Building a tire model

30.07.11 | rFactor 2

rFactor 2, in-development and due for initial release later this year, will introduce a number of major features. Among the greatest is the newly written tire model, which accurately models the heat, wear, deformation and performance changes a tire undergoes in a racing situation.

The videos below demonstrate the basics and shows you some of the damage done to the tire with both normal usage and when mistreated.

Watch the surface of the tire nearest the camera.

For the purpose of this first demonstration we have increased the effects by 100x so that you can see it within a single lap.

When the brakes are locked and a single area of the tire touches the track while the car continues to move, this grinds away the rubber from the surface of the tire and creates a flatter edge, this is called ‘flatspotting’. With rFactor 2 you will directly affect the surface of the tire, you will both see and feel (through force-feedback especially) how this changed the tire surface.

Recorded heat for the surface of the tire is visible in the video on the readout (within the black box) at the top-left of the screen.

Also visible at the end of the video is the associated tire wear from doing the equivalent of 100 laps at the slow-ish pace seen, and if you look very closely in the final frames one of our fully animated track workers can be spotted.

View on YouTube | Download Original (232MB).

Watch the sides of the tire near where it contacts the track surface.

In this second video you can see a demo of the tire deformation. The tire will form itself to the track surface, kerbing or will catch the weight of the car upon landing and this is all visible in it’s shape adjustments.

View on YouTube | Download Original (172MB).
Featuring immersive animations, changes to the racing line including rubber build-up and marbles, day-night-day transitions, wet-dry transitions and this truly dynamic tire model on all it’s cars, rFactor 2 will bring a truly dynamic experience to your racing…