Greater FOV control without editing car files

[FinbarFoley]

Howdy folks,

I've seen people asking about changing the field of view beyond what is allowed in game as it can be a bit too restrictive for some. I've seen the files that can be edited in game but I thought I would offer a solution that doesn't require editing any files which may be helpful for those that still play online or just want a simpler alternative.

What I did was downloaded opentrack from https://github.com/opentrack/opentrack/releases. It is a headtracking program that actually offers some great solutions for headtracking, such as using an ArUco marker and a webcam to track your head movement (cost me 40 cents total to get headtracking working with an old webcam!), but that isn't what I am here to explain today.

Instead, you can use this program to send a permanent forward or backward head position signal to the game, that will either push you further towards the windshield, or further away.

Once you've installed the program, set input to "joystick control" and output to "freetrack 2.0 enhanced". Now go into options, click on the output tab, look down to "custom center pose" and change the Z axis to either a positive or negative value, which will change your seating position either forward or back. I found the range for GTR2 to be around -20cm to +20cm but you can experiment with this yourself, as it applies immediately without needing to restart the game each time you want to alter it.

Now all you need to do is click ok, then the "start" button for tracking. Here are some shots showing the difference between both ends of the spectrum of the z-axis with no alteration to the in-game field of view. Hopefully this is helpful

 

[Shovas]

Very clever, thanks for posting! I have my UserData PLR FOV set properly based on distance etc but yes I still find some modders have weird seating positions I can't fix completely in-game.

Are you also setting the appropriate FOV in the UserData PLR file?

I use a TrackIR and I wish it was higher resolution, it can get a little choppy moving side-to-side, I should think about getting those webcam-based head trackers.

 

[FinbarFoley]

Do you mean the "FOV Multiplier" setting? I usually just hold control, left click and move the mouse to adjust my field of view in game and I think that alters the "FOV Multiplier" setting in the plr file automatically.

I also played around with the field of view in the defviews.cam file and set it to similar values as found in Race 07 which was interesting, but I ended up leaving it close to default in the end.

That's interesting that your TrackIR is a bit choppy. I'm using an ArUco marker stuck onto a hat with an old cheap logitech webcam and actually get decent smoothness using the smoothness filtering included in that software I shared the link to. This was a good tutorial I found on youtube

 

[Shovas]

Sorry, you're right, it's the defviews.cam file you edit for FOV in GTR2.

Just a heads up, true FOV alters the geometric representation of the world (think warping objects) while the in-game seat adjustment is just moving you in a particular direction.

Modifying true FOV is important for judging speed and distance and can really help with your race skills (things appear slower, so you sort of have more time to think, when proper FOV is used).

 

[Shovas]

Good video although it looks a little dorky compared to the TrackIR tabs lol

I actually have read about facial recognition ones that do the same head movement tracking but just based on facial recognition so no need to have any lighting strips anywhere, no hats, no head gear at all. And I'm pretty sure they use any standard webcam, too.

Yeah here it is:

http://facetracknoir.sourceforge.net/home/default.htm

I've got to try these out one day.

 

[Jempy]

Truly said, Matthew ... I know both FacetrackNoIR as I used it in the past on Race07... and now TrackIR for more than 1 year.
TrackIR, in my point of view and experience is far better than the free one.

For the FacetrackNoIR, it may use a standard webcam, but this one needs to be rather efficient and not a too cheap one.
The settings are a bit more difficult .... and the most important, the ambient light may have a very negative effect on the reaction to your personal moves.
If you mostly drive with rather clear lights or in daytime ..... moves may be shaky and not fluent.

With TrackIR, I may admit the hat is really annoying by warm weather and also gets the negative effects of ambient lights ..... but the clip, on the contrary, is very efficient ... when keeping it always clipped at your dedicated headset for sims ( without clipping and unclipping it regularly to avoid breaking it ).

I feel TrackIR is much more precise than the NoIR .... without having to spend much time for the settings.

TrackIR's most negative point is ......... its price !

For the seat settings in GTR2, it's true that some modders didn't care enough for the values, mostly not wide enough forwards-backwards or Up-Down .... but surely those are not cockpit view drivers and maybe didn't even notice it if they use the hood view.

 

[Bjarne Hansen]

Will suggest Edtracker
http://www.edtracker.org.uk/
Real easy to build and affordable too. And no cams or lighting to deal with.
Can also be bought finished too. But as said can be build easy on a breadboard with no soldering.
Best part of it is has no real load on the CPU as it behaves as a Joystick.
Can be used with or without Opentrack.
Got mine Velcroed to the top of the headset.
Only minus compared to TrackIR and the DIY based trackir clones are that EdTracker do not provide positional tracking only rotations.
But that can also be an advantage for games like Gtr2 as you avoid clipping off the cockpit parts when moving the head sideways.

 

[Jempy]

Oops ! One sentence modified in my previous post:
"mostly not wide enough forwards-backwards or Up-Down" rather than repeating the same movements with other words !

 

[Groov1r]

Thanks for sharing