CSR Racing 2 Receives a new AR Mode with Photorealistic Car Rendering

CSR Racing 2 (CSR2) is the most popular racing game in the app store as of the time of writing. It’s a great racing game that features photorealistic visuals. Now in version 1.14, its developer NaturalMotion added a new AR mode.

To be honest, I’ve downloaded immediately without even reading the description because I thought I can play the game in augmented reality (AR), but this isn’t the case.

The AR mode only allows you to display your cars in the real world and take images or videos and show off to your friends all the amazing car you achieved in the game.

The rendering of the car looks very realistic. The great thing about car visuals is their reflections, but unfortunately, the reflections here are pre-rendered. Obviously, there is no option for ARKit to provide the 3D model with a surrounding image that can be reflected in the 3D model. It still looks photo-realistic and very convincing. There are some jaggies that I didn’t like and I guess this is due to the lack of anti-aliasing which could have impaired the performance if used.

Inside a 3D car in augmented reality — You can move the iPhone or iPad camera inside the inner part of the car to see the inside. Don’t worry, you don’t have to crouch.

Once you launch the AR mode, the app will ask you to scan the surface and tap on a button to place the car. You can spawn the car in small-scale or see it in real life size. The small scale is designed to people can spawn it on a table in an indoor place and the life-size was designed for outdoor placement.

Photorealistic 3D car model in augmented reality — This is photorealism in AR boys, the car looks almost indistinguishable from the real cars behind it.

Users can pinch to make the car larger or smaller and swipe to rotate it. The app also gives you an option to change the lighting to make your car fit better in the scene where you spawn it. Once you are satisfied with the results, you can use the ‘Camera’ or the ‘Video’ buttons to create amazing shots and videos with it and share them with your friends. Just imagine spawning the car outdoors and let someone take a picture of you putting your hand on the roof and making a million dollar smiling to the camera, show how proud you are getting this car. You can even open all the car doors in just one click, great to see how the engine looks.

CSR2 AR mode showing a 3D rendered car — CSR2 car in Augmented Reality. Look how realistic the car looks against the real world scene, unbelievable!

Unfortunately, I was just starting the game, so I couldn’t share images of a really cool looking car.

Anyways, a really nice add-on feature for those of you who play the game on a regular basis and want to show off your new car in a more cool and fancy way. Maybe after I’ll get the new Lamborghini I would add a new image to this post, but until then let’s just race and have fun.

You can download the game from iTunes here.