Watch two of Germany's finest closed sports cars battle it out in a revolutionary new 3D environment.! Here's your chance to view the virtual road tests on your own desktop.
Welcome to the Virtual Road Test, an innovative new way to watch - and interact with - the tests we perform at the track. Here you'll be able to join us at the dragstrip, slalom, and MT Figure Eight course, to watch the BMW Z4 M Coupe and Porsche Cayman S (both featured in our August, 2006 issue) battle it out at their performance limits from any perspective you choose. And unlike our high-quality simulated 3D comparisons of the future Chevrolet Camaros and their Ford Mustang rivals (featured in our May, 2006 issue), here, what you see is exactly what happened at the track. Using an array of sensors unprecedented in the history of automotive magazine testing, we've recorded each cars speed, path, pitch, roll, slide angle and steering angle to create precise re-enactments of their performance virtuosity. Thanks to our collaborator, Mechanical Simulation (in particular, Chris Berry) for their brilliant software and assistance, and our 3D vehicle creator, Mike Edwards, for his expert renderings.
But to begin, please briefly review the Quick Start operating instructions to understand the basics of how you'll operate each animation once each download is complete. Next, click on an animation link and choose to either save the file or just open it. After that, just wait for the download to complete (trust us, it's worth it) - and enjoy. To our Mac users: sorry, but you'll need to find a friend with a PC as the animations are presently unavailable for your platform.
Additional features and hints • Hold "Shift" key and left mouse button while moving mouse to relocate your viewpoint.
• Click on the "View" tab and then "Multiple Results Window" to try different pre-selected perspectives.
• Click "View" tab and then "Show View Controls" to display sliders for zoom, rotate, and tilt.
• Click "file" tab to discover options to save BMP or JPEG images of your favorite scenes.
• The horizontal slider lets you scan through the animation to any time you wish.
• Be sure "Loop" is checked so that the animation will continuously replay/
• The "Performance gauge" should be green for the animation to play at actual speed. If it is red, or partially red, try lowering the frame rate to improve the player's performance.
• "Ghosts" is a function that repeats the preceding action up to 19 times at following distances selectable by the adjacent slider. Caution though - only very fast computers can utilize this capability, and we suggest leaving this setting on "0".
• For more detailed information, visit
http://www.carsim.com/downloads/animator_hints.php/Sorry, but currently, the Virtual Road Test doesn't support Mac viewing.
Virtual Acceleration Animations
Click here to download the virtual acceleration test.
Virtual Figure 8 Animations
Click here to download the virtual figure 8 test.
Virtual Slalom Animations
Click here to download the virtual slalom test.