I've used cockpit view ever since Revs on the Commodore C64 and now with the addition of a trackIR pro, it just feels natural to me.
That's still unrealistic. The screen pixels are laid out in 2D. In order for you to look at that screen and see the world from the correct viewpoint than the image has to be created and spawned from where the in-game driver's eyeballs are since you are simulating being the in-game driver and your view comes from your eyeballs (obviously). What you see in that image is not what the eye sees. You can see the dash and hood from too close, too high up, and probably too pointed downwards. The entire image from the cockpit, to the outside, to the concrete ground is being rendered from a non-realistic viewpoint. You are seeing all objects on the screen from a different perspective, a different angle, etc. In real life the monitor is a 2d image, the pixels are layed out horizontally and verticslly in 2d, it is not some sort of 3D hologram, therefore just because your monitor is further away from you doesn't mean it should be rendering the view from a windshield. The monitor is your eyes to the virtual world, it's not literally replicating a specific physical peice3 of the body of the car. You are seeing a view on the screen as if you stuck your eyes out further in front of your head and also right near the ceiling. That view is not projecting an image from a human being's vision standpoint. Sitting 5 inches or 20 feet away from the screen, above or below the screen, to the left/right of the screen, doesn't change anything. Neiher does the amount of guages or other hardware that you may have/not have. Nothing changes this. There is technically only one correct viewpoint, where the in-game drivers eyeballs are and that's it. The only thing that changes based on your horizontal distance to screen is your FOV. That's horizontal distance only, changing your head pitch, camera height, etc. in order to compensate for you sitting lower or higher than your monitor in real-life will also compromise the rendered on-screen image and therefore have an incorrectly rendered image/viewpoint.
As a thought experiment, imagine we moved a display to any distance away we wanted but the display could be stretched in physical size so that we saw the exact same physical fov of the display (i.e. your mobile phone screen 5cm away fills the same physics fov as a cinema screen 25m away). Assuming that we keep the ingame fov constant, the perceived perspective would remain the same for all new positions of the display. In the same way, if you now use the car nose position and set the display at the correct distance (and you've need a pretty big display for this) then bringing the display closer and shrinking it in size proportionately (to maintain the physical fov of the display) will maintain the exact same perspective to the user if the display was at the dashboard position. The issue here is that the display is in 2d and so there is no true depth perception to the user. It's only when/if the display is in 3d that it would be ok to match the display distance with the virtual camera distance. However, this is negatable because we have a 3d "convergence" scale available in 3d vision that factors in the user to physical display distance. When set correctly, you can pretty much use any display distance with the cockpit view and still get the right 3d perspective. If we view the above in reverse now, using the drivers view in cockpit and set a display right on the tip of our eyeball (aside from the fact that we would not physically be able to focus on it and it would cause great strain on our eye muscles to look cross-eyed) but then moved the display away from us and stretched the display proportionately, the perspective would remain the same and this is why for any display distance the most realistic perspective is always the drivers view in cockpit. All that being said, i honestly have no qualms with people using bonnet or cockpit view or anything in-between. If people have a small screen or a small physical fov (i.e. display set far away), then i completely understand why they may switch to an alternative view.
If that's the case in your description Spinelli then the whole game is unrealistic ( its after all unrealistic as its not real ) ( sound like my wife now ) .. Back to my point of realism is if the view from the games view is the only realistic view how come my arms seem 5ft long?? As with optometry everyone has a different FOV and nobody really knows if we all process what we see the same way ,that's only really ever been a guess.. The way I look at it ( excuse the pun) is does it look real , does it look like when Im in my car??? a 27" diagonal screen cant be expected to show your entire periphial view and neither should it in this situation ,you have to crop whats relevant and fill the available screen shot with what your eyes believe in Dr ,I see where you are coming from but thinking about all this makes me more convinced that we all process what we see individually,I like to see my wheels say in an OW car at what appears to my eye/ brain as the distance they would be in an actual car (visually). Smithaz perception of binoculars is kind of correct in my view( damn puns) but in my own way,if that makes any sense edit\\\; Just did a re setup of FOV and seat positions relevant to my screen size ,wheel height to seating position and in a OW car, tried a little exercise by closing my eyes and imagining where I would see my front wheels as a datum for setting up correct FOV, I lifted my hands ,eyes still closed , and held them in a position I thought would reflect the fronts position, changed FOV to replicate that position , then adjusted seat position to what |I believe would be distance from wheel. Interesting result . my FOV has dropped from 55 to 34 ,seat position at -66/-3 for the R1RFT 2013 mod ..and interesting, initially my times where down aprox 3 seconds but soon came back to pb. times. I was also feeling more immersed and my heart beat was well up.( just my observations )
I have always used cockpit. With 3 screens i run my fov at 25-27. I'm convinced this is the most realistic. But one thing that bothers me is the virtual seat position. I really wish i could slide the virtual seat back a few more inches. As it is, i always feel like the dashboard, mirrors, and front wheels (I guess everything in front of me) is to close (big). I posted a request for this years ago but it hasn't happened. Seems like it would be an easy program change but too small of an issue i guess to get attention.
I agree with this, I'm definitely against forced view of any type purely because some people use trackIR and similar, which allows an optional view. I have 3 screens and use cockpit view for the 60s open wheelers and bonnet view or pushed up cockpit view depending on the car, some cars in cockpit view to me are unrealistic with the view placement and pillar blockage, these cars I use bonnet view.
I have one monitor, and for most mods I use the TV Cockpit view with a lowered FOV. It depends on the car, really. I run with whatever feels right on a car-by-car basis. I'm not at all concerned with setting artificial difficulty levels in the interest of "ultimate realism". This is a game on a computer (yes, I used the G word). If I want realism I can always go scrounge up the cash to get in a real car. If other people want to roleplay being a driver and make things as real as possible, go for it. Have fun. That's what this is supposed to be for anyway.
Driving aids like TC ABS etc. are penalised with weight penaltie. TV cockpit, bumpe, bonet etc. are also driving aids and should have weight penaltie too. Get real peeps, use cockpit view.
Lol But you need the correct driving equipment of a sofa seat and some rope for stearing and a broomstick for accelerating or else it's cheating.
