Project Motor Racing will use scratch-built ‘Hadron’ physics engine

It has been revealed that Project Motor Racing – née GTRevival – is set to use its own, scratch-built physics engine.

In an interview with Straight4 Studios’ CEO Ian Bell, Traxion.GG discussed all things physics with the former Slightly Mad Studios boss, as well as why the game has switched from using Unreal Engine and why this means its release date has slipped past 2024.

“We’re not allowed to use anything we’ve used before… So we’re using a new physics engine. It’s called Hadron – as in the collider,” stated Bell to Traxion, eliminating rumours that Straight4 would employ a version of the MADNESS engine as used in SMS’ Project CARS games.

“The Hadron physics engine is basically taking the first line of [Project Motor Racing] code and writing it again,

“We have a great engine and very complex but it required two full cores of the CPU just to operate at a reasonable acuity and tick rate for the tyres,” he explained, highlighting the difficulties of developing a proprietary physics engine.

“[There] was a little bit too much overhead so we decided to go back and make things more efficient, go back to first principles, use the original data and new data we’ve brought onboard and write each of them from scratch,” he stated, expanding on the huge workload his team faces in delivering Project Motor Racing to an acceptable level.

Physics is fun 

Project Motor Racing’s physics engine development is spearheaded by Straight4 Studios’ Kevin Bolland, who was previously the Senior Technical Director at Electronic Arts and Technical Director at Slightly Mad Studios.

“The physics team is really good, we’ve got about five people working there full-time and they’re doing a great job. AJ [Weber, Director Physics and Simulation] is running the core of what he has done before but he hasn’t started with anything he’s used before,” explained Bell, referring to the clean slate approach his team is taking in creating a new sim.

As for graphics, the team is no longer using Unreal Engine and will switch to a new technology base, expected to be unveiled ‘soon’.

What are your thoughts on Project Motor Racing using the brand-new Hadron physics engine? Will Straight4 Studios find the ‘God particle’ of sim physics with the new engine? Let us know in the comments below.