Grand Prix racing in the 1960′s was a mixture of bravery that bordered on recklessness and, contrary to what many may say, innovative design and technology, far from primitive, which led Formula One to where it is today.

It was an era when the human eye, instead of a computer and a wind tunnel, designed a beautiful car. It was an era where spectators and drivers were only protected by bales of hay, which were often more likely to attribute to a fire than to save you in an impact.

Risks were taken and lives were lost, but the romance of the era still remains been the target of software developers, TV documentaries, and Hollywood movies. Many, including those of us at ISI, consider this space in time to be a golden age in the history of motorsport.

The first in-game/sim screenshot of rFactor 2 released to the public was of a road lined with trees, a house on the right and a truck parked in its driveway. This, barely recognizable to us as the same track now, was the first indication that ISI were trying to do something different.

We have licensed content from the modern era of motorsport for multiple types of racing, but also have licensing deals for real content from the first four decades of Formula One (some in the initial release, some to come later). We’ve done this because this is what we love and this is what we want to bring to the racing game/sim community. We want you to be challenged by our software, to be challenged rain or shine, day or night, old or new, and what better track to challenge you than the streets of Monte-Carlo?

We hope those of you who will want to participate in the open modders beta testing period are almost ready…

Waters is quoted as using rFactor (along with a community-made version of Bathurst, we assume) to train for the event.

Although it’s going to be a tough challenge for him this weekend, we wish him all the best.

One of the features we put the most time into was allowing players to make their own HDR profiles so that they can adjust for a look that appeals to them.

There are a few other effects to add, but the only one which is probably going to make it into the cockpit view is Bloom, which is likely to take a lot less time to refine than HDR has, but will have a large impact.

Talking of cockpit views, let’s take a quick look at what just HDR does to change your outlook from the cockpit:

HDR (right) can make a big difference to the lighting both inside and outside the car.

And when the sun does start to set, those turns with overhanging trees can finally be just as dark as they are in real life, while areas where the sun is able to penetrate you’ll get a beautiful orange glow. The car body also seems to benefit from HDR quite a lot as the rounded edges become much more noticeable and defined:

A low-level sun really provides a great difference in light across the track and car.

You can view many more work-in-progress screenshots of the HDR in action by visiting the screenshots page.

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.

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.

rFactor 2 is still on-target for release later this year and will for the first time place the driver in the dynamic environment real life drivers feel every weekend. With moving trackside objects, changes to the racing line including rubber build-up and marbles, day-night-day transitions, wet-dry transitions and a very advanced new tire model, no two laps will truly feel the same.

The rendered wallpapers we have posted are of some of the cars in the rFactor 2 family, not all the cars. It should also be noted that some cars will not be a part of the initial release and will instead come as later updates.

We should be posting some information on how rFactor 2 will be released pretty soon! In the meantime we can confirm we do have a target within the year (2011).

rFactor 2 family wallpapers