If you have been paying attention to All-Stars Racing Transformed interviews from Sumo digital you would know that they talk a lot about how advanced and complex the physics are but never go into detail. So I asked S0L and got a good answer…
It all runs under full physics, whether car, boat or plane. We wanted to do this so the behaviour was more predictable, since last time we cheated and faked a lot of it. It adds a whole heap of depth of control as a side effect, plus it means you’ll got consistent vehicle behaviour.
The water also is a dynamic surface, so waves affect the boats, splashes and explosions too. Between the physics there and the rendering (making water look like water means a lot of effects!) this is why we opted for a capped framerate of 30. In order to get to 60, we’d have to pull back on the graphical look of the game a lot, and when we’re doing a whole new engine to make it look as good as it does, you have to make this compromise.
No-one complained about the framerate at Play Expo at any rate 😛
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S0L
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So yeah, sounds really good! This physics will make the game feel more like a racing game, rather than a small kart game, which is something else that Sumo Digital also likes to brag about.