INTERVIEW SIMRACING.HU

András Ivánkovics:
First of all we would like to ask about the project! How long and how
many members are working on the VLN 09 rFactor modification?

weischschon:
We have started directly after the release of the VLN 2005 Mod and this was just in time with the start of the 2009 season. This was actually a big advantage compared to our 2005-project, where we had some problems with the research due to a comparatively late beginning.
With the release of VLN 2005 we have managed to gain more respect in the modding-scene, which helped a lot to increase the team to the twenty active members at the moment. This sounds like we are a big team, but in consideration of the mass of cars in our project, it isn't that much. All the extra manpower we have gained is used to improve the quality, instead of decreasing the development-time.

Q:
Therefore you're looking for some more team-members?


A:
Yes we're looking for experienced 3d-Artists and texture-specialists (cockpits, displays), who want to be part in this long-lasting project. Everybody interested can get in contact to us via e-mail:

( support@team-nlc.de ).


Q:
About how many hours have you worked on it so far? Is it a relative big
project? Maybe the size of it in megabytes?

A:
We can't estimate how many working-hours went into this mod until now. But we have made progress every day since the beginning. You're right this project will be very big, due to the huge amount of cars in the VLN-series and all these details we want to implement. As an example: every car will get an own skin for every single race it participated in. As a result all High- and Low-Res-Skins which are created until now, need over 3 GB of disk space already - and there are still many cars which aren't even ingame.

Q:
Is it going to be avaliable for rFactor, or do we have to wait for rF2?
Anyway have you got a date for publishing the mod? How is the progress in
percentage?

A:
We are definitively aiming for rF2 but we can't make promises about this. We still have to wait for more information from ISI about their title, because there are some criteria that have to fit with our perceptions. If rF2 supported less cars on-track than rF1, than this would be a major problem for our mod.
Actually we're not too worried. Even if we are forced to use rF1 it's nevertheless the best modding-able platform for endurance- and multicar-mods until today.


Q:
We know that an enormous number of cars will be included in the mod.
How many and for instance what kind of cars will be avaliable? Is it going
to be the complete reproduction of the original VLN series 2009?

A:
There were over 400 cars that participated in the 2009 VLN season. To be honest, it would be impossible task for us to create every single one of them with our standard of quality. But we already had 185 cars in our 2005-Mod and i think we will exceed this number easily. We don't only focus on the fastest cars, but rather we want to have a nice mixture of all those different classes. The enormous variety of cars and classes is one of the most fascinating aspects of the VLN-series and those small private teams should be presented equivalent to the frontrunners. The small private teams are nothing less than the heart of the VLN.
There were over thirty different classes in the 2009 season, that can be divided in following groups:

- Cup classes:
Porsche GT3 Cup, Seat Leon Supercopa, Renault Clio, ...

- Historic classes:
Group-N, Group-A and many other older cars that are still young at heart

- Production-car classes:
with production driveline and little modifications to their road-going counterparts

- Alternative-fuel classes:
Diesel-, rapeseed-oil or LPG-powered cars

- Super-Production-car classes:
Based on production cars but mostly heavily modified and customized

- SRO/FIA GT4:
Aston Martin Vantage N24, Porsche 997 GT4, BMW E92 M3 GT4, ...

- FIA GT3 Cars:
Ford GT, Alpina B6, Audi R8 LMS, Porsche 997 GT3 Cup S, ...

- E1XP-class:
a melting pot for cars that can't be homoligated in the other classes like the BMW M3 GT2S or the DTM Opel Astra V8 Coupe

( You can see all cars of the season over here: http://www.ringpics.info/index.php?page=showlist&year=2009 )

This variation should be very unique and is responsible for great action on the Nordschleife. There are cars that have less then 150 hp racing together with those 500+ hp rocket-cars. There are cars that can't break through the 200km/h-barrier and really have to concentrate on their rear-mirrors to make space for the overtaking toprunners that nearly reach 300 km/h. If you combine those different perfomance-leves with the green hell, you can imagine that the VLN-series is demanding a really smart and predictive driving-style. Hotlappers have a hard time in trying to finish their races.

Q:
Have you got any license, or are you in connection with VLN teams?

A:
We don't have a license, but we are tolerated and supported from all sides. We never got in trouble because of our project and we are optimistic that it continues this way.


Q:
We already watched some really cool videos about your finsihed cars.
They look so great, but how about the physics? Have you visited VLN at
Nordschleife to collect material, and datas for the mod?

A:
The research is a big part of our work and because most of the VLN-teams are very cooperative it's also very enjoyable. We contact every team that's car/cars should be implemented in our mod and the success-rate is pretty good. Several dozens of teams obtained detailed data to their cars, some even telemetry-data and dyno-graphs. But the assistance of the teams goes even further, as they make available detailed Photographs, Hi-Res-Logos, Onboard-Videos and so on.
Beside of that we also get great support by several ring-photographs, media-guys, VLN-Fans and other modding groups. We are extremely happy about that enormous assistance and we will never forget about this! Thanks to all supporters. :-)