An in depth look at rFactor field of view

[Steven Ciofalo]

I surf through sim racing videos on YouTube almost everyday and only in the rarest occasion is someone using a customized view that suits there particular racing rig/desk. I am making this tutorial to help everyone understand and utilize several ways of adjusting your view to best suit your scenario. Most of these setups using forced FOV usually require a Triplehead or a very large screen. However single-smaller display setups can still benefit from a good tune.

The goal of this tutorial is to make using rFactor more like a full out Driving SIMULATOR and less like a racing game. It should make your racing experience much closer to the real thing. iRacing has these calculations worked out automatically but the same immersion can be found in rFactor with this tutorial.

It may help to think about it in these terms.

That brown rectangle represents an average widescreen monitor sitting an average distance from a user, overlaid in a real world driving scene. What is in that rectangle is all you should see in-game.

That means you should not see your dashboard or wheel. And you should have your Steering wheel shut off in the display options regardless as you most likely have a wheel, in your hands, right in front of you. You do not need two.


FOV: (In-Game Vs Real-Life)

Your VERTICAL Field of View is the VERTICAL angle your virtual eye can see in-game.
You can modify it in your rFactor under Settings>Display. If it is on "Default" then each mod/car will contain a different FOV and rFactor will use that. If you change it to a number "58" then rFactor will force that to be your FOV in all mods/cars.

The extremes of the easily settable FOV in rFactor look like this.

100 Degree FOV

35 Degree FOV

35 may seem close but if you compare to the first image with the brown rectangle it still isnt close enough. To calculate what you need to set your Field of View in-game to you must figure out what your RL-FOV is. That can be accomplished with the following method and measurements. (Get a tape measure)

Take the 2 Distances (Side 1&2) and your viewable Screen Height(Side 3) and put those numbers into this calculator.

http://ostermiller.org/calc/triangle.html

Here is an example of my setup in the calculator.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v504/F12Bwth2/Forums/FOVCalc.png

My monitor has 12" of vertical height and I sit 39 inches from the bottom and 40 inches from the top to my eye. The resulting angle is what my personal setups FOV is, 17 Degrees.


Trying to set rFactor to this low a FOV is not possible with the in-game setup options. Instead, you must exit rFactor and edit the .cam files for the cars you want adjusted with notepad. Yes every mod would need adjustment should you decide to change them all below 35 Degrees.

Cam Files are located in "X:\rFactor\GameData\Vehicles\Modname\Carname\Carna me_Cams.cam"

When opened you will be presented with every camera available for the car. Starting with Nosecam, Cockpit, TV Cockpit, Swingman, Onboard1 etc etc. The one we are concerned with here is the Cockpit view. This allows for headbob and look to apex to remain intact. The default may differ per mod.


EXAMPLE CODE

LocalCam=COCKPIT
{
  Fov=(60.000000, 60.00000)
  Clear=TRUE
  Color=(164, 218, 249)
  ClipPlanes=(0.075000, 700.000000)
  LODMultiplier=(1.000000)
  Size=(1.000000, 1.000000)
  Center=(0.500000, 0.500000)
  MipmapLODBias=(0.000000)
  Flags1=(0)
  Flags2=(0)
  RadiusLimits=(0.000000, 0.000000)
  OrientationRate=(999.000000, 999.000000, 999.000000)
  PositionOffset=(0, -0.1, 0)
  OrientationOffset=(-0.070000, 0.000000, 0.000000)
  Radius=(0.000000)

The"Fov=(60.00000000, 60.000000)" Must be changed to "Fov=(17.0000, 17.0000)" or whatever yours calculates to be.

* I also remove the "7" from the OrientationOffset line making it all 0's. This will level the view.

Remember, once back in-game the FOV setting must be set to "default" for rfactor to use this adjustment in the cam file.

NOTE: I also opened and changed the Headphysics.ini per mod editing the

HeadMass=6.0 to HeadMass=3.0

making my head lighter causing less intense bounce with the new zoomed view.

You can also use the head movement removal technique from this thread I found here at RD. http://www.racedepartment.com/rfactor/22330-how-get-rid-head-movement-rfactor.html

Here is an example of my adjusted FOV of (17 Degrees)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v504/F12Bwth2/Game Screens/rFactor2010-04-1603-08-12-65.jpg


VIDEO OF ME ON THE NORDSCHLIEFE @ 17d FOV (Note how much more prominent the banks and gradients feel)

And here it is when you view it from real life.

As a scary example here is a single lap of Bathurst replayed in the VLN mods default cockpit FOV of 62.5 Vs an adjusted 20.5

Note the completely different(realistic) sense of distance.

Here is a screenshot from a friend who is running SoftTH and we calculated he needed around 18.5 degrees of V-FOV in-game. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v504/F12Bwth2/Game Screens/SoftTH_rFactor_000163677824.jpg


Now other then setting the correct In-Game FOV you will most likely have to customize the camera position and angle. This can be done in 3 ways.

First is the simplest by just adjusting you seat position. Most times this is good enough.

More severe editing requires that the "PositionOffset" and "OrientationOffset" lines in the cam file be permanently altered changing the origins and angles of the camera in game. This method requires you to leave the game to make adjustments and then return to see the results. An annoyance since you never really can be sure how great an impact a small change can have. NOTE: I believe the increments are in METERS.. So changing 0.1 to 1.0 would move your in-game camera 3 feet! I use it to make some right hand drive cars into Left hand drive EXAMPLE Bathurst Legends Ford


The last method for adjusting your camera position is on the fly is with Cam-Controls.

To use the cam-controls offered in rFactor you must bind them all. They are Cam up, down, left , right, forward, backward, tilt up, etc, etc, etc. These can also be bound to analog inputs which I do recommend. Using a joystick for more finite controls helps greatly. There is also a "slow" key you can define to slow the movement of your adjustments.

To change your in-car (or any) view you must first enable/toggle "free-move". Another key you may need to bind.

Once Free-Move is on you can use your cam-controls to move the camera around to infinite extremes. You will however notice that the movement is not based around the cars position but the worlds X,Y,Z. So up may only be strait up when on flat ground and forward may move the camera sideways or back depending on the cars orientation on the track. It is up to you to sort out and correctly move the camera into position every time the car is reset.


Once set the view can easily be lost by pressing "Esc" while in practice and can lose "tilt" even if you only change camera views. Perhaps the most dangerous part of this method is the fact that since "free-look" MUST be enabled for the view to stay, the slightest mouse movement can cause your view to spin. Not the best situation while racing. These are the limitations of this method but it is far easier and faster than editing every cam file individually.


CAM ADJUSTMENT TUTORIAL VIDEO

(This video has some errors I have worked out since)

Since originally writing this tutorial I have moved my monitor 5" closer so my v-FOV is now 20.5 degrees. That looks like this.

After several months at my perfect fov I find it very difficult to drive with it set to anything else.

I have found out how to enable the virtual mirrors in cockpit view. It greatly enhances the playability of a low FOV.

Go into your rFactor\Userdata\Your Name\Your Name.PLR file and edit the following line. It will not effect server join-ability.

Near the bottom:

[ Graphic Options ]
Broadcast Overlay="0"
Texture Detail="3"
Vertical FOV Angle="34" // 34=use default, otherwise is the FOV for attached cameras (horiz is calculated based on aspect ratio)
Rearview="1" // 0=Off, 1=Center and Side, 2=Center only, 3=Side only (virtual mirrors only, in-car mirrors are on/off)
Allow Rearview In Swingman="0"
Virtual Rearview In Cockpit="1"

Set it to 1 and you are good to go.

I encourage everyone to try their perfect FOV for a day or so. If you can move your monitor closer while racing that may make a huge difference in the feasibility of using a low FOV.

 

[Dave Stephenson]

I'm personally gonna give this a go. In evo I generally use mild look to apex but it never seems quite right from the bottom. this would help to give a similar view while maintaining the right sort of origin for Look-to-apex.

Can't ay I agree fully with the idea of losing peripheral vision. Even with an expanded view of things this is a problem in simulators that I never found a good answer to other than head tracking. Since I stopped using a triple screen layout I've really struggled a lot with finding a comfortable view.

Remember this is a guide, A good one too (thanks Steven ), everyone will still need to taylor it to his/her own preferences. I think though that as long as everyone feels comfortable in the car the vision they have is irrelevant, being comfortable is way more important than seeing a lot imo, as when your comfortable you can devote more resources to situal awareness.

 

[Alex Kyriak]

Very interesting article indeed, thanks Steve. I have been testing it out alot today.

I think there's something a little bit odd about doing this though, for me it only solves half the problem. It does seem more "lifelike", in that the track and world outside feels more to a real world scale. However the net effect is that, as pointed out by the author, you're effectively blinkering/masking the view, or reducing the peripheral view. Yes, when you drive in the real world you 'see' a relatively constrained view, but when we say 'see', this primarily means 'concentrated perception'. For me the key thing is that you also percieve the periphery, even if not as directly or as detailed as the 'centre' of your view. The technique above matches the scale, but loses the periphery. Conversely, the average monitor with the default FOV displays an approximately correct amount of peripheral information, but does so in a confined space, which is why it does not seem as realistic.

So it's one thing to bring the monitor view, and the information depicted therein, up to the right scale - ie to zoom it to an approximate one to one scale. But it's another to then blank out the edges, as this loses the periphery that the human eye also perceives. The technique decribed above makes the scale of the view seem more correct, but the amount of additional perpripheral percieved information that you now receive is not correct. IMHO, the solution is to a) bring the view up to the right scale, like this technique shows, and then b) to be able to extend the perihperal vision - which is only really viable with a projector and a bigger projecting surface than the computer monitor affords. Military flightsims with a real cockpit on a moving platform have these wraparound projecting surfaces that achieve both - to match scale and peripheral range. Hard to achieve on the average rFactor rig! I have access to a projector however, might just give it a crack!

 

[Steven Ciofalo]

I have access to a projector however, might just give it a crack!

Go for it. When you work out screen size and scale post your findings in my fov thread so it doesn't get lost as just a blog comment. http://www.racedepartment.com/rfactor/38273-setting-up-your-rfactor-fov-tutorial.html

And yes it is hard to lose all that peripheral vision. Virtual mirrors help a great deal as well as binding the look left look right keys to your wheel. I personally have adjusted the "look ahead" beyond the maximum allowed in-game so when cornering I get a better view of the corner. I have also worked out that a minimum of three 32" screens is required to build a 180 degree horizontal fov rig. At that size the screen is far enough away to be behind the wheel and allowing a 1" bezel per screen reach out to the farthest peripheral. Picture here. http://i1003.photobucket.com/albums/af151/ViolatorGaming/Sim Design/IMG_1888.jpg And yes I am aware human beings don't see stereoscopically up to 180 degrees but if I were doing a rig I would want nothing in the corner of my eye but sim. Also Head tracking with 3 monitors seems wasteful unless toned down ALOT.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

Have to say, a few of us were doing a bit of GTL practice last night, and GTL allows you to adjust FOV in car using Ctrl+mouse.

It goes far enough in so the view was sitting atop the instrument binnacle - similar to your example video at the Nords.

The first few laps were very, very weird for us all - the biggest problem being braking distances as the track markers disappeared that much sooner on the lower FOV, but come the end of the session, with the compromises like virtual mirror and a HUD rev counter in place to make sure we weren't eating the engine nor driving in to people, it pretty much got 100% thumbs up from those of us who tried it.