Are we gonna have an animated gear stick in cars cockpits that have them ( 60s for example ) ? I think this feature is needed for those who dont use HUD + it adds lot of immersive feel ...
<cough> Well, if I may be so bold...hehe...why not provide your own animation by using a H-shifter instead? C'mon...u KNOW u really want to Luc! CS
Of course i prefer use my h shifter on those cars ... But having a working cockpit with moving needles and wheel but fixed gear stick is little strange (sad) (GPL 1998 had this feature ... we're in 2012)
+1. I need shifter to see what gear switched right now (to turn off HUDs, which i do not like). I wrote about this before and Tim answered that this was on their list somewhere, possibly very low, maybe after initial release.
I can't imagine...but he's younger, and probably has more skills (and might even be better looking...lol). This thing is positively frightening at even a realistic FOV (@Spa). At least IMO. [These guys were BRAVE!] CS
Some cars have the shifter very visible even with default FOV. It's usually obscured by the driver's arm though, so you wouldn't see it anyway even if it was animated. I've actually thought about this and I'm not so sure anymore I want it animated, because the animation would always lag behind. The animation can only trigger when a gear is selected (or when a gear is released if using an H-shifter) and basically when the drivers arm starts moving you're already done changing the gear. This would bug the hell out of me if everything else was happening in real time. =)
Not that I'm trying to promote this idea or anything (actually, I dont care either way myself--to each his own)... ...but the LAG issue (for a supposed shifter animation) might be addressed just as easily as was the "steering wheel lag" so many people complained about back in rF1. I won't claim to know anything about ATI cards, but in that case, and for those using Nvidia cards, there was a culprit known as the "look ahead frame buffer." For whatever reason, it seemed the buffer recorded (and then replayed) the game output in a way that "lagged" behind the real inputs (to the wheel in that case). I believe the default setting was "3." Using the "CoolBits" video utility opened up an otherwise hidden (hidden why exactly?)...Nvidia option to reset this to another number--"Zero (0)" in this case being the number that eliminated that lag. There was yet another utility solution too (similar to Coolbits), the name of which I can't quite conjure up at this late hour *...but which also opened up comoplete control of this same hidden (Nvidia) value. [Followup edit* I think it was "Riva Tuner" (?)...and it opened up the same lag-tuning options for Nvidia card users (don't remember anything about usefulness re: ATi cards] Seems to me having solutions like this (and assuming they still work today) would solve any shifter lag issues...in the same way they solved those steering wheel lag issues back in rF1. CS
Unless you're suggesting the animation all happen in the span of 1 frame, it's gonna have lag. Or maybe program something where the code uses psychic powers and predicts when you're going to shift.
Think about watching replay, 60's cars gear changes would be clearly visible from outside, same animation would easily work inside too, right? My Volvo mod has 5 cameras inside the car, one for each seating position, now how nice it would be to see those gear changes in video made from backseat driver's perspective? Yeah, I guess that only requires me to do such animations, maybe there is some way to get gear information to animation? Anyway, there are always more ways to look everything than what is our first view, learning new viewpoints makes one wiser I think, so why to be so limited to only one view?
Yep, fair point about the replays. That would be good to see. As for driving views I use cockpit view. I have triple monitors and use a fairly low FOV. I try to get a realistic view as if I was actually in the car which means not even seeing most of the virtual dash. So for me, I turn off the virtual wheel as I already can see my real life wheel and hands.
Same for me, I have only one 27" screen though, so I use bit of compromise, but 35 FOV and no steering wheel is probably considered too low for many, but when I learned to that it is bit difficult to use anything else. That is the nice thing, variety and many different ways to enjoy from simming, when some feature is not away from someone else, I very much support such, even it would not be directly use for me
No no no no, you got me all wrong there, it's not a graphics problem in that sense at all. What I meant was that whereas a steering wheel always tells the game how it's positioned, the shifter can only say whether a particular button is pressed or if none are pressed at all. So the animation for changing the gear can only start after you've already changed the gear, since the game can't see your hand moving towards the shifter. =) For example using a sequential box you'd take your hand off the wheel, grab the shifter, then change the gear, and it's only at that point that the game can start moving the driver model's arm to go change the gear. For an h-shifter you could help it a little bit if you had the hand go to the shifter as soon as you take the shifter out of gear, but that leads to other problems, like what's the default position for neutral? If it's with the shifter centered, by changing slowly the driver will move the shifter to the center between every gear, which would look rather silly. Hopefully some company introduces a shifter that has pots for the gear lever so that we know its position between gears too, would help this sort of animation immensely. Throw in some FFB so you can't just hammer in a gear and voilà. =)
I definitely want animated gear changes. Just make sure they can be turned off if not wanted. And is there any chance that the Live For Speed comedy arms will be improved in the final release?
animated hands and gear stick, no hud. great F1 historic immersion! this is GPL onboard (1998): if animated hand is complicated, a simple animated stick: (a dream if we can activate this feature in a future car upgrades)
Even Rfactor's cousin? brother? son? Race Injection had it and also moving feet! Edit: shame the driver is using a joypad......and can't drive.
