Personnal Video Game industry Background
Software Engineer in video game industry since 1998.
V-Rally 2 ( PS1-DC-PC) :Â A.I., In Game Track Editor & Track generator.
Need For Speed Porsche Unleashed ( PS1 ) : A.I., GFX, Licence test system
V-Rally3 ( PS2-XBOX-PC ) : Collision and Dynamic Engine, Device Enginne, Car Physics, GFX.
Test Drive Unlimited ( X360-PC ) : Car Physics , Replay system, Camera System, Devices.
The Crew ( PC, X1, PS4 ) : Car Physics , Replay system, Camera System, Devices.
Ace Combat 7.0 , Detonation Racing, ...
Why this plugin?
The camera shaking in rF2, is very bad, it give nausea, make the viewing of the track difficult and it's not even realistic of what a drive see when he drives.
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.
When the inner hear feels bumps and head motion, it instantly 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 cameras, 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, not 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.
How it should be in a Sim
For VR as we can freely move the head, a quick simple solution is to have the camera in the world coordinate instead of car coordinate.
For static monitors :
Instead of having the head/eye moving around the cockpit, it should be the cockpit that move around the point of view.
How to do this
Simulate the head motion and the eye motion.
Head Motion :
Head is pushed by G forces, and the neck muscles are counter acting to keep the head straight in the horizon, but the horizon is not the world horizon. If the car is keep leaned a certain amount of time the brain will choose another horizon. For example, NASCAR drivers don't keep the head straight, thye lean into the banking track. So this part is quite difficult to get it right.
I chose to have an horizon that tend to follow the car "horizon" with a filtering and smoothing, I called it track horizon.
So when the car is changing of pitch/roll rapidly, the head horizon is almost not changing, but when the car is constantly leaning, the head horizon will match car horizon smoothly.
Additionally I could further add things like, ahead yaw apex targeting, inner turn lean when driver try to counter lateral G forces, etc. But I think this something we do instinctively ourself in front of our screen ;)
Eye Motion:
The inner ear is moving the eye instinctively to stabilize the view, it senses smalls translations and rotations of the head in the world coordinate, so the vision remain clear.
Latest Version
Inner ear simulation that try to stabilize the view with moving head and eyes.
Pitch
Roll
Speed Factor
High Angle Factor
G-Force simulation
Pitch
Roll
Forward Translation
Vertical Translation
Default Head Position
Pitch
Translation