickly, and why the best times set by the public were all by folks who had prior racing experience or were racing instructors themselves. Of course, get these same folks playing Forza 2 on a game controller with an analog stick and you'd have a totally different outcome.
The #61 Ferrari suffered an on-track spinout and collision with the Flying Lizard Porsche.
At one point during the otherwise crisis-free day at the paddock, the #61 Krohn Racing 430GT limped back to home base with a crushed front fender and smoke rising from the engine. Driven by Nic Jönsson, Colin Braun, and car owner Tracy Krohn, the #61 Ferrari was struck by Flying Lizard Motorsport's #44 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR when it spun out three hours and seven minutes into the race. The collision took out the Porsche's left-rear suspension and tire, while crushing the front end of the #61 Ferrari and damaging its radiator. When #61 hobbled back to the paddock, the crowd instantly switched their attention to the wounded Ferrari and its subsequent frontal surgery, which involved replacing the radiator, and concocting emergency engine coolant to save the motor.
Risi's pit crew frantically rebuild #61's front end, installing new radiators in the process.
The damage to the car took over an hour to repair, and by the time they got back out on the track, the #61 Krohn Racing 430GT was approximately 30 laps down. Although the car was out of the fight, #61 did finish the race, landing ninth in GT2 and 24th overall -- which is no easy task by any measure. And as the sister car to #62, Risi Competizione picked up some much needed points as a team for the 2007 ALMS series. Team owner Tracy Krohn remarked on their website that "the idea is to finish and anytime you finish a race like this, it's a positive. It's got to be a positive for this car. Working with Nic and Colin has been a real pleasure. The team has been a real pleasure. Risi has done a great job and I'm really proud of them."
The drivers of the #61 Krohn Racing Ferrari 430GT after the crash. Young Colin Braun holds his forehead as they're held back more than 30 laps due to repairs.
We finally broke down and packed up the Forza 2 triple-screen setup by 6pm -- which was no easy task, but I'll spare you guys the gory details. But preparing the huge VRX cockpit to be ship-ready so the boys at Sebring's shipping and receiving department could come pick up all the pieces with no confusion took much longer than we'd hoped. By the time it was all said and done, there was only about an hour of the race left. We ran over to the Risi pit as soon as we could and was on-hand to witness one of the closest finishes in Sebring class history.
Photo courtesy of risicompetizione.com.
Those of you who watched the race on TV can certainly attest to this classic match-up between Ferrari and Porsche. In the last hour of the race, as if in revenge for having taken out its #44 sister Porsche earlier in the day, Flying Lizard Motorsport's #45 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR, driven by a determined Jorg Bergmeister, haunted Risi's #62 F430GT until the very end. Bergmeister chased down Jaime Melo and slashed away at his lead. As the clock ticked down toward hour 12, Risi had a turn of events which would cascade into an unbelievable fight to the finish between Ferrari and Porsche. During a quick splash 'n dash refueling trip to the pits, Risi was penalized 20 crucial seconds for having a pit crew member's helmet visor up during refueling.
Photo courtesy of risicompetizione.com.
That penalty, and the fact that Jaime Melo was now doing the final laps of their 12 hour tour with fading brake pads. (In fact, by the last lap, Melo would have no brakes to work with.) When these dueling GT2 cars were on the second to the last lap of the race, fireworks spiraled through the sky and lit up the starting grid -- the P1 and P2 cars had just finished the race and Audi and Acura both claim first in-class, with Audi as the overall champs. So for the GT2 leaders, it came down to the final agonizing lap. With less than two minutes left in the race, Bergmeister has Melo in his sights and flashes his headlights to signal his pass. Melo, on the other hand, does not relent. It was a battle of wills, as much as it was a waltz of strategic positioning, with Melo blocking the Porsche's approach where he could.
The pit crew of the #62 F430GT watch anxiously as Jaime Melo, running with no brakes and a double stint on the track, fight off Jorg Bergmeister in his Porsche 911 GT3 RSR.
But you could tell Melo was losing time at each corner. Slippage coming out of turn 16 allowed Bergmeister to finally pull up next to the ailing Ferrari. The final back straight before Sebring's infamous turn 17 looked more like a deadly high-school drag race than something out of the dignified American Le Mans. Bergmeister takes this chance to pull up next to Melo, pushing the Ferrari's line towards the outside as they go into turn 17's bumpy right-hand corner.
In the Risi pit, there's nothing to do except watch the drama unfold on closed-circuit television. Nothing to do except hold your head in your hands and pray for an on-track miracle.
Photo courtesy of risicompetizione.com.
And then prayers were answered. Just before diving into the final corner, Melo ducks behind the Porsche and tucks stealthily into the inside line, guns the Ferrari and rides the edge of traction through the turn. Now, nose-to-nose, wheel-to-wheel, the two cars swing around turn 17, only to touch briefly and bounce off each other, giving Melo a slight lead as both cars cross the finish line in parallel. Risi Competizione wins the 12 Hours of Sebring with only a two-tenths of a second margin. 12 grueling hours came down to the final corner on the final lap.
He's done it! Melo's done it! Risi Competizione wins the 12 Hours of Sebring!
It was a rollercoaster in the Risi pit. Coming out of turn 16, I could feel the mood rise and fall as Bergmeister closed in on Melo. When the cars finally crossed the start/finish line with the Ferrari inches ahead of the Porsche, a collective, primal, bellowing of joy erupted from the Risi pit. We shook hands, hugged each other, and jumped up and down. Then it was out to the podium to see the winners get their due champagne.
Confetti and champagne on the podium for the class winners.
Congratulations to everyone at Risi Competizione for a well-deserved and certainly hard-earned victory at the 12 Hours of Sebring. Turn 10 will be rooting for you guys as you head out to St. Petersburg, FLA, for round two in the 2007 ALMS season.
Risi team manager Dave Sims holds up double trophies for their hard work.
Later this week, look forward to our release of the Japanese production car list, as well as another Weekly Pitpass Report on Friday!
-forzamotorsport.net/
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Wednesday, March 14, 2007 |
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Forza Motorsport 2 Makes Impact at GDC 2007
By: Che Chou
All Eyes on Forza Motorsport 2...
Welcome back to the Turn 10 Weekly Pitpass Report, your regular glimpse and update on Xbox 360's forthcoming racing simulation, Forza Motorsport 2. In case this is your first visit to Forzamotorsport.net or the Pitpass, you can go check out what we've been doing for the past 37 weeks or so in our archive section. Yes, there is a method to this madness. Sometimes.
It's been a downright electrifying week here at Turn 10 as we stretched our staff thin crunching to finish Forza 2 and sent folks to the annual Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco. A few days ago, we opened the doors for the press to come and test drive Forza 2 at GDC. Just a taste of our quadruple-screen racing cockpit setup to get 'em hooked for more. As a result, the question we heard most often from the games press down at GDC was "when are we going to get review builds?" (We'll let our PR folks answer that one.)
Forza 2 also got some terrific coverage from our demo event, from just about every major media outlet out there. In case it's been too overwhelming to follow (or you're just lazy), the diligent moderators over at our #1 fan site Forza Central have gathered all the stories in one convenient location. Still, even with all the handicam videos and new Forza 2 screenshots this week, many in our community are wondering when they're going to see some hi-def direct feed footage of the game in motion. We can't give you an exact date other than to say that it should be soon -- and it'll probably make its debut on one of the major gaming sites out there. Just know that stuff is in the works.
In the short term, you should tune in to next week's Forza Motorsport Showdown finale. Why? Well, besides all the on-track drama, you'll see video pitpass #4 with more direct feed footage of Forza 2 -- this time on Road Atlanta, where Showdown takes place. I also must say, Dan Greenawalt looks uncharacteristically excited in the latest segment. I think he's finally warming up to Hollywood.
The Audio of Forza Motorsport 2 at GDC
Besides showing off the game to press this week, Turn 10 also held GDC sessions for attendees who are interested in the art of game design and development. Turn 10 game director Dan Greenawalt discussed something regular readers are already familiar with in regards to Forza 2 -- the importance of force feedback and advanced physics in a racing simulation. For a good summary of his thesis on this topic, read a recent article he penned on force feedback in Forza Motorsport 2.
Meanwhile, Turn 10's audio lead Greg Shaw held an extensive session on the monumental task of creating the authentic car audio in Forza 2. For a game with more than 300 cars, thousands of upgrade possibilities, track ambience, and 3 hours of original and licensed music, Greg and his team pulled off an audio miracle in Forza 2.
Those of you who couldn't make it over to GDC (what, you mean you're not a game developer??) here's an idea of the topics Greg covers in his presentation. Starting from ground zero, Greg laid out the challenge his team faced of creating and capturing sounds for Forza 2. Their strategy was to modularize car sounds into engine and exhaust notes, bolt-on sounds, tire audio, and collision sounds.
In fact, every car in Forza 2 has approximately 19 unique sounds (divided into exhaust, engine intake, cams/valves, transmission, turbo, and supercharger) that come together to form thousands of different combinations, depending on the upgrades and mods of a particular car. The philosophy of the audio team was to think of a car's engine as a complicated wind instrument with the following events:
Tuned-length/volume air intake system
Air enters cylinders through intake valves
Fuel mixes with air and a spark causes it to explode
Explosion exits through exhaust valves
Exhaust system changes volume and shapes acoustic quality
Greg also revealed some trade secrets by demonstrating how we captured authentic sounds for superchargers and turbo kits. In case you don't recognize what the contraption above actually is, it's a supercharger pulley device built by the team (with the help from a machine shop). The idea, of course, is to capture both the intense sound of air being compressed and the noise of a supercharger's internal gearing. Likewise, with turbo kits, the team traveled down to a turbo factory in Southern California and force fed a ton of different turbo kits a whole lot of air and caught it all on tape.
The session was rounded off with discussion on how our audio team captured the tire and collision sounds you'll hear in the game. Yours truly went on many of these audio excursions and the tire/skid recordings were definitely some of my most memorable times here at Turn 10. We essentially rented a Crown Victoria and drifted the snot out of it at an airstrip to capture sound for a variety of scenarios (skidding, braking, accelerating, burnouts, etc.) Ah the sweet sweet smell of rubber.
Next Week:
Before we TGIF and peace out, here's a peek at the next 7-9 days here at Turn 10. As Forza Motorsport 2 continues to round corners (yes, by the time we release the "latest" screenshots, we probably already have a better build), the primary focus is still to continue polishing the game by bringing the bug count to zero. Tournaments has recently come online and testers are swarming upon this new Xbox Live-enabled feature to make sure it works as intended. Graphics tuning and bug fixing is another important area and folks are staying late nights all day every day to polish the game visually.
Recently tuning on rumble for the Xbox 360 controller was finalized and it feels so awesome and satisfying in your hands. Lots of subtle additions have been made to rumble, including actually feeling gear shifts, drivetrain vibration, engine idle, and contact (like punting cones off the track). Of course, this is on top of the already extensive list of haptic info rumble already gives you (peak friction, suspension travel, etc.) The overall result is total intuition when you play with a controller as your hands are constantly being fed information.
And finally, we look forward to the return of the 2007 season of the American Le Mans Series when they hold their inaugural race at Sebring in Florida next week. As you may know, we've been working with the folks over at our sponsored team Risi Competizione. To give their drivers an edge for the 12 Hours of Sebring, we're bringing our triple-screen VRX racing cockpit out to the track for them to get some extra time on Sebring in Forza 2. And of course, racers Mika Salo and Jaime Melo will be driving their fiery signature #62 F430GT in the game. We'll be on-hand to witness the race as well as take notes from their hands-on time with Forza Motorsport 2 for our own tuning purposes in the final weeks of development.
So look for updates next week as we head out to Sebring!
-Forzamotorsport.net
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Wednesday, March 07, 2007 |
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Artificially Intelligent
By: Che Chou and Dan Greenawalt
His Racing Skills are Real But He is Not...
Welcome, one and all, to the Turn 10 Weekly Pitpass Report -- your five-day summary into the lives of game developers and a little racing simulation we'd like to call Forza Motorsport 2. In case you've only just heard of the game, or have come wafting this way courtesy of SPEED channel and the Forza Motorsport Showdown series, feel free to get caught up with the past 10 months of development on the game here. Those of you who have stuck with us through thick, thin, and now total retail imminence will be happy to hear that we've got a very special Pitpass Report today covering the fascinating voodoo of artificial intelligence, and specifically, how they'll change the way Forza Motorsport 2 feels and plays.
Unicorns, Rainbows, and Trolls...
As spillover from last week's Pitpass Report about Auction House, here's the last word on "unicorn" cars. The term unicorn was coined because mythically speaking, unicorns were a rare breed of creatures not often seen by human eyes. The unicorn cars in Forza 2 can only be purchased through Auction House and you're going to have to outbid your fellow players for these fairly rare cars. So which cars are they and how did we determine which cars should be considered unicorns?
Well, we're not going to get into how the design team came upon the decisions that they did, but let's just say this: There aren't very many unicorn cars from the car roster, so even if you never bother with them, you may never notice with 300+ other cars to keep you quite occupied. Also, unicorn cars were determined to be such based, in part, on how rare they are in the real world. Will they dominate a class or a race? Unlikely. None of them are R, U, or even S class cars. They exist solely for the purpose of being rare and something difficult (but definitely not impossible) to obtain. Since we'll be auctioning them off at very regular intervals, there's a good chance many of you will have them when all is said and done. But if you don't try, you'll never have a complete collection of cars.
This Week at Turn 10...
So let's move onto the flurry of activity surrounding Forza 2 both here at Turn 10 and in the press this week. Here at home, snow kept our commute to work interesting for a couple days, forcing some folks to swap for winter tires, while others ditched cars on the sides of roads and trekked it by foot. Luckily, bad weather hasn't been much of an obstacle in the progress of the game, which sees significant improvements on good days, and less bugs overall on any given day. For instance, yesterday saw the implementation of our new driver models, which look considerably better than the placeholder ones we've been using this whole time.
The entire team has also been hammering away at the single-player career mode for last minute tuning purposes and to ensure that the offline game is fun and addictive. I myself have been bitten by the "just one more level advance or race before I actually go and do any real work today" bug. Even so, I can't wait until the Forza 2 eco-system is alive and bustling with activity. It's going to be so insane to just hop online and browse for cars people are auctioning off, or in my spare time, hopping into a tournament and watching it via Forza TV and admiring everyone's paintjobs and techniques. But for now, it's nothing but single-player and our goal is to make it shine.
In other news here at Turn 10, our triple-screen developer has hooked up a fourth monitor to the Forza Motorsport 2 racing cockpit here in the team area. This time, it's a rear-view mirror running on its own Xbox 360, at 60fps, with full detail -- and the best part is -- it's even shaped like a rear-view mirror. Absolute madness. Check it out:
Yes, aside from purchasing three very nice Dell LCD monitors and one of these nifty rear-view mirror looking doohickies, you're gonna have to run your setup on four system-linked Xbox 360s with four separate copies of the game. But for a handful of you out there, I know that's the only way you're going to experience Forza 2. Heck, your significant other will certainly understand if you just gotta have this rig in the middle of the living room. I mean, that's what relationship compromises are all about, right?
Alright then, moving right along. The middle of the week saw another episode of the Forza Motorsport Showdown with our friend and young gun Ken Gushi dominating in the drift event. A few of you even noticed the Forza 2 customization video pitpass we ran during one of the commercial spots. So what's in store for next week? Well, we're going to have more behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with the players in Forza Motorsport Showdown, and a new video pitpass focused on physics and damage. After handing off the master to SPEED channel today, I have to admit next week's spot will definitely be the coolest and most action packed one yet, with gameplay footage you won't want to miss (especially since it took us a while to get the crash just perfect). You'll see. So check back next week for more Showdown goodness.
Forza Motorsport 2 on Parade...
When we said we were going to show more of the game a few weeks back, we weren't kidding. As a result of a recent press visit by the folks over at 1UP.com and EGM, we've got coverage in the form of The 1UP Show and a preview of Forza 2 on 1UP.com. The screenshots you see sprinkled here are from their exclusive preview; if you'd like to see them full-sized, you've got to head over to their site and give'em some love. Just so you know, it's never easy for us to show cars get smashed up and damaged, even if they're of the tuner or race variety.
No manufacturer wants to see their breadwinners all scuffed up on the track -- which is why it's always a challenge to do editorial features on damage in the game. The fact that we were able to get some of them out there today is testament to the uncanny powers of our licensing team. The world of licensing (essentially determining which cars can and can't be in the game, as well as which cars we can show and take screens of) is a fascinating minefield and one worth exploring in an upcoming Pitpass Report, believe you me.
Lastly, next week is the annual Game Developer's Conference, where the greatest and most creative folks in the biz get together to talk shop about what they do. Expect even more screenshots to come out of the event, as well as lots more hands-on impressions as we take our massive triple-screen setup down to San Francisco and lay it bare for all editors to play and experience. Yours truly will be down there for a few days, connecting with the press and helping Turn 10's game director Dan Greenawalt field questions about the game. Keep an eye on the blog as we take you to GDC with a trusty laptop and a Nokia N70 phone camera.
So then, now that we've gotten the housekeeping out of the way, let's get into this week's Pitpass Report about Forza Motorsport 2 AI. It's fascinating and I promise you will never see these little virtual drivers the same again.
Part 2.
An Indepth Discussion on In-game AI with Turn 10 Game Director Dan Greenawalt.
03.02.07 // 16:00
Every racing game talks about Artificial Intelligence (AI) innovation. But when you look at the evolution of racing game AI over the past decade, AI innovation really hasn’t kept pace with advances in graphics and audio. That shouldn’t be a revelation to anyone. The truth is it shouldn’t be a surprise either. Graphics and audio get immediate benefits from more powerful hardware and optimization tricks – and we get more powerful hardware all the time. AI really isn’t about the hardware as much as it is about the approach. The best AI work usually takes place in different technology arenas far away from games -- such as robotics and search engines. In many ways, AI tends to be more of an academic field rather than an entertainment one. In this enlightening Q&A with Turn 10's game director Dan Greenawalt, we go deep into how Forza 2's AI behaves, and why it'll set the bar on racing game AI this generation.
Q: In Forza Motorsport 1 on the Xbox, you guys had this "Drivatar" technology that seemed pretty ambitious at the time, and certainly on paper, but in practice, it had shortcomings in the gameplay department...
Dan Greenawalt: I’ve worked on a lot of racing games over the years with several world-class developers all over the world. I can honestly say that the original Forza Motorsport featured a revolutionary approach to AI. That’s not to say that it was perfect by any means. Our AI limitations were not caused by an outdated approach. Rather, most of our AI issues are the result having such a new approach that we struggled to get it under control. On the up side, because of this approach, our AI has room to grow where other systems will be forever capped.
Q: So how does racing game AI usually work, in a more conservative game?
DG: In many racing games, the AI doesn’t use the same physics parameters as the player. The AI opponents are more like “rocket powered shopping carts”, blindly following a line on the track. The AI cars don’t have the same friction values or moment of inertia as the player. The power is applied to the body or the tires as an impulse that is scaled by the gear ratios. Suspension animation and body roll is handled by the same physics engine as the player, but doesn’t necessarily apply to the vehicles' friction. This approach has its benefits -- it’s very lightweight on the CPU, it’s fairly predictable and easy to tune for gameplay, and it’s very easy to “rubber-band” to the player. This approach has got some drawbacks too -- the AI may not be able to drift or yaw naturally and the AI can spin out the player, but can’t be spun out itself, the AI is fast where it should be slow and slow where it should be fast.
Q: So what was the new approach you guys took with Forza 1 to curb the status quo on racing game AI?
DG: In Forza Motorsport, we use Drivatar technology to drive our AI opponents using the same physics system driven by the player -- it doesn’t cheat. The Drivatar technology was developed by Microsoft’s Research department in Cambridge England. There are some definite benefits to working in such a large and diverse company -- resources like this just aren’t available for other game developers. They didn’t start out developing it for Forza -- far from it. At first it was more of an academic AI project for a group of robotics and search researchers. They chose to develop it for a racing application because of their passion for Formula One racing. Turn 10 was originally contacted as more of a test bed for their research. We had an internally developed simulation engine and a graphics renderer. Also, we had already hired a PhD robotics researcher onto our own dev team to do our in-game AI. He worked very closely with the research team in Cambridge to get their Drivatar technology integrated into the game. As we got their code better integrated into our game, it became clear that they were onto something cool, new and sorta scary.
Q: Scary?
DG: Drivatar technology is a Bayesian learning system. It observes and remembers racing techniques and generalizes what it’s learned across different cars and tracks. As it gets more training, it generalizes less and optimizes more. This means it can be trained by observing humans, through drawn splines and overrides or by automating laps with random variants. However, it can also be unpredictable and learn bad habits. It can learn to cut corners, early or late apex different areas of the track and even check-brake. While this is cool and interesting, it can be a game designer’s worst nightmare. In many ways, it’s more like a child then a traditional AI system. You teach it more than you script it.
Q: So how much "schooling" did the AI have in Forza 1?
DG: In the original Forza Motorsport, we didn’t get the system integrated early enough to realize it’s true potential. We had barely gotten our heads wrapped around its capabilities when we released it out into the world. As a result, I would say it was trained up to an adolescent stage of development. It was still doing things that we had to scratch our heads at -- "why did it do that?" Sometimes it was a bully. Sometimes it was tentative. We could make it drive really fast, but we knew it could drive faster with better training.
We’ve often discussed allowing it to continue to learn after it’s been released -- basically using the player community to make the AI smarter. There are a lot of cool gameplay possibilities there. But truthfully, I’m still too scared of the system to unleash it like that. I worry that it would learn some deviant behavior or just get too fast to compete against. It’s always going to be in the back of my mind, but I think we have to wait until we understand the technology and all its capabilities better.
Q: So "les enfant terrible" returns for Forza Motorsport 2. What have you guys done to leverage the potential of Drivatar and still reconcile it with game design and balance?
DG: For Forza Motorsport 2, we assembled a really strong internal team to improve and rebuild our AI for the Xbox 360. We’ve now had a full product cycle to play with the system and wrestle the Drivatar technology into submission. In the past year in particular we’ve learned a lot, fixed a bunch of bugs and done a ton of training. That said it still does things we don’t expect. It’s still learning. It’s still growing. At this point, I would say it’s in its late teens. It’s faster. It uses the car better. It knows the tracks better. It wheel-to-wheel races much better. It doesn’t cheat and it drives the same complex physics engine as the player.
Q: What are some specific improvements you guys have made to the AI in Forza 2?
DG: There are many, but here are some highlights...
The AI takes a simulated test drive in every car before it races it to better learn the car’s capabilities. This allows it to understand how to get the most out of each individual car. It does NOT drive a Civic the same way it drives a Ferrari. This is at the heart of our ability to allow the player to hire AI drivers to drive the player’s custom tuned car. Even with upgrades, the AI will quickly learn the car’s quirks and drive its wheels off.
The AI has a more accurate understanding of the physics engine than in the original Forza Motorsport. It is much better at estimating how much grip it will have available for turning, braking, accelerating at all times, and is better at using this to make a fast run through each turn. This may be one of its strongest aptitudes right now -- it has a very accurate prediction of its own performance.
In the original Forza Motorsport, the AI had a very rigid understanding of the shape of each track, that was technically accurate, but not necessarily the way a race car driver would see it. A chicane, for example, was often seen as a rapid series of alternating corners. But a real driver can recognize that there’s a much smoother line through there. For Forza Motorsport 2, the AI has a better understanding of the driving line within the literal track edge.
It’s much more cognizant of the cars around it and openings for it to pass. There are cases where the AI in the original just didn’t recognize it when another driver made a mistake. It has evolved to take better advantage of these kinds of opportunities. Moreover, it’s become really fun to wheel-to-wheel race against. This is one of the changes in the AI I’m most happy about.
Q: You mention hiring AI to drive for the player in single-player races. Does that mean each one will have unique characteristics?
DG: Yes. One of the coolest new features of our AI system is Drivatar personalities. We have persistent AI drivers that move through career with you. Each one of these drivers has a unique skill level, aggression tendencies and risk tolerance. The top drivers carve a consistently fast line around the track, while the lesser drivers are less consistent and don’t always use the whole car. Some of the drivers are extremely anxious to pass, darting inside during braking zones when there’s the smallest of available windows (Juan Pablo Montoya, anyone), while others are content to wait for a clear opening. This creates a lot of interesting situations during a race, as fast but tentative drivers may get bottled up behind slower cars, only to be passed by less-skilled, more aggressive drivers. We also tried to train tendencies for the real-world race car drivers we feature in the game. Without pulling up debug info or watching a replay, it’s much harder to see the system at work with the real-world drivers. Since they are modeled on professionals, there is much less observable variance -- they’re just fast.
Q: We're obviously still tuning AI for the game in the final days before ship. Anything else you'd like to add for our readers?
DG: Currently, our biggest challenges come in the area of player prediction. The Drivatars see the player, but they aren’t very good at predicting what the player is going to do. This leads to some pretty humorous situations. At times, the AI looks like it’s getting frustrated with the player. Logically, I know that’s not the case, but it’s hard not to interpret its behavior that way. I find the whole system sort of hypnotic to watch. We have debug hooks that allow you to see what the AI is thinking as it drives. I can’t escape the whole creepy HAL thing -- I know I’m working too much when I think the AI is watching my back. But in a way, our AI is watching… and learning…
-forzamotorsport.net
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