COCKPIT and DASHBOARD VIEWS in GT5!

I put some thought into this at work today and I decided that the most realistic hope I have of seeing a good in-car view implemented in upcoming GT titles would be limited to a small selection of cars on a specific course.

Ideally it would be a nice B-road (A-to-B course) just to drive on and be as pretty/graphically appealing as possible. The selection of cars would be ultra-exclusive and highly desirable, say, starting with an Aston Martin AMV8 up to the one-off Ferrari P4-5 or even a 60s era GP car (anyone watch Victory By Design?). It would be amazing to experience driving on a twisting b-road wooded on either side and having the mid-range power of a V8 orchestrated off a crumbling stone wall. Having the avatar's hands animations tied to your input would be brilliant too. The avatar could anticipate a gear change by tying the shifter-hand movement from wheel to gear lever to your clutch input. Little details like that could immerse sim fans and car lovers.

Just have this in-car view on an extra detailed road with extra detailed cars and animations could please a hell of a lot of players. Myself included.

Sorry if any of this is redundant but I thought I'd throw in my two-cents.
 
EAGuy
I put some thought into this at work today and I decided that the most realistic hope I have of seeing a good in-car view implemented in upcoming GT titles would be limited to a small selection of cars on a specific course.
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I don't see the logic here, PD has already confirmed they are modelling the interiors of all the cars for GT:HD premium, why would the in car view be limited only to a select few cars and even then only available on a specific course?
 
From my perspective dashbord view should be the only view to the game.

After all, it should be driving simulator, right? Limit the outside views, bumper views, whatever views and stick to only one - cockpit. Voila.
 
I agree, but without the wheel on screen...
It's bit strange to see wheel both on screen and infront of you... Ofcourse if wheel is used instead controler...
Maybe they could put in dasbord view with wheel on / off option...
 
amar212
From my perspective dashbord view should be the only view to the game.

After all, it should be driving simulator, right? Limit the outside views, bumper views, whatever views and stick to only one - cockpit. Voila.
Click to expand...

My "view" exactly!:cheers:

btw. I also agree it's a bit strange to see the wheel if you're driving with one ,and that's why in LFS(best in this department,gtr2 also) there are options to switch on/off hands & wheel-great stuff! PD could learn a lot from LFS!💡
 
I prefer to see the wheel on screen, it's how much the on screen wheel is turning that matters, some games don't calibrate right, ie you can turn your wheel 90 degree's but the on screen wheel only turns 70 so if you can't see the on screen wheel you might think you've actually instructed the game to turn the wheel 90 degrees. That's my personal view anyway, I don't look at my hands or the DFP when I'm racing, I look at the screen and watch the wheel on the screen.
 
amar212
From my perspective dashbord view should be the only view to the game.

After all, it should be driving simulator, right? Limit the outside views, bumper views, whatever views and stick to only one - cockpit. Voila.
Click to expand...
I'm going to politely disagree. You can't force everyone to experience the game the way you want. Some of us, such as myself, prefer to have a good view of the road which is evidently not that easy in video games or every view would be just as good. I also like seeing the area beside the car which real life driving affords you with peripheral vision, which video games don't. And flicking the view to the left and right just doesn't cut it.

Having a favored view is nice, but don't feel disappointed if many of us prefer a range of choices. This goes for sound too. It would be good for Polyphony to give us a mixer with level settings for the different aspects of audio to be under our control such as engine noise, exhaust noise, wind noise, tire noise, environmental sounds etc, even if our choices may not be all that realistic.
 
live4speed
I don't see the logic here, PD has already confirmed they are modelling the interiors of all the cars for GT:HD premium, why would the in car view be limited only to a select few cars and even then only available on a specific course?
Click to expand...

I missed that. I'm sorry, I haven't read through all the news about the upcoming GT.
 
Ofcourse there should be other views,to admire your car or whatever,but the only realistic view is the cockpit view and it has to be done properly! From that ferrari pic,it seems they've done it right graphicly,but we have to see it moving to determine is it really good. I really hope Yamauchi plays LFS secretly!:scared: :D
 
I'd agree with this post :P rFactor, Toca3 even, Live for Speed, even the Need for Speed on the old 3DO, have/had Cockpit/dash cams. Not even great modeled ones, and some were good (for their time)

The game is just 10X's better when you are in the car, feeling and seeing every bump in the road surface... and if they could somehow simulate headmovement... where when the car is turning, lets say to the right, you look slightly right, all the more better

http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/3do/01/3do_0019_03.jpg <-- NFS on 3DO, copy paste into browser
 
When I'm driving my car, I don't see as much of the dash as I see the road. That NFS pick is what I dislike about driver cam views in video games.
 
I didn't even finish watching it. It's the same story. Half the view is taken up with the car graphics, leaving this dinky letterbox view of the track. That's not how the view of the road looks from inside a real car. If that's how GT HD will look from inside the car, I'll just stick to roofcam view.

By the way, how many NASCAR cars are there? 700? I sincerely doubt it. Modeling 700 interiors would just about double the modelling load on any design team. But if Polyphony can pull it off, more power to them.
 
You talk about certain views of cars while driving. One of my primary criticisms of GTR is that some in-car views of cars seem pretty uncomfortable in terms of trying to see the road. There aren't visible driver hands that I know of, but cars featured can have horrible views of the road from where you are. One of my favorite games with in-car driver views was (how come they can't make a home version of this game YEARS after its released?) Sega Super GT/SCUD Race. You actually got a considerably great view of the road without having to feel completely squeamish about the view. One of the issues has to do with if certain views don't seem as clear without feeling completely uncomfortable with the view.

So what do you people make of this concern with in-car views?
 
I think in-car view should be there if Polyphony is up to it, but it should look realistic. I should be able to get a very good, wide, panoramic view of the road or it's worthless to me. I want to see the road the way it is if I was behind the wheel.
 
Tenacious D
I think in-car view should be there if Polyphony is up to it, but it should look realistic. I should be able to get a very good, wide, panoramic view of the road or it's worthless to me. I want to see the road the way it is if I was behind the wheel.
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The reason that you think cockpit views are limiting is beacuse the game presents it as if you looking through the eyes of a driver who is sitting still and not looking anywhere but straight.

Whenever we drive we always look where we want to go constantly moving our feild of vision. Games have yet to capture that in driving so it feels as if the were restricting our sight. Now if PD would use motion sensing in the controller to allow us to "look around" while driving, THAT would be bad-ass.
 
Fizio
I agree, but without the wheel on screen...
It's bit strange to see wheel both on screen and infront of you... Ofcourse if wheel is used instead controler...
Maybe they could put in dasbord view with wheel on / off option...
Click to expand...
I agree!! no wheel on screen! it is enough with a Logitech G25 in front of ya ;) and the screen should shake as in GTR/GTR2, it should also turn a LITTLE in the direction you are turning!

But i think the original views from GT1 should be in as well though..
 
I'm still a big fan of having the in-car view as an option, but there's still one major obstacle to any in-car/dashboard view: it has to be displayed on a two-dimensional surface. When you're inside a real car, you have the benefit of being able to see around the A-pillars, and your peripheral vision adds a lot to your ability to see where you are on the road (and, of course, the location of that guy passing you). This can be partially solved by using three screens, but that's impractical for most people, and extremely expensive if you expect to do that in HD, not to mention computationally expensive.

There are alternatives, though, neither of which I think will work. You could use a wide-angle view, stretching the view to include part of the side windwos. However, that never looks right as a flat image. If we all had those old curved projection screens, then maybe. ;) Another possibility is "sitting" the driver further back in the car, so that there is the same view, but not distorted. This presents the effect of trying to drive the car from the back seat, and we all know how lousy back seat drivers are.

Again, I hope it's included, but I hope they have better ideas than what's already out there.
 
dubbed
The reason that you think cockpit views are limiting is beacuse the game presents it as if you looking through the eyes of a driver who is sitting still and not looking anywhere but straight.

Whenever we drive we always look where we want to go constantly moving our feild of vision. Games have yet to capture that in driving so it feels as if the were restricting our sight.
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No, this controversy has been going on for more than a decade. I did come into it a bit late, but after reading some posts about it, I looked carefully at what I was seeing when I drove down the road. I have a Supra MkIII and it's a little lower than the average car. When I had time to really pay attention to my peripheral vision boundaries while I was looking straight down the road, I noticed that the view of the road was more like it was with Toca, where I saw nothing BUT the road. The dashboard and wheel were VERY removed from my field of view, and I don't sit up like I'm in a straight backed office chair, in fact I tend to slouch.

The view of the road was NOT letterboxed like it is in driver views of many video games. For you guys who like cockpit view no matter how restricted it is, that's fine, but if I don't get a view of the road like I do in real life, I won't use it. I'll stick to roof cam view. In fact I prefer it anyway, since it affords me a glimpse of the sides of the car which is nearly impossible to recreate in a game viewed on a single display.

I think the driver view of the Ferrari is fairly accurate, as the seat is very low, and note how the dash is still not taking up almost half the view of the road, although the roof cuts off some of the sky. Maybe some of you supercar drivers can confirm how much Polyphony got that right.
 
I've been playing through GTR a bit more. One thing I learned about GTR is that you can actually adjust your seat in the car you race. Let me demonstrate for you. Pressing certain buttons on your keyboard or whatever will help you adjust the seat so you sit closer or further. Another set of keys will allow you adjust the height of the seat you sit on. The default position may be too low for you to see the road. So what you want to do is adjust the height of the chair so you can be able to see the road properly. I think it would be very interesting in GTHD or even GT5 in which for cars that seem to have a horrible view of the road, that you'll be able to adjust the seat. It's something I'd love to be able to do if the extent of Racing Modifications (whether piece-by-piece or the GT1/GT2 method) is carried out this far. We seen beautiful pictures of the Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano's in-car view. Imagine a machine made for racing complete with racing seats and such. I think where I'm getting at is that it's the first level of Weight Reduction. I think it's something that should be looked into if our views become obscure with the cars we use. And perhaps instead of changing these settings on the fly, perhaps save this for getting into the pits or working on car setup. Tourist Trophy had the right idea on this. You were able to specify rider height and modify many different aspects of seating position and leaning and stuff. And if Tourist Trophy is any indication, we could really turn up the knob on specifying driver height so we can adjust the seat normally. Then, you have some cars that don't have all that fancy stuff. Imagine if GTHD or GT5 had one of those old-school hot rods from the early 1930s. Most of those don't have much head clearance or a window to see very well out of. Heh. Try seeing from THOSE things, much less not feeling very claustrophic!

So if we do get some cars in which the view seems pretty bad, hopefully we can save settings in terms of adjusting the seats so that one can get a better view of the road. It's just something to think about. I've been modifying some of the settings in GTR so that I feel more comfortable with in-car views. And I felt more comfortable using machines like the Murci&#233;lago GT-R and the Gillet Vertigo (wonderful handling car. I don't think GT4 reflected that too well with that 800+ hp variant). Do you think something like adjusting seats would help make some in-car views better in terms of seeing the road?
 
With the memory capacity of the hard drive on the PS3, there should be a lot of parameters to mess with, including driver cam position, whether it's in the cockpit, behind the car, bumper cam, roof cam or whatever. You should be able to define the position of the camera however you see fit.
 
Yeah, what they should do is give you three default views, two exterior views, in car view and bumper cam and then let you alter the camera position of each of thoes to your hears content. I remember being able to play with the camera perspective in V-Rally 3, you could set how far or near to the car you wanted the camera. That was all well and good but I'd like to be able to put the camera anywhere in the car as well or on the cars bodywork ie right over the bonnet or you could put it on the roof like the GT4 roof cam. Opening up the camera's positioning to the user means that you will be able to get the right view for each and every car and it wouldn't take much time or fuss to do. Peraps each car's camera views could get saved just like the settings do, it's just a few numbers that would get saved so memory isn't an issue, you could probably save a few thousand camera positions in a 500kb file. It would mean you didn't have to change the position for each car, setting the in car camera height for a Lotus Elise wouldn't provide the potimum camera cooridinates if you jumped into a Range Rover sport.
 
normal_p45a.jpg


This cockpit view is about as good as I've seen in a videogame. But I think the driver/camera is too close to the wheel. If you moved back a little bit you should be able to see some out the left and right window and that will be closer to real.

The only way I think they can get the cockpit view to be like the real thing is to add an auto-look feature. Auto-look turns the drivers head toward the apex of turn when you approach it. You should be able to adjust auto-look as you see fit, from 0% (your driver doesnt look around at all) all the way up to 100% where your virtual driver's head (your view) will rotate up to 45 degrees left or right depending on the turn to give you a better view of the turn. Turn auto-look to 50% and your driver would only look left or right up to 20 degrees and so on.

I really think that would be great. I hope PD does something to that order.

As for going down a straight, the D-Pad on the DFP should be used as a look around button so you can see other cars beside you. Either that or they should add a fully voiced spotter.

Compare these 2 videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2Kyuy_YPmI - Video Game
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nv8LZpFl4fc - Real

Notice the viewing area (visibility) is nearly identical...because both are viewed through the eyes of a CAMERA, not human eyes. Eyes have a viewing angle of 180 degrees, a camera can only see some 90 degrees, or whats straight in front of you.

Example. Take your hands and raise them next to the side of your eyes. Give yourself tunnelvision. Most race car games force you to race with tunnelvision. Try to drive down the road with tunnelvision and the inability to look left or right and see how easy/fun it is.

IMO there are two ways to try and correct this.

1. Auto-look feature

2. A bubble view of the cockpit. It may look distorted like the above picture but it will give you realistic visibility.

Until they fix cockpit view I, like many others, will stick with roofcam/3rd person. I will only use cockpit view for fun, but not for serious racing.
 
I liked that Le Mans video of that race car in NASCAR Racing 2003. I wished I had Speedvision or something so I could see and hear the Mercedes-Benz CLK-GTR as beautiful as it is. It's likely overstated, but the sound of this thing puts the GT4 variant's sound to shame. And of course, this was the era I got into racing. These were the cars I've loved when I got into racing. Is this the 1998 24 Hours of Le Mans? I still don't get what you mean about a "bubble view" of the cockpit. So you'll have to clarify for me. As an off-topic note, it's a damn shame how Mercedes-Benz had a considerably good Le Mans in 1998, all to see the star-crossed Peter Dumbreck wreck both of them. Or as Famine said about the 1999-spec cars, (indirect quote?)"...and it took Peter Dumbreck two days to wreck both of them."

Moving your head around in in-car view would be pretty hard if you don't have a special configuration of keys to work with. For example, I'm accustomed to using the Right Analog Stick in accelerating and braking. I tilt it upwards to accelerate and downwards to brake. I found this to be strategic since I can apply just the right amount of throttle and brake wherever I need to use them. Where would I use the keys to look in my two side mirrors? So it's a bit of a long process. Such a deal would require me to perhaps leave some butons unused or some commands unused like how I don't have a set button for the Clutch in ToCA RD 3.

But it would be interesting to see what kind of magic PD could work.
 
I&#8217;ve been thinking a bit more about this possible new feature in the next GT games. And I&#8217;ll be honest, I&#8217;m worried. PD for me, do not have the greatest reputation of giving the player enough options to tweak to improve their games.

My point is this. If PD is to put in an internal view, and it looks like they will, then there is a great risk they could easily ruin it. People before me have talked about systems whereby the camera tilts towards the next corners apex to give the driver better visibility and others have mentioned camera placement within the cabin. Either way I think we all have very different ideas of what PD should do, so to get round this, all they need to do is give the player to choice of setting up the internal camera view. Give us the option to adjust the height, distance from the steering wheel, and whether the camera turns towards a corner or not, and if so, by how much. You could also throw into the mix whether the camera bobs up and down or not, and have the camera move backwards and forwards with acceleration and deceleration. This way we can all set up the internal camera to suit our own ideas of how it should look, and that way everyone is a winner. However I fear PD will think they know best, and give us another half ar$ed effort, and we&#8217;ll just have to make do until they can be bothered to sort it in the next release &#61516;

There is one other point that needs raising I feel. Someone else touched on it earlier. Human sight allows for near 180 degree forward vision, where a monitor/screen does not. As far as I can tell there are two ways to get round this.
1) Allow us to plug in three monitors at once to create the illusion of a wrap around view. You often get this with games in arcades, and I&#8217;m sure PD have done this on there Subaru arcade machine.
2) That or get a widescreen screen/monitor and sit very close to it. That way the side edges of the screen give us the sense of 180 degree forward vision. This however would mean &#8220;compressing&#8221; the view at the side edges to create the illusion of 180 degree vision. What I mean by that is this. Your vision at 0 and 180 degrees is not perfect. It&#8217;s blurred and only there to alert us to possible threats coming towards us from the sides. PD could create the same effect, by blurring the side edges of the screen to give the impression of 180 degree vision. I&#8217;m not 100% sure this would work, but it&#8217;s worth a shot, so long as they give us the choice to turn it off, if it&#8217;s useless.

Personally I hope they allow us to plug in more than one screen and give us the options to set up the internal camera how I want.
 
The three screens idea is something you can do in GT4, however for a games console to project a different view on each screen it has to process three times as much information graphically. One console simply cannot cope, so you need three Playstation 2's and three copies of GT4 to make it work, that's what the Subaru simulator machine has inside it, that's what you can do with your home copy of GT4 if you want. And that's what you'd need to do if they included such an option in GT:HD or GT5 because as powerful as the PS3 is going to be, your still talking about trebeling the graphical load of the machine and for it to handle that it would have to be a very sub par game graphically to begin with.

With the second point, that might give an effect, however it would not give you 180 degree vision, your vision would still be tunneled forwards your eyes might jsut be confused a little with the blurring and distorting ofthe camera near the edge of the screen. You could give a kind of fish eye camera option which can give a wider view but they look weird on your TV and distort the picutre somewhat.
 
This thing all goes back to the hardcore sim gamer. Not everyone is a hardcore sim racer, much less those who want the absolute best experience. Getting those three TVs to work in synergy with the game would make for an exceptional experience. But what about the rest of us? What about the ones who don't have three TVs and a will to have the greatest-possible experience of Gran Turismo? What kind of response would we get? "Too bad?" You have to cater to as many people of as many interests as possible. PD should definitely look into the hardcore aspect of getting the best possible experience, but not make everyone have a big-enough TV unit to enjoy it all. I've always been a "basics first" person in an issue like this. Why go for seriously hardcore if you can't cover the basics for normal gamers (like myself)? Hardcore types have money on top of money and have their Driving Force Pro and maybe a nice little arcade-style setup to sit down and enjoy the game. Meanwhile, I consider my junky room as my playing space and my bed as my seat. I look up at the TV atop my dresser and just play away. I'm not looking for a hardcore playing experience with money to spend. PD simply has to get around the basics before catering to any die-hard fans of the series. It's the reason why I've said that no online play for GT4 shouldn't be a reason to hate GT4 simply because online play has always been secondary. I get blasted for it, but it's the truth. Good gameplay and single-player interests were always primary. Multiplay of any kind was secondary.

All I'm getting at is that PD has to make this in-car view as accessible as possible without warranting a person to go spend even more money on stuff to enhance the gaming experience. Because let's face it. You all paid a lot of money when the PS2 came out and paid that (then) $50 USD to get GT4. If you had the money to make the experience much more interesting, then by all means, spend away. Every GT game should be fun for the average gamer in as many aspects as possible before worrying about the hardcore types. So in the sense of an in-car view, it has to be as accessible and intuitive as possible without having to purchase a whole lot of other stuff. How do you accomplish this? Depends on you and your views. But for the most part, PD should simply find ways to enhance the in-car views and make everything as intuitive as possible.

Cover the bases before you attempt a Grand Slam. You dig?
 

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