Locking the Horizon?

lopsided

Premium
Hey guys,

I know this title differs in the way we get/add content so my question is... would locking the horizon be something a modder could achieve or is the code controlled in a way that only the developers could implement this?

Unfortunately I am one of those who can't tolerate horizon movement/bouncing. I'm not talking about the amount of movement but rather - what does the moving. The car can bounce all it wants, no problem but when the game moves the background I'm out of luck. :confused:
With most of the other titles I run I either have the option to keep the horizon from bouncing or use the awesome plugin by Magicfr (RealHeadMotion) which puts me back in the game.

Bailey
 
Well Andi I have always understood it to be called "Lock to Horizon" so that the in cockpit camera locks the horizon/background so that it is not moving (up/down/bouncing). The car itself does the bouncing etc. but the background does not.
B

EDIT: Example I found on YouTube may help.
 
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Hm, I'm just thinking how this would work in real life.
To get only the car to move around, without you following that movement?
Isn't it your eyes that should lock on the horizon, makes more sense to me.
I might be wrong, but when I think of how it is driving in real life, both the car and the world around me is moving.

So I would say keep the moving environment and add some smooth bounce of the car + movement of driver's position in acceleration and braking / g forces etc.

Making an option for it wouldn't hurt I guess.
But I get more immersion from it if both environment and car is moving.
 
Heppsan, Actually out of AC, rF2, iRacing... R3E is the only title that I can't force Lock to Horizon so it makes it undriveable for me which is a complete bummer because I love WTCC.
Sebastien/ MagicFr explains a bit on his site and AC forum. (quoted below)

I can no longer drive titles that cause my eyes to move up and down to focus on a bouncing horizon.
I didn't have this issue many years ago (been racing, cockpit view since the late 80's), so I can understand why some people seemingly don't notice and don't care. I get that - that was me once upon a time. But sadly it's now a huge problem for me (and others as well) and I can no longer tolerate it.

All in all I'm just wondering if this has to be implemented by R3E developers or if code can be modded by users.

Bailey
From AC forum
Biological facts
The feel of equilibrium, acceleration, gravity, and so bumps are not feel by the eye but with the inner hear. Wich is made of liquid and crystals in circular tunnels.

When the inner hear feels bumps and head motion, it instinctly moves your eyes to soften/filter/remove those bumps.

2 experiences to demonstrate that.
1) when put somebody on a chair, in complete dark, you film his eyes with an infrared caemras, you turn the chair, is eyes will roll too, even if he see nothing

2) this one you can do it yourself, looks at in front of you, at your screen, now shake your head, the vision will not move.

When there is conflicting information from inner hear and eye, you feel strange, it's difficult to focus on the road, and you can have nausea.

What happens in a car
When you are driving, you are looking the road, and all the bumps are filter/corrected by your inner hear, so the viewing of the track is smooth and it's the car cockpit that moving around you.

What happens in a Sim
Because you are sitting and a standing chair/seat, you head is not moving at all, so the inner ear is not working, the eye don't correct the bumps.
That's make 2 issues :
1) you can't focus on the road, the road is shaking and not smooth, it's difficult to drive
2) you can get nausea because you have conflicting information from eyes and inner hear.
 
Heppsan, Actually out of AC, rF2, iRacing... R3E is the only title that I can't force Lock to Horizon so it makes it undriveable for me which is a complete bummer because I love WTCC.
Sebastien/ MagicFr explains a bit on his site and AC forum. (quoted below)

I can no longer drive titles that cause my eyes to move up and down to focus on a bouncing horizon.
I didn't have this issue many years ago (been racing, cockpit view since the late 80's), so I can understand why some people seemingly don't notice and don't care. I get that - that was me once upon a time. But sadly it's now a huge problem for me (and others as well) and I can no longer tolerate it.

All in all I'm just wondering if this has to be implemented by R3E developers or if code can be modded by users.

Bailey
From AC forum
I can see your point.
For me and my immersion though, I would prefer a little bit of both.
But if I had to choose between the two I would go for the way it is.
Lock to horizon makes it feel like you have no neck or back support, being pressed down in your shoes on every big crest..

Also noticed, that you have no seatbelt when the car roll in the end of the vid.. . ;)
 
I'm second here that can feel a little sickness in some cars due to horizon shaking. In real life we have our inner ear that is constantly sending singnals to our brain for updates on positioning and movement of our body so the eyeballs can correct for all possible shaking and bouncing. We have, so to speak, biological-hardware lock to horizon function constantly enabled. In game we lack the sensations from inner ear as we do not feel any acceleration and we are left with only visuals, so our eyebals cannot predict changes of position of our virtual head. I really wish there was "lock view to horizon" option, it would be both - more convenient and closer to real life experience.
 
Agree 100%. Whenever i try to play R3E for a bit longer my eyes simply hurts trying to focus on bouncing track. Very needed option and I'm really disappointed there's no way around it. I'm also quite surprised so many people don't see the problem. Whenever I go over bumps, ramps in my real car and look ahead, the horizon doesn't bounce up and down. It's always in the same spot. Same while running, imagine your eyeballs would be pointing ahead like in R3E and not adjusting, You wouldn't see much.
 
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I think that the locked horizon is actually more realistic than the bouncing one. Just as NOT having the dashboard going out of focus in helmet view is more realistic.

The human eye has far superior capabilities than any camera. The horizon in RL is indeed bouncing, but we are really good at keeping our eyes on it. So to the driver it really doesn't bounce much. At least, it doesn't bounce the way it does in driving games.

Ditto for going from dark to light areas and back or focusing on the road ahead and on the car's instruments. If you look straight ahead, the instruments are indeed out of focus but being at the periphery we can still recognize what they indicate (they certainly are not OFF like in pCARS where you cannot see a thing). But unlike a camera, when you glance at them, you focus on them immediately, so like in the horizon issue, you don't want to introduce "real fake" effects because you actually lose realism.
 
If I were to make a list of most annoying, and not realistic visual effects being used in racing games I would choose:

- bouncing horizon
- depth of field
- motion blurr
- lens flare (this is OK on replay cameras, but not on driving camera which should simulate driver view, not camera lens).

Seriously, this is nowhere near of how human brain is perceiving the world through the eyes, and has nothing to do with simulation.
 
Oh, and locking to horizon is not perfect solution either as it really blocks the view when going steep uphill or can't see track when dipping into corkscrew at Laguna Seca. iRacing seem to have it done in the best way and feels perfect to me. I would use lock in Assetto Corsa and Project CARS to avoid horizon shake.
 
Old thread, I know, but this drives me nuts, so I thought I'd add my voice. The problem is exaggerated by those of us with triple-screens and therefore a seating position close to the action. I never used to notice it when I played on a big TV from which I was sat a long way away.

Same problem in Automobilista for me. As the poster above mentions, iRacing seems to have the best setup.
 
@chrismox
I was able to cure all my ills with R3E and dramatically reduce horizon bounce by changing the camera settings so I no longer have the issue and am enjoying the title once again

Since so many files need to be changed slightly (if using a lot of cars) I use FNR.exe (Find and Replace program), then I can change all cam files quickly and easily.

Here are the numbers I use. Note: you would need to redo this after file integrity checks or newly released vehicles.

Hope it helps.
find-replace.jpg

Bailey
 
@chrismox
I was able to cure all my ills with R3E and dramatically reduce horizon bounce by changing the camera settings so I no longer have the issue and am enjoying the title once again

Since so many files need to be changed slightly (if using a lot of cars) I use FNR.exe (Find and Replace program), then I can change all cam files quickly and easily.

Here are the numbers I use. Note: you would need to redo this after file integrity checks or newly released vehicles.

Hope it helps.
find-replace.jpg

Bailey

Thanks so much, that helps enormously.
 
I love the creativity, technical savy and tenacity of you guys! These resources are fantastic.

I experience blurred vision after playing certain racing sims/games. I had my eyes checked at least 5 times. No one could explain what was happening.
After applying this, it's almost stopped my blurred vision problem.
THANKS!!!

I play on triple screens and it does seem more realistic - except going up and down at extreme angles. I was wondering why iRacing seemed so visually different....and why I never got blurred vision using that sim.

I think, I need to (somehow) eliminate the video blur in R3E, in order to completely get rid of of that last 20% of blurred vision.

Now....how do I reduce the car movement by say....20%-30%? sometimes, the up and down movement of the car seems too extreme for a race suspension.
 
@Azfalt Raser We may be on totally different pages when speaking about "blurring" however I had an issue with that as well. Not a fan of motion blur but this was different as I had the issue even with motion blur turned off where applicable.

A very good example would be say - driving an F1 around Interlagos since you are turning so often and so quickly. The fact that the horizon/background was not crisp and focused but rather "smearing" (I'm exaggerating that a bit for lack of another term besides blurring) really bothered me.
I eliminated that by going with 120/144hz monitors. I am one of those crazy nut jobs that clearly sees the difference between a 60 and 120 refresh rate. So much so that if my monitor accidentally gets set to 60hz I notice it immediately (speaking of racing).

Strangely enough, none of this ever bothered me when I was younger.
I also see it on our older flat screen, husband says he can't see a thing so I feel a bit "special" :rolleyes: but it's been a source of irritation and a mildly expensive one to fix as I needed to upgrade my triple 60hz with triple 144hz monitors. :(

At first I wondered if it was my age or some odd side effect of my neurological condition but as I have met several people who experience the same thing I won't confess to being crazy... yet. lol
Bailey
 

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