Post by Alberto Ibanez on Jan 29, 2020 8:29:05 GMT

Who are you?
We are an international group of friends, racers and modders, united in this very special project. After administrating another league and achieving quite some success, we decided to break free from the boundaries it posed to us and start our own project.
What is ISO all about?
We created this league for the purpose of racing all the cars and tracks from the past we all love so much, in the most realistic manner possible, inviting anyone with an interest for historic racing to join us.
So what is different here compared with other leagues?
- First and foremost, we create our own mods for the use in our own league. Sometimes we just make ultra realistic physics for existing mods, and many times we even do the full 3D models. We also create our own period accurate tracks. 99% of the leagues you will find out there are limited to running mods created by someone else, with the good, bad or ugly parts and their shortcomings.
- We instead recreate races and series from the past without shorcuts or faking reality with "suitable replacements" for cars or tracks or using the abhorred league editions or only half the real grid. If something doesn't exist in the game, we create it purposely for us - because we can.
- We aim to provide a fully realistic experience, in the rules and feel of the cars and tracks.
OK fair enough, now show me the money. What are your credits?
Our portfolio is already quite vast and started in rFactor1, where we did many complete mods of much acclaimed success, some of which were:
- CanAm 1971 mod
- USAC 1973 Championship cars
- USAC 1974 Championship cars
- Indycar 1988
- 1978 Formula 1
And created completely new physics for:
- VLM Group C mod
- GP 1937 mod
Then we moved to AMS where we got an improved physics engine, extra realism features like dynamic track grip, tire pickup and flatspots, and even a real turbocharger model. In AMS we have ported over some of the previous mods, and created even new ones:
- 1973 Formula 3, full new mod
- 1974 USAC, full new mod
and did several conversions:
- Formula 1 1971 conversion, with completely new physics
- Supertourers conversion, with completely new physics
- Procar 1980 conversion and enhancement, with completely new physics
This just on the cars front, because we also did dozens of tracks from scratch or from a very basic old version.
That sounds quite interesting, but why don't you work in Asetto Corsa or rFactor2?
Well, Asetto Corsa has too many shortcomings in the form of rules (No safety car for caution laps as in american racing for example) and the physics engine isn't our cup of tea.
rF2 in turn has a wonderful and well advanced tire model in real time 3D, but the problem is that nobody except the developers and payware contents creators (Not even all of them) have a clue about it or can make new custom tires for mods. So modders are limited in general to whatever existing tires Studio397 has released, which get copied over and over to the new mods. You can check them here:
docs.studio-397.com/developers-guide/cars/car-physics/tyre-database
In the end what you have is many mods shod with tires that were never ever developed for those cars, so they might lack grip or have excess of it, or be radial instead of bias ply, etc, etc.
So you have classic stock cars running on Transam tires, or classic F1s running on modern tires because there was no tire ever created purposely for them, and what modders have to do is start fiddling around with parameters that reduce grip or change characteristics in a manner that nobody has a clue how it works. So it's trial and error basically.
And all that, crossing your fingers to hope Studio 397 got it right to begin with, which isn't always the case as they had to rectify after discovering major bugs on their base concepts some time ago.
But if you want a well recognized expert's opinion (And also the reasons why he did not continue modding for the new rF2 engine), you can read Niels Heusinkveld's take on this here:
www.sim-racing.co.uk/pdf/Tires-in-race-simulations.pdf
This was written in the early days of rF2 but time has only confirmed it.
In turn, our physics guy Richard Wilks has been able to reach the absolute sweet point of the development of the AMS engine and is able now to produce some of the most realistic and accurate tires ever created, with great feeling when driving. We are certainly not going to pass on such opportunity and lose control of the mods to become, well ... just another league running rF2 or whatever game.
I'm sold! How can I join you?
You just need to register with your real name as displayed in the forum, nicknames are not allowed. Other than that, registration and racing is completely free. To enter any race or series, head for the relevant forum and read the racing rules, then ask for a free car in the entry list or race thread. But you don't have to race if you don't want to, you can simply stay around and post in the forums or watch our broadcasts, chat at Discord or Teamspeak or practice freely in the servers.
Can I contribute to support the running costs?
Registration and racing is and will remain completely free, but if you want to help out with the costs of the server and website hosting, you are welcomed to use the paypal donation link in our main blog:
internationalsimracing.org
Any funds received will be dedicated solely to those running costs.
Can I ask other questions about ISO?
Be our guest. You can either contact one of the admins (names in gold yellow) or post away here in this thread.
