Re: Simulating Speed - let's never use motion blur

I think the entire concept of simulating speed comes down to one thing - peripheral vision. F1 2000 will let you play around with peripheral vision. You can adjust the view width to any angle you want. I think that a 110 or 120 degree angle is probably very close to reality if you consider that a car driver is wearing a helmet. If you want to try it for yourself with F12K, let me know and I'll tell you how. With a 120 degree field of view, and very high frame rates, the scenery at the edge of the screen does blur at high speed. The key to a 3-monitor system is to make sure that the two side monitors are displaying right and left sections of a single camera view, and not separate camera views. -- PD Bruce Kennewell wrote: > > Good point, Andrew. > Perhaps there's some other way that the sensation can be better modelled. > > -- > Regards, > Bruce Kennewell, > Canberra, Australia. > --------------------------- > > Andrew Turner <[email hidden]> wrote in message > news:[email hidden]... > > Hi, > > > > I realized a few things while squeezing in some sim time between putting > > the baby to sleep (she likes golf) (get it? putting.... putting) and > > going downstairs to watch TV with my wife (down in a minute, honey... 15 > > minutes go by): > > > > First up: GPL, hotlaps. I was keeping in mind yesterday's motion blur > > conversation. While driving around a bunch of tracks, I found it useful > > (necessary) to shift my focus to the upcoming turn/curve/landscape to > > see what was going on. If motion blur was being used, it obviously would > > be blurry. > > > > Second up: SCGT. Same thing - but since here I was doing more than > > hotlaps, I found even more of a need to "look ahead" because there were > > cars all over the place. What looked amazing, though, was the replay - > > there is a camera angle from "above".. when the car goes by underneath > > and the camera follows, the car is in focus but the surroundings blur > > with speed - just eyes doing this of course. > > > > My conclusion: I don't want motion blur during driving. Please, please, > > no motion blur - I promise I will be good. During replays maybe, just > > not during driving. The points made about peripheral vision in > > yesterday's posts, I think, are correct (including mine, of course) - > > but! - this means that if you shift your gaze to the curve ahead, your > > peripheral vision moves too, but the computer has no way of knowing > > this. > > > > Andrew > > > > > >

Andrew Turner <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]... > Hi Todd, > > The visual (retinal) aspect *is* the only thing causing the blur inreality - this > is why I don't want any in a sim - if I'm whipping past a building inreal life, > and looking straight ahead, it blurs in the periphery, which happensonscreen too. > However, if I decide to look at it, it's no longer blurred because my eyefollows > it. If it is blurred onscreen, I can't focus on it, even if my eyefollows > directly on it. <snipped> I disagree, a computer monitor is different to real life. Without any motion blurring, the view on the screen is showing the positions of everything at the time that frame had started to be drawn. Now, in real life, nothing is ever standing still, and your eye will always get an 'averaged' view of things moving. Obviously, if you have really high refresh rates on your monitor then this isn't a problem. Most people can see that an animation at 120Hz refresh is much smoother than one at 85Hz, but my monitor / gfx card will only go to 120Hz, so I don't know whether any higher rate would yield even more improvement. When playing GPL the frame rate is fixed at 36Hz which is really poor. With no motion blurring, this is like driving a car in real life where everything else only moves 36 times a second in discrete steps. This would appear very weird, but of course it's not like that, everything moves continously and you eye gets an average 'blurred' image. Of course, the processing power needed for motion blurring may as well just be used to increase the frame rate. Cheers Scott

My opinion so far on this... Cinematic type would probably be anywhere from fine to really neat. Things that don't move much wouldn't be blurred. That upcoming point in the middle of the screen that isn't moving a whole lot won't be very blurry. It wouldn't look any different than watching movie footage from the cockpit of a racecar. Probably be very subtle if done correctly (treating things in accordance with how a camer shutter operates). It could possibly give a different feeling or sensation, kind of a subliminal thing, that makes you just say,"Man, I'm really flying here. This seems a little more realistic than those other sims." If taken overboard and done incorrectly, just to exaggerate the effect, it could cause the things you talked about to happen. The other aspect, the visual/retinal one, doesn't need to be simulated. As you pointed out, it happens naturally anyway, right? :-) Todd Wasson

Andrew, I agree. The retinal aspect is causing the real-life blurring. In that case, don't blur anything on the screen at all. It happens by itself when you focus on something. (Or don't focus on something ?? :-) ) I'd still be curious to see a properly done cinematic blurring effect. The way I imagine it, the edges of the screen being blurred would have little to do with anything. Rather, things that move across the screen quickly might be very slightly blurred (of course, that would most likely be things at the edge of the screen, but you catch my four-wheel-drift). If done by calculating shutter speeds and so on, an object wouldn't blur any further than it had moved between the last frame and the current one, just like in a movie. It might just give a more fluid display appearance, although if you focus on something racing across your screen (if you can!), it will appear blurred and, like you said, that isn't what you'd see in reality. Will anyone actually be able to see this? I wonder. I've never noticed the blurring that occurs in movies such as Days of Thunder or Top Gun, no matter where I focused, or what sign I tried to watch whiz by at 200 mph. But perhaps the feeling of speed would be different if the blurring just wasn't there at all. High shutter speed cameras? An experiment could be done here to see/feel any difference. (I elect anyone but me to do this :-)) Come to think of it, since the movie shutter is closed for a brief period between frames, an object's (cinematic) blur would be even less noticable. The tree on the side of the track was "there" 1/30th of a second ago, now it's going to be drawn "here". The shutter was closed for a small part of that time (let's say half, since I'm not Steven Spielberg), so the tree would be blurred from halfway between "there" and "here". That's it. The slight blur would end up following the tree across the screen, rather than leaving some big, unrecognizable smudge in front of something you want to look at. Yes, if you now focus on the tree, it will be slightly blurred, just like it is in the movie,--->>"Insert favorite racing movie here"<<--- I guess the question that comes up now is, do you want to simulate the real scenery as it looks right this instant from inside the race car in real life, or do you want to simulate what the scenery would look like when viewed through a movie camera with a shutter speed of x? Others posted that their laptop LCD's gave a slightly blurred effect (this would be nearly identical to the cinematic type blurring) and preferred it, because it merely gave the illusion of higher frame rates. I've got one other thought on this, but this post is too long already! Of course, as you mentioned, LCD 3-D glasses would be the best bet! Todd Wasson

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>Hi Todd, > >The visual (retinal) aspect *is* the only thing causing the blur in reality - >this >is why I don't want any in a sim - if I'm whipping past a building in real >life, >and looking straight ahead, it blurs in the periphery, which happens onscreen >too. >However, if I decide to look at it, it's no longer blurred because my eye >follows >it. If it is blurred onscreen, I can't focus on it, even if my eye follows >directly on it. > >I'd like to think that while everyone is simming, they aren't just staring at >a >fixed point in the center of the screen. > >The cinematic thing *could* work, I suppose, but only if it was real subtle >and on >the very fringes of the screen. Still, I don't think I'd want it except in >replay... > >LCD shutter 3d glasses would be the best alternative! (I think) > >Andrew >

Hi, I realized a few things while squeezing in some sim time between putting the baby to sleep (she likes golf) (get it? putting.... putting) and going downstairs to watch TV with my wife (down in a minute, honey... 15 minutes go by): First up: GPL, hotlaps. I was keeping in mind yesterday's motion blur conversation. While driving around a bunch of tracks, I found it useful (necessary) to shift my focus to the upcoming turn/curve/landscape to see what was going on. If motion blur was being used, it obviously would be blurry. Second up: SCGT. Same thing - but since here I was doing more than hotlaps, I found even more of a need to "look ahead" because there were cars all over the place. What looked amazing, though, was the replay - there is a camera angle from "above".. when the car goes by underneath and the camera follows, the car is in focus but the surroundings blur with speed - just eyes doing this of course. My conclusion: I don't want motion blur during driving. Please, please, no motion blur - I promise I will be good. During replays maybe, just not during driving. The points made about peripheral vision in yesterday's posts, I think, are correct (including mine, of course) - but! - this means that if you shift your gaze to the curve ahead, your peripheral vision moves too, but the computer has no way of knowing this. Andrew

Andrew Turner <[email hidden]> writes:

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> Hi, > > I realized a few things while squeezing in some sim time between putting > the baby to sleep (she likes golf) (get it? putting.... putting) and > going downstairs to watch TV with my wife (down in a minute, honey... 15 > minutes go by): > > First up: GPL, hotlaps. I was keeping in mind yesterday's motion blur > conversation. While driving around a bunch of tracks, I found it useful > (necessary) to shift my focus to the upcoming turn/curve/landscape to > see what was going on. If motion blur was being used, it obviously would > be blurry. > > Second up: SCGT. Same thing - but since here I was doing more than > hotlaps, I found even more of a need to "look ahead" because there were > cars all over the place. What looked amazing, though, was the replay - > there is a camera angle from "above".. when the car goes by underneath > and the camera follows, the car is in focus but the surroundings blur > with speed - just eyes doing this of course. > > My conclusion: I don't want motion blur during driving. Please, please, > no motion blur - I promise I will be good. During replays maybe, just > not during driving. The points made about peripheral vision in > yesterday's posts, I think, are correct (including mine, of course) - > but! - this means that if you shift your gaze to the curve ahead, your > peripheral vision moves too, but the computer has no way of knowing > this.

Seems like the two concepts discussed has been mixed together in some way. One way was to blur the edges of the screen and simulate a "imperfect eye", the other was to add cinematic motion blur to simulate the movement of a object during the time the frame is "shot". If you simulate the eye, things would, as you correctly pointed out, get very disturbing when changing viewpoint. When adding cinematic motion blur, this will not be a problem. Of course, the best thing would have to have a monitor on each side with motion blur, so you get a right picture is your distorted peripheral vision. :) -- Olav K. Malmin remove spam when replying

Hi Olav, Not convinced! If you had side monitors, you absolutely will have parts of the track and landforms there. So, for example, if you're entering a right hairpin and want to look to your right monitor to look ahead, say to check for cars, and it's blurred, you're in trouble... Regards! Andrew "Olav K. Malmin" wrote:

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> Of course, the best thing would have to have a monitor on each side > with motion blur, so you get a right picture is your distorted > peripheral vision. > > :) > > -- > Olav K. Malmin > remove spam when replying

Sorry, if I missed something in this conversation, but I think that blurring could only enchance the visual reality, not the sense of speed. Yes, the game will look more realistic ,but have you forgot about determining the distance to the far objects ? When you are focusing on something it's not just your eye muscles are changing the form of eyeball, you also cross the eye vision vectors in some corner. You can perfectly focus with one eye closed ,but this way it is very hard to determine which object of two far from you is closer. And how do we feel the speed of an approaching object ? It is calculating itself in our brain depending on focus changes( a single eye is capable to do that ) AND the changes in the corner which vision lines virtually create. Now think that you are closing a corner. What you are focusing at is the apex ( for example ) Your eyes fallow....etc... and THIS way you can feel your own speed. Best regards. Warren Reicho "Bruce Kennewell" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

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> Have you ever considered how best to simulate the effect of a roadway > rushing towards you at 200kph? > Of course you have.....after all, part of your task it to portray this > sensation in a manner that will give the player an effective sense of the > speed at which a racing car travels. > > However, have you ever considered what my son refers to as "blurring"? > > He said to me last night "Dad", (he calls me that at times)

"Dad........why > don't they BLUR the edges of the picture as it comes towards you?" Hethen

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> went on to explain this question (I obviously looked puzzled to him!) by > pointing out that when you are driving in a car, the scenery moves towards > you at (what appears to be) increasing rapidity and the closer it gets the > more blurred the periphery of the "picture" gets until the edges of the > road, the shrubbery, posts, poles, etc. are simply a blur. > > I tested this theory out today on the way to work and he is absolutely > correct. > > But this doesn't happen in a sim. I fired up GPL tonight and, at speed

down

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> Masta straight at Spa, those items on the edge of my vision (as seen from > the viewpoint of the driver...not me sitting at my desk!) were as clearly > defined as those items in the centre of the screen a kilometre away. > I tried it with ICR2, NASCAR3, SCGT...all the same: there is no blurring > effect a all. > > It is therefore my opinion that one of the effects that a developer could > look into would be to recreate this real-world factor. > > Is this feasible? Can it be effectively simulated? > I would be curious to read educated comment. > > -- > Regards, > Bruce Kennewell, > Canberra, Australia. > --------------------------- > > >

Hi Todd, The visual (retinal) aspect *is* the only thing causing the blur in reality - this is why I don't want any in a sim - if I'm whipping past a building in real life, and looking straight ahead, it blurs in the periphery, which happens onscreen too. However, if I decide to look at it, it's no longer blurred because my eye follows it. If it is blurred onscreen, I can't focus on it, even if my eye follows directly on it. I'd like to think that while everyone is simming, they aren't just staring at a fixed point in the center of the screen. The cinematic thing *could* work, I suppose, but only if it was real subtle and on the very fringes of the screen. Still, I don't think I'd want it except in replay... LCD shutter 3d glasses would be the best alternative! (I think) Andrew JTW62074 wrote:

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> My opinion so far on this... > Cinematic type would probably be anywhere from fine to really neat. Things > that don't move much wouldn't be blurred. That upcoming point in the middle of > the screen that isn't moving a whole lot won't be very blurry. It wouldn't > look any different than watching movie footage from the cockpit of a racecar. > Probably be very subtle if done correctly (treating things in accordance with > how a camer shutter operates). It could possibly give a different feeling or > sensation, kind of a subliminal thing, that makes you just say,"Man, I'm really > flying here. This seems a little more realistic than those other sims." If > taken overboard and done incorrectly, just to exaggerate the effect, it could > cause the things you talked about to happen. > > The other aspect, the visual/retinal one, doesn't need to be simulated. As > you pointed out, it happens naturally anyway, right? :-) > > Todd Wasson >

Scott - Actually, in real life, everything is always standing pretty close to *perfectly* still. The eye does indeed see "frames", albeit very fast ones. Even so, I think it's only like a60 "frames" per second.. The solution is incredibly high frame rates on the computer! Andrew Scott Boham wrote: > Now, in real > life, nothing is ever standing still, and your eye will always get an > 'averaged' view of things moving.

I for one would like to know how to do this. Could you make it a general RAS post, rather than a private email? best, David K. "Pat Dotson" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

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> I think the entire concept of simulating speed comes down > to one thing - peripheral vision. > > F1 2000 will let you play around with peripheral vision. You > can adjust the view width to any angle you want. I think that > a 110 or 120 degree angle is probably very close to reality > if you consider that a car driver is wearing a helmet. If > you want to try it for yourself with F12K, let me know and > I'll tell you how. > > With a 120 degree field of view, and very high frame rates, > the scenery at the edge of the screen does blur at high > speed. >

[snip] > PD

Good point, Andrew. Perhaps there's some other way that the sensation can be better modelled. -- Regards, Bruce Kennewell, Canberra, Australia. --------------------------- Andrew Turner <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]... > Hi, > > I realized a few things while squeezing in some sim time between putting > the baby to sleep (she likes golf) (get it? putting.... putting) and > going downstairs to watch TV with my wife (down in a minute, honey... 15 > minutes go by): > > First up: GPL, hotlaps. I was keeping in mind yesterday's motion blur > conversation. While driving around a bunch of tracks, I found it useful > (necessary) to shift my focus to the upcoming turn/curve/landscape to > see what was going on. If motion blur was being used, it obviously would > be blurry. > > Second up: SCGT. Same thing - but since here I was doing more than > hotlaps, I found even more of a need to "look ahead" because there were > cars all over the place. What looked amazing, though, was the replay - > there is a camera angle from "above".. when the car goes by underneath > and the camera follows, the car is in focus but the surroundings blur > with speed - just eyes doing this of course. > > My conclusion: I don't want motion blur during driving. Please, please, > no motion blur - I promise I will be good. During replays maybe, just > not during driving. The points made about peripheral vision in > yesterday's posts, I think, are correct (including mine, of course) - > but! - this means that if you shift your gaze to the curve ahead, your > peripheral vision moves too, but the computer has no way of knowing > this. > > Andrew > > >

If you want to see what a reallllly wide view is like, try this: In F12K, go to the \F1 2000\Season00\Tracks\<track>\<track>.scn file, and open it with a text editor. Near the top of the file, under the "View=mainview" section, look for the line: ViewFOV=(77.75, 62.50) The first number controls the view angle in the cockpit view. You can adjust it to whatever you want. I like it at about 100 degrees. You really get a better feel for where you are in the corners, and for where the other cars are at. -- PD David Karr wrote: > > I for one would like to know how to do this. Could you make it a general > RAS post, rather than a private email? > > best, > David K. > > "Pat Dotson" <[email hidden]> wrote in message > news:[email hidden]... > > I think the entire concept of simulating speed comes down > > to one thing - peripheral vision. > > > > F1 2000 will let you play around with peripheral vision. You > > can adjust the view width to any angle you want. I think that > > a 110 or 120 degree angle is probably very close to reality > > if you consider that a car driver is wearing a helmet. If > > you want to try it for yourself with F12K, let me know and > > I'll tell you how. > > > > With a 120 degree field of view, and very high frame rates, > > the scenery at the edge of the screen does blur at high > > speed. > > > [snip] > > PD