A question for Cockpit View drivers only...

[ALB123]

I am a front bumper camera view driver 99% of the time. Occasionally, I will switch to the interior cockpit view or driver's view...whatever you prefer to call it. Frankly, I wish that I drove with interior view 100% of the time, but that's another discussion altogether. What I wanted to ask you drivers of "Cockpit View" is:

Which Interior View Angle do you have your view set to and why? Standard? Narrow? Narrowest?

You don't have to answer the "why?" portion if you're just going to say "I like it best..." I'm looking for reasons why, like "I can judge the distance of cars in front of me with X view angle better". Something along those lines.

I really wish that I used Interior View all of the time, but I am so much faster with Front Bumper view. Obviously, if I forced myself to use Interior View all the time, I would eventually get better. One thing I really, really like about using Interior View is -- everything seems to be moving a little bit slower, as opposed to the front bumper camera view where your vantage point is inches off the ground and things appear to be coming incredibly fast at you. It feels like you have more time to react with Interior View.

With the front bumper view I get to see so much more of the road, which I find to be extremely helpful. I remember the first time switching to cockpit view with the Audi R18. Oh. My. God. You have about 10 inches of visibility in front of you and then you have the two enormous wheel well humps blocking whatever tiny view you have to the left and to your right. You just better make sure you're in 1st place if you're driving that car.

 

[AngryEater]

I prefer interior view in general, not because it aids in me driving well; but for the immersion. I generally toggle between standard, narrow, and narrowest to accommodate mirror usage as well as available. I would like to create a community demand for a new least narrow perspective; I feel like the current options simulate a seat adjusted full forward with seat inclination at true vertical.

 

[VetteZR1]

I use narrow most of the time, it seems to be the closest view to what you would get in real life. Sometimes narrowest because of to much dashboard in narrow. Being able to see the gear indicator (if equipped) is a big plus to me on a paddle shift only car. Not a fan of standard cars because of their "driving out of a cave" feel. After driving in cockpit for a long time using bumper cam feels like you are cheating.

 

[Johnnypenso]

I don't use cockpit view in GT other than for hooning around once in a while. There simply aren't enough adjustment options to suit me. Moving to PC sims I run exclusively cockpit view because I can eliminate the driver/wheel animation altogether, adjust FOV at will and move up/down/left/right/forwards/backwards and then save it per car. If GT7 brings that kind of adjustability it'll be very welcome.

 

[Ridox2JZGTE]

Cockpit view most of the time, unless I'm just killing time driving around ( online cruise ), chase or bumper, very rarely on hood cam.
View angle on standard.

 

[danbojte]

Standard here.

"I like it best..."

 

[Thematic]

Standard, for I have one display and it's going to stay that way.

 

[NCRthree]

Standard cockpit cam 100%. Even on standard cars. Why? Immersion, "feels" more realistic than the old hanging-over-the-road bumper cam. Plus I use the dash and pillars to remember my marks. Bumper view is lame, every car has the same driving view-boring. I could probably be faster in bumper but that isn't my goal.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Standard cockpit cam 100%. Even on standard cars. Why? Immersion, "feels" more realistic than the old hanging-over-the-road bumper cam. Plus I use the dash and pillars to remember my marks. Bumper view is lame, every car has the same driving view-boring. I could probably be faster in bumper but that isn't my goal.

With bumper view you don't even need to model the car..imagine the possibilities

 

[GT needs F1]

I got mine set to standard because a)you can see a big part of the interior b) it's(to me) the most realistic c)you can use the the mirrors(most of the time). That last bit is very important to me because I use them alot when battling for a position. In general I just like to have a good view on what's happening around my car whilst using the view you'd be using in a real car.

 

[Pseudopod]

Depends on where I sit. When I sit half a meter from my TV, i use standard. When I sit 3 meters away, i use narrowest. It is problematic that the mirrors usually disappear, though.

With bumper view you don't even need to model the car..imagine the possibilities

Imagine how many cars PD could put in the game if they were all rectangular boxes with bumper view only. Maybe over 9000, even.


I find it a bit limited though. There should definitely have been a UI-mirror that you could place anywhere to make up for the car's own mirrors. It should also be possible to adjust where inside the cockpit your camera is placed. In fact, that should be possible for every single camera in the game.

 

[ALB123]

I do agree that Cockpit View is the most immersive. Unfortunately, when I first started playing GT6 bumper cam was the default view and that's what I got used to. I'm slowly starting to use Cockpit View more and more, but it still only represents a tiny fraction of my total playing time.

 

[Whodoyouthink]

When I do drive in cockpit view, which isn't very often (I much prefer chase cam), standard usually feels best, but on a few cars narrow works better, especially because I can sometimes see the gages better. But again, most of the time narrow is too close, like say 80-90% of the time. Narrowest doesn't even make sense to me.

 

[VetteZR1]

I do agree that Cockpit View is the most immersive. Unfortunately, when I first started playing GT6 bumper cam was the default view and that's what I got used to. I'm slowly starting to use Cockpit View more and more, but it still only represents a tiny fraction of my total playing time.

I felt the same way driving cockpit in GT5. It was fun but a lot harder than bumper cam. Bought a racing seat, wheel, and shifter and forced myself to drive cockpit when GT6 came out. Glad I did. The immersion plus the challenge makes driving more fun to me.

 

[eran0004]

I use the standard setting most of the time, because that gives me a good view of the mirrors and the instruments.

One thing I really, really like about using Interior View is -- everything seems to be moving a little bit slower, as opposed to the front bumper camera view where your vantage point is inches off the ground and things appear to be coming incredibly fast at you. It feels like you have more time to react with Interior View.

With the front bumper view I get to see so much more of the road, which I find to be extremely helpful.

^ This is a common misunderstanding. The bumper camera isn't actually a bumper camera, it's positioned at the center of the cockpit, at the same height as the cockpit camera. It's basically a centered cockpit camera with an invisible cockpit. So your vantage point is more or less the same, the main difference is that you have an unobstructed view of the road.

 

[Sick Cylinder]

I use the standard setting most of the time, because that gives me a good view of the mirrors and the instruments.



^ This is a common misunderstanding. The bumper camera isn't actually a bumper camera, it's positioned at the center of the cockpit, at the same height as the cockpit camera. It's basically a centered cockpit camera with an invisible cockpit. So your vantage point is more or less the same, the main difference is that you have an unobstructed view of the road.

It doesn't feel like that - it feels too low to the ground. I'm not fast enough with cockpit view to use it much for online racing, but I prefer it for the immersion and would normally use standard. I find that some cars are too dark inside and in some you sit too low (e.g. the Honda NSX GT500 cars). I can't use bumper view as I don't feel connected to the car - it just feels too false. I tend to use bonnet view for racing, but I am disappointed with how that view is sometimes on top of the roof - it should be at the eye level of the driver.

 

[eran0004]

It doesn't feel like that - it feels too low to the ground.

It feels too low because you can see the road at an angle that's usually obstructed by the car. If you compare the viewpoint with vertical objects around the track, such as barriers or other cars, you'll find that the camera is at eye-height.

 

[ALB123]

It feels too low because you can see the road at an angle that's usually obstructed by the car. If you compare the viewpoint with vertical objects around the track, such as barriers or other cars, you'll find that the camera is at eye-height.

That's very interesting. I will have to examine that the next time I play GT6. One thing that drives me absolutely bonkers about driving in Cockpit View is how sometimes your dashboard will go completely dark based on the angle of sunlight entering the interior of your car. When that happens, I can't see my instrument panel at all for a few seconds. I've never driven a car, in my life, where that happened. It is so unrealistic and if I'm depending on being able to see the tachometer - not cool.

Oh, and I can't stand the GT6 tachometer that you're forced to use while in Cockpit view. I can't stand that horizontal bar that's on the right hand side of the screen. I'm so used to the center mounted speedometer and tachometer. I can go without the big round speedometer, but I really like that tachometer.

 

[AngryEater]

In regard to camera height; does the camera go up and down with suspension height adjustments?

 

[eran0004]

That's very interesting. I will have to examine that the next time I play GT6. One thing that drives me absolutely bonkers about driving in Cockpit View is how sometimes your dashboard will go completely dark based on the angle of sunlight entering the interior of your car. When that happens, I can't see my instrument panel at all for a few seconds. I've never driven a car, in my life, where that happened. It is so unrealistic and if I'm depending on being able to see the tachometer - not cool.

Oh, and I can't stand the GT6 tachometer that you're forced to use while in Cockpit view. I can't stand that horizontal bar that's on the right hand side of the screen. I'm so used to the center mounted speedometer and tachometer. I can go without the big round speedometer, but I really like that tachometer.

That's got to do with the difference between screens and your eyes. Your eyes can see a greater range of light and shadow than a screen can show (a screen showing black will appear white if you put it in a dark room), so in real life you can cope with the brightness of the environment and the darkness inside the car and have a good vision of both. With a screen you have to pick what to balance for, and if you adjust the exposure so that you can clearly see the dashboard at all times, then the environment around you is going to be overexposed most of the time. If you (speaking from a developer's perspective) reduce the contrast you'll have a greater range of light to work with, but the world will also appear less vibrant and appealing.

Another way to improve dashboard visibility could be to make the interior brighter than it actually is, or boost the brightness of shadows and reduce the brightness of light.

In regard to camera height; does the camera go up and down with suspension height adjustments?

I haven't tested that, but I guess it does. The camera is probably fixed to the body of the car, so if the suspension is raised then the camera should be raised as well.

 

[Johnnypenso]

In regard to camera height; does the camera go up and down with suspension height adjustments?

It was tested and confirmed in GT5. Have to assume it's the same in GT6.

 

[Pseudopod]

That's very interesting. I will have to examine that the next time I play GT6. One thing that drives me absolutely bonkers about driving in Cockpit View is how sometimes your dashboard will go completely dark based on the angle of sunlight entering the interior of your car. When that happens, I can't see my instrument panel at all for a few seconds. I've never driven a car, in my life, where that happened. It is so unrealistic and if I'm depending on being able to see the tachometer - not cool.

Oh, and I can't stand the GT6 tachometer that you're forced to use while in Cockpit view. I can't stand that horizontal bar that's on the right hand side of the screen. I'm so used to the center mounted speedometer and tachometer. I can go without the big round speedometer, but I really like that tachometer.

This depends on the car i think. Happens all the time for me in the Elise race car

-Edit-
And the scirocco. Perhaps it is just really common and I haven't paid all that much attention to it before. It is terrible in either case. Most cars have backlights for their dials, so if it's too dark to display them with the natural light in the scene, the game should turn that on.

 

[TexRex]

This depends on the car i think. Happens all the time for me in the Elise race car

-Edit-
And the scirocco. Perhaps it is just really common and I haven't paid all that much attention to it before. It is terrible in either case. Most cars have backlights for their dials, so if it's too dark to display them with the natural light in the scene, the game should turn that on.

There are some--NA Miatas (premium, of course) positively, I can't name others--that have illuminated sweeps when the headlights are on, if only they stayed illuminated regardless.

 

[Connoissuer]

My biggest pet peeve in cockpit is when some of the cars don't have working gas gauges

 

[Suzumiya]

I use the regular view. Just like in real life, I look past the dash and focus on the road. In my opinion, it's much more immersive. Narrow and narrowest makes me feel like I'm scrunchin up against the wheel like Ryan Newman.

 

[Pseudopod]

My biggest pet peeve in cockpit is when some of the cars don't have working gas gauges

This is absolutely horrible :|. At least some cars can be fitted with additional gauges where you can put a fuel gauge, but I really wish the cars own gauges worked whenever they had one. I really like driving around without the HUD, just the car's own instruments, but it's kind of hard to keep track of exactly how much fuel you have left.

 

[Whodoyouthink]

Half the time you can't even clearly read the gauges anyway. There are very few HUDs/dashboards I consider fully functionable and legible, for lack of a better word. The graphical "translation", as I'll call it, does carry over well for certain gauges that in real life can be seen clearly.

 

[Pseudopod]

Some of that is due to the game's resolution not being high enough. Using cheapo antialiasing doesn't make it better either. True 1080p would help a tiny bit, but probably not enormously.

I don't really feel like I need to be able to read it easily anyway. It would help for immersion, but to make it as clear as in real life, you'd probably need the game to run in 4k res at least. As long as I can see where in the gauges the needle or hand (or whatever you call it in english) is at, it's enough for me. The most important part is that it actually works.

 

[VBR]

In GT5 Prologue I used Cockpit View all the time, it was a lot of fun racing online with that view.

In GT5 I was dreading the prospect of being forced back into bumper cam, because of the standard cars. However, once I got into Shuffle racing (one of GT5's biggest strength imo) I got used to it again very quickly & only used that view when shuffling. That said, if we were doing 1 make races I'd use either Bumper Cam or Cockpit View, & found it easy to switch between them.

In GT6 I find myself using Bumper Cam for online racing, got the habit from GT5. But I use Drivers Eye View when driving for pleasure offline.

I'd also like more options to set up the Drivers Eye View, especially getting rid of the wheel & hands animation, which is 100% useless if you already own a wheel & have hands!

 

[Connoissuer]

Some of that is due to the game's resolution not being high enough. Using cheapo antialiasing doesn't make it better either. True 1080p would help a tiny bit, but probably not enormously.

I don't really feel like I need to be able to read it easily anyway. It would help for immersion, but to make it as clear as in real life, you'd probably need the game to run in 4k res at least. As long as I can see where in the gauges the needle or hand (or whatever you call it in english) is at, it's enough for me. The most important part is that it actually works.

If you're endurance racing, it helps alot to see the gauges clearly especially when you don't want the HUD on. Pressing start and going back and forth to turn the menu on and off to check the gas/ tires level is redundant. I never really liked having the HUD on during multiplayer because its very cluttered. The only thing about having the HUD on during a race is too see how much of your tires you have left.