A more intelligent view system

[HauptmannMolders]

Originally Posted by TexRoadkill

I may be alone on this but to me Sim doesn't mean needlessly complicated, it means realistic. Since we don't have head tracking and there are always issues with trying to look where you need to look it would be cool if the game could have a little bit of viewing intelligence. I don't expect to see it in a patch but it would be nice for the future.

The view should be looking at what you need to see.

If you are doing a bank turn it should automatically look up a bit so you can see into your turn. The harder you are banking the more it should look up but the view should always follow parallel with the horizon to help keep oriented with the ground.

If you have the landing gear down the view should shift down enough to always see the artificial horizon indicator, climb/dive rate and speedo.

If you get an enemy in your sights the view should automatically keep them at the edge of your vision, not always in the middle, until you lose sight of them in the clouds or under your plane, etc. Obviously you would want to be able to overide this with the view button.

If there is a problem with your plane or your flying like oil pressure dropping, stall speed approaching, too high of a dive rate with landing gear down, etc. The view should look down and zoom in a bit to see the appropriate gauge on the panel. It should be a quick, like a glance at the gauges.

Or would all this be too un-sim like for you guys?

I love it and for one could not agree more. Clearly some folks disagree, c'est la vie.

[antdavidl]

Originally Posted by TexRoadkill

I may be alone on this but to me Sim doesn't mean needlessly complicated, it means realistic. Since we don't have head tracking and there are always issues with trying to look where you need to look it would be cool if the game could have a little bit of viewing intelligence. I don't expect to see it in a patch but it would be nice for the future.

The view should be looking at what you need to see.

If you are doing a bank turn it should automatically look up a bit so you can see into your turn. The harder you are banking the more it should look up but the view should always follow parallel with the horizon to help keep oriented with the ground.

If you have the landing gear down the view should shift down enough to always see the artificial horizon indicator, climb/dive rate and speedo.

If you get an enemy in your sights the view should automatically keep them at the edge of your vision, not always in the middle, until you lose sight of them in the clouds or under your plane, etc. Obviously you would want to be able to overide this with the view button.

If there is a problem with your plane or your flying like oil pressure dropping, stall speed approaching, too high of a dive rate with landing gear down, etc. The view should look down and zoom in a bit to see the appropriate gauge on the panel. It should be a quick, like a glance at the gauges.

Or would all this be too un-sim like for you guys?

I agree in the point that the view system is quite annoying ... following a moving pixel in the screen while you are manouvering in 3D is quite complex and unrealistic, and there is quite more intersting points where to put this complexity (like engine control, manual trimming, gun jamming, etc).

In real life, if you are moving in a vehicle and seeing a far fixed point, your head will keep the point even if the angle is changing. It is also normal, for instance when driving, to move your sight from the windscreen to the gauges in the panel or to a lateral mirror, returning quickly to the previous sight without too much effort. This is not possible in the game, and this is not realistic (even if you could get used to it).

I'm not asking for an automatic tracking system (this is antinatural), but the possibility to map several points of views to some buttos combinations could be great. I think it would be more realistic to use the stick to move smoothly the view from the current one, having one for reseting it and/or for pointing to the control panel instead of assigning the absolute point of view to the current hat position (which due to its small size if hard to control smoothly).
I think this would be more natural ...

All this IMHO ...

[Widar]

Originally Posted by TexRoadkill

I may be alone on this but to me Sim doesn't mean needlessly complicated, it means realistic. Since we don't have head tracking and there are always issues with trying to look where you need to look it would be cool if the game could have a little bit of viewing intelligence. I don't expect to see it in a patch but it would be nice for the future.

The view should be looking at what you need to see.

If you are doing a bank turn it should automatically look up a bit so you can see into your turn. The harder you are banking the more it should look up but the view should always follow parallel with the horizon to help keep oriented with the ground.

If you have the landing gear down the view should shift down enough to always see the artificial horizon indicator, climb/dive rate and speedo.

If you get an enemy in your sights the view should automatically keep them at the edge of your vision, not always in the middle, until you lose sight of them in the clouds or under your plane, etc. Obviously you would want to be able to overide this with the view button.

If there is a problem with your plane or your flying like oil pressure dropping, stall speed approaching, too high of a dive rate with landing gear down, etc. The view should look down and zoom in a bit to see the appropriate gauge on the panel. It should be a quick, like a glance at the gauges.

Or would all this be too un-sim like for you guys?

Some good ideas there. I agree that the current hat-option isn't all that realistic either.

[Dexter]

There was an app for IL-2 (PC) that I used before I got TrackIR that was very similar to the OP's idea. Can't for the life of me remember what it was called but it did work very nicely and smoothly. The view would pan into the direction your control surfaces were taking you and would return to a central view when the stick was centred. Really helped when you were on someone's six, but obviously no good for having a general look around. I think you could still use HAT for that...

[TexRoadkill]

Originally Posted by Dexter

There was an app for IL-2 (PC) that I used before I got TrackIR that was very similar to the OP's idea. Can't for the life of me remember what it was called but it did work very nicely and smoothly. The view would pan into the direction your control surfaces were taking you and would return to a central view when the stick was centred. Really helped when you were on someone's six, but obviously no good for having a general look around. I think you could still use HAT for that...

Interesting. I don't know why more flying and driving games don't implement that to some degree. You would still have your HAT to override the auto look and you could adjust how much look ahead you like in the settings. For most situations just a subtle shift in the view would help alot.

Hopefully they will get the motion tracking tech up to speed for the consoles pretty soon.

[Soviet Ace]

Originally Posted by TexRoadkill

I do use the hat switch. Hat switches are annoying. And not very sim. Do real pilots use a hat switch?

Well to be fare, it IS A GAME! Your not a real pilot (I mean in game, I dunno about real life?), so turning your head around without a hat switch is just an aid. If you didn't then you'd just be looking forward the whole time, unknowing if you had an enemy coming down on you etc. So the hat switch is just an AID since it is a GAME! and not real life. If it was real life, you wouldn't be flying the way you do in the game, it would probably be a lot more complicated depending on the mixture switch/button, throttle, ailerons, elevators, rudder etc. etc.

[Lexandro]

Originally Posted by TexRoadkill

Hopefully they will get the motion tracking tech up to speed for the consoles pretty soon.

The only way you will get motion tracking on Xbox is via project Natal. On PS3 its another matter, as I think the camera (iToy?) can be used for motion tracking. However it can be a pointless endevour to add it as a feature if very few people will actually use it, or have the required peripherals.

[mattd27]

bahh I won't be buying Natal. I only play video games when I want to relax. You know sit down with a cold drink. I don't wish to be flailing my hands and legs around, then probably knock my drink over.

[Wayfindre]

Besides, if you look over your shoulder to see behind your plane.. how can you see your TV screen?

mirrors?

[Lexandro]

On PC you can use a multi-screen setup to allow you increased viewing distance. However only certain games on Xbox allow this, one I know of is Forza 2 which has a multi-screen option in its game settings.