European Sim Racing Association (une league iRacing) a réussis à interviewer
Aristotelis Vasilakos , un des grand manitou de Kunos
je tien à remercier fredjo et la team EASR pour cette belle et longue entrevue :
ESRA Interviewer : What is your oldest racing memory (even as a child) ?
Aristotelis Vasilakos : Well the first “racing” memory I have, goes back to age 5 or so and it was an orange Citroen GS speed tachometer. It was our family car. For people not in the knowing, Citroen always had futuristic dials and that model had a very particular tachometer that was showing big speed numbers behind a fresnel lens. It was also changing color.
So I didn’t really knew what numbers was indicating, but I remember it was green for slow speeds and it would become yellow on highway speeds... So one day my father was “pushing” it and it become... orange! Probably for a 5 years old that was an incredible thing to look at and it got embedded in my mind... I still remember it with a warm fuzzy feeling. Yeah I’m strange I know. I later discovered that the orange section of the tachometer was about 150km/h or so... not bad for 1977.
My first real racing memory though is from when I was 16 years old when my uncle took me to a real go kart track (one of the first ones in Greece and paid the owner to let me try a proper go kart. That became a drug for me and started a really big love and dedication to any form of motorsports.
ESRA : What was your first car ?
AV : I learned driving on my uncle’s VW Beetle... My first personal car bought with my own money was a used Lancia Prisma 1.6 i.e. that I bought when I was 24 years old. Rusty, terrible driving position, but great engine, reliable (huh?) and fun handling.
ESRA : Is AC your biggest challenge at this time (both work and/or private life) ?
AV : Definitely yes. Stefano and Marco owners of Kunos Simulazioni gave me this opportunity and I really thank them. I’m trying as hard as I can and I really believe in this project. I’m realistic about it and do not have sky high expectations, but I’m trying as hard as I can to make everything I’m responsible for, as good as my competence, knowledge and talents permit me to do.
ESRA : What is gonna be Assetto Corsa’s evolution after it’s release ? Are there gonna be packages of cars and tracks or single cars released ? Are you gonna support entires series ?
AV : It all depends on how much of a good job we will be able to do. I’m convinced that if you do a proper job, the market will support you. If this happens, then we will be able to continue working on this project and believe me when I say that we really love this job. So hopefully we will bring more tracks, more cars, more features. There are already lot’s of plans for future add ons but as I said it will all depend on whether AC will satisfy people in order to support us making it even better.
ESRA : Will we have a kind of solo “career” mode playing an entire championship against the I.A. ?
AV : Probably yes, still working on this part of the game. Also consider the fact that AC is so moddable that one could create such a career as a mod. Our priority is to create a system that permits the scripting of such gameplay. If we get this working then everything else is limited by imagination.
ESRA : Will Assetto Corsa support dynamic weather and time changes ? Think about endurance races.. is there gonna be a limit on a race time… 24 hours hum ??
AV : No we won’t be able to have dynamic weather on version 1.0. We do have 12 hours time change, from eve to dawn with real time shadows, self shadowing etc. I don’t think it’s going to be a limit in race time, although we haven’t tested it yet for 24 hours.
ESRA : How do you validate the sensations of a real car in the simulation ? do you work with real life drivers or is it your experience ?
AV : The first thing to do is to get as much real data from the manufacturer as possible. We input those values in the simulator and “lock” them for the rest of the development, that means we will never touch again that data, nor alter them in anyway. We’re in a very happy situation to have great support from all the manufacturers we got official licensing for, and it is a great help for us.
Nevertheless there is an amount of data that we have no real values to work with. Those are the only values we will try to figure out in order to bring the car as close to the real counterpart as possible.
To do this, we have different options. First of all we start researching the internet blogs, forums and boards in order to find passionate people about the car. It’s amazing what you can find on the internet if you know where and how to search for.
Then we speak with professional drivers that have hands on experience on the specific car. This is a very delicate part of the data gathering. You need to know who you speak to and also interpret his words. As an anecdote, I’ve been talking to a famous professional driver who has just tried his racing car inside Assetto Corsa. It was terrible, he would complain for everything, very dissatisfied with the handling and heavily criticizing the car behavior. While he was talking to me and I was really discourage, I saw his race engineer behind him, giving me the thumbs up... I didn’t know what to think. When the driver left, I went to find his race engineer and ask him to explain his thumbs up. He smiled and said “your simulator is perfect, he complained about the identical things he is complaining in the real car every day.”. So one has to realize that often, real professional drivers are paid to complain and make a real car better. They cannot understand or simply do not care if a simulator is realistic or not, they just drive the car and want it faster, with more grip, better brakes, more power and everything better. This is a pattern with see with professional drivers almost all the time.
Finally we try to get our hands on the car and take measurements ourselves. At that stage we also verify the manufacturer data too, because it helps us understand better how a car is created, similarities with other models and validation with the actual software simulation. We also try to drive the cars on track to get a better idea of how they handle as there are some feedback a real car can give you, that simple numbers can’t always describe, and of course we also register telemetry data which are a big help in order to “reverse engineer” the values needed to achieve certain characteristics.
So overall is a complex procedure with various steps and no easy answer about it.
ESRA : What is for you the most important aspect in a race simulation ?
AV : Personally it is definitely the driving experience. If you try and simplify what a racing sim is, then it’s obvious it is all about driving. There are many amazing racing games with incredibly addictive gameplay modes, but I don’t use any of them. I respect them because in terms of gaming and enjoyment they are absolutely fantastic... but that’s not what I’m searching. Driving is what excites me and that is what I’m searching. When you can drive a car close to the limit and jump over a kerb, feeling the suspension bouncing and the tyres flexing while the body moves around... this is what I’m looking in a race sim. Everything else comes as a consequence of this specific moment.
That said, Assetto Corsa project is lucky to be guided by our project manager Marco Massarutto and he pays much more attention to gameplay details. He is pushing the team to deliver not only an amazing core driving simulator but also a fantastic fun gaming experience. If you think about it, that’s what in the end driving is all about. Having fun with a car on a controlled environment. So I’m really excited that Assetto Corsa will be quite a big step ahead from the minimalistic experience that netKar Pro could give you.
ESRA : What do you think will stand up comparing (against ?) to the other simulations on the market ? Why will Assetto Corsa will be better than the others ?
AV : I can’t judge other simulators, I cannot be objective of course. I can tell you though that for Assetto Corsa we concentrated on three main points.
Number one. Driving must be natural.
No place for “what just happened” moments, no “why I can take a roundabout at 50km/h on my real car while I’m spinning out of control on the sim” situations. I can’t really describe what this means in detail, you will have to try it and look for yourself. I’m really confident you’re going to love it.
Number two. Graphics must be great while driving.
Graphics are very important for immersion and add to the realism if done right. We don’t have any “photomode” options, no special tricks on replays. Even “effects” that usual simracers instantly turn off, like for example motion blur, in Assetto Corsa are calibrated with great attention in a way that actually add up in the experience while driving. Heck I always turn off motion blur, but in Assetto Corsa I have “forgotten” it on and never touch it because I like the sensation of speed that it gives. The screenshots you see are the actual graphics while driving the sim and this is where Assetto Corsa really shines in my opinion.
Number three. Ease of use.
From the gameplay futures, to the User Interface, to the modding possibilities, before implementing anything we always think “are people going to be able to use this feature without frustration?” You have probably saw some screenshots of the User Interface of Assetto Corsa. It’s very minimalistic, no flashy animations and videos, no complicated navigation. We actually made it as an objective, to be able to start Assetto Corsa and be able to race a car in just three clicks; and you can do that.
Same goes for driving aids as an example. Easy to configure, easy to disable, no “hidden” menus. Just click what driving aids you need before racing and you’re ready to go.
Modding has also been thought in a similar way, with great attention to give people the possibility to make add on content that is comparable in terms of driving feeling and graphics, with the original content.
Assetto Corsa is very immersive and it really is difficult to explain why. One has to experience it and we saw from people visiting us in our Offices and at Gamescom that the effect is always the same. People do not try to “understand the sim” in order to go faster. They just jump in and drive and then try to understand the actual car handling in order to go faster.
It’s a combination of top level physics, next generation graphics, laser scan accurate tracks and “handcrafted” attention to detail. We’re a small team, we do not have tenths or hundreds of people working on each car and we cannot produce hundreds or thousands of cars... but every car and track is produced with real passion and dedication.
ESRA : Are you gonna race it ? is there a chance you’ll race with us at ESRA ?
AV : I really hope so! I’m afraid my racing abilities are a bit rusted because I’m not actively racing from quite some time. When developing, I’m driving hours and hours every week, but not amongst others so yeah I’m afraid I might make some damages in a serious race... but I’d love to join you for some fun racing for sure
ESRA : Will Assetto Corsa develop some kind of driver rating (no no we don’t speak about another simulation) ?
AV : We don’t have the time to do it. Assetto Corsa is a brand new code base and as such it will mature over time with more and more features and content. But for the first release we won’t be able to do such a thing. Hopefully we will be able to give useful export data, so that modders and developers could create their own rating system. We’ll see how it evolves, one step at a time.
ESRA : Are you gonna implement a hardcore mode “ala” Netkar Pro so everyone can switch it ON/OFF on the servers ?
AV : First of all let me explain what the hardcore mode is for readers that might not know about it. It consists of actually having to wait in the pits for changing setup values or repairing your car, so for example if you want to change your springs, you need to wait 5-10 minutes before exiting the pits again for a lap. If you crash your car in qualify, you need to wait from 20 to 40 minutes depending on the damage...
When we implemented the hardcore mode in netKar pro, everybody in the forums seemed enthusiastic and excited and let me remind you that nKP had a niche of a niche market of very hardcore simracers. Result was that we never saw a single server with the hardcore mode online... so yeah everybody loved it, but nobody used it. Assetto Corsa will not have such a feature, sorry.
ESRA : Will every car have different gearbox (kind of the same question as above) ? In other terms, will you be obliged to use the clutch if the real car have it ?
AV : This is a different thing than the hardcore mode. This is about realism and KUNOS Simulazioni is all about realism. All cars in Assetto Corsa have different gearboxes with different gearchange timings, mode of operation etc. We of course simulate semiautomatic, sequential, and manual gearboxes as the real cars. We also simulate the need to press the clutch and revmatch in order to gearchange for manual gearboxes, but we have also implemented a slight handicap for people wishing to use an automatic clutch aid. I can’t explain you how it works right now (let me keep a secret or two hehe), but it is very subtle when you’re using it, and affects only the gearbox part of the simulation so no strange weight penalties or such. We hope everybody will be happy like this.
ESRA : Are you guys gonna have some certifications on Mods ? we dearly fear about numerous mods that could “kill” the simulation.. What’s your point of view ? We would find it pretty easy that you publish on your website the mod’s that you find good enough.. and not the others.. What do you think about it ?
AV : We can’t really. We must stay as neutral and “distant” from the modders as possible because of license agreements with car manufacturers. It’s not a matter that we don’t want to, it’s just that we really can’t do it. On the other hand, Assetto Corsa has been made in a way to help even non experienced modders to achieve decent results in terms of driving physics so that, hopefully, won’t get any undriveable mods.
ESRA : What is your dream car ?? and will it be in Assetto Corsa ?
AV : Difficult question. I’m a vintage car guy. I think the golden ages for racing touring cars have been the 70s-80s and for street cars 80s-90s. That said and despite what I said just a line above, my current dream car is the Ferrari 458. I drove the damn thing (sorry) and it is mindblowing. Not because of the amazing horsepower and performance, but because the whole package is magnificent. Handling, sound, power, brakes, feedback, it really is a completely different category and modesty apart, I have been lucky enough to drive quite a number of amazing cars in my life.
Unfortunately I can’t talk about licenses that are not officially announced.
ESRA : To finish with.. have you got a little secret to share with the followers of ESRA ?
AV : Err... no.
ESRA : Damn !! Thanks a lot Aristotelis.. we at ESRA wish you the best of luck with this awesome project !