Assetto Corsa Competizione - Generic discussion

"Dashcam factor" = Only Dashcam is affected
100 = exactly the same movements and shaking you see in your Cockpit cam (which can be 0 if you have it off)
0 = completely static Dashcam, regardless of your Cockpit cam settings

 

We offer two *very* different options here. The cockpit movement reflects the helmet movement in 3D, which is quite realistic and also hands out some sense of speed and sensation - but it does not touch the angles you look at (completely opposite to the helmet cam). You can even literally see harder suspension setup here. I really like this movement as it doesn't really sacrifice much in terms of filtering, but adds a lot of immersion.

The other one is the "Lock to horizon" setting. If set to 0, your target viewpoint is always static and connected to the car. Which means your "look at" point is always equal to your car body's orientation - and if the car is pitching, e.g. due to load changes or vibrations like curbs, your "look at" point / center of screen on the track will go up and down by centimeters. Here comes the magic: If you're really driving a car (even a super stiff and raw race car), the combination of inner ear, eyes and brain wires will completely remove all of this (up to an impressive point, think of step-curbs which will introduce bluriness due to the vibrations). First the eye movement is insanely quick to adjust, then the rest comes by brain algorithms. You will always focus on where you look at on a track. It's incredible.

However this filtering does not work while sitting on a simulator in your living room, as we lack the corresponding forces (and they have to be quite exact, but more important free of lag) and the inner ear is useless*, that is you focus on a pixel on the screen instead of the part of the virtual track you try to look at. Having lock to horizon set** to 100% makes ACC do this work for you, and your camera automatically does the compensation movements in order to let the track part appear statically on the pixel(s) you focus. That of course comes to the price that you also see your cockpit/virtual wheel/dashboard/car moving and pitching relative to your screen - which many do not like once the rig is setup in a way where you have a good position - in example your real wheel is exactly where your virtual one would be; the FoV, distances, angles and so on perfectly match. Then having all of this moving ingame feels (very) wrong, of course.

That would be my answer for usual cockpits and rigs - but you are talking about a motion rig. And I have to say, I have no idea. I doubt that motion rigs can be much more than a sensation machine (though they probably do this very well), at least they cannot really help you with what I was referring to - forces are always wrong and late, can't beat physics here. But I hope my explanations help you to understand the tools, and you can find a cool setup.


*btw. also the major part of VR motion sickness. The immersion is so complete that your brain takes everything it sees for granted, and then all of a sudden notices: "We are moving, but my inner ear does not recognize ****", because the inner ear sits comfortably in the real living room while the rest of the brain is driving a race car / rollercoaster / flying around. The evolutionary most reasonable assumption is a malfunction based on poison, maybe the mammoth steak was spoiled. So we need to invent (very, very serious) sickness which eventually makes us throw up the bad food.
Same applies to why some of us cannot read books in cars, but the other way round: Brain is distracted and focuses on the static pages, but inner ear sends forces that do not really match to what we see. Same for sea-sickness, and it's not a coincidence that all of those "sicknesses" are comparably prominent for different humans. Good news: Training off VR motion sickness will raise your ability to read books and enjoy ships

**so my best guess for a "Lock to Horizon" setting is: as low as possible, but enough to get you more relaxed at looking at the track. 20% can already be enough, 60% is a really useful value; more possibly just introduces too much relative car movement. But the exact value depends on many things, including FoV, screen size, distance to screen

 

Interesting! Didn't know about that study, looks like you have done more than only your homework here

Can't follow this part.. So they say distance alone fixes this? I had the impression that you'd even get sick inside a huge dome around you, as long as it lacks references and puts your brain into the mode of accepting this reality.

 

Great stuff
After having the pleasure to experienced the DK1 right away, I'm not sure if I want to know how a military grade VR set from the 80s felt like