rec.autos.simulators

  Does anyone have suggestions for improving the feel of future
sims??I figure with all the racing sim fans that come here that this
could be a great place for ideas.

  I have one idea so here it is:))))

Hve you ever dove into a corner in GPL and wondered and waited for
something to tell you what the car is doing??This is a terrible part
of GPL that we must overcome with hundreds of laps on the same corner
to start to understand what the chassis will do.But what if we could
get a little more info.

  How about using the bottom unused part of the screen?(future sims
could get rid of the top unused part)

Starting from the center a graph could move in relation to
understeer/oversteer.

[how it works]--In a left hander the graph moving to the left
indicates understeer and to the right indicates oversteer.

Example:
Enter a left hander a little to quick and the car understeers for
awhile--the line would to the left relative to the amount of slip that
the fronts have in relation to the rears.

As speed is scrubbed the fronts will start to gain grip--and the line
will move back towards center in relation to how much slip the fronts
have to the rears.

Start to accelerate and actually see the point(pheripheralyyy)in which
the car goes from an understeer state to an oversteer state.

As it goes now I have no idea when this transition from mild
understeer to oversteer occurs until the last minute and then I find
Iam jerking the wheel around trying to find the right amount of
lock.If the graph moves from left to right very fast I know I should
start easing up on the steering lock to prevent a spin.

This is just my idea and there could be many ways better to accomplish
this lack of feel thing.

Comments on my idea or ideas of your own????

On the other hand if you take into account that '67 drivers had to had their
telemetry "in the ass" because their ass was the sensor for inline G,
lateral G, understeer and oversteer it is clear that they have an advantage
over us because my seatis not moving when i play GPL (although) it has
wheels so it could move...)

Discussion opened.

I don't think any additional sensors are needed. The problem with GPL
and all other racing sims is that the viewing direction is always fixed
along a specific axis with respect to the car.

What would make it much easier to have a good grasp on the slip angle
(the over-understeer) is if the view was pointed in the direction of the
velocity vector instead, at least for higher velocities. That way when
the car acquires a slip angle in a, say, right hand turn, the view
remains looking into the direction where the car is going, but the whole
***pit rotates slightly towards the right due to the chassis slip
angle. If an oversteer condition occurs, the chassis would start
rotating even further to the right due to the increasing slip angle
making it very easy for the driver to notice it.

In GPL one needs to concentrate on a point far away on horizon to
determine the changes in car attitude which is far less intuitive to
observe, although it is always a good idea to look further ahead when
driving. With the viewing system I suggest, however, the peripheral
vision (you usually do not look at your***pit when driving), which is
very good in determining the motion anyway, would mostly contribute to
the feel of what the car is doing.

What do you think?

-Gregor

In a turn you want to look at the inside first for the middle apex and
the to the outside for the exit apex. The car will always have a
velocity vector to the outside, so you will be looking to the outside
all the turn. But with some tweaking it might work.

I actually found the idea in CART Precision Racing very good, but the
scrolling***pit didn't do it justice. The direction of view was
first focused on the turn-in point, and the the apex and then the
exit. The problem was that it sometimes was a bit messy if you spun
the car. The movements was also to hard so you got a bit disoriented
after a spin.

--
Olav K. Malmin
remove spam when replying

I didn't know they had such high-tech asses in '67.

On the other hands, the slip angles present are really not that big,
especially with more modern types of tyres. A few degrees to the outside
cause almost no loss of visibility while greatly adding to the feel.

-Gregor

OTOH, when I race my car I won't have time to look at such graphics, as they
are mostly usefull when turning, and that's just the moment I don't want to
look away from the road.

I don't ever want graphs to look at during a corner, I understand your
intentions but just consider how daft it would be to be following the graphs
in order to set a decent time.

No, its not just you really, most of this group tent to have this impression
but it is wrong IMO.
I've had GPL almost since it came out but its only real in the last year
that I've really gotten into it. Now what I find is that the deeper you get
into the game the flaws just start jumping out at you on every corner. Many
characteristics of the physics are terribly reconstructed and exaggerated.

For example, I find it very difficult to complete a full opening lap in GPL,
every 6 out of 10 are most likely ruined by an AI driver. However what I
find extra ordinary is that fact hat when they nudge you from behind, you
have no hope at all of recovering the car, and the car is NOT pushed off the
track probably sideways as it should be, the slightest nudge from behind
sends your car many hundreds of feet into the air summer saulting and
flipping and twisting.

For another example,
As an experiment to see how exaggerated the physics are, I drove around
Silverstone. When I came to that last left kink (Bridge corner? Now a
chicane.)I decided to ease off the throttle well before the corner to I
would be taking it very slow indeed but did not brake to unsettle the car. I
dropped to a lower gear and kept the revs very low. Now without snapping the
wheel I gently eased it into the turn. Of course, if this were realistic, I
would gently roll around the corner, infact the back spun out and I was left
without a rear end on the car.

Example no.3,
The most ridiculous one of all.
It works great at Monza. In most sims and of course real life you try to
keep the brakes from looking as it prolongs your braking distance, oh,no,
not in GPL!
Down to Parabolica, stomp on the brakes, no you can't turn but since you can
leave the braking so late you gain plenty time. Locking the brakes as hard
as possible actually reduces braking distance in GPL!

Now these are my 3 biggest gripes with GPL, but I've got more.

If you think GPL has the most highly advanced physics out there and it can
never be eaten then you've got a lot to learn.
All GPL has is a great game engines which allows it to run 20 cars around
fairly detailed tracks without too much of a stutter on a good machine.
Nobody takes into account however that the games tents to scrimp on
trackside objects and the ones that are there have a very low polygon
counts. The graphics are all 256 colours only! If you look at a replay
you'll notice the grass and other textures are so small and are repeated
infinitely over and over, not at all looking real. Thats is the reason for
GPL running so well. And I suppose I should;t mention the amount of braking
points I know marked by scenery flaws instead of actual track detail.

And why do you expect the behaviour you describe to be realistic? I can
speak from my personal experience, driving a mere 75BHP front wheel
drive Renault Clio that going through a 60km/h 90 degree corner with
throttle lifted in second while doing a smooth turn will just send you
into a spin under the slightest provocation. And this is a FWD
understeering car. The RWD cars are even much more sensitive about this.

That is simply very far from my observation. It's true that for very
flecible tyres the difference between locked and maximum grip is
smaller, but in GPL and especially the corner you mention, any locking
will invariablly make me overshoot the corner and going into the gravel.
I have a feeling that you are not braking sufficiently when your brakes
are not locked in the first place.

It can be, with lost of ketchup (sorry, couldn' resist it :) ).

Actually, it can be beaten, but not in many ways. Still, for certain WSC
will have features in its physics model that GPL does not.

It's not the size that matters but what you do with those textures :).
So there are very little polys. However, the artists at Papy are
obviously that far ahead of most competition that with even small poly
counts and tiny textures they are able to present some of the most
realistic looking tracks *when looked from the***pit while racing*, as
this is the only thing that matters.

-Gregor

: This experience I only had in online racing due to warping that is
: present. I've never, ever seen it when running with AI drivers.

  It does happen - I've managed an online crash at relatively low speed
which left the car in the air for 10 seconds.

: It's not the size that matters but what you do with those textures :).
: So there are very little polys. However, the artists at Papy are
: obviously that far ahead of most competition that with even small poly
: counts and tiny textures they are able to present some of the most
: realistic looking tracks *when looked from the***pit while racing*, as
: this is the only thing that matters.

  Disagreed.  For me one of the weaknesses of GPL is the graphics.
Compared with most modern games, GPL looks a bit primitive in that
region.  That's why I was so pleased with the GPLEA add on ferrari and
brabham textures.  The inside of the car then looked so NICE.  (I spent
a few laps locking up deliberately so I could see my tyres better).
Hard working amateurs have hugely improved on the graphics there.

  I love GPL but I don't love the attitude that no sim can be better
than GPL and that no current sim has better points than GPL.  (Most
current sims have better graphics).

--
Richard G. Clegg       Only the mind is waving
    Networks and Non-Linear Dynamics Group
      Dept. of Mathematics, Uni. of York
     UPDATED WWW: http://www.racesimcentral.net/

The beauty is in the eye of the simmer, they say. I love the way GPL
looks, even though the complexity of the scenes is much lower than what
the never sims offer. The colors look real, although eye candy is
perhaps lesser.

Which was never my attitude in the post. F1 2000, for example, has just
as complex a physics model, while Rally Championship sports better
graphics for this simmer, for example. Of course the game must move on.
It's just that GPL raised it so much in almost all ways that only
recently the move has started to really happen, and I have yet to see a
sim that will better GPL an *all* fronts (GP3 and WSC, don't get delayed
any longer !).

-Gregor

If you've ever seen a slip meter in an airplane, you know what I'm
talking about. My idea is to have something like this, with a moving
"ball"; the bars could be placed at the top or bottom of the screen and
you really only need your peripheral vision to see the markers...

For racing sims, you could have two bars and two markers, like this:

                           *
++++)+++++++()+++++++(++++     Front wheels

                           *
++++)+++++++()+++++++(++++     Rear wheels

the illustration above shows a cars with no lateral acceleration.

                   *
++++)+++++++()+++++++(++++     Front wheels

                   *
++++)+++++++()+++++++(++++     Rear wheels

the illustration above shows a medium-g right turn with no drift.

            *
++++)+++++++()+++++++(++++     Front wheels

        *
++++)+++++++()+++++++(++++     Rear wheels

the illustration above shows a strong right turn with front wheels
gripping and rear wheels beginning a shallow drift.

        *
++++)+++++++()+++++++(++++     Front wheels

      *
++++)+++++++()+++++++(++++     Rear wheels

the illustration above shows a drifting right turn.

    *
++++)+++++++()+++++++(++++     Front wheels

 *
++++)+++++++()+++++++(++++     Rear wheels

the illustration above shows a car entering a spin...

and so on.

Hopefully these don't get mangled by your news reader!

So there it is, Driftmeter(tm) technology.

Andrew

Andrew

The corner I speak of looks as though its taken in maybe 4th gear in most ca
rs, just a small lay off the throttle maybe a touch of the rakes and you
throw the car around it flat out.
I was going somewhere into he region of a mid to low 1st gear type of speed
while I was in about 2nd or 3rd gear to keep the revs low. Yet the back flew
out.
Now maybe this can happen on the moon or something but not here!

Tasty:-)