We had the chance to speak with Diego Sartori, Creative Director at SimBin Studios.
Our questions were focused on technical aspects of RACE 07.




Q: Hi Diego, could you describe us your racing game carrier?

A: My career started with a passion for pc racing games such as Grand Prix Legends and Nascar 2003 mods such as PTA. In 2004 I was in the beta test team of SimBin during the end phase of GTR and soon after I was asked to fill a new position in the company, from there things went fast and now I am the Creative Director at SimBin Studios and at SimBin Development Team productions.


Q: Could you briefly describe the SimBin history?

A: SimBin was founded in 2003 by Henrik Roos, and was created on a distributed team model, meaning that there was a headquarter in Sweden and then developers working from offices or homes all over the world, we still use this model today. We have an Headquarter with a small studio as well as two separate studios outside of the main office, one in Gothenburg and one in Falun, and then our distributed developers on top of that.


Q: How many people work at the studios?

A: We have about 50 people working full time for SimBin and just over 20 developers distributed in all parts of the world.


Q: Are you using outsourcing for modeling tracks and cars?

A: We are using external consultants in addition to our in house team for modeling tracks and cars, we often bring our consultants to Sweden during the critical phases of the production, this to help turnaround time but also to heighten the team spirit of the given production, everybody needs to feel part of the team and the project.


Q: When did you start working for SimBin Studios?

A: I started working for SimBin Development Team in February 2005 and that year I was promoted to Creative Director of SimBin Studios.


Q: Race07 is still based on the famous Gmotor 2.0 rendering engine. Did you modify the engine for this Race version?What's new?

A: Yes that is correct, RACE 07 is running on Gmotor 2.0 and yes we have made changes and improvements, we do that for all productions, but sometimes changes or improvements does not present themselves at first glance, this was the case with RACE where it was never given much attention to double sided windows, it was a great achievement for us and did add much to the overall presentation of the cars. For RACE 07 we have changed or improved areas of the game that do a better job of presenting themselves to the player during gameplay, 3D audience, new skybox systems, Helmet cam and visor dynamics, track draw distance improvements, increased amounts of track side objects, enhanced rain and dirt effects and more, all these additions, changes or improvements of course demanded changes to the engine.


Q: Could you tell us about the polycount for the cars and the tracks?

A: Cars have 20.000 polys and the tracks around 650.000-750.000 triangles.


Q: How many days/months did take to model the track of Pau? How many references did you took for getting textures?

A: A track like Pau takes roughly 6-8 man months to create from scratch to beta phase.SimBin’s reference team is always on site collecting data and references relevant to our productions and for Pau I estimate we have 5-10 hours of video and in the region of 1000 images.


Q: Did you used 3D scanning systems, Heightmaps, or Dem's datas for the new track meshes?

A: We get track data directly from the track owner/licensor and this data is used in combination with our own references when creating the track model.


Q: About physics of the cars, did you work with real datas, perhaps telemetry datas? And did you tested with some real drivers during development? Who are they?

A: We get car data directly from the manufacturers and teams we work with during a production, our Physics Director visits the races and interview drivers and engineers to get an as good as possible understanding of the car in addition to the technical data. We do use telemetry data during the development and test phase of physics creation and all the drivers have been driving with their own cars in the game at the Get Real Centre on selected WTCC events around Europe to get the final “approvals” from the real drivers.


Q: Which are the differences between simulating a monoplace and a WTCC car?

A: There are as many differences or as little differences as when modeling two different cars of any other sort, the biggest difference if I should mention one is the aerodynamic effects in the physics.


Q: Wich are the licenses involved in RACE07? Wich are the relationships between developers and trademarks like Radical and Catheram?

A: For the Radical and the Caterham we wanted to include cars with fundamentally different driving experiences into our range of cars and therefore we purchased the licenses for these cars. On a personal level I can say that I thoroughly enjoy these cars and I find that they add a nice alternative to the other cars in the game.


Q: How long did it take to develop Race07?

A: I can not tell you this in detail.


Q: Wich are advantages using Steam as distribution channel?

A: First and foremost it allows users from all over the world to have potential access to our games completely independently from retail, secondly we think that the Steam platform has many valuable tools to offer to the developers and the end users.Steam is a great way for staying in touch with the game buyer and to offer expansions and additional content to a game title, fixes and patches are also handled in an effective way and if running the game on Steam you always get the latest version of the game.On this note I would also like to add that, for those who don´t have access to Internet or for some reason don´t want to use Steam, that RACE 07 also contains an offline version of the game to ensure that anyone, anywhere can enjoy the game.


Q: Race07 isn't moddable, what is the SimBin policy on modding games?
A: You research is flawed I must say !
I am happy to inform you that RACE 07 is indeed moddable, it supports custom skins and it supports the mod culture in other ways that will be revealed when the game will be released.


Q: We know you are developing a proprietary rendering engine. Could you tell us on what are you focusing, and give Panogames some exclusive news? Will you provide editing tools for modding?

A: I cannot say anything about the Lizard engine in detail at this time, but stay tuned, more about that will come in the near future.