I'm telling what i would do! Not what people should do, i respect if people allow other views in leagues, just not in mine
Each to their own. I drive TV Cockpit (bonnet cam) because I already have a wheel & 'windscreen' (the monitor) in front of me. What HAS annoyed me is there are some mods that were bonnet cam, but now have taken the literal meaning of TV Cockpit & basically have a view from the passenger seat or just to the side of where the driver sits. Enduracers, for one, have adopted this method. Unfortunately, like WFG (even though I did have a go in forced view), that precludes me from racing their mods. A shame, as I like the Flat 6 cars especially. I'm not sure who, if anyone, would use the view that they have adopted & would prefer if S397 can cater for a specific ' bonnet view' to keep all drivers happy..
That is OK, it's a free decision. Good that you have written "imo" here. Imo, that is completely BS. Cams like TV or swingman are available and selectable since the beginning of rfactor and so it is a totally valid option to use them.
I smell double standards. You admit you are using unrealistic view just because you don't have steering wheel capable of showing that info. Well I am using unrealistic view because I don't have side screens. I am also handicapping myself by not seeing rev lights and gear. Btw we are talking here about "realistic view" and that excludes anything that doesn't belong on screen. If you are handicapping yourself or not is irelevant and has nothing to do with it. Only thing relevant is that your cockpit view with all that arcadish widgets doesn't look anything like what real driver sees. It is ok, each to his own, everybody has the right to play the way he wants but it is funny when players whos screens look like jet fighter HUD combined with nuclear power plant monitoring software accuse others as arcade gamers.
@Filip careful mate, you're putting everyone disagreeing with you in the same group and giving them all the same opinion. ADSTA only commented on the HUD info, he didn't talk about forcing cockpit view for realism and then talk about needing a HUD for realism. Though he may do that yet, don't rule anything out
For my part I look for the greatest realism, so no HUD (except temporarily after pressing a button) and exclusively the cockpit view. But damn let people do what they want in single player, and in my opinion force a view in multiplayer is useless (IMO) : If the simracer takes for some reason more fun in view bumper..... .......or worse if he does not want to reveal to all a physical disability which he suffers and who will explain some choices of games settings...... Let's do it !!! Do not forget: "IMO".
Joypads are also supported since the beginning so IMO that is BS too when you're racing on a simulation... Anyway they're just opinions, respect...
You are right, I apologize to @ADSTA. But I still stand by my words and was talking about players like Rui Santos and alikes.
I know streamed races in germany where it was avoided to use swingman camera or even cockpit camera - for streaming! Reason: unrealistic... (However cockpit cams get somewhat realistic meanwhile) In a recent 12h ac race in my same home portal, they even excused to use those cams to show show the 3rd party light mods on the cars Ok I think this is crazy. But as a driver driver you sit into the car, period, end of discussion
I can understand not showing the proper cockpit view for 'like real life' realism (you can't see the driver's view in real life), though for esports we probably need to consider changing our expectations (first person shooter tournaments don't restrict coverage to external cameras, for example). Cockpit view being mandatory I can get, as I've gone through in this thread, as there can be advantages to exotic views and it makes sense that everyone is testing the same skills. It's analogous to turning up to a R/C racing competition and driving via an onboard cam - totally different skill set required. (chase cam etc not that much different, but still different) Any opinion on how much cockpit view should be limited?
Thank you Filip, but when I read your opinion I knew I was caught in the crossfire of far more opinionated opponents.
Anything other than cockpit view does give you an advantage. Good example is the ability to string 2 or more corners together better by more easily discerning the correct line to do so. Nothing to to with spacial orientation when battling side by side....for me anyway.
Have you ever tried it out and could run faster laptimes or finish races in better positions, by using the swingman cam for example, than to use the cockpit view cam? That is the same discussion as with the comparison of using a wheel or a gamepad. In the end, it's all a question of each ones skills and the ability to adapt to the things that are used. In my league for example, there was member that was faster by using his keyboard, than members that used wheels or gamepads.
I grew accustomed to racing from cockpit and it takes weeks getting adjusted and fully up to pace with a different camera, but I'd guess pace-wise there might not be a whole lot difference if any. But on the other hand, the swingman camera has undeniable advantages in certain aspects, like having a much better angle of spotting the chaos ahead of you at race starts and having almost perfect visibility compared to zero visibility when behind another car in rain spray. I see the point in perhaps allowing bonnet camera and I actually had to resort to it on a couple of occasions. Especially in older titles the cockpit camera position or FOV was sometimes really poorly configured, like in Richard Burns Rally, so bonnet camera was sometimes the only sensible choice on a single screen. Anyway, the problem is that rF2 doesn't allow to lock to a specific camera so you either have all available or cockpit view only, in which case I'd vote for cockpit view.
Do you think this applies to rF2 though? The main scenario I can see for moving the camera forward is to avoid having the cockpit take up a large proportion of the screen when the screen itself is small or distant (so you're looking through a small window at a smaller window, and the game world is outside that again). 'Duplicate wheel' is often cited but I don't think that's so much the issue, especially when you can turn off the wheel completely in rF2. If anything you might be limited in forward movement by an informative wheel (or just rev/shift lights on it) and you can make the wheel static in that case. If you're going to fix to cockpit view, I can't see any reason to move the camera outside the cabin. I'm not too sure why you'd want to move closer to the near window, but to allow for VR head movement you'd need to get the eyepoint mostly to the glass. Then the seat (headrest) should be the rear limit, while the forward limit should be somewhere between the wheel and the windscreen. The camera doesn't need to move all the way to the windscreen to show only the windscreen (on 'normal' FOV values), so I suspect the wheel itself might actually be a decent forward limit. Up and down movement don't really need limits (inside a closed cabin) except to stay within the cabin itself, cars without a roof just need a reasonable maximum height. A question mark is the opposite side of a tintop, but learning to drive on the wrong side is a skill so keep the view on the correct side for the vehicle, maybe the same amount of movement as there is on the near-side, or even less to avoid being able to centre the view in the car. This all limits the 'show off' ability of VR, but on a server with forced cockpit view I don't think that's an issue. Can easily use single player or an unlocked server to showcase VR. Single-seaters could use the same constraints, most cars already have enough seat height adjustment so just limit VR etc to the same. Does anyone need to move a cockpit camera more than that? Most people I've seen request more movement want to sit basically on the steering wheel, I did race with one person who liked to drive from the roll hoop in an F1 car but if there's a rule then I think that's out of the question. @Supa I don't think 'seeing lines' can be an advantage for more than a couple of laps. All that comes to mind is places like Cleveland (?) where the 'track' is marked out on a large flat surface and having height would definitely help visibility. Corner complexes very quickly come down to rhythm and understanding racing lines, more than seeing where you're going from above (I fully expect people who pick the wrong lines will do so in either view). Anyway, for a locked cockpit view I agree on limiting height to a degree that would avoid that sort of advantage.
even with locked cockpit view if you have VR you could get round that by putting the HMD on the floor and centering it, then when you put it on your head you are above the car....or put it behind you and centre to get bonnet cam...
Nice post, i don't use VR, so i didn't knew that. That means, that if you lock the view to cockpit view, the "winners" are the VR users, that still can use every point of view, that they prefer. By knowing that, it would be better to allow all views, to get the "advantages" more balanced again.
Interesting, I also didn't know about this VR "cheat". Is there an option on server to disallow VR? If not than what good is restricting to cokpit view if there a workaround? How does WFG solve that problem? Will there be any added time penalty for VR users?
That's exactly why I'm talking about expanding the available movement a bit, but then locking everyone into that range (when forced cockpit is on). In fact I already mentioned VR, TrackIR, and movement controls (which my headtilt plugin uses) which all provide workarounds to the forced cockpit view currently, in my first post in this thread. Thanks to everyone for reading
