Volume 78 -- Feb. 8, 2008

Turn 10 Wants You!

By: Che Chou, Community Manager

Now that we can officially look back at our recent accomplishments, 2007 was unquestionably very fortuitous for Forza Motorsport 2. The game achieved both critical acclaim and commercial success upon release last May, and even now, nearly 9 months after launch, we continue to enjoy a very active (and creative) userbase on Xbox Live. We’re also very pleased with the fact that Forza 2 has now garnered top racing-game-of-the-year awards from many of the biggest games press sites out there, including Gamespot, Gamespy, Gametrailers, IGN, and more.

So to celebrate in the only possible way befitting of our success, Turn 10 will be looking to grow its operations considerably in 2008 and beyond. With the annual Game Developers Conference coming up in San Francisco (2/18 – 2/22), we figured now would be a good time to give everyone a heads-up that Turn 10 is hiring for our next big thing.

1999 Dodge Viper GTS ACR by: RTdes - Replica/Race Livery Competition

We’re looking for experienced developer talent: If you’re a hot Graphics dev, Tools dev, Networking/Servers dev, Pipeline dev, or an SDET with content, pipeline, or online expertise, you need to be a part of Turn 10’s world-class team. We’re also looking to staff up on a variety of Art positions, including Tech, UI, Modeling, and Environments. Basically, if you’re an accomplished developer with a passion for games (or racing), get in touch with us pronto.

Those of you active in the Forza community know how easy it is to get a hold of a human being here at Turn 10. The best way to get yourself on the fast track is to email your cover letter and resume to forzafb@microsoft.com. I will personally filter it onto each of our team leads here for consideration.

1993 Jaguar XJ220 by: Jonny705 - Turbo Photomode Competition

Turn 10 folks will also be in attendance at GDC en masse. If you’re a developer going to GDC -- even if you’re just curious about a job here at Turn 10 -- track down one of our many developers rockin’ Forza Motorsport 2 or Turn 10 t-shirts and ask questions, sell your passion for games development, do whatever it is you do to make an impression on us.

A surefire way of meeting Turn 10 folks will be during the Microsoft Game Studios GDC booth during the Career Pavilion Booth Crawl, taking place Wed. Feb. 20, from 4:30 to 6:00pm. We’ll be giving away free copies of Forza Motorsport 2 (signed by the team!) as well as an Xbox 360, so c’mon down and meet the crew, because we certainly look forward to meeting you. Don't be shy. Come say hi.

Which is the replica, and which is the photograph? See all the excellence from our Team Seattle replica contest here.

This also applies to folks who think they might be able to help me with community duties. Get in touch with me for more info. Yes, the times -- they are exciting! In other news, we have picked the 10 finalists in our Team Seattle Porsche 996 GT3 replica contest. While some were more accurate than others, the entries were all pretty mindblowingly good (see above).  A superb job all around guys. For all the details on who got picked to be gifted over to MSN Autos and Chris Pennington (real Team Seattle driver) for final judging, head over to our latest blog entry and find out how we judged the 10 finalists and how we managed to (only) pick 10 cars out of tons more amazing entries.

FM.net contributor P. Rod lays down the smack in our Car of the Week blog: The Ferrari 250 GTO - best car ever made?

Speaking of blogs, discussion has kicked off for the Turn 10 Car of the Week blog entry, this time joined by our friend P. Rodriguez with his assertion that the Ferrari 250 GTO is the best car ever made. Pretty bold claim, to be sure, but then again, you're talking about a super-rare (36 in the world, in fact) that recently sold for something like $20 million bucks. But aside from rarity, what makes the 250 GTO so worthy of worship? Find out in our Car of the Week post and join in the discussion. P. Rod also challenges our readers to find another car (especially from back in the day) that even approaches the automotive supremacy of the 250 GTO. Go ahead, ponder on that for a while.

Now I hand it over to Landin, who profiles a really interesting cat from our photomode community. I've been staring at Johnny Questtt's photos on our forums for quite a while now and feeling more and more inadequate in my photomode abilities with each photo he takes. This guy's got an eye for subtle beauty. Read on to find out how...

2003 Nissan Fairlady Z by: CoolRonin - Replica/Race Livery Competition

The Questtt for Photomode Perfection

By: Landin Williams, Community Moderator

So last week we put together a short feature article on the painting community, as a way to dig deeper into the lives of people who spend so much time expressing their artistic abilities in Forza 2. We included a few “creation” videos that demonstrate how each layer in a design is used as a small piece of a bigger puzzle that eventually makes up a lifelike image. This week, I sit down with another very active member of the community, who uses some of his real life photography experience to take incredible pictures with Forza 2’s photomode feature. “Johnny Questtt” (as he is known on the forums) AKA John Waldorp is very active with the multimedia section of our community, and is currently running an officially sponsored weekly photomode competition where specific cars or tracks must be included in the photo submissions. This competition has gained a lot of support over the past few weeks, partly due to the fact that the community is now being polled to determine the winners.

This is one of our favorites from Mr. Questtt.

As you may already know, Turn 10 used to run various weekly competitions in-house, but eventually turned the community loose with the idea in hopes that someone would host an event. Only a few weeks after announcing the end to our official photomode competition, John stepped up to the challenge and hosted his very own competition, spending time to not only organize the threads every week, but also to filter through all of the submissions and pick his favorites. With so much time invested in this competition I began thinking about his passion for taking pictures and wanted to find out what it is about Forza 2's photomode that he finds so interesting.

After a few minutes talking with him I soon discovered that he is also very interested in taking pictures in real life, although, ironically he does not take pictures of cars. “I have a good-sized collection of photos that I've taken over that past few years," Waldorp says. "Interestingly enough, very few of them are of cars. In real life I mostly enjoy taking shots of nature. I'm lucky enough to live in a very beautiful part of California.”

Here is a clean shot of an RX-7 on Laguna Seca.

   
This passion for taking pictures in real life seems to translate to a passion for taking pictures in Forza 2, and when asked about the correlation between photography in real life and in-game, he was quick to point out that his experience helped him and others take lifelike images in Forza 2. “There are others on the site that take amazing photos in Forza and also happen to photograph in real life and I think that it's certainly not a coincidence,” he explains. “For anyone who wants to start photography, whether they want to improve their skills in Forza 2’s photomode or simply have fun, it's a great thing to do.”

  
So what about all those players looking to improve their skills?  You may be wondering what you need to do in order to get your pictures to look photo-realistic, and luckily I was able to get some good tips during our interview. When asked about his techniques John pointed out the importance of lighting, improvisation and creativity. He feels that in order to obtain high quality images in Forza 2 you first have to work with the natural lighting, something that is also very important in real life photography. 

It seems that stylistically there is s trend in all of his photo's.

Many photographers will be reluctant to reveal their photomode “tricks of the trade”; however John was kind enough to share some of the techniques he uses to achieve cool lighting effects in Forza 2. “Usually I lower the exposure, raise the contrast, and then raise the color and sepia setting equally. Once I've achieved what looks to me like good lighting, I'll move the camera closer to the car and see what I can do”. This experimentation with the in-game settings combined with some improvisation when things aren’t working out as planned can really create some interesting results.

  
This is exactly what was mentioned when I asked John about his all-time favorite personal Forza 2 picture. He explained a scenario where he was attempting to take a specific shot, but ended up with something completely different. “I have one photo that embodies what I discussed earlier about improvisation and creativity. I was trying to take a picture of a 997 GT3, but it wasn't working out too well so I gave up on the car and just looked straight up…”

Creativity and improvisation is combined in this moody shot from Waldorp.

This sort of creativity and improvisation helps John with his photomode competitions as each week he has been thinking of a new set of restrictions to even the playing field. Organizing all of the entries (over 40 last week), tallying the votes and updating threads with the results is a very time consuming process, but John feels like this is his way to give back to the community. “My favorite part of the community is that anyone can be a part of it.  If you want to be active in the community then it's your opportunity for the taking. The photomode competition was my opportunity,” he explains.  “Besides that, the main reason is that I just love looking at awesome photos, which seem to be very abundant in the Forza community.”

If you want to see some awesome real life photo’s then make sure to check out John's flickr page HERE, and also his Forza 2 Photo Gallery HERE. Alternatively if you’re looking for some awesome pictures from Forza 2 then look no further than the weekly community update, as we include some of the best photo’s every week as voted by the community!  Now get out there, drift around in an S2000 and submit your pictures to this week’s photomode competition HERE. Additionally I encourage everyone to check out the new "Photoshop Competition" happening HERE, as well as the "Viper Photomode Competition" that is currently accepting entries HERE!  Special thanks to Johnny Questtt for taking the time to sit down and talk about his passion for achieving Photomode Perfection!

1998 Ferrari #12 Risi F333 SP by: felix1805 - FC Photo Comp.

The Forza Motorsport 2 Community Updates

The Hotlap Series has recently completed its third week, and once again we are all amazed at how far drivers are willing to go to get the best possible time. In week 2 we saw a very dominate performance from both the Italian Pro Racers and Racing to Perfection, who together, were able to secure 8 spots in the top 10 and 12 spots in the top 20. The team point’s race clearly reflects this dominance as these two teams continue to distance themselves from 3rd place. Currently they are separated by only 98 points, meaning one week can easily decide who takes the top spot after the dust clears from week 5! IPR is determined to defend their title, while R2P is poised to take it away. Who will be victorious? Stay tuned to find out!

We are also seeing a very tight battle for the 3rd place position, as SqR, TRC and VVV are within 70 points of each other after week 2. With only 7 points between 4th and 5th place it will be very interesting to see how these teams shuffle around once the points are calculated from week 3. For all the details regarding the results from this week’s challenge make sure to visit the official thread HERE. So without any further ado here are the top 10 finishers from this week’s Hotlap Challenge!

1989 Porsche 944 Turbo by: hira - Turbo Photomode Competition

Hotlap Challenge Week 21: Top 10
1 - R2P Xray
2 - blademeisterTRC
3 - VVV ChilledHeat
4 - TRC Scooty
5 - R2P KimiMatt
6 - R2P Henniker
7 - VVV Nismo
8 - MentalJ NooB
9 - R2P sNooB
10 - TRC factory

To see if you have been selected as one of the random 30 from week 21 click HERE. Want to redeem your gift car? Shoot us an e-mail at forzafb@microsoft.com with your gamertag and car selection. Cars are usually sent out on Monday, so get those e-mails in over the weekend. For week 22 we have decided to go with a Suzuka East R3 challenge with no special restrictions.  We are releasing the dominat cars for this one, so check out the leaderboards and start running laps!

1993 Nissan Skyline GT-R by: Mazda6MPS - Turbo Photomode Competition

As Che has already mentioned we have been running a replica livery contest for the past few weeks that challenged players to re-create the Team Seattle Porsche 996 GT3 Cup car, and we have just recently determined the 10 finalists who will move on to the next stage of judging. I wanted to take this opportunity to congratulate everyone who has submitted a design for this contest! All of the submissions were quite remarkable, and it made the judging process quite difficult to say the least. If you keep up to date with our blog's you will notice a new entry that not only reveals the top 10, but also sheds some light on the process used to judge these amazingly detailed and accurate replicas! To view all of the liveries check out the official thread HERE. For now here are the finalists, congratulations and keep up the great work!

Team Seattle Replica Competition Finalists
EvoBobber and Brad O Shizno
DamnMe2006
Seven7h_cOlumn
J0QUE
General FRANKZ
mrSlush50
n248
TDR Mattystang and TDR Davinci
xrulicr
SPDN Timbo1977 and SPDN AintRite69

If you have not been chosen as a finalist remember that you are still eligible for a free gift car of choice due to the fact that we were so impressed with all of the entires! We have already received a few car requests via e-mail, so if you have already sent in your request there is no need to send another. If not then send your car request to forzafb@microsoft.com and include your gamertag. If you are a finalist make sure to hold off on the requests until we announce the grand prize winners!

IFCA Forza World Championship: A New Champion is Crowned!

Congratulations going out to “R2P CoNCepT” for taking the top position in the IFCA’s Forza World Championship! This is one of five events hosted by the IFCA, where racers face off head to head in an elimination style tournament that leads up to one final race between the 7 fastest racers. Here are the official results from Series 8!

1 - R2P CoNCepT
2 - TDR PoTtHeD
3 - ISRC Vtwin
4 - Koenigsegg NL
5 - TDR Flex
6 - TDR GTDon
7 - TDR XcamX

Check out the official IFCA Forum HERE for more information about participating in one of the many IFCA racing events! If you are looking for good clean racing, then this is the place to go!

2004 Chrysler PT Cruiser GT by: boogie van - FC Photo Comp.

Alright that’s all for this week’s update! As you can see we have divided the community portion of the article into two sections. The second half will be dedicated to interesting community events, so if you are running an event and would like some coverage then send us an e-mail at forzafb@microsoft.com.

I hope you all have a great weekend and I will see you on the forums! Thanks for reading.

Peace

Landin

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