Game Stock Car 2012
Two Game Stock Car key creators were interviewed by Race Department member Patrick Giranthon, who asked about their personal and professional backgrounds while learning some of their outlook on sim racing and opinions on sim development.
Niels Heusinkveld shares that he not only works at Reiza but has professional clients, both race teams and driver training simulators, such as GP2 and GP3 car models for Arden in the UK. Coming from a background in mechanical engineering and technology management, Heusinkveld had been tinkering with sims in his spare time before going full time. What made him go all-in with the Game Stock Car project was not only the freedom it offered but that it aimed to be a full on simulation.
When asked about creating a solid physics model, Huesinkveld seems apprehensive about relying on any one set of data:
“[T]ire data has too large margins of error in it to be of direct use. Even telemetry isn’t always great, as they often use a simplified speed calculation and sensors are ‘noisy’. I probably use a combination of car specifications and data, telemetry and my experience to reproduce a car.”
Heusinkveld is also rather candid about what he’d improve for the next batch of sims:
“I feel too much attention goes to the latest DirectX or the latest tire model. Technology moves on, that is pretty much a given, but finding good people is a much more difficult task. The people can adapt to the latest technology but if you don’t have the right people, you won’t get anywhere. Despite the modding nature of rFactor, it is worrying how few people genuinely create things from scratch to a high standard. Most of the time, talent is the weak link, and then it won’t matter if rFactor 2 or future sims are technologically better.”
In the second interview, Renato Simioni shares that he worked on mods and some semi-professional projects in the late 90s and early 00s, with the highest profile being GP79. Simioni then became seriously interested in creating sim racers, so he joined Simbin in 2007 as a physics consultant for the RACE 07 series, where he worked for almost 2 years.
“As perspectives became bleak at Simbin” and Reiza began to form and get funding, Simioni found it was the best time to go join this then small team. Work started on Game Stock Car shortly after.
When asked what he thinks of the future of simracing, he said, “I have the impression there are too many players for what still is a niche market, so it will be interesting to see how things evolve over the next 5 years.”
[ Source: Race Department ]
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