Changing the point of view...

Finding the right point of view for simracing is not easy. Most of the time, the beginner will hesitate, then decide between the cockpit view and the hood view. Each has its strengths and weaknesses :

- The hood view will offer a great perspective and allow to take a look far ahead and therefore to anticipate any event, braking, re-acceleration or accidents. However, it does not show the car's movements, that the force feedback does not transmit. A certain amount of information is lost,

- The cockpit view, if it is more immersive, is more restricted : the perspective is worse, the point of view lower, the driver can be bothered by the dashboard or the windshield to take correctly the line... and yet, this choice provides more informations about the car's movements.

I would say too that the cockpit view requires more preparation. If the simracer can simply use the hood view as it is, without any special setup in the settings of the game, it will take a little time to find the good setup, at least one that suits us, for the interior view.

After many hours spent with the hood view, I became aware of its limitations and of the benefits of the cockpit view. Then you have to find the right seat settings, to forward it, to rewind it, to mount it, to lower it, in order to find a good compromise between immersion, readability of the screens on the dashboard and external perspective.

Then I had also to change the cars database file to permit a larger movement of the seat and also incorporate an available option in GTR2, Apex Sight, which allows the eye to follow the movement of the steering wheel in order to view more easily the line.

Here is the view that I use so far:

Cockpit view, steering wheel centered

Cockpit view, steering wheel to the left

Cockpit view, steering wheel to the right

You'll notice that I use the virtual mirror and that the actual mirrors are disabled. With a such advanced seat, I can not in fact use them. The alternative would be to use a tracking system like TrackIR or FreeTrack to go naturally seeking the view of the two mirrors while maintaining this basic viewing angle. One possibility to study.

The Rookie