Gran Turismo 5 head tracking...useless gimmick?

[Queasy]

Ok, I first thought head tracking was kind of a cool feature. But now that I've seen this video I think it looks like a pretty useless gimmick.

Don't get me wrong, it's still cool that the EyeToy can mimic you turning your head left and right but the problem comes in that it takes you from fully seeing the screen. Turn your head left or right to see your side mirrors and your left trying to look at the screen through the corner of your eyes.

Frankly, that seems more like a hindrance than a help. I would skip using the EyeToy and just use the traditional controls.

 

[tdawg]

If you had a 3-monitor setup, I think this would be pretty cool, but yeah, with one screen, you lose a lot by turning away from the display.

 

[purbeast0]

100% gimmicky.

when you turn your head 30 degrees in real life you also turn your eyes 30 degrees from your straight looking point.

with this crap, you turn your head 30 degrees, but keep your eyes looking straight ahead at the tv.

useless.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Yeah its useless, especially since its just so damn difficult to turn the right joystick a little bit to accomplish the same thing.

 

[foghorn67]

Head tracking in flight sims with one monitor is awesome. Yes, I looked like a geek. Flight stick (or yoke, depending on aircraft), throttle, rudder peddles.
Great, now I want to go home and land at St. Martiin's again.

 

[blurredvision]

If you had a 3-monitor setup, I think this would be pretty cool, but yeah, with one screen, you lose a lot by turning away from the display.

If you had a 3-monitor setup, you wouldn't need head tracking. The only scenario in which head tracking would even viable is in a VR setup, otherwise you're still looking a stationary monitor that you have to keep your eyes on.

I've always seen it as a nice bullet point on the list of features, nothing more.

 

[speedy2]

I hate this. I'm a big GT fan. And some of the things they are implementing aren't going to help them at all. This feature is one of them. They're trying to please every single request and it's just retarded. I feel like they are putting as much as they can in it, just to have "a lot of stuff." I'd even be happy if damage still wasn't in the game. Give me 1000 new cars, 1000 used cars. 50+ tracks. super-in-depth modifications, and I'm good.

 

[arredondo]

Yeah its useless, especially since its just so damn difficult to turn the right joystick a little bit to accomplish the same thing.

Because of course features in sim driving games should be judged by how they affect playing with joystick pads instead of wheels. =/

What's silly is that with the dozens of awesome features revealed so far in GT5 this topic has even come up despite being a non-issue. Head tracking represents what? Maybe .0005% of the full GT5 experience? Even then, the conclusion that it is useless is off.

Let's turn this around another way. When really driving a real car, what is more effective - turning your head a bit to see out the side windows or somehow having access to a thumbstick (while still driving your stick shift vehicle) to look around? The obvious answer is turning your head.

Back to GT5, with your hands on your wheel and gear shift, you don't want to be fiddling with any extra input knobs for something like briefly looking to the side if you don't have to. Being able to keep your hands on the actual driving controls while calmly turning your head left/right (eyes still forward) to pan the camera at whatever angle you want seems completely logical - just as it would in real life.

Hopefully you can tweak it a bit to suit your own preference. Some may want it sensitive, some may want a large dead zone before the camera moves, etc. But to make a blanket statement that for everyone it would be useless seems to be an unnecessary over-reach about a really, really, small feature.

 

[Drako]

Being able to keep your hands on the actual driving controls while calmly turning your head left/right (eyes still forward) to pan the camera at whatever angle you want seems completely logical - just as it would in real life.

Why would anyone do this "in real life"? You drive and turn your head left and right while eyes looking forward?

I agree with everyone else here - this is a useless gimmick/feature. However, I will most likely be getting GT5 when it finally comes out, in spite of this useless feature.

 

[arredondo]

In the game your eyes are forward since the screen is in front of you.

The point that you gloss over is that the head turning method is far closer to the simple, real life method of turning your head than thumbstick diddling ever could be if you are playing with a wheel and stickshift.

Useless? If you say so, but motion head tracking is clearly less useless than the thumbstick if you ever do want to look at your side windows while steering.

 

[Drako]

Useless? If you say so, but motion head tracking is clearly less useless than the thumbstick if you ever do want to look at your side windows while steering.

Yep, still useless .

Yep, there is a big difference when I use my side mirrors when doing real driving - I'm actually looking that way :awe:

 

[biggestmuff]

Useless and a gimmick.

 

[Queasy]

In the game your eyes are forward since the screen is in front of you.

The point that you gloss over is that the head turning method is far closer to the simple, real life method of turning your head than thumbstick diddling ever could be if you are playing with a wheel and stickshift.

Useless? If you say so, but motion head tracking is clearly less useless than the thumbstick if you ever do want to look at your side windows while steering.

Carry out the following exercises and let me know.

Look straight at your computer monitor. Now turn your head about 45 degrees to the left while trying to keep your eyes on your monitor. What happens? It's uncomfortable and your vision is obscured.

Now go sit in a car and turn your head to look at your side view mirror. What happens? It's natural and there is no strain.

The act of looking at your side view mirror in the game is completely the opposite of doing it in real life and is probably worse as your trying to turn your head one way and look the other which obscures your vision while driving.

 

[arredondo]

At 45 degrees, it's true that the arbitrary test doesn't work. Which is why it's been likely tweaked to work better with a smaller angle. If it's, say, 25 degrees of head turning in either direction you can absolutely use it to get your glance to the side before returning back to normal.

The degree of head turning does not have to perfectly replicate real life head turning. To get that to work, you need monitors set up directly at your sides along with the one in front of you.

All you need is some head motion to get the main display to pan for you and it'll work while keeping your hands on the wheel and gear shift like you're supposed to instead of on a thumbstick. And if the dead zone is wide enough (or adjustable), I doubt there will be much of an issue with having to keep your head rigidly straight to avoid inadvertent camera panning.

The bottom line is that none of us can definitively comment on if it is useless or is a gimmick or both until it is available to be tested out. We only have theory right now, and in theory this small feature should work fine as I described above.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Its a gimmick because this is a case where making it more realistic actually causes you to lose immersion in the game.

Not only that, but remember they're going to be pushing the 3D angle as well, and guess what happens then, it will actually distort your vision of the game and cause even more loss of immersion.

Its very natural to just use the right stick to change view, and even instinctual. That's a big problem for me with the motion controls in games is that it really is not adding to the immersion because you're thinking about it things more than you do with just a controller.

And yes, I'm fully aware that its not really a major issue, especially if you have a large display and/or sit very close. Its annoying because its stuff like this that most people don't care about and doesn't really add to the game and they probably spent two weeks adding it.

The real issue is that I'm tired of gaming being focused around little gimmicky stuff like this. It imparts a focus from developers onto implementing gimmicks instead of the core game. It reminds me of all the junk that gaming tried back in the 70s and 80s, its part of why arcades failed (as most of the underlying games just weren't good enough), and its part of the reason the Dreamcast failed. Sadly, it seems like due to the Wii its gotten a newfound level of success. The problem then happens when people get bored of it, and then sales fall through and the companies have to relearn the same lessons that have happened over and over again. Look at Guitar Hero (who is finally going to be making a major innovation after scratching their heads and asses for 2-3 years wondering why Guitar Hero Aerosmith isn't selling very well at $60).

This really highlights Polyphony Digital and Gran Turismo though. The realism is nothing more than lip service, and while that is actually the appeal of the game, at times you just wish they'd remember to focus on the core of the game instead of all this other stuff, especially since they hype it so much and then constantly delay the games.

I don't know if you remember what they talked about a few years ago, where they were aiming to make it so they'd host most of the cars on servers and then you'd download the ones you want and things like that. Granted, they were looking to make people pay per car and track which seemed a bit ridiculous but the basic idea was actually fairly innovative. They were talking about being able to license real companies' parts for you to upgrade and a ton of other things that they could constantly update (and not make into the DLC type stuff that rules gaming at the moment, such as Forza's car packs). For instance, one of the things that made GT great was the info about cars, and this would allow them to offer even more info, which they can't cram into a game. Years later, we get head-tracking for looking at mirrors as a consolation prize. Its disappointing to say the least. Likewise, sure they finally added damage modeling but its kinda half assed and is delaying the game even more. Then of course 3D. If they'd have done what they'd talked about originally, people would have been playing Gran Turismo 5 for years and they could have updated things along the way.

 

[arredondo]

Its very natural to just use the right stick to change view, and even instinctual. That's a big problem for me with the motion controls in games is that it really is not adding to the immersion because you're thinking about it things more than you do with just a controller.

I feel as if I'm in bizarro world after reading that post. Your position in simple terms: instead of driving in this sim game with a sim steering wheel and turning your head in sim fashion in order to look out the sides of your sim windows, you want us to believe that it is "more immersive" (your words) to drive with a control pad and turn your head with a thumbstick? If only Henry Ford learned of your idea before he invented the first automobile since he was obviously doing it wrong. XD

Reading the entire write up where you even try to say 3D is less immersive just to slam everything about the Gran Turismo makes me think you should have saved yourself the effort by simply writing "teh Sony sucks". Those three words alone at least gets right to your point, which is what all that was about.

Will GT5 be a perfect sim game? Of course not because that's impossible. But I'll maintain that it is far "more immersive" to drive with your hands on a wheel while using your head for looking to the sides than it is to use a game pad to drive while twiddling around with a thumbstick to look to the sides. One is far closer to reality than the other, and if you can't figure out which one then I really can't help you.

 

[Drako]

I feel as if I'm in bizarro world

Most of us would agree, you are in bizarro world

 

[Inspector Jihad]

they should use the psp connectivity for rear view mirrors.

 

[darkswordsman17]

I feel as if I'm in bizarro world after reading that post. Your position in simple terms: instead of driving in this sim game with a sim steering wheel and turning your head in sim fashion in order to look out the sides of your sim windows, you want us to believe that it is "more immersive" (your words) to drive with a control pad and turn your head with a thumbstick? If only Henry Ford learned of your idea before he invented the first automobile since he was obviously doing it wrong. XD

Reading the entire write up where you even try to say 3D is less immersive just to slam everything about the Gran Turismo makes me think you should have saved yourself the effort by simply writing "teh Sony sucks". Those three words alone at least gets right to your point, which is what all that was about.

Will GT5 be a perfect sim game? Of course not because that's impossible. But I'll maintain that it is far "more immersive" to drive with your hands on a wheel while using your head for looking to the sides than it is to use a game pad to drive while twiddling around with a thumbstick to look to the sides. One is far closer to reality than the other, and if you can't figure out which one then I really can't help you.

Neither a controller or a wheel is anywhere close to actually driving a real car. Pretending to drive one where you're playing with little toy representation of things (which fail at actually being realistic), in a game that isn't super realistic (it is for a game, but video games by nature are not terribly realistic), well I just want whatever control allows me to immerse myself in the game.

Personally, because even good wheels are still nowhere close to being realistic, they absolutely do cause less immersion for me, because then I'm thinking about all the feedback that's missing and how its not realistic than I am focused on the game. The controller enables a natural extension of what my mind is thinking. My mind is immersed and is thinking okay, sweeping corner then a hairpin, and is thinking about the best line and braking and acceleration, its not thinking about the controller at all. With time, I might be able to get that way with a wheel, but there's no point to it for me, as the controller isn't a hindrance to me at all.

As others pointed out, when looking in your mirrors you're moving your eyes more than your head, so this is basically the opposite of reality. More realism by making it less realistic?

I didn't say 3D isn't immersive, I said when using this with 3D it will cause a break in the immersion 3D does offer.

So, yes, I'd rather they focus on the stuff that actually does immerse me in a game, and make the core game good, rather than try to augment things with poor gimmicks that fail at realism. It is after all a game, and not an actual simulation (and no matter how much realism they claim, fact is they're far closer to where they started than they are to reality, which is actually unobtainable with current technology, let alone for a cheap video game system).

I don't have that big of a problem with the lip service they give reality, but I'd rather have a game I could play now, and then get little add-ons that I don't care about later on. And if I feel the core game has issues then I'm going to think they wasted too much time on junk features. For instance, GT4, they for some reason felt they had to completely rewrite the game engine, which to me was unnecessary and forced them to take much longer to finish the game.

 

[BoberFett]

Christ, this game still isn't out? They have bigger problems than worrying about how you check your mirrors.

 

[biggestmuff]

they should use the psp connectivity for rear view mirrors.

Don't laugh, but that was one of the developer's ideas; to use the PSP as a rear view mirror in GT5. That was YEARS ago, though.