Drive Club Features Virtual Atmosphere
The official Playstation Blog was updated yesterday with details about DriveClub’s ambitious dynamic weather system.
From the videos on the blog post you can see thick lashing rain in Canadian forests, boasting some of the best Playstation 4 visuals yet.
The full weather system will be available for free through a post release patch.
The blog also includes an interview with Alex Perkins, DriveClub’s Art Director, and it’s brilliantly pompous. Sorry, ambitious.
For instance, after talking about the way clouds form individually, Perkins says “we’re breathing additional life into [DriveClub’s] environments by developing the earth’s atmosphere around it.”
It sounds unfathomably in depth, and it doesn’t stop there.
“The cloud cover and conditions you choose will dictate how much snow and rain will fall. The wind direction and speed determines where snow will settle. Then when it stops, the temperature and height of the sun governs how quickly clouds evaporate and roads dry out.
… Spots of rain can become torrential downpours or transition into blizzards, quickly or slowly, and when the clouds clear up the tracks will dry out too.
So if you’re in Norway, for example, you’ll face heavier snow when you’re racing atop the mountains and much lighter snow or sleet when you descend to a lower altitude. Lots of things play into this, like elevation, wind speed and temperature.”
Will DriveClub deliver? We’ll find out later this year…
