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Wow, really beautiful shots. I really like the light, the colours.

Welcome back Simbin

Nice.

That outer terrain looks amazing.

I’m liking this. It looks gorgeous, and very true to how the track looks in real life so far…

Is the simracing market big enough for all those upcoming titles?

Amazing job, Simbin. That looks fantastic.

Well, we obviously can’t drive four or five sims at once (not unless we win the lottery and have plenty of spare time). But I’m budgeting ahead to make sure I can buy all the upcoming titles. There’s been a long drought of good new sims and I look forward to being spoilt for choice. :-)

Based on pictures like this, I think I also need to budget ahead for a new graphics card!

My God! Look at this landscape! =O

This track looks amazing, just like every GTR 3 material released so far.

We’re reached Q3 and still no info on GTR 3 apart from screenshots, I think we’ll see a Q2 2013 release. Can’t wait for it.
.

I dont think you can ever really have to many racing games :D

Fantastic job!

Com8 and 6e66o (well known for Rfactor tracks and updates) are now working for Simbin company :))

Looking good, plenty of trackside objects to hopefully give a good feeling of speed though in shot 4 that tree looks very 2D?

I didn’t know it, fantastic new.

 All of them are 2d-billboards, at most very low-poly plants. But they are looking good enough to give a good overall-look.

Looking sweet !

 Yeah if it carries on like this, we won’t just be arguing over this sim vs that sim any more.  It`ll be this sim vs that sim vs the other sim ! :)

Looks really good. Coupled with SimBin’s strong multiplayer, this is a no brainer purchase (assuming they don’t go for some ‘subscription’ model.)

Whatever sim it is. Track textures and shaders are looking nice. Overall look is nice and atmospheric

 I have already seen a lot worse lol

Reminds me a lot of BF3 graphically.

Take that whatever way you may. IMHO, that means it looks purty, but it also doesn’t look right. There, I said it.

 Don’t worry. It’s gonna be awsm!

 Looks good in some pics but it’s just another non laser scanned tracks, some of the corners are greatly flawed, the track looks way wider than the real thing.

 Yeah, me too. I think they look quite good.

 Come on. Simbin must be completely stupid if they wouldn´t be able to get the track width correct with Google Maps-help and additional data. SMS did it quite good, too. So SimBin shouldn´t be worse.

Guys, Simbin had a economic crysis, they aren’t a big gaming company, they are coming at lower speed really well with these previews shots, I think they can make awesome games with their industrial limitations…

Think, get a Race Driver GRID track and convert to the GTR2, the track will be look “normal” and sometimes worse than plenty modded tracks created by users…why on GRID looks awesome? ’cause of tecnology…

Put Imola 2008 from Race On with a graphical engine of Gran Turismo 5, with those lights and shadows effects…i BET the quality will be impressive…models from GT5 or Forza4 or any next-generation game don’t lose anything if you compare with Simbin games…

Simbin, you have all my support, I became a racing game lover since GTR2 that I play it non-stop nowadays, thanks a lot and keep your fantastic work!

Good to see Bathurst is getting a lot of love nowadays.
I really like this track. ;)

I wonder if they are using the RF2 engine?

Challenge Accepted.

:P

 Are you blind? Do those shots look like 10 year old rF2 crap?

Nice…

I agree, 
I like iracing but i’m getting pretty tired of this “laser scan” talk everywhere. 

The only 10-year-old here appears to be you.

Pretty good to see some new Simbin art, my only concern is that they get swamped by the level of pCARS and AC press about with these quiet little hints now and then.

It looks great. Having driven around that track (lived near it) many times, this looks quite good. The only thing is I hope they get the trees right. The gum trees are unique and it will spoil the whole track if they use trees from another location. It will then become un-Australian.

I am wondering if they will have the V8 supercars as park of the car lineup?

sure they are rfactor sold it to all competitors b4 releasing there own game with it( NOT). hope they have no plans soon to sell to any1 either, make them all make there own bloody engine to keep up with whats going to be the best SIM out there when released. and scanned tracks don’t make a great game so forget about bringing that crap up.

if you want that sort of the details I guess you will have to buy iRacing’s laser scanned version of this track. Accurate elevation changes and bumps are extremely important when simulating a real track people still don’t realize great cars physics is only half way for a complete racing simulation you need laser scanned tracks.

BTW it’s XXXX Gold not XXXX cold

 They’ve actually got XXXXX Cold. LOL

it’s xxxxx in the pics not xxxx ;)
advertising alcoholic beverages isn’t allowed everywhere.

You don’t need laser scanned tracks. You need properly modeled tracks made by people with high standards of quality.

You people don’t seem to understand the real advantage of laser scanned tracks! It’s not the modelling and beauty but accuracy!!! Try building an F1 car with ALL the data provided by Ferrari from their simulators and data gathering and try building the same car on data collected through common information! The same applies to tracks! How are you going to setup a car when the track doesn’t have the same bumps as the one in real life?! How will you turn and where to brake when you don’t have the exactly same track accuracy (which gps will NOT provide)?! If you want just fun go for non laser scanned tracks if you to simulate track behavior just like you want to simulate car physics laser scanned tracks in the only option! I’m not trying to sell iRacing I wish all other sims add laser scanned tracks all I want is to get the best possible experience as I have when I get to the real track! 

Serious inquiring: how accurate can a laser scanned be though? I play iRacing and while I agree it feels great you have to consider that you are basically playing the version of that track when it was scanned. While the layout and elevation rarely changes, the tarmac is constantly being repaired so a lot of the jumps bumps are not necessarily up to date.
Dunno, Im just getting the feeling that no matter what we’ll never get something that’s 100% accurate.

What about SIMBIN ???
What is next title and WHEN ???

Haha fair enough.

 FOV, how does it work?

What a bull*.. if you take iRacing as example.The tracks are spot on.. but the current tire behavior spoils much more than the laserscanning does good. Than iRacing lowered the vertex count significantly for their NTM.So camber and elevation are perfect but general roadnoise is almost not there anymore.Good modelers make sure all major objects are modeled accurately, there will be little and big bumps on the right places.99% of us simracers will never race the tracks in reallife.
85% of all simracers won’t buy in to iRacing.So we have to just pray Simbin does a good job here.

In the end it comes down to one thing. Good competition and a believable driving experience.

I’m pretty sure the tracks haven’t been altered for the NTM in any way, If they were then surely i would of had to redownload every track again and the file sizes would of varied significantly? you may be right? but i don’t think thats accurate. I don’t believe that it is necessary to laser scan the tracks but almost every non laser scanned track I’ve driven feel very 2d and boring to drive, the modellers need to pay more attention to making the surface come alive to compete!

it’s not an iracing thing exclusively, even in rfactor there were two laser scanned circuits available to the public and they were head and shoulder above the other circuits in terms of road feel. Thats the importance of it. Other circuits just feel too flat! Not saying they couldn’t model the bumps in but alot of the time they are missed.

How did this little discussion turn into the benefits of laser scanning and iRacing?

The guy asked for accurate trees.. does iRacing laser scan trees? Even if they do, they are not going to supply them to simbin, because that’s the only possible solution if he doesn’t want to sign up for iR for any reason.

It’s just as annoying to hear how joining iR is the fix for everything “sim racing” as it is to hear how imperfect or a rip off it is.

“How are you going to setup a car when the track doesn’t have the same
bumps as the one in real life?! How will you turn and where to brake
when you don’t have the exactly same track accuracy”

Yeah, we have to be aware that we learn to drive our real F1 cars and GT1 cars and LMP2 cars only on laser scanned tracks. Everything else would be unrealistic.
Oh… wait… over 99% of sim racers don’t own such cars! But at least we know the perfect braking point for a Williams.

It´s not only about physics coming alive more, it´s about realism. 

A teenager sitting in his cellar will NEVER be able to come anywhere near what is essentially a carbon copy of the real track.

It doesn´t matter if the resolution is slightly morphed to make it playable, it still whoops every homemade track out there, yes even the best of the best. 

You can´t compete with laserscanning, this is the reason why AC also went that direction.

Funnily i thought the very same thing. 
Lighting looks identical imo.

you clearly didn’t read my second post… “  I’m not trying to sell iRacing I wish all other sims add laser scanned tracks all I want is to get the best possible experience as I have when I get to the real track! ” BTW wish Simbin all the best and fingers crossed their next title will get me hooked in it!

i dont think any of us own a computer powerful enough to run a true laser scanned track at full res, what you have is a dumbed down surface but the buildings and trees are in the right places , yes you have elevation changes , but dont for one second believe that the track surface is modelled accurately because it isnt ; and please stop holding iracing up as a good example as it isnt its tyre model sucks  

Then why do you waste your time with “simulators”? Yes because simulation = sim+emulator i.e. EMULATING i.e. REAL LIFE! Why don’t you just buy a ps3 and grid and have fun with that because you are part of the 99%? Are we talking about trying to SIMULATE all conditions of racing in real life or not? Seems like you got a surfing board got to the beach but are happy to just get “near” the water but not wetting your feet makes no sense.

yes if you compared with 50 years from now we are sadly in the stone age my friend but if you compare with 15 years ago with are in year 2150 with current laser scanned tracks!

How come nearly every article these days turns into some Sim vs Sim discussion.

My opinion on this matter, no simulation made today and available to us common people is a true simulation. Each simulation is an interpretation and emulation of reality by the people that create it.

There are simulation GAMES! Games you should enjoy and not fight about on every ocassion you come across!

for me the whole idea of laser scanned is superb but its turned into a marketing tool as much as anything else yes it gives us some aspects closer to the reality but its gives the marketing guys more to shout about than the actually simracer

 No fact at all. Just your opinion.

 There are people like you caring about everything being “realistic” and there are about 80% of people having fun with the game and having a great experience without caring about marketing bulls**t and 1mm-correctness.

No one said that you are drawing conclusions from thin air, I merely mentioned IR as an example because their tracks are laser scanned, I could of mentioned the laser scanned circuits available for rfactor because they are incredible too. It makes a good difference from my own experience. The recently released Croft for rfactor 2 felt really good too although it wasn’t laser scanned.

I was mainly questioning the validity of Richards post about the NTM and IR lowering the vertex count.

 I think while that is true is it then really worth time, effort, resources and money to go out to these tracks and laser scan them only to use it as a marketing tool ?  Considering how niche the sim-racing world is, is there a healthy return on that investment ?

Also, and excuse me if I’m being ignorant here as I’m not as clued up as some on this topic, but while the process of laser scanning a track is extremely accurate and can reproduce small bumps etc from the real track, wouldn’t some of that detailed info get lost in the translation to the game because all of that (is it cloud data?) would be far too much for our PC’s to cope with.  So while we may retain accurate layout the bumps etc would be watered down.

I’m not sure you’re right with that simulation=sim+emulator thing.   What would ‘sim’ mean on it’s own?    Simulation and Emulation are two seperate things.

 I am happy to be in that 80%

Someone tell me I’m not the only person hoping these screens are from GTR3!

Humans are not and never will be as exact as a laser. FACT.

It´s like drawing a perfect circle, physically impossible even though you have an abstract perfect circle in your mind. 

Modders can try all they want but they will NEVER be able to beat a laserscan.
If you think that then you live in lala-land.

 You forget that all the scanning data is much simplified to fit home-PC performance. So you will nevertheless not have millimeter-accuracy in the game. And still, it´s personal taste how accurate a track needs to be to have fun.

It´s still lightyears better then anything homemade. 

Personal taste sure but i´ll go with realism.

Last we heard, this is the accuracy breakdown on the iRacing tracks.

Laser picks up at an accuracy of 2mm.
The cloud data has a guide point every 10cm.
The interpolated data between cloud points matches the scan data within 1cm at all points of the race surface.

So while it’s certainly not ‘millimeter accurate’, it’s far better than anything else at the moment. I’m not sure I would notice any bumps smaller than 1cm large anyway, the tire carcas probably absorbs those without affecting the car at all.

See below for the breakdown of the iRacing track accuracy. When they fit the ‘dumbed down’ surface to the scan data it always matches within 1cm.

The tracks were improved last year to better match the scan data.
http://members.iracing.com/jforum/posts/list/50/1469391.page#3320794

The laser scanner does pick up trackside objects, so they have the right locations. Just like every other sim worth their salt they also take thousands of photo references.

As you say, any developer who cares will get the trees right, as long as they don’t intentionally dumb them down to save resources.

I dunno, Kunos seems to think the effort to laser scan is worth it for AC…

“As you say, any developer who cares will get the trees right, as long as they don’t intentionally dumb them down to save resources.”

yes exactly, I’m saying the guy is saying he’s hoping that the trees specific to the area are replicated (Gum trees), that has noting to do with position, they can be perfectly replicated with photos. Laser scanning shouldn’t even need to be brought up here.

Sorry Luke, my post wasn’t a direct response to you, just the first two posts in this thread section. I should have responded directly to the post in question, but the last time I did it didn’t go so well.

I read it, and I’m sorry but it still comes across that way, mainly because it had no real bearing on what was requested by the person you responded to.

I get frustrated with SimBin’s low key approach but reveals like this make their silence almost bearable.

I can’t wait to see what else SimBin have up their sleeves as Bathurst is a fantastic addition.

Given the option, I’d have the laser scanned track over the homemade, but I think with all the data that the devs have available they can get close enough for the average gamer to look and feel real.  It benefits pros who use the sims as a practice tool, but is not so important for a bedroom driver.  I think it’s more of a marketing and selling point in this competitive industry than a necessity for being a plausible driving experience.

With AC, Pcars, and rF2 all coming out I think it would best for Simbin to wait until the community has had their fill with these titles.  

Then we might as well just run fantasy tracks. 

I guess i´m alone in wanting to drive and feel what the real track feels like. 
With laserscanning you get that feel, everytime i watch onboard from a racing series from a certain track i´ve driven on alot i know exactly what the driver goes through. 

It´s like a different level of watching motorsport now for me. 
Sebring for example, i know every bump, every little crest, where it´s bumpy on the exits etc. 

Maybe some day i´ll actually get to do some laps on a circuit i´ve driven in iRacing, i would much more quickly find my way round the real track due to the help of iracing or AC which should arrive soon. 

You have to undestand laserscanning is not just a marketing tool the trolls here like to think.

And some misunderstand the first three letters in SIMracing. 

Great Track! I hear the skeptics and I don’t care! Keep up the good work Simbin. I just hope that GTR3 is as good as GTR2.

 GTR2 was done by SMS team…

Here’s what it should look like, I’m sure if they just looked they could find plenty of real images to base their track on – or just ask, as I have HEAPS!
iRacing may use lasers but they don’t have a Holden in their V8 series……therefore I’d never run it, as for this version by Simbin it’s like most out there, they have the layout but not the elevations…