With the right FOV - a guide / introspective

I have a rather large triples rig and it's always looked and played great. I mean, you pretty much pick any racing game and its a blast.

Now, I've been working on my FOV lately rather seriously, even measuring parts of the track in the game with real life info, measuring out points 100m away and adjusting the FOV using the excellent triple screen app but its always been.. well.. ok.

Last night, I tried a different tactic. I set the distance spinner to 1000mm and put my seat to match. Then, I hopped in the F3 car and set the onboard view to match what I would see. Suddenly...

Mind blown.

As opposed to playing a game, I'm IN the game. I did a race on medium with the F3 cars and found I could hit my braking points without a second thought.. I could squeeze my car into a gap with my front tire next to the next cars sidepod and not touch him. I could swing into a corner and hit the apex within a couple cm. I used to watch some drivers run their sim and wondered how they were so accurate with these things.. I guess it's all a point of view.

Then I set up a few other cars in a similar fashion.. the KTM, the Z4, E30, F40 and the Lotus thing with no roof. Even being off by a couple inches screws with the immersion.. once you get, though, WOW, you get it.

I also tried moving my seat IN and adjust everything so it matched the 'points' but it wasn't the same. In fact, I'm afraid I mucked up the good thing I had going.

I'm going to work on quantifying this more, into a strategy that can be replicated. So far my learned points are:

- FOV to the stuff far away is crucial for not feeling like you're watching a "camera" of the race. Set that up first and ignore the look of the dash.
- once that's set, seat position is crucial to place elements of the car where your brain expects them to be, even if it means you can't see the dash, the wheel or a mirror or two
- using the relative position of the front wheels in relation to your head is an excellent starting point, which is why the F3 car is so easy to set up
- the size of the SUN is completely wrong in the game (it's shall I say, more romantic) which is too bad, because if it was accurate you could easily use that as an infinite depth object to measure by. It's hard to believe, but the sun / moon is the width of my pinky nail at a fully outstretched arm. If this was corrected, it would be a good benchmark to gauge overall FOV.
- alternatively, someone could make a test track with relative sized objects. With the proper FOV and distance from the screen, objects change their size in a proportional way that can be expressed as a formula. An overlay on the screen would also help set this up - Kunos! A FOV / positioning setup system would be an industry first and could be a game changer, pardon the pun.

Hope this helps and inspires others.

 

I should add, I'm using the excellent RealHeadMotion addon.. helps with the immersion tremendously.

 

Wow i say that rig looks too pro for me

 

Not even in my dreams does my display look that good

 

Ha thanks guys.

I'm anxiously awaiting Kunos to fix the X / Z axis in their trackIR implementation so that I get even more immersed with proximity position within the cockpit. I built a little script that is working as a test and with this FOV solved, the application of promixity positioning is perfect. I tried to take a video but it came out really poor; I'll try to take another tonight.

I'm basically inspired by, and copying this approach. Jump to 2:45 to see the goods.

 

You just wait till the final version of Oculus Rift gets released You'll know what being "in the game" REALLY means

 

Ya no kidding!! One thing though I worry about is switches and buttons, etc since you can't see your hand. I'm on the fence of getting a dev unit and installing two cameras on the front for that purpose. Some kind of temporary video overlay system would be neat. I haven't seen that done yet.

 

It's amazing what you start to pick up on when you have the right FOV... I just set up triple screens, with 45 degrees between the outer ones to get me a full mirror to mirror realistic view.

I was running the Abarth 500 challenge, and when I was coming round the first 180 bend, I noticed some of the other cars coming up the back straight, over a barrier. Being able to make the world 'still' helps a ton with small movements; the actual size of the other cars that was visible was tiny, but I noticed cause I was able to feel 'in' the race. When FOV is too high, everything's warping and moving around; when it's just right, the world seems motionless and the car is moving.

I still need to work on eye height and the bezels; AC wants it to be dead center and my seat puts me a little higher than that. Going to set the monitors up higher tomorrow.

Less scientific but I also got a second quicker on Magione. Still not fast, but less un-fast.

 

I hope youre right. I'm being cautiously optimistic, but not holding my breath (cause that would be just silly and I would passout ).

I've been doing the same thing with AC, adjusting my screen closer and playing with the FOV. I went from having a 27 inch monitor from 29 inches from my face and FOV of 29 to 21 inches from my face and FOV piddling is still wip but somewhere around 33 is where I hit the sweet spot.
I use TrackIR5 to bring in little more immersion and help with the small FOV, and I can deffinetly agree that when you get it right, even with a single screen, it all makes sense. You feel much more like you are driving a car and your perception is spot on. If your headtracking for example is too fast or too slow, brain goes Wtf? and has to learn new tricks to accommodate. When the measurements match the real life and thats where your brain is at its best, everything comes naturally and the gaming just stepped up a notch.

 

Human vision runs about 190 degrees horizontally, with 120 degrees of binocular vision and left and right fields of monocular vision of around 35 degrees. Vertical field is about 60 degrees above the horizon and 75 degrees below. A single eye has a horizontal field of view of about 95 degrees.

We tend to do most of our perimetery in a central field of only 30 degrees without moving our eyes or head. Beyond the central 30 degrees, there's going to be eye and/or head movement.

The Aim Formula racing wheel installed in the Formula Abarth is 270mm wide in real life, and 185mm from its highest to its lowest point, according to the manufacturer.

You'll need to consider your screen size and resolution and the distance that your eyes are located from the screen and adjust for apparent size at the distance of your eyes from the screen, then compensate as necessary for your screen size and resolution, but all this only after adjusting your seat to the correct position in the car.

As for the racing sim FOV calculators available, one says my FOV should be 95 degrees, the other says it should be 63 degrees. Which one is right? A man with two clocks never really knows what time it is. But just to be kind, I will mention that the rFactor2 FOV calculator (63 degrees) produces much more pleasing results with Assetto Corsa on my system than the iRacing FOV calculator (95 degrees).

There's the info, now go forth and drive yourself nuts trying to figure it all out, LOL!

 

Note that rF2 measures FOV vertically and iRacing horizontally - hence with a non square screen the disparity. (AC is also measured vertically so the rF2 calculator should be closer)

 

Ahh, that explains it! Thanks Tony! For those interested, I've settled very happily for the 63 degrees with my 60-inch screen. Seems to be about the best look and feel.

 

A pleasure although now I have screen envy...

 

Can you elaborate on setting the FOV for far away points. Running triple 27" 1080p monitors here.
What exactly are you looking for in Far away objects?

 

Oh how I wish for a simple app that could do this.... Verifiable....

Should be a pretty simple geometric exercise with some lines overlapping or some simple visualization.

 

This worked well for me, and trig bears it out.

http://mrpix.org/rF2/fov/index.php?m=1

I don't think you'll do any better for an app than that.

 

Well, that's exactly what the ingame app does.

 

In-game app? There's an in-game app?

Where's the junior VP in charge of my gaming briefings? I'll send him down to the mailroom for this!

You'd think, being the CEO, they'd keep me informed of these things. But no, all they want to talk about is cost overruns and production figures. You'd think racing sims weren't even important.

What would I do in my office all day if I didn't have racing sims? Why, I'd have no reason to even come to work!

 

Hello mate ..
I know your setup is different to mine , I`m running three Acer 24" monitors using two Geforce GTX 560 Ti cards and I`m lost with this FOV , I honestly don`t really know what to look for when setting it up correctly ?
Could you possible suggest a base setting to work on for A/C if you can ?
Many thanks
Rob ..

 

Try 28 degrees, 48 degrees, and 68 degrees and see which one you like best. Don't forget to adjust your seat.