The online racing simulator
Head turn - look to the mirros and others
Scawen,

In such games as ISI based the look is focused to the mirros when you turn "your" head left/right.

In LFS we have a 90° degree turn, and that is good for many situations, overtaking mainly.

So, I'd like to sugest a improvement, join the both ideas, and better:

Is it too hard to implement a cicle command that turn your head, first to the mirros, after 90°, and last to rear?

I thought something like this: you press the button or key to turn left, you look to the left mirror, and while you hold the button, you are looking to it. Then you release the button, and if you press it again between 0.25 seconds, or other adjustable value, you look 90° left, and if you quickly hit the button again you look rear-left at 135° degrees, cause that is the max you can turn your neck, if you are not an owl

Of course the 2 buttons rear look method should be keep

What do you think?
I prefer this 90 degree look that we have. In other games it's really useless to see only 45 degrees but +1 this suggestion.
I can see why people want to look 45 degrees so they can keep an eye on the road ahead... so I guess the option would be useful for people that need it.

But with 90 degree FOV and the glance right/left we have now, I find no need for small glances... I'd much rather see the car right beside me to get a complete view of how much is beside me (like for passing or outbraking or somethig).

Because 90 degrees forward and 90 degrees to the side should at least give you partial viewing forward... anything lower than 90 FOV will cause some troubles.
Btw doesn't the side mirrors show the exact same render than rear mirror?
Quote from deggis :Btw doesn't the side mirrors show the exact same render than rear mirror?

Yes they're exactly the same. The Side mirrors are the interior mirror divided into two mirrors.
Quote from felplacerad :Yes they're exactly the same. The Side mirrors are the interior mirror divided into two mirrors.

Ok. As someone suggested in another thread (can't remember what thread it was) it would be good to have a choice to use different render (more wider angle) for the side mirrors. A choice between the current way and a different render because mirrors with their own render usually eats lots of FPS.
Quote from Tweaker :I can see why people want to look 45 degrees so they can keep an eye on the road ahead... so I guess the option would be useful for people that need it.

But with 90 degree FOV and the glance right/left we have now, I find no need for small glances... I'd much rather see the car right beside me to get a complete view of how much is beside me (like for passing or outbraking or somethig).

Because 90 degrees forward and 90 degrees to the side should at least give you partial viewing forward... anything lower than 90 FOV will cause some troubles.

I think that you could have that option to use IF you want.

I'd like to got it, and I'm sure that would be useful in many situations.

I never use 90° FOV, even using a 19" LCD screen, but always something between 50-55°, and never use virtual mirrors, so almost the time I have no way to know what is happening behind me while looking ahead, cause I have no way to fit the mirros in the field of vision.

But, even with 90° you have no view of what is happening ahead when you turn your head, and that is dangerous in many situations.

As an example, lets take the final of the big straight in BL, and a situation when you are overtaking a car and there are other(s) ahead. That's a common situation, specially in the first lap: you are going fast, mattering about the side car, the brake point, and just 0.5 seconds when you turn your head and have no vision of what is happening ahead, is enough to became too late to start breaking and the mess is done.

I can see 45, 90 and 135° head turn coexisting and helping the driving all the time.

In GTL we have 45 and 135 look, but not 90, and that is the thing that I miss there (between others obviously).

In LFS we have just 90° and no 45 and 135, and I miss that too.

If that is not too hard to implement (and I guess it is not), why not so?

I have had many and many times that I can't see other cars just cause they are in the blind zone.
Quote from deggis :Ok. As someone suggested in another thread (can't remember what thread it was) it would be good to have a choice to use different render (more wider angle) for the side mirrors. A choice between the current way and a different render because mirrors with their own render usually eats lots of FPS.

I have never notice that...

In fact I do not use lateral mirros, I just use behind view.

In the rFactor you can adjust the lateral mirros angles, but no their fovs, as real cars. I swear I see no use for that...

You hit letf shift + key, where "key" you set for seat position adjust.

The utility of 45,90 and 135 angles, for me, is just to see where is the car near my car.
Quote from deggis :Btw doesn't the side mirrors show the exact same render than rear mirror?

Yes, but that is a different discussion in another thread. This discussion is not about seeing the mirrors at 45 degrees, but allowing for some forward looking as well to not disorient yourself as you can still see slightly forwards. Personally, I think you just get use to looking 90 degrees and eventually it is only a split second click of the button rather than pressing the button, looking, and interpreting what you see. I do like the idea of 135 degree look and you could make that a second set of look buttons on your wheel. good suggestion there.

Quote :if that is not too hard to implement (and I guess it is not), why not so?

With this comment, it sounds like a complaint that it isn't implemented (sorry if that isn't what it is). I see this alot here, where instead of a suggestion, it is "why can't we have this" or "why DON"T we have this". Everyone has to remember and may not even know that this is a work in progress sim. It is an alpha release to work out bugs, get suggestions, etc. It is not implemented perhaps because the devs didn't think of it? Perhaps when the devs see "Hey, I have a suggestion, maybe we could have 135 degree look as well as 45 and 90. That would help out and I've seen it before." Rather than "Why don't we have 135 degree look, it can't be that hard to implement, I've seen it before." So to all the new guys who have good suggestions, just remember that this isn't even a beta version. It is alpha and the developers come here and listen and implement many of the improvements we suggest and the bugs that are found. I don't mean this against you, Speed Soro, I know there are many non-English speaking folks here and sometimes people just come across differently because of the language barrier. I was only using your text as an example and not a complaint that you were complaining about something not being in the game.
NO no, I got what u afraid of, but no, I'm not complaining, it's is just a sugestion, a good one I'm sure
What we really need are analog paddles on our wheels. This was we can just hold it down all the way for a complete head turn or just a little to glance at the mirrors.

Or maybe devs can find a slick way to fade in the mirror view dynamically when you press the left or right buttons. I envision a virtual mirror-like view being faded in and blurred into view with some level of transparenct. This way you can keep your eyes on the road and still have a picture of what's going on behind and on the side of you in your peripheral vision on the monitor. Almost like superimposing what you would normally see in your side mirrors. You would have to find a slick way to work this out so its useful without being annoying. Or just replace the driving view with a full side view with a normal out of the front window view superimposed on that. I think its possible. What do you guys think?
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(thisnameistaken) DELETED by thisnameistaken
Holy crap, that looks sweet. How long has that been out. Is it any good? How are the FF effects and the pedals?
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(thisnameistaken) DELETED by thisnameistaken
Get a TrackIR, then you just turn your head a little bit to see the mirrors. I's great for immersion, but then I also have a widescreen monitor so I can see the mirrors most of the time anyway.
Now we only need full support for 6DOF...
I remember suggesting a customizable turning degree quite some time ago, but IMO this is even better, because you get all the turning you ever wanted

+1
Quote from joeynuggetz :Holy crap, that looks sweet. How long has that been out. Is it any good? How are the FF effects and the pedals?

Hi, Joey. Don't know about this wheel exactly, but I've been using the Thrustmaster Ferrari F1 force feedback wheel for a couple of years now. Looking at this new wheel, they seem closely related and of similar construction. The main difference is my wheel doesn't have the shifter, just paddles behind the wheel. And those continuous paddles are not independent axes on my wheel, but map directly as alternative inputs to the brake and throttle axes.

The force feedback is great, quite strong and not overly notchy. The wheel mounts easily and stably on a desk, etc. The aluminium shifters are nice and solid, and the aluminium pedals and pedal footplate are much appreciated. The pedals have a reasonable degree of travel and the potentiometers are good (no spiking even now and I am still on my first set). Where the pedals fall down is in the construction of the plastic base unit. Thrustmaster were kind of stupid to use aluminium for the showy parts, but then use cheap plastic for the actual base of the unit where all the leverage is applied. One day in a NR2003 race I heard a crack and my brake pedal just went dead -- on opening it up I found that the plastic mounting / swivel point for the pedal had failed completely. So I built my own wooden base for the pedals. It looks ugly but works well, and also allowed me to spring the brake pedal a bit harder with the help of a carefully mounted squash ball.

Looking at this latest wheel, I would say you'll get a long lifetime out of the wheel itself, but will likely need to do something to the pedal unit in order to be happy with it (unless you have incredibly light feet perhaps).

Hope this helps.

FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG