How could this be implemented from a controller perspective? If a developer is to try to implement an admittedly important control there has to be a way for the user to do it sitting in our chairs. Reminds me of all the failed attempts to look around corners...can't realistically be done without a head-based controller. Now that we have some of those, it's awesome. I'm just struggling trying to figure out how this (body lean and posture) could work.
This "feeling" seems to be the most appealing aspect of AC for a lot of people. I do know that it helps one get to grips with the capabilities of the car more quickly than when there is less of this "feeling."
It's being able to understand what the car is doing, how it is behaving, and drive based on the real-life concepts and feel instead of "memorizing" how the car feels in a corner. Like rF1 especially when you had to drive blind with the front tires, almost, because while you could have an idea of how it was going to behave you just didn't feel it and thus the actual driving is impacted.
Software and hardware limitations would be the reason I stated already, that you seemingly missed or didn't understand. It wasn't simplified for the benefit of the driver, I never stated that.
Not to go off-topic, but for me the Lola has about the same feeling of weight and weight transfer as the ISI vehicles. Definitely a bit "lighter" than anything in AC.
My post wasn't meant to translate as excluding all stock content. The Corvette, the Howston, Historic F1s, and the Civic are the stock cars I also experience that feeling. I can't speak for the Camaro as I haven't touched it.
I am glad that ISI, for now, aren't implementing weight shifting. If it's just mapped to a button then it's arcadey. Might as well use a button for gas and brake too. I can feel amazing things with ths RFactor 1 ffb once I tune some settings in the plr. Front tyre scrub, rear rotation and slip, lightness over bumps and crests, INDIVIDUAL wheel lock-up, threshhold braking telling you that you are about to lock-up but that you haven't quite locked up just yet, etc. etc. etc. Now if you have some ultra-vague form of FFB like 100% realfeel and realfeel only because it apparently is more realistic (maybe from a pure steering wheel point of view it is, but DEFINITELY not in a "how a driver feels the car around him and drives to those limits & feelings" point of view) then I can understand where you're coming from. Don't confuse ffb for physics. Don't judge what your hands feel to a car's ACTUAL movements/actions/reactions/behaviour. 5 or 10 years ago people would always shut off FFB to test out physics so that FFB wouldn't affect their judgement, now it's the complete opposite, people judge actual physics by the FFB effects getting produced on their wheel and how they get along or don't get along with the "feel". Oh how the times have changed.
It's complex and would take a lot of work, i can appreciate that, but i hope the programmers will still consider manual body positioning/weight shifting for the future because it will be missed. It may not have been a decision made to benefit the driver, but it will benefit those whom don't know how to load a kart chassis properly as the more skillful kart driver will be handicapped. so it will benefit somebody. On the hardware side, im sure it could be mapped to steering wheel buttons, or even made to work with load cells and a bodnar board integrated in to a seat for those who are able to do that.
I don't think computing power will allow for it for a while. Not properly done as we'd want to, anyway. You might get another dev saying they can do it, but obviously we feel that this would be because they were giving you lesser physics (in programming terms) elsewhere. Edit: Mind you, we do keep changing our own models so that they carry more detail and don't tend to use more resources, so we'll see. But I wouldn't pin your hopes in it happening in current generation sim products.
Talking about physics models, whats the status of the advances in the tyre- and driveline models we are so eagerly awaiting?
Like M_Meehan suggested, head tracking is probably the way to go, detecting head movement in all directions should enable you to use many of the body movements used in rl karting... leaning back in the braking zones for rear traction, Sitting upright while turning in to raise cog and help the kart tip over across the diagonal axis (outside rear/inside front) and lift the inside rear tire, leaning out from corner entry to exit to aid the lifting of the inside rear, generally sitting upright and taught even when leaning out to stabilize the load/your body while cornering, ducking down on the straights, and in extreme cases leaning slightly forward and out in the wet to help the kart jack on turn in.
Oh bugger. I just realised from watching Tim's video that the camera is best left at its default position for karts so you can see the track well. Because my monitor sits so high up i have the camera tilted up 9 degrees (in the plr file "seat pitch" line) to bring the horizon closer to the bottom of the screen and more in line with my eye line. I don't think this will work so well with karts. My view on the right, which brings the horizon down just above my eye-line which feels so much more natural and realistic not having to loop upwards to see what would otherwise be right in front of you:
