realistic headphysics and drivers point of view

Flaux

Flaux

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Forget the sound.... but it is one of the very few videos where you can see how it looks from the drivers point of view. Done with videoglasses.
You don't see a lot of the car's cockpit. His view is straight out the window. Something that is still a bit strange in sim's, where half of the screen is showing your feet...

Have fun watching!

[video]https://youtu.be/rupaohuKIUw[/video]
 
Yeah. Video sure is not about FOV. But it is a rare opportunity to have it at eye-level, thanks to those glasses.
 
Someone mention feet ?

:)

 
We're obviously getting a smaller FOV than he gets for a couple of reasons but the most obvious tell is that he looks at the right mirror and left mirror several times but we can't even see more than the edge of either from the camera. More, obviously, the seating position in a car like that is very different to the one in a single-seater where you're basically laid back. Drivers in F1 have described it as 'peering along the top of the cockpit' and that's a good clue as to when you've got an accurate view. Realistically you'll see quite a bit more vertically and horizontally than that camera picks up and in single seaters especially you'll get a good chunk of the wheel display in your FOV.

More, the nature of a sim necessitates it displays more than you can focus on. The actual center of focus of an eye is a small part of what it picks up and, add to that, unless you want to toy with VR headware or fiddle around with the never less than sketchy look right/look left controls or with a lookahead setting you need to show more than a driver can necessarily see without looking around. Preferably almost as much as they could see simply by moving their eyes whilst keeping their head still. After all, not everyone has the money, space or inclination to get a 3+ screen setup.

That aside head physics is always a dubious prospect. When you've got the vibration, pitch, yaw and roll going on in a car your body will correct your view to compensate. When you haven't got that a 'realistic' level of vibration and shaking can easily cause nausea due to the body and eyes giving conflicting information. Obviously, when you cant your head to one side or the other your world view doesn't tilt because your equilibrioception and proprioception allow your brain to compensate. If the camera tilts like that your brain can't compensate because you don't get the correcting feedback from the equilibrioception and proprioception. The result is, at least, mild disorientation, at most, dizziness and vomiting. This is also why FPS games with large amounts of 'look spring' really get on my nerves. As fellow humans we've never had our view shaken around by the simple acts of running and walking because there are neurological systems in place to prevent that but when that nonsense is going on on the screen these systems can't help.

There are sensible minor effects that can be worked in to racing games but just having the camera roll, shake and pitch like a head doesn't work. You need to keep the camera orientation straight and centered, and iRacing does a good job of keeping such a perspective that the camera seems to stay steady and the car shakes and pitches underneath it. Another, far older game I can't even remember the name of had the interesting (and very well done) subtle effect of double-vision from vibration at high speed as is common with stiffly sprung single seaters at 150+ miles per hour. That was pretty cool and understated enough to not be distracting. Honestly it all comes down to the fact that the technology to faithfully recreate such experiences either doesn't exist or is utterly impractical, so the sim *has* to diverge from reality at this juncture. Hell, not many people realise that the vast majority of computer screens, (even the top-end ones) can't actually recreate a large array of colors properly, it's just something we have to live with. (For more information on that little fact look up high-chroma pigments.)

Edit - The game was Warm Up, from 2000ish. Nice game if you took it out of arcade mode (on the PC, the console port was putrid) that did a lot of things that more 'accurate' and popular games like GP3 didn't.
 
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I quite liked the real head motion plugin but it stopped working for me on latest build (crashes rfactor2) after working happily on 2 previous builds. My system windows 7 64. If someone knows a work around I would appreciate it greatly.
 
Boldaussie said:
I quite liked the real head motion plugin but it stopped working for me on latest build (crashes rfactor2) after working happily on 2 previous builds. My system windows 7 64. If someone knows a work around I would appreciate it greatly.
Click to expand...

Go to Player.JSON
"Graphic Options":{
"Car Vibration Mult1":1.00952,
"Car Vibration Mult1#":"Primary engine vibration multiplier affects position of cameras attached directly to the car",
"Car Vibration Mult2":1.00952,

"Cockpit Vibration Freq1":5,
"Cockpit Vibration Freq1#":"Primary rate of vibration affects eyepoint position (higher framerates allow higher rates)",
"Cockpit Vibration Freq2":5,
"Cockpit Vibration Freq2#":"Secondary rate of vibration affects eyepoint orientation",
"Cockpit Vibration Mult1":0.1,
"Cockpit Vibration Mult1#":"Primary aerodynamic vibration multiplier affects eyepoint position (base magnitude is in VEH or cockpit file)",
"Cockpit Vibration Mult2":0.1,

Means: Cockpit vibration is nearly off and only car moves. This settings does nearly the same as realheadmotion-pluggie, what I used too in the past
but since I recovered this settings don´t need it anymore.
 
peterchen said:
Go to Player.JSON
"Graphic Options":{
"Car Vibration Mult1":1.00952,
"Car Vibration Mult1#":"Primary engine vibration multiplier affects position of cameras attached directly to the car",
"Car Vibration Mult2":1.00952,

"Cockpit Vibration Freq1":5,
"Cockpit Vibration Freq1#":"Primary rate of vibration affects eyepoint position (higher framerates allow higher rates)",
"Cockpit Vibration Freq2":5,
"Cockpit Vibration Freq2#":"Secondary rate of vibration affects eyepoint orientation",
"Cockpit Vibration Mult1":0.1,
"Cockpit Vibration Mult1#":"Primary aerodynamic vibration multiplier affects eyepoint position (base magnitude is in VEH or cockpit file)",
"Cockpit Vibration Mult2":0.1,

Means: Cockpit vibration is nearly off and only car moves. This settings does nearly the same as realheadmotion-pluggie, what I used too in the past
but since I recovered this settings don´t need it anymore.
Click to expand...
Are you sure? I have cockpit vibrations completely turned off because they just introduce "artificial" vibrations. The normal g-force headphysics get not affected by this.
On the contrary the head motion plugin really changes the g-force headphysics.
 
On the contrary the head motion plugin really changes the g-force headphysics.
Click to expand...

Yes, I know what it does. I said it is similar enough. Doing it for years now. Test it!

Sorry, cant make a video of it....:(
 
peterchen said:
Yes, I know what it does. I said it is similar enough. Doing it for years now. Test it!

Sorry, cant make a video of it....:(
Click to expand...
Similar :confused:
Cockpit vibrations = high frequncy vibrations (your view shaking when you drive fast)
Realheadmotion = locks your view to horizon
I don't need to test it, i have cockpit vibrations turned off and I used the plugin for over a year (not right now).
 
Yes, this settings does lock your view to horizon, because your "head" (inGame) doesnt move!

So, you dont want to test it? Then please.......
 
It is always the first thing I do when a new build arrives. Zero'ing all the cockpit vib. settings in the .json...
 
Flaux said:
Forget the sound.... but it is one of the very few videos where you can see how it looks from the drivers point of view. Done with videoglasses.
You don't see a lot of the car's cockpit. His view is straight out the window. Something that is still a bit strange in sim's, where half of the screen is showing your feet...

Have fun watching!

[video]https://youtu.be/rupaohuKIUw[/video]
Click to expand...
Although not perfect (I still think it's a touch too high and definitely not centered laterally) that is a very good video.

I've been saying it for years as-well as many other things (physics, etc.) and hardly anyone (including devs) seem to listen but almost every game has the standard view too high and then pointing too downwards. What needs to be done is to straighten out the cam/head/eyes/seat (they're all essentially the same thing) so that the view is looking straight (or at-least much straighter) instead of downwards, and then once you do that you'll most likely need to lower the cam/head/eyes/seat a bit (probably to between "-10" and "-20" in ISImotor games if previously using "0").

At-least lately games have been more aware of this. In RF1/SCE, you have to modify the file of each individual car (don't worry, it doesn't cause mismatches) but in RF2 you only have to adjust one global number ("head pitch" or "seat pitch" in the player.json file). You still have to go messing around in folders and text-files but it's definitely an improvement. AC allows you to adjust this not only in-game but live while you're in the car (although it's numbers are terrible i.e. there is a large range of adjustment which continue registering as the same number which is just plain stupid).

I suggest setting it to around 0.6-0.85 in RF2 since the default of 0 is misleading as it's clearly pointed downwards.

With a leveled-off head pitch and a slightly lowered cam/seat to match, you really feel like you're in the car so much more rather than playing a videogame.

I've been adamant on doing this to every car even going as far back to GT Legends.

I keep the karts and trucks (Formula Truck 2013) less straightened out than everything else but I still straighten them out somewhat compared to their default values. I use about half of the default value (halfway between the default looking-down head pitch and perfectly leveled) with trucks and karts
 
point to note , no peripheral vision. looking at your monitor now with looking down can you see your knees ,the wall to the right of you ,the roof? ... thought so. ;)
 
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