*******C.A.R.S - Community Assisted Race Sim*********

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Developer: Slightly mad studios


Three months ago, Slightly Mad Studios’ Ian Bell shared his vision of a community-funded simulation title right here on VirtualR. What many may have dismissed as a very much utopian vision has gotten extremely real as the studio has been hard at work for the past few months to turn a great idea into a working project.

Named Community Assisted Race Sim, or C.A.R.S. for short, the project will allow ordinary sim racers to become investors in a racing simulation title and get a share of the profits and unmatched access to the development process and a say in the title’s direction.

For the past few months, the guys at Slightly Mad Studios have been hard at work on all fronts as Ian Bell has revealed some exclusive details on the team’s progress. The legal work on the project has just been completed and SMS is ready to launch the project’s website and accept investors within the next 2-3 weeks.

The studio will be offering investment options that will fit any budged, starting out with a 5€ option ending with gold-level commitment of 1000€ and beyond. All investors will be getting access to downloadable development builds throughout the development process, the level of investment will determine the amount of influence each member has though.

While every investor will get to vote on the direction the new title will take, gold members get to participate in board meetings where the bigger calls will be made, always considering the requests from the regular investors. Gold members will even get source-code access to the simulation while smaller investors will be given script access to play with.

Slightly Mad Studios promise a completely transparent development process as all investors get to follow every single bit of progress and every single discussion the developers will be having. The SMS team will work out in the open for all investors to see, there will be no closed-off development forum as all investors get to follow everything the development team does, “even the arguments,” as Ian Bell points out.

C.A.R.S will be used the stripped-down Shift 2 Unleashed engine as starting point, as the team will be adding new modules to it during the course of the development process, including a new DirectX 11 renderer, a new physics engine and new AI. Slightly Mad Studios expect a development cycle of at least 12 months until the finished product is ready, however all investors will be getting access to development builds throughout the process to keep everyone entertained.

Below is a first high-resolution preview, showing an immensely-detailed historical Lotus Formula One car in the garage. SMS is planning to release the first build shortly after the first investors joined, the first release will include a handful of cars and tracks to try out. The base content won’t be too advanced though as the investors will have the final say in the direction that the title will take and what content will be included.

SMS is planning to have fully-licensed content in the finished product, the team may be dealing with generic content in the development builds though while the licensing is being finalised in the background.

For years now, sim racers have been bemoaning the publishers lack of interest in sim racing and the missing influence on developing titles. It looks like Slightly Mad Studios will be changing all that with C.A.R.S.


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Screenshots

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The model seen in the previews is made up of around 250.000 polygons and will run in-game in this kind of quality, thanks to DirectX 11 and the complexity of the used shaders as SMS is aiming to set a new benchmark in visual quality. Aside from pushing the limits in terms of graphics, the studio is also putting equal efforts into the input & physics department.

C.A.R.S., which stands for Community Assisted Race Sim, is a new project by Slightly Mad Studios that will allow sim racers to invest in an upcoming simulation title. In return, the investors will get to have a major say in the direction the title will be taking, get development builds and get to follow a completely transparent development process that shows the SMS team at work.
 
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C.A.R.S. Frequently Asked Questions

What is C.A.R.S.?

C.A.R.S. = Community Assisted Race Sim. The game will be funded by and developed in close cooperation with the (sim) racing / gaming community. People can invest an amount of money up-front, entitling them to receiving profit and taking part in testing of weekly game builds. Depending on the magnitude of his/her investment, an investor has a bigger or smaller voice in what content will get into the game. The game starts as a base game with a few cars and tracks, and will be expanded from there depending on what the community decides.
The game will be free-to-play, with paid extra content (microtransactions).

How can I invest?

Everything will be explained soon on the website www.wmdportal.com

What platform will it be developed on?
The game will be developed on PC, DX11, and back-ported to DX9 and consoles.

Will it be a hardcore sim or arcade?
In the end that will be decided by the community/investors, but the initial aim will be a full/hardcore sim with aids and adjustments to cater for the casual player as well.

Will the game have surround sound?

The game will use a 3D Sound system is using fmod so 5.1 and 7.1 are supported.

What will the graphics engine look like?
The graphics are DX11 including FXAA, depth of field, screen space ambient occlusion, motion-blur and shadows will be improved in DX11 initially, with appropriate back-ports to DX9 and consoles. The engine will use deferred rendering like in Shift 2.

Are those screenshots really in-game graphics?

Yes they are, they show the actual game rendering engine at work with the car in the pit/garage.

What cars will be in the game?
The game will provide a base car from each of the main types (single seater, endurance, historic etc, asphalt racing only) so the investors can feedback on input, handling FFB etc. After that, additional content will be decided on by the investors.
As for the car brands that will be featured, this will also be depending on licensing (=money).

What tracks will be in the game?

TBA
 
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"will run in-game in this kind of quality"

Ok, if they say so. I'll reserve judgement on that until they release some actual game footage rather than some pretty 3DS Max renders.
 
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Have been reading about this since it was first suggested over on the no grip racing forums. I really hope they can pull off everything they are talking about, because it will be epic.
Will be following the progress of this one :)
 
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still thinking how this will run smoothly even on say 6950's or gtx 470's
coz there is so much detail in there

it could be the next level in graphics
 
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Here's hoping they completely scrap Shifts physics engine and start again from scratch. I don't know how much to trust the "new physics engine" statement. Looks gorgeous though, as usual.
 
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still thinking how this will run smoothly even on say 6950's or gtx 470's
coz there is so much detail in there

it could be the next level in graphics

Renders always look good, if it looks anything like that with a decent number (>20) cars on the grid once it's out I'll eat my hat*

*Note: I don't own any hats

Here's hoping they completely scrap Shifts physics engine and start again from scratch. I don't know how much to trust the "new physics engine" statement. Looks gorgeous though, as usual.

Yeah, to make a hardcore sim they'll need either a brand new or a massively re-written physics engine, and they plan to do that in 12 months? Again, I'll believe it when I see it :p

Nice renders and words do not make a good sim, just ask the Racing Legends guys, they were very very nice renders :p
 
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those screens are in game as much as i know.. not renders

Those images are massively more detailed than the graphics in Shift 2, which basically gives 3 options:

It's done on the shift 2 engine but at settings that would give roughly 2.5fps, eg useless.
They're renders.
They've completely re-written the graphics engine and made something truly special.

Now the first two I could believe, the third not so much, if we see those graphics in game with a decent number of cars around I'll be truly shocked.
 
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but
actually after seeing forza 4 visuals...on xbox 360 hardware

they should be able to pull off this kind of visuals in game
on current power of pc hardware
isnt it?
 
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Ian bell-We are well progressed in negotiations with laser scanning specialists to commission scanning of all of the real tracks in the game. The standards we are aiming for are to 2 millimetres accuracy, to the extent that cracks in the asphalt should be discernible.
IanBell is offline Reply With Quote
 
Soldato
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Those images are massively more detailed than the graphics in Shift 2, which basically gives 3 options:

It's done on the shift 2 engine but at settings that would give roughly 2.5fps, eg useless.
They're renders.
They've completely re-written the graphics engine and made something truly special.

Now the first two I could believe, the third not so much, if we see those graphics in game with a decent number of cars around I'll be truly shocked.


i have been fallowing this from the start.. from the first post at no grip forums from ian.. and he said they were not renders and real in game shots but to get these gfx you will really need to have a GOOD system.. so im sure my 8800gt will not look half as good :) and i think they are rebuilding the whole gfx engine and physics engine from shift2
 
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