DriveClub: Dusk racing in Chile

Video PS4

DriveClub is back with another super high quality video, showing this time a timed race on top of a Chilean mountain, at nightfall. Another great way of admiring the lighting, the reflections (check the dashboard reflections on the windows!), and also that the aliasing is now much less of an issue than it was on the previous videos (and it will get better, see the info post inside the news). This is shaping up very nicely, for sure!

Update: The version sent by Sony was in a strange resolution, I've reencoded it to 1080p.

From the Playstation blog

13 things we’d like you to know about this video:

1. If you’d like to see a version of the video with significantly higher image quality than shown on YouTube (and a closer representation of how the game looks on PS4), you’ll be able to download the 1080p video online soon.

2. The time of day is accelerated by x60, which is why the video covers from 6pm – 9pm in Chile in just three laps. Accelerating the speed of time is something you can choose to adjust before you race and it’s also why the sunlight disappears so quickly at 1:58.

3. Design Director Paul Rustchynksy is the driver. He’s using a Thrustmaster “T80 DRIVECLUB Edition” wheel, which explains why his last lap (in first person racing view) is the fastest.

4. The video was captured in one take from a version of the game still in development. Optimisations to the visual quality of the game are made every day, so while there are lots of impressive details on show you may also spot some things we’re still working on – like improving the anti-aliasing for certain assets and making sure that nothing pops in to view.

5. We decided to show this time trial event with on-screen display disabled, because lots of people wanted to see this and it’s something you can choose to configure in the game. We noticed that when we did this, the game still plays the sound effects for Overdrives, so we’re fixing this.

6. Not only do we model every car in staggering detail inside and out, we go to great lengths with the environments too. Check out the observatory tower at 1:47 and 2:37!

7. The way that we have captured each car’s distinctive audio is evident here because we’ve disabled the in-game soundtrack music, but we’ve actually just made further improvements to the quality of the audio in the game today (and fixed the backfire so that you can hear it properly on the Audi R8 V10 Plus), so it’s still getting better.

8. All lights illuminate the environment authentically. The dashboard fully illuminates, so you can see the glow of the buttons in the control panel above the rear-view mirror and you can see the reflections in the windscreen and the driver’s window. Similarly, you’ll notice that the brake light illuminates the car’s active spoiler in the first two laps. Hopefully this will draw your eye away from the glitch with the car’s tyre smoke (which is missing) and excessive anti-aliasing on the Audi’s bevelled rear window frame… which we are of course still developing.

9. The reflector lights (cats eyes/snake eyes) on the safety barriers surrounding the track reflect light authentically too. You can see this most clearly at 02:30.

10. Ghost cars (and opponent cars) are all fully realised in the rear-view mirrors, but there’s currently a small glitch that makes them render incorrectly when the sun goes down. This will be improved by launch.

11. The crowds release balloons throughout the race. The balloons should react authentically to the wind and light up correctly at night – and appear less frequently too – but the game is still in development after all.

12. There’s a tiny portal to another dimension (aka a glitch in the world) at 0:32. We’ve fixed it in the game already.

13. The sky is clear of clouds so that you can see the stars twinkling up above. This won’t always be the case; you can choose how clear or cloudy the sky is when you set-up a race and it will be uniquely generated every time. On the occasions when the fog rolls in and you can only see the tips of those mountains in the distance… and the cars in front are casting long shadows towards you as the sun rises or sets on the horizon… and you’re breezing through it all 150mph… it’s utterly sensational!