damn phreak beat me

Youtube vid of Phreak's link

Tea said ...

Youtube vid of Phreak's link

That is very sexy, one more reason to get a ps4.

With the inclusion of Dynamic Weather effects including rain this game still looks to outshine the other next gen racing games (graphically anyway)

Very good hands on preview from Eurogamer:

"DriveClub can certainly lay claim to being the prettiest of the bunch, thanks in part to its decision to veer away from the open worlds that lie at the heart of The Crew and Forza Horizon 2, and also in no small part thanks to the work of Evolution Studios. There is beauty in the cars, naturally, but what makes DriveClub stand out is the beauty in the environments: thick clouds cast moody shadows over Scottish glens, while blood orange suns set over vast Chilean landscapes.

It's all being complemented now by a full weather system being prepared for release soon after launch, and being shown off for the first time at E3. On the Scottish glens of Loch Duich, turbulent weather rolls in, skies thickening before bursting onto the roads. Crowds at the side of the track reach for their macs and umbrellas, winds tug at the trackside scenery while puddles form in the divots and dips of the road surface, as well as across the grass of the glens and across the gravel - Evolution's very, very proud of its gravel, and rightly so."

How have you approached weather in DRIVECLUB?
Alex Perkins: We’ve approached our weather system with the same guiding principles as we’ve done with everything in DRIVECLUB, to make it as immersive and fun as possible. We’ve developed a powerful engine that has the capability to model the entire environment in stunning detail; from each cloud that makes up our living skies, to every crest and fall in the tarmac beneath your wheels.

From there, we’re breathing additional life into the environments by developing the earth’s atmosphere around it. Originally we focussed on authentic lighting and skies as the tool for you to customise stunning backdrops for fun challenges with your friends. Now, we’re developing a dynamic weather system that plays into all of this, adding another powerful tool to your arsenal.

The cloud cover and conditions you choose will dictate how much snow and rain will fall. The wind direction and speed determines where snow will settle. Then when it stops, the temperature and height of the sun governs how quickly clouds evaporate and roads dry out. We’re really striving for consistency in every detail just like we have done with everything else in the game.

What’s the scale of the weather types in the game? Is it just rain or snow, or can we expect drizzle, sleet, downpours, blizzards and so forth?
Alex Perkins: You can expect every one of those and you can expect it to change dynamically and unpredictably while you race – because we’ve designed it to be just like real weather systems. Spots of rain can become torrential downpours or transition into blizzards, quickly or slowly, and when the clouds clear up the tracks will dry out too.

So if you’re in Norway, for example, you’ll face heavier snow when you’re racing atop the mountains and much lighter snow or sleet when you descend to a lower altitude. Lots of things play into this, like elevation, wind speed and temperature. We can even adjust all the way to zero visibility conditions too – the only limit will be the need to balance things for fun and usability.

And what about really extreme stuff, like thunder and lightning?
Alex Perkins: Deafening thunder storms with flashes of fork lightning are what we’re aiming for. Our intention is to make this as immersive and exciting as we can.


How customisable will the weather be?

Alex Perkins: We want you to be able to create epic races that you want to share with your friends because they took your breath away. Just like we do with time of day, skies and time lapse speed, we’re going to add lots of options for you to be able to adjust how the weather plays out in your challenges. We don’t want to just offer fixed settings for “rain” or “snow”, we want it to be dynamic and exciting. We’re still working on how best to present this to you and we’ll show more closer to launch.

On that note, can you go into details on exactly what implications dynamic weather has on gameplay?

Alex Perkins: As you’d expect, weather is a game changer. When your tires get wet it’s harder to brake and easier to drift, which has a big effect on how you race and score fame for your club. It’s not just the handling that changes though, visibility can also change massively and impact on how the game plays too, especially at night when you’ve got your windscreen wipers going like crazy and your headlights are reflecting on the snowflakes ahead of you to blanket the sky in white.

Accurately replicating real life weather sounds like a massive technical challenge? Is that fair?

Alex Perkins: Challenging ourselves is part of what makes us Evolution Studios. We’re very ambitious and we want to keep pushing our own tools and the power of PS4 to create new and exciting game play experiences. We’ve had to learn a lot about weather systems and experiment with how it interacts with everything else in the game.

It’s all about the detail: the dampening surfaces, moisture absorption, changing material appearances, lighting in the sky, and so on. It’s amazing to see this come together; to see little details like rain forming puddles that can hold water, then dry out or get bigger depending on the terrain topology and changes to the temperature. To be able to make a break-thru like this is what makes the new PlayStation 4 hardware so exciting.

As ever we are pouring our hearts into every detail, to make sure we have a weather system that looks real and is exciting for you to play with.

Videos of the dynamic weather can be found here at the article's source

AND IT'S FREAKING INCREDIBLE!!

Some new pics 1 Million trees

http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2014/06/05/51-driveclub-details-might-just-blow-mind/

Weather

NASA data was used to accurately map out the night sky – so wherever you are in the world you’ll see the correct star constellations for your location.

If you’re lucky, you’ll get to see the northern lights – it’s possible to see the aurora borealis from the northern tracks in Norway, Scotland and Canada.

All clouds are full 3D models to ensure accurate light diffusion from the sun. They’re calculated at massive distances in a fully volumetric form, so thin clouds cast lighter shadows than dense storm clouds, and their colour impacts the feel of the landscapes and cars.

Skies are uniquely generated every time you play, so just like in real life you’ll never see the same sky twice. Unless you’re replaying somebody’s challenge, in which case it’ll replicate exactly to ensure a level playing field.

You can play with settings to speed up or slow down the day/night cycle. [*] [*] With some circuits taking over a couple of minutes per lap, at 60x accelerated speed with a judicious choice of start time, it’s possible to experience two sunrises and sunsets in one race. Both of which will be completely different to each other.

Clouds react dynamically to different wind speeds. This is then converted into a ground wind speed which accurately interacts with all vegetation, overhead cables and other environmental features, based on their height from the ground.

Waves and rippling on the surface of lakes is dynamically linked to wind speed, which affects how clear reflections are in the water.

The environment

High resolution NASA data was used to accurately map landscapes and mountain formations – which were then tweaked to ‘improve’ on their natural beauty and make them perfect for high-speed racing.

The team spent weeks out on location and covered a minimum of 200km every day to get a feel for each country’s roads and atmosphere. They captured thousands of photos and recordings along the way, in all weather conditions and different times of day.

Road tarmac textures are hand-modelled rather than tiled or tessellated. Stones and bitumen are all placed and then rendered procedurally to give realistic surface detail with huge visual variety and no repeating detail on any road surface.

Each location has a draw distance of up to 200km to the horizon and even simulates the curvature of the earth in both skies and terrain. Distant landscapes are built out and fully modelled, instead of ‘painted on’, to ensure that they support the dynamic, volumetric nature of the skies and lighting.

All environmental light sources are independently generated with different properties. The team sampled the colour and intensity of individual streetlights, house lights and even camera flash bulbs, which you’ll see best in any of the Indian tracks at night.

Flora and fauna

Some tracks boast over 1.2 million road-side trees – and this number keeps going up as the artists try to out-do each other as development progresses.

There are over 100 different varieties of trees, bushes, mosses and flowers. The team consulted botanists at Kew Gardens to learn which plants would naturally grow in each location.

Wildlife is realistically tied into the day/night cycle. You’ll see flies and butterflies only during the day, and moths and bats only at night.

One of the India tracks features a tea plantation with a sprinkler system that turns off and on at set times during the day.

The Chungara Lake track boasts a 19,000-strong flock of pink flamingos, all behaving independently of each other.

…and look out for the seagulls in Scotland, roosting crows in Norway, Canadian geese and vultures in Chile!

Spectators are placed in realistic spots where they would feasibly enjoy a good view of the race. This is done by hand, by Neil Sproston, a senior track designer who’s a real life race enthusiast. Neil regularly clambers over walls and fences in pursuit of a good viewing spot for a real life race. Duly, Evo leveraged his expertise!

Spectators dress for the weather – if it’s a cold night, expect them to be sporting hats and gloves.

The cars

A typical DRIVECLUB car is made up of 260,000 polygons. The staggeringly detailed cars you see in promo videos are the same models you drive in the game – they’re not pre-rendered CG versions.

Each car takes approximately seven months to create - from initial licensing, reference collation, CAD data processing, asset production, physics modelling, through to the final car in-game.

Evolution snapped in excess of 1,000 photos of the interior and exterior of every car as part of the reference gathering.

Pagani employ seamstresses to accurately match up the symmetrical carbon weave on the cars bodywork, and even add the ‘Pagani’ name to their small screw heads. These nuances are accurately reproduced in-game.

The same 3D CAD (Computer Aided Design) engineering data that the manufacturer uses to factory produce each vehicle has been used by the development team to create each car.

More than 500 different material types are available to designers to apply to the vehicles.

The cars have realistic layered paint materials – base metal or carbon layer, primer coat, base colour coat, two metallic paint coats, clear top coat, etc. – which can all be stripped away individually as part of the damage system.

A full shader-driven procedural system is used to simulate car damage. Multiple layers of scratches appear in the most exposed areas and edges, revealing undercoat and bare metal or carbon. A parallax mapped dent layer provides minor crumpling, and a physics driven vertex deformation system is used for severe damage.

As you race, dirt and dust gradually builds up on the car, subtly altering its appearance.

Screen space reflections (SSR) are being used together with real time dynamic light probes to render vehicle lighting and reflections more accurately, as opposed to using outdated pre-baked cubes.

The car dashboard reflects onto the windscreen in bright light; and the car exterior reflects onto carbon interior panels.

Anisotropic lighting is used to simulate the effect of each individual thread in carbon fibre weave. The pattern of the carbon alters realistically with the lighting angle and surface curvature.

Headlights are modelled using multiple layers of reflectors and lenses that realistically reflect and refract the bulbs shining beneath.

Rainbow specular highlight effects can be seen in headlight lenses because thin film interference is utilised.

Animated active aero flaps are rigged up accurately and coupled with the physics system to operate exactly as they would in real life. The Pagani Huayra is one of the best examples of this.

Conversion of kinetic energy to heat is physically modelled to accurately render the temperature and glow colour of brake discs.

The speedometer displays have been accurately reproduced for every car in terms of visuals, technical display output and behaviour (again, all hooked up to the in-game physics).

Audio

Each reference car was fitted with at least 16 separate microphones to authentically capture the sounds of the engine from 360 degrees, inside and outside of the car. Some had four mics on the exhaust alone.

In-game, the engine sound reacts to your perspective. Pan around a stationary car gunning its engine and the sound shifts with the camera position (relative to where the engine is).

When you race, the engine sounds are different based on which of the six camera views you choose – inside or outside of the car. You’re not hearing the same engine audio with a filter – it’s all recorded separately.

The recordings were so accurate that BMW and Mercedes-Benz AMG requested copies to replace their existing library.

In many cases, Evolution’s audio captures are the most high definition recordings of these cars in existence.

Bespoke sound effects were recorded for every action in the game. You won’t hear a single stock sample.

Handling and physics

Although not a sim, DRIVECLUB’s handling model is based on real world physics, using technical data about performance provided directly by the manufacturers.

To fine-tune the performance of every vehicle, a virtual “rolling road” test is used to check acceleration, top speed, weight distribution and braking performance.

Aerodynamics are physically modelled. For example, activating DRS on the McLaren P1 affects the levels of downforce to increase top speed and acceleration.

Evolution worked closely with Thrustmaster to get the best possible feel on all their wheels. When using a supported wheel you get 1:1 movement between the steering wheel in your hands and the steering wheel in-game.

Artificial intelligence

The AI drivers adapt their racing tactics and braking strategy based on pressure from players or other drivers. When alongside them, they will try to brake deeper into the corner.

AI drivers always try to predict overtaking opportunities based on the track, the performance of their car relative to opponents, and also how opponents are driving at any given moment.

When an AI driver has a car with KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System) fitted, they will use the energy strategically at opportune moments to pass or block opponents on the track.

Load times

Despite all of the above, once selected a track will take no more than 15 seconds to load.

I'm really looking forward to this

Hmmm so reviews are pretty average. All say that it is very pretty, but ultimately not a great leap from a gameplay POV. Not a racing fan, so will wait for the inevitable PS+ release.

http://www.lazygamer.net/general-news/driveclub-review-tound-up/

Well to be honest. It's Evolution studios. They haven't made a decent game in a long long long long time

Magius said ...

Hmmm so reviews are pretty average. All say that it is very pretty, but ultimately not a great leap from a gameplay POV. Not a racing fan, so will wait for the inevitable PS+ release.

To be more specific, most say that how the game is presented in terms of how you do races (in SP) feels archaic. This will depend on the end user at teh end of the day. Do you just want to get through a menu and get to your races or race around and have hotlinks in a track set you up for a race?

Opinions are generally that the actual driving mechanics are really sound. But yeah, reviews are very varied on this. Too bad, it looked good (at least after how it seemed to be having issues). I want to check out the GT review later.

IkariX said ...

Well to be honest. It's Evolution studios. They haven't made a decent game in a long long long long time

haha this is such nonsense.

So I have been playing Driveclub for two days now - and it's beautiful, nothing is baked, it's all real time. From the dynamic day to night cycles, weather, volumetric reactive clouds,ripples on the water reacting from the wind and lighting unmatched by any racing thus far. Driveclub really is a beautiful representation of Evolution's need to put detail into every aspect of their game.

The sheer sense of speed is astounding and is only made better by the silky smooth framerate (60fps) regardless of the amount of vehicles and effects going on at the same time on screen, often making it difficult admire the volume of detail in the environment as you zoom past it. Experiencing the night time races makes for a spectacular drive.

Playing this and Forza Horizon 2 at same time can be jarring, the realism in Driveclub and the stricter controls forces the player to learn the lines of the track. It punishes the player for collisions and cutting corners unlike Forza Horizon 2 where you kinda just go where you want, how want, to get to the finishing line but if you take the time to master it, Driveclub is rewarding and offers a leveling up and accolade system that unlocks vehicles, rewards car brand loyalty, great driving and a players dedication to learning the best lines on the track.

Basically with Driveclub, and I think the reason it's getting mixed reviews, is that it straddles the line between high speed arcade racer with simulation elements thrown in which will frustrate guys that only want either or.

Personally, I really like the game. While it might not of the volume of open world content that Forza Horizon 2 has, I just can't see how the future content shapes the IP going forward. Evolution has said there will be continual support for this title from launch including dynamic realistic rain, further improved graphical effects and of course DLC content like livery,tracks and club related goodies.

A solid 7.5/10 BUT ONLY because it feels like it's internet dependent for the full experience. Clubs play a huge part of the game so if you are not a social gamer like me, you might be missing out on the bigger picture which is way i think most of these earlier reviews may have to release re-reviews down the line. !bm

Nice review, will most likely pick this up have not enjoyed a racer since Need for speed most wanted:)

Sinncross said ...

Magius said ...

Hmmm so reviews are pretty average. All say that it is very pretty, but ultimately not a great leap from a gameplay POV. Not a racing fan, so will wait for the inevitable PS+ release.

To be more specific, most say that how the game is presented in terms of how you do races (in SP) feels archaic. This will depend on the end user at teh end of the day. Do you just want to get through a menu and get to your races or race around and have hotlinks in a track set you up for a race?

Opinions are generally that the actual driving mechanics are really sound. But yeah, reviews are very varied on this. Too bad, it looked good (at least after how it seemed to be having issues). I want to check out the GT review later.

IkariX said ...

Well to be honest. It's Evolution studios. They haven't made a decent game in a long long long long time

haha this is such nonsense.

All Evolution studios games got 70's and 80's (Wheras Turn 10's racing games mostly got 90's) so compared to the other major racing releases that came out this year, looking at reviews and past histories...I'm not really surprised drive club got an slight above average score.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_Studios

I really enjoyed their previous releases - was a huge fan of Motorstorm: Pacific Rift was just insanely difficult though, but they are still impressive games even by today's standards...