rec.autos.simulators

by **Ruud van Ga** » Wed, 22 Aug 2001 22:10:19

On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 13:49:11 +0200, Asgeir Nesoen

>AND, I don't believe that there is nothing to learn from a racing sim in
>relation to real world driving. I have been in situations on the road where
>I got out of very difficult situations by reacting just as I did in GPL.
>"Ordinary" drivers would crash, but I got away. This is very subjective, I
>know, but I still have a distinct feeling that GPL has taught me many
>things about driving a car fast. It is only a feeling, though, I have no
>evidence of this to be the case whatsoever.

Lots of us have this feeling, and I think it indeed to be true. Some
reflexes and knowledge about steering and car response is useful in
real life when practiced behind a computer.
They don't make flight simulators for pilots for nothing... (although
there you have to worry less about real force feedback)

Ruud van Gaal, GPL Rank +53.25
Pencil art : http://www.racesimcentral.net/
Free car sim : http://www.racesimcentral.net/

by **Eldre** » Thu, 23 Aug 2001 00:23:10

>Asbj?rn, I have a solution to your problem. Put a Fresnell lense between your
>eyes
>and the monitor. This way you will get almost 180 degrees, and you won't need
>to be
>very near sighted either, because the fresnell lense will make your eyes
>focus as
>though the object was far away. Just try it, it works. Amazing.

>With such a lense, you will suddenly see how easy it is to place your car on
>the
>track with your periphery vision, and the image will open up , allowing you
>to
>perceive all kinds of things.

>I didn't smoke any herbs, I am not kidding you.

Fresnell lens? And where would one obtain such a lens?

Eldred
--
Dale Earnhardt, Sr. R.I.P. 1951-2001
Homepage - http://www.umich.edu/~epickett
F1 hcp. +16.36...Monster +366.59...

Never argue with an idiot. He brings you down to his level, then beats you
with experience...
Remove SPAM-OFF to reply.

by **Gerry Aitke** » Thu, 23 Aug 2001 05:29:38

> 2) The periphery vision cannot be used in GPL as in real life. In real life, you
> place the car on the track with accuracy with your periphery vision. This has to
> do with the FOV of GPL, and this could be very easily fixed, if the Beta team
> addressed it.

How would you have done it?

Gerry

by **Gerry Aitke** » Thu, 23 Aug 2001 05:42:19

> Asbj?rn, I have a solution to your problem. Put a Fresnell lense between your eyes
> and the monitor. This way you will get almost 180 degrees, and you won't need to be
> very near sighted either, because the fresnell lense will make your eyes focus as
> though the object was far away. Just try it, it works. Amazing.

> With such a lense, you will suddenly see how easy it is to place your car on the
> track with your periphery vision, and the image will open up , allowing you to
> perceive all kinds of things.

> I didn't smoke any herbs, I am not kidding you.

I can confirm this as a fact. I use a fresnell in front of my 22"
monitor and the effect is as you describe. It always makes me laugh when
someone with a plain 17" monitor starts slagging off the FOV in GPL,
forgetting all about their own poor and inadequate equipment ...
Chuckle...

Gerry

by **J. Todd Wass** » Thu, 23 Aug 2001 06:17:14

I agree with this too. I learned to drive a stickshift by playing Hard
Drivin' (Doug Milliken, author of Race Car Vehicle Dynamics, who frequents this
group did work on this) as well as control a car over the edge, sliding, etc..

Just a couple days ago, a friend of mine let me drive us home in his Porsche
944 (a few mods, rather quick compared to anything I've driven). We left the
parking lot ramp and waited at a red light for a second. Then, it was a left
turn through the intersection, first gear to over 5000 rpm, then BANG! Into
second gear hard. Went a little sideways but kept it under control just fine.
I don't think the minivan next to us appreciated it, but I credit video games
for the ability not to biff entirely in such a situation. Also took an exit
ramp rather fast. It was great using the throttle to dial in just the right
amount of understeer with at least a couple tires making a lot of noise :-)

Todd Wasson
---
Performance Simulations
Drag Racing and Top Speed Prediction
Software
http://PerformanceSimulations.Com

by JM » Thu, 23 Aug 2001 06:12:06

So a fresnel lense magically removes the blinkers the GPL FoV forces on you
preventing you from seeing the car alongside you?
Sounds like a better bargain than 3 LAN'd PCs and monitors- where do I get
one of these miracle devices?

cheers
John

by **Gerry Aitke** » Thu, 23 Aug 2001 06:46:26

> >I can confirm this as a fact. I use a fresnell in front of my 22"
> >monitor and the effect is as you describe. It always makes me laugh when
> >someone with a plain 17" monitor starts slagging off the FOV in GPL,
> >Chuckle...

> >Gerry

> So a fresnel lense magically removes the blinkers the GPL FoV forces on you
> preventing you from seeing the car alongside you?

I press a little button on my wheel for that. The 22" monitor and lens
merely IMPROVES the immersion, that's all. When I look at the image on
my second PC's 17" monitor, that's when the better quality of the 22" &
lens really comes home to me.

What size monitor do you have?

Yes, i've tried that setup too, it's nicer.

Type 'fresnel lens' into a search engine, try http://www.yahoo.com

by **Eldre** » Thu, 23 Aug 2001 12:23:16

>I can confirm this as a fact. I use a fresnell in front of my 22"
>monitor and the effect is as you describe. It always makes me laugh when
>someone with a plain 17" monitor starts slagging off the FOV in GPL,
>forgetting all about their own poor and inadequate equipment ...
>Chuckle...

Nah, us po' folks with 17" monitors haven't forgotten about our poor equipment.
We just can't do anything about it at the moment... :(

Eldred
--
Dale Earnhardt, Sr. R.I.P. 1951-2001
Homepage - http://www.umich.edu/~epickett
F1 hcp. +16.36...Monster +366.59...

Never argue with an idiot. He brings you down to his level, then beats you
with experience...
Remove SPAM-OFF to reply.

by **Asgeir Nesoe** » Thu, 23 Aug 2001 17:25:28

Jan, one of the *first* things I thought about GPL was: Oh, the sound doesn't
give me much feedback because it sounds the same no matter what happens to the
car..... One of the *first* things. So, one thing is being taken by awe,
another is to pinpoint significant weaknesses of a sim.

A beta team should not be blown away by the new fancy sim, they should get down
to work, and find flaws, weak points.

But when that is said, I fully understand their "weakness" for GPL. I was weak
myself. In fact, I have been since... :-)

Kind of intriguing then, knowing that if the source code was available, we
would be able to fix most of this in a month or two here, on this newsgroup.
I'd love to rewrite the sound parts. :-)

---Asgeir---

by **Asgeir Nesoe** » Thu, 23 Aug 2001 17:29:06

Make it adjustable, to accomodate for the wide range of screens out there, and
distance from eye to screen. It is a very easily done transformation, and if we had
say 10 different settings, everyone would be happy. And GPL would give us the right
perspective no matter if we had a video cannon or a 15 incher.

---Asgeir---

> > 2) The periphery vision cannot be used in GPL as in real life. In real life, you
> > place the car on the track with accuracy with your periphery vision. This has to
> > do with the FOV of GPL, and this could be very easily fixed, if the Beta team
> > addressed it.

> How would you have done it?

> Gerry

by **Asgeir Nesoe** » Thu, 23 Aug 2001 22:23:10

It may be a FF calculation error, or, as you say, a bad aligning moment euqation, but I
also think that the grip/slipangle is too flat. And if that curve is too flat, the
feeling of a "light" or "resistive" wheel is lulled, and heavily so. It would be like
that in real life. Imagine what the steering wheel of a rally car is like... It is
light, light, and light again. Because the slipanglecurve is so flat. No difference
between sliding and gripping.

I suspect the phenomenon I am describing to be more than just a miscalculated FF,
unfortunately.

It is also noteworthy to see that every possible equation calculating the different
forces, are dependant on the tyre grip/slip.... I guess this is why the West brothers
pay so much attention to the grip model of a rolling and sliding tyre... Makes sense.

---Asgeir---

> On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 12:36:59 +0200, Asgeir Nesoen

> >One example: When I turn my ForceFeedback wheel in a medium speed turn, I feel
> >resistance. Because a rolling tyre wants to go straight forward. When you approach
> >the optimum grip, the resistance decreases. When the resistance decreases, you know
> >that you are "going over the top", and loosing grip. But I realized that if I keep
> >turning the wheel, albeit light and weird, I still get more grip, and not only a
> >little, there were huge amounts of it... Not realistic at all. A normal race car
> >driver would back off when the wheel goes light, but this is in fact counter
> >productive in GPL....

> May be a problem in their aligning moment calculations. I noticed in
> my sim that when I tweak some Pacejka curve constants to test, you can
> get the steering wheel to get light but still have plenty of grip
> (obtained visually). If the formula of aligning moment doesn't match
> up with that of lateral force, you indeed have a problem.

> Ruud van Gaal, GPL Rank +53.25
> Pencil art : http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery/
> Free car sim : http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery/racer/

by **Gerry Aitke** » Fri, 24 Aug 2001 01:45:48

> >I can confirm this as a fact. I use a fresnell in front of my 22"
> >monitor and the effect is as you describe. It always makes me laugh when
> >someone with a plain 17" monitor starts slagging off the FOV in GPL,
> >forgetting all about their own poor and inadequate equipment ...
> >Chuckle...

> Nah, us po' folks with 17" monitors haven't forgotten about our poor equipment.
> We just can't do anything about it at the moment... :(

...and I've never heard you complain either.

But even if GPL had a zoom option, I don't see how chopping off most of
the fast moving peripheral graphics would improve matters. It would just
destroy the game's feeling of speed. It's already been stated by Mark
Jeangerard that it's difficult to to judge speed. Come to think of it,
he also said the perspective was wrong, so how could Papy possibly
pleased him!?

Cheers

Gerry

by JM » Fri, 24 Aug 2001 01:55:48

> > >I can confirm this as a fact. I use a fresnell in front of my 22"
> > >monitor and the effect is as you describe. It always makes me laugh
when
> > >someone with a plain 17" monitor starts slagging off the FOV in GPL,
> > >Chuckle...

> > >Gerry

> > So a fresnel lense magically removes the blinkers the GPL FoV forces on
you
> > preventing you from seeing the car alongside you?

> I press a little button on my wheel for that. The 22" monitor and lens
> merely IMPROVES the immersion, that's all. When I look at the image on
> my second PC's 17" monitor, that's when the better quality of the 22" &
> lens really comes home to me.

> What size monitor do you have?

15" sucks to be me.
I understand what you were getting at, but consider that not every criticism
of the FoV is related to the immersion, or feeling of speed or whatever, a
wider FoV would allow the peripheral views without resorting to mummery like
"view switching" and possibly a lense would compensate for the visually
curious effect of that.

cheers
John

by **Gerry Aitke** » Fri, 24 Aug 2001 03:13:34

> I understand what you were getting at, but consider that not every criticism
> of the FoV is related to the immersion, or feeling of speed or whatever, a
> wider FoV would allow the peripheral views without resorting to mummery like
> "view switching" and possibly a lense would compensate for the visually
> curious effect of that.

I don't believe a lens could even begin to compensate for that. a VR
head set would do the trick, as long as we had a 'mouse look' feature
added to GPL.

Gerry

by JM » Fri, 24 Aug 2001 06:23:09

You could do it with some kind of wierd "goldfish bowl" like the old
cine-180 attractions exept much much smaller, and stuck in front of your
face (and to the sides).

or the headset would need wraparound viewscreen, so your peripheral vision
can be filled without moving to see, which would also add to the sense of
speed.

John

rec.autos.simulators

stupid licensing ruins everything

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stupid licensing ruins everything

stupid licensing ruins everything

stupid licensing ruins everything