Hello sim racers!
Today we are pleased to deploy a new Release Candidate update for rFactor 2!
The new build deployed today sees a return of a much-requested feature by our sim racing community here at rFactor 2 – driver labels! We at the studio resolved to review and improve how these labels are shown in the simulation with this new update, and I’m sure you will agree the new design is far more appealing visually than before, with the added bonus of new functionality introduced that now finally shows any in session penalties applied to the driver.
We have extensively tested these new driver labels to ensure they offer the best solution between clarity and visual effect, without compromising the view of the driver and ensure the labels appear and disappear at appropriate distance from the player car – we hope you like what we did!
Other changes that form part of this latest Release Candidate include some further refinements to our graphics engine, with particular attention paid to the way rain is presented on car windshields and subtle but immersive improvements to glare and lighting situations. These changes have offered us the opportunity to further improve this aspect of the software and produce what we believe is a far superior way of representing rain drops on windscreens – adding what we believe is a much enhanced visual experience.
Update Notes
Client 7889012
Dedi 7889035
HUD
- New driver labels
Graphics
- New wet windscreen shading that can be tweaked per car
- Adjusted Lighting Calculations correcting some issues with Direct Light Hue.
- Updated PostFX Glare Settings for more control day vs night
- Updated Windscreen Shader and new Glass shader for Tracks, with improved specular calculations.
Modding
- Fixed duplicated Road and Curb shaders displaying in Max plugins.
How Build Update Branches Work
We now have three separate branches of rFactor 2 for players to select, and depending on your individual requirements you may have a preference for the particular build you wish to use when launching rFactor 2.
Opt-Out – This is the main public build of rFactor 2, without any beta branches or additional early updates applied. This is the build that will be available as default.
Release-Candidate – This build will always feature the latest updates and improvements that have been introduced by our development team ahead of main public release. Although these changes will have been reviewed by our test team here at Studio 397 prior to deployment, we will use this build branch to give our users the opportunity to opt into these changes early, and report any unexpected issues that may or may not occur before we launch to the main public ‘opt-out’ branch of the software.
Previous-Build – This branch will contain a copy of the last public ‘opt-out’ version of rFactor 2, prior to updates being deployed, should any communities need to revert to the last known stable branch of the software for any reason.
As we release new updates for rFactor 2, each branch will ‘move up’ to the next step of the branch ladder, from ‘release-candidate’ to ‘opt-out’ to ‘previous-build’, replaced by the respective new updated version.
rFactor 2 – Available now exclusive to PC on Steam
