Steering changes

[Ruud]

From the v0.8.23 readme (out tomorrow I guess):

"Steering revised quite a bit - the controls for steering left/right now use degrees, instead of being normalized. This changed some things inside the physics engine to use rotation more directly.
The idea: set your controller's lock correctly. With cars that have a steering lock that is smaller or equal to that of the controller lock, the steering is direct (1:1). If a car has more lock defined
in its car.ini, scaling will occur on the controller's steering output (now in degrees) to let it use the full range of the car's steering wheel.
This all targeted a bit for 900 degrees where you no longer then have to tweak for a lot of cars. The controller setup screen is being worked on to visually check the lock (press F5 twice in the setup screen to show the 'Wheel' page).

Why was a car.ini's steer.linearity needed again? I see no need anymore."

It's getting along nicely, hope to finish it today, but one question remains: if I have a controller that has 'linearity' applied (not 1.0) for its steering, and the controller can output >= the angle that the car's steering wheel requires, should I also disable linearity?

Example: G27 with 900 degrees of steering. Car1 has 720 steering lock. I want a 1:1 mapping. Although the Logitech G27 can go to 900 still, the virtual car's wheel only will go to 720 (clamped to the virtual car's capability).
Car2 has 1280 degrees of steering; v0.8.23 will then scale the 900 degrees to 1280 to use the full steering range, and apply linearity (which might be useful since you now steer more in the virtual car's steering wheel than in your physical real-life wheel).

Should Car1 disable linearity? I have a hunch it should, since real cars don't really have linearity applied in their steering system, do they?

 

[Alex Forbin]

That document about steering wheels & such is up at http://racer.nl/tutorial/forcefeedback.htm
The F458 is easy to oversteer, the Mz curve seems to give up too quickly compared to Fy. Hope Cam will finish it for v0.9, the animated steering is very nice although I should create the tutorial to see where the animation problems are coming from (perhaps the bone animations are not correct, steering & shifting at the same time is troublesome). Also, it'd be nice if a 900 degree animation could also be used for a 200 degree (steering lock) car, to save precious animation time.

I read the FFB tutorial and I'm glad you mentioned how to tune the FFB so that the forces don't saturate the wheel. That's been a problem on cars made in the past.
I think if the steering anim is hand-over-hand style you could use the same anim on both 200 and 900 degree, if you have the cross-over point on the sides instead of the top-center. It's proper technique as well.

Alex Forbin

 

[camsinny]

Finally got my character to a point of being in position in the car to be animated. Will have a crack tonight. Gotta go to work now.

 

[Mr Whippy]

I read the FFB tutorial and I'm glad you mentioned how to tune the FFB so that the forces don't saturate the wheel. That's been a problem on cars made in the past.
I think if the steering anim is hand-over-hand style you could use the same anim on both 200 and 900 degree, if you have the cross-over point on the sides instead of the top-center. It's proper technique as well.

Alex Forbin

Yep, I agree, 10 to 2 ish, or 9 to 3, will work on a road car ok to 200deg, that is only 100deg each way... you could even get to about 240deg before you start moving the arms around to re-grim the wheel as it spins too far and your arms get twisted together


Agree on the force saturation too. I read that and thought, ahhhhhh!

It's kinda like calibration really.


However, does that readout just show the Mz/castor/kpi mix...?

Thinking about it, I'm sure my BMW Z4 diagnostics will output the Nm forces the EPS is generating... will be quite interesting to see

Dave

 

[QuadCoreMax]

Hm about the centering spring effect DEACTIVATED, the reason is the steering wheel feels too light when car stands still or even at low speed or straights. Another issue, when keeping throttling & then steering right/left & suddenly letting it go, it keeps oscillating in both directions like crazy....

I guess it isn't the way it should be....that's why I usually prefer to drive with centering spring effect ON & then keep ff_factor low....

What do you think ?
Do I missed something ?

EDIT:

It's a complete different feel, I'm convinced it's better without centering spring strength finally !

 

[Ruud]

Hm about the centering spring effect DEACTIVATED, the reason is the steering wheel feels too light when car stands still or even at low speed or straights. Another issue, when keeping throttling & then steering right/left & suddenly letting it go, it keeps oscillating in both directions like crazy....

I guess it isn't the way it should be....that's why I usually prefer to drive with centering spring effect ON & then keep ff_factor low....

What do you think ?
Do I missed something ?

EDIT:

It's a complete different feel, I'm convinced it's better without centering spring strength finally !

Normally Racer tries to turn off the centering spring (if the driver accepts it). However, esp with 0824, just add some friction or damping or inertia...