Improve driver hands animation (in manual H-shifter cars)

  • Thread starter Thread starter sejtur
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Netherlands
Netherlands
In H-shifter cars, the driver animations are set a lot of the time to keep the hand on the shifter, even when turning the car.

Example:


This breaks the immersion for me. On tracks especially, it is best to keep both hands on the wheel when able, for safety and precision. In sequential shifter cars, like the Honda NSX GT500, the left hand goes back on the steering wheel in between every shift. So the animation to put the shifting hand back on the wheel right away is there, but not for H-shifter cars apparently.

Example:


Please change it so that the driver "avatar" keeps both hands on the wheel when not shifting, also in manual H-shifter cars. Thank you.
 
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It's a bit of a "damn if you do, damn if you don't" thing as it'll always look bad on some way with the H shifting animation taking quite a lot of time. I'd guess that the current situation is somehow based on the rpm range the engine is in, anticipating that you might want to shift when in certain revs, and the hand is kept on the shifter ready for the animation. Otherwise when you do the shift, first there's the animation of moving the hand to the stick and then actually shifting, and that looks bad too as the game naturally can't guess your intentions and the animation will always be delayed as it can only begin when you've already initiated the shift. With the current system a bit, with your suggestion a lot more - and then people would complain about that.
 
I get your point, in the GT500 video the shifting animation is a bit late at times. I would be okay with that, and I haven’t seen complaints about that on youtube. I have seen a lot of comments how weird it looks when doing a lap largely one-handed though. I think everybody agrees that it looks weird going one-handed through Schwedenkreuz or Metzgesfeld, for example. I get that the mechanics behind it are complicated, but I am sure there is a way to improve this, and make it look more like real life.
 
Ironically I think midnight club LA did this fairly well, because it simply played a very fast shifting animation. Mind you, the gear stick didn't actually move at all, so that's a minor complication when it comes to GT, but I still think it would be less immersion breaking if the animation was simply sped up, and as the OP mentioned, the avatar's hand returns to the wheel afterwards.
 
Ironically I think midnight club LA did this fairly well, because it simply played a very fast shifting animation. Mind you, the gear stick didn't actually move at all, so that's a minor complication when it comes to GT, but I still think it would be less immersion breaking if the animation was simply sped up, and as the OP mentioned, the avatar's hand returns to the wheel afterwards.
Thank you. A lot of games get this right I think. GT7/Sport are the first games that do this animation differently, from what I’ve seen. Could you please upvote the first post, if you agree? PD watches these forums. :)
 
Recorded me driving an F50 on the Nordschleife. I counted the seconds of two-handed steering and came to a total of 71 seconds. The lap itself was 7:25, which amounts to driving 84% of the lap one-handed.

 
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