Horrible Gameplay Camera Kills GT

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hunter328

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I used to love the GT series but until they get a new camera I find it almost unplayable. The best way I can describe what I mean is that, especially in the 3rd person view, it seems more like you're steering the track around the car while the car jerks to one side or the other rather than actually driving the car around the track. There's no fluid motion and almost no sense of speed. For me this ruins the entire experience. It was bad in GT5 and unfortunately nothing's change in GT6. Grid 2's camera has similar issues and I couldn't get into that one either, although the rest of Grid 2 couldn't hold a candle to GT6.
I've since moved onto Forza and anyone who's played both can see the difference. Forza's camera is just more dynamic. Even Real Racing 3 on my iPhone, while not a very good game IMO, tackles this aspect better.
It's a shame too, because GT6 has so much going for it in almost every other way. But if the gameplay isn't there then the rest of it doesn't really matter. I really hope this is addressed in GT7 or whatever the first PS4 iteration will be. I'd much rather have two great sim racers to play than just one. Three's even better, if Project Cars turns out well.
 
I'm 100% with you on this one. First of all the FOV in chase view is way too narrow. Thats why the sense of speed isn't there. Then the camera is totally misplaced. Way too far away from the car and as also mentions stuck behind it. You don't even have an option to rotate the camera around the car. This small gameplay element has every racing game nowadays even every small arcade racer. The roof/hood cams are usually also very misplaced. As example: The Lancia Delta has a roof cam but placed so wrong that you can see nothing of the roof nor the hood. So basically it just feels like floating in the air. On the other hand you have hood cams like the Mercedes SLR McLaren. The cam takes half of the screen for the hood and is even pointed towards the ground.
Cockpit view is also strange. Some cars feel like your face is almost hitting the dashboard, while on others it feels like you sit on the backseat. Also the camera movement in cockpit it totally off. It vibrates the view that you get motion sickness. The view should be steady to the road, only the dashboard should move around to simulate bumps or G-Forces.

All the simulation games on PC offer 100% camera control. Camera positions, FOV etc. Well and yes Forza does it pretty well on the camera side.
 
hunter328
I used to love the GT series but until they get a new camera I find it almost unplayable. The best way I can describe what I mean is that, especially in the 3rd person view, it seems more like you're steering the track around the car while the car jerks to one side or the other rather than actually driving the car around the track. There's no fluid motion and almost no sense of speed. For me this ruins the entire experience. It was bad in GT5 and unfortunately nothing's change in GT6. Grid 2's camera has similar issues and I couldn't get into that one either, although the rest of Grid 2 couldn't hold a candle to GT6.
I've since moved onto Forza and anyone who's played both can see the difference. Forza's camera is just more dynamic. Even Real Racing 3 on my iPhone, while not a very good game IMO, tackles this aspect better.
It's a shame too, because GT6 has so much going for it in almost every other way. But if the gameplay isn't there then the rest of it doesn't really matter. I really hope this is addressed in GT7 or whatever the first PS4 iteration will be. I'd much rather have two great sim racers to play than just one. Three's even better, if Project Cars turns out well.
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I think the only way to really feel what is going on with the car and react to it like you would when you drive a car IRL, is to drive it in either the cockpit view or the bumper (1st person view) I think most serious players would be using these views

Pretty much every other view is very detached for me.

In this view the FOV setting has the most impact as well.
 
A game is a game, and also nobody would float on a bumper in reallife or sit on a roof also the cockpit views are off in GT6 you cant even look up and down nor adjust the FOV. It's not real life it's a game. And a game should give us options to adjust it as we like it. And not give us set options which force us to play as the developers want.
 
It's very very realistic, I don't know why you're complaining?

In real life it's very difficult to drive on a chair mounted on a beam above-and-behind your car. Personally I've only tried it once and if it hadn't been for the help of the local constabulary and, eventually, a surprisingly low bridge... I'd have been out there all night.
 
DonZonda
It's not real life it's a game. And a game should give us options to adjust it as we like it. And not give us set options which force us to play as the developers want.
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I've only been harping about this for years. I love this game, but it's just crazy how inconsistent and poorly thought out certain things are. Like some roof cams are great, but some are just a second bumper cam stuck slightly higher on the hood. Cockpit view, which could have been so wonderful, usually has a view that only a little kid would see, or someone from the back seat as you say. And I would really like a more realistic camera/car shake.

PD can put the camera wherever they want in their dev kits, and define its behavior. It's just a bit of code. They could give us the same access to the parameters in a quickly coded interface. Say give us four basic positions to work with:
  • Bumper
  • Interior
  • Roof
  • Chase
  • Delete/Restore view for: This Car, All Cars
And then give us parameters like these:
  • Placement (left/right, up/down, forward/back)
  • Aim
  • Field of view
  • Fixed to car-helmet/floating
  • Dynamics: inertia tight/loose, amount of car shake, amount of camera shake
  • Reset to defaults (because it might be easier if we break the camera)
  • Save to: This Car, All Cars
Say you want all cars to have hood cam, and ONLY hood cam. Delete Interior, Roof and Chase for all cars. Edit Bumper. Move back 75 cm. Move up 50 cm. Aim down 15 degrees. Set FOV. Fixed to car. Inertia 90%, Car Shake 20%, Camera Shake 10%. Save to All Cars.

You now have Hood Cam for all cars. If a friend comes over and wants chase cam on a car, Restore View on those cars he wants. Bingo.

This would make EVERYONE happy. PD has a lot of firsts in Gran Turismo, and as far as I know, no racing game offers something so comprehensive. Come on, Kaz, give us something like this.
 
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Tenacious D
I've only been harping about this for years. I love this game, but it's just crazy how inconsistent and poorly thought out certain things are. Like some roof cams are great, but some are just a second bumper cam stuck slightly higher on the hood. Cockpit view, which could have been so wonderful, usually has a view that only a little kid would see, or someone from the back seat as you say. And I would really like a more realistic camera/car shake.

PD can put the camera wherever they want in their dev kits, and define its behavior. It's just a bit of code. They could give us the same access to the parameters in a quickly coded interface. Say give us four basic positions to work with:
  • Bumper
  • Interior
  • Roof
  • Chase
  • Delete/Restore view for: This Car, All Cars
And then give us parameters like these:
  • Placement (left/right, up/down, forward/back)
  • Aim
  • Field of view
  • Fixed to car - helmet/floating
  • Dynamics (inertia tight/loose, amount of car shake, amount of camera shake)
  • Reset to defaults (because it might be easier if we break the camera)
  • Save to: This Car, All Cars
Say you want all cars to have hood cam, and ONLY hood cam. Delete Interior, Roof and Chase for all cars. Edit Bumper. Move back 75 cm. Move up 50 cm. Aim down 15 degrees. Set FOV. Fixed to car. Inertia 90%, Car Shake 20%, Camera Shake 10%.

You now have Hood Cam for all cars. If a friend comes over and wants chase cam on a car, Restore View on those cars he wants. Bingo.

This would make EVERYONE happy. PD has a lot of firsts in Gran Turismo, and as far as I know, no racing game offers something so comprehensive. Come on, Kaz, give us something like this.
Click to expand...

Don't tell us this, go right now! Apply to PD! Work, if you get in, GTP will finally have someone on the inside that can lean things our way.
 
Uhm... thanks. :lol: And believe me, if this ever happens, I fully intend to wander into the sound department and give them a few nudges. Well, every department, because I would love to see the whole game polished up in GT7, top to bottom.

Game design is kind of a thought hobby of mine, which is why my post is so comprehensive.
 
Tenacious D
Uhm... thanks. :lol: And believe me, if this ever happens, I fully intend to wander into the sound department and give them a few nudges. Well, every department, because I would love to see the whole game polished up in GT7, top to bottom.
Click to expand...

What makes me uncertain was when they were talking about GT7, they were going more along the lines of making full use of it and bringing GT6 along a little bit. Not in those exact words but something along the lines of it. Sounded like the PS4 might just be a polished rock of GT6, I like graphics, but make the rock better. This game is about as drawn out as Final Fantasy but Square Enix is always innovative, whereas PD is more about lets throw in a bunch of quantity we will figure out the quality in a future update . -sigh- unrelated to thread, but it had to be said.

And yes, camera is bad, I'm driving the stiff Zonda R suspension on the Nurburgring, but it looks smoother than butter on ice.
 
Well, quality as in the sound department is dependent on whether the team can provide a next gen sound reproduction system, not just another sample playback system, as Griffith500 has posted at great length about. Honestly, I see that GT6 is a marvelous platform for a lot of goodies to be given us. The physics are good. The graphics, shadows aside, are good. It seems as if they did indeed code it pretty well to load in features over time. For instance, the Online structure is less than what we got in GT5 from what I saw. This says to me that they gave us the bare bones of what they intend to flesh out greatly when all the other things are ready, like the Event Maker, and I'm hoping, Race Mod and Livery Editor of some kind.

Keep in mind too that SONY wanted a GT to sell on the existing PS3 base, and the useful window for that to be viable was closing fast. I wanted the game ASAP myself, because I was growing a bit tired of GT5 as it was. Still racing it about every day, but it was getting harder to feel the same thrill. GT6 fed that need marvelously, even though it's just as basic if not worse in some ways than GT5 was at launch. Kaz may be toying with some things that would be good to try on PS3 first, before he moves the team full bore onto PS4, with an attempt to go crazy with ambitious concepts. And early PS3 work could speed up GT7 development. Could, we'll see on that, like that sound update and how massive they can make Course Maker II areas, Livery Editor etc.

And then there's that Nurburg thing. ;)

I really enjoyed that comparison video of that guy who raced the Nurb in real life and GT6. I was impressed with how well the track was modeled. Except for the bumpiness. It seems that the track was bumpier in GT4, because I remember a white knuckle moment when I took a stock RX-7 down the sweeping straight after the hump, and the little RX bouncing and threatening to fly off the road. In GT5 I couldn't get any sports car to threaten such danger, and I have a feeling that GT6 will be similar. In fact, it seems that no game has had a truly bumpy track other than in Shift 1, haven't tried S2 yet. And in Shift, they were SO bumpy that racing was an ordeal in fast cars, even race cars. It's possible that when making GT5, Kaz discovered that not many people would be able to keep cars on such a track. I've noticed that many racers just don't have rough tracks at all, but well manicured surfaces.

Maybe Kaz will give us GT6 Hardcore Mode in an update, and make it crazy realistic. Or maybe we'll get it in GT7. Maybe not, but at least they're thinking about it.

So, thread derail over. ;)
 
This is the huge problem with PD. The game has so much more potential, especially on the camera views. But it's not used. Like as example, for what do you model those impressive premium cars if you can't even take much of an advantage for them in gameplay? Well the cockpit view. But thats it. Whats the big difference driving a Standart car or premium car? When you drive in chaseview it looks almost the same, since it's so misplaced. Furthermore you cant even rotate the camera in chaseview to see your car fully in gameplay, also the cockpitcams for Premiums are really worthless in this details if you can't even look up and down?! I mean we saw pictures of PD modelling every single thing inside. But for what? You cant even look down to your shiftstick or dashboard.
It's so much potential which isn't used. I dont understand it.

And for the camera views it's a miracle how they set them. Some newer premium cars are closer now. But the FOV is too narrow for proper driving. Then you have cars such as the Premium Chevrolet Camero or Premium SLR where the camera floats somewhere far behind in the air. What was their intention to chose that???
Also as you said the hood cams. Take as example the Subaru WRX Sti RA. The hood cam on this one sits even lower than the bumper cam. Then you have Abart Punto where the camera floats right in front of the windshield and gives you only a glimpse of the hood underneath you...
There are more odd things, such as the hood cam of the R32 Skyline, which has a extreme wide FOV giving you a crazy sense of speed. And there is even more to name....

So many decisions which I just can't reasonably understand?!?! WHY PD WHYY?!
 
I wonder if somebody ever will Ask Kaz in an interview for better camera views or at least user friendly options... it's bugging me really lately! some cameras are so messed up and the FOV is too narrow...
 

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