Eric Brannfors' 1988 BMW E24 M6 Monster
Gutted, Caged, and Ready for Speed.
By: Che Chou
06.01.06 // 11:25
Although it may not be the very first aspect of the game to grip your senses, audio is a crucial part of Forza Motorsport 2's simulation equation. The audio characteristics of each car in the game remains a fine point detail you pick up after hours, days, weeks spent on the edge of grip in the world of Forza Motorsport. And if, like us, your goal is to essentially digitize reality (and in this case, our 300+ fleet of cars) then the only way to accurately reproduce the sights and sounds is to tirelessly capture real-life data in a manner that would serve as a useful resource for game development. To that end, we at Turn 10 are nearly at the end of our exhaustive process of recording and sampling audio from hundreds of real-life cars on a number of dynamometers around the country.
In an effort to share with you, our dedicated readers, some insight into how all of this game development voodoo works, we're pulling together a recurring series of features called the Turn 10 Dyno Spotlight that takes a look at a sampling of the most interesting cars we've gotten to work with over the past year of Forza Motorsport 2 development. If nothing else, it's a good excuse to throw up a bunch of pictures of drool-worthy cars we've got sitting around and to tell a good story from the point-of-view of each car's unique owner. After all, they're the unsung heroes of Forza Motosport development. Enjoy!
It's a week or so after the din of our E3 2006 Forza Motorsport 2 announcement and life back at Turn 10 was focused squarely back on our tight production schedule. Our audio content coordinator Mark Price drops me an email notifying me that they were going to spend a couple hours capturing audio from race-spec 1988 BMW M6 belonging to Erik Brannfors, a local racer and BMW enthusiast. I manage to squirrel my way out of a meeting and arrive at FAME Automotive, a dynamometer authority here in Redmond, just in time to see a few warm-up runs with M6 chained down to FAME's AWD dyno.
Those of you who have attended dyno sessions before can attest to the fact that an open engine pushed to redline in a small, echo-happy garage facility can be a deafening experience, not to mention intimidating and downright violent. It really puts into perspective the fact that under the hood of every car is a metallic heart that, more or less, goes through this explosive process every time you get on the throttle. The shrill of the engine has a strange physical effect on those who not accustomed to direct exposure of raw power; when the engine screams at its limits, you feel as if you should step back, perhaps maybe even stand behind something so that when the unspeakable does happen, you've got some shrapnel insurance. Of course, ear plugs and a signed waiver are standard requisites when you're hanging out at the dyno.
After a few runs, Price comes over to me and looks unhappy with the results. I ask him what's up. "We’ve got a secondary ignition misfire right between 4000 and 6000 RPMs. The spark that’s going to the spark plug is getting a lot of resistance, so the coil is not able to pump the spark all the way through the spark plug to make the air fuel mixture burn properly. So that’s making it run a little erratic. If it’s not running smooth enough, it’s gonna not really be recordable," he tells me.
// Next Page: How We Do What We Do... //