reported VR Head Restrictions to Within Cockpit

[Red-Dog]

I've had encounters with head restrictions in lots of other games before and its never been a good experience. If ED want to put any of this in as options its ok with me, just as long as having it work the way it does now is one of those options. I think having the world blinking in and out of existence or everything going blurry every time you head clips through the canopy even in the slightest way would be far more immersion breaking than the way it works now, and the last thing I want is a Feature that makes people feel sick forced on everyone.

[Mr. Big.Biggs]

“Development time over exaggerated”. 
agreed so lets first use the development time to fix frame rates in VR, also fully implement VR in Combined arms. 
After all this exaggerated development time is finished fixing VR performance and getting the experience on par with 2d then by all means, add the restriction, along with forcing track Ir to 1:1 because that is a cheat utilized by every track Ir user EVERY time they play.  
regards

[cfrag]

Well, at this juncture (10 days into the poll, August 21) there are some emerging trends, even though I don't think that a poll with small sampling size and audience can be representative of the DCS population in general.

 

So, these are the numbers: participants n = 52

IN FAVOR of VR head restrictions: 26 = 46%, AGAINST = 54%

AGREE restrictions will increase immersion 50% / 50% 

HAVE EXPERIENCE with Head Restrictions: 28 = 54%, NO EXPERIENCE = 46%

 

Now some more interesting points: 

WITH EXPERIENCE, IN FAVOR: 11/28 = 39% AGAINST = 61%

NO EXPERIENCE, IN FAVOR: 13/24 = 54%, AGAINST 46%

 

So we see two trends: 

1. those with experience of head restrictions tend to vote against them, while
2. those who have not yet experienced it are more divided, and lean towards advocating it.

That being said, this poll doesn't yet (and probably never will) allow concrete conclusions, as I suspect a strong self-selecting bias (let's call them DCS enthusiasts) in the population, and the sample size is too small. We now can endlessly debate why those who 'have no restriction experience tend to be in favor', or the wisdom of having people vote on something they have no experience with. But that would be unhelpful at best: the fact is that this is the way polls work, the numbers are too close to conclude anything (two no experience/against votes can tip the balance), and I think it is surely to their credit that people admit if they haven't yet experienced head restrictions in a sim game.

 

As someone who is biased, and has contributed to this thread I have to say that I'm surprised by the fact that the numbers are so close, so there's a good chance that this matter is more complex than I initially thought, and that is my take-away. 

 

Since ED now have been on the record that they are looking into this, it'll be interesting to see what they come up. I personally still think that there are more important issues ED could investigate before this, but that's another fact of life in DCS World 

 

Until then I think enough has been written, the lines have been drawn, and, yes, Sharpe and Tippis have been at each other's throat again, popcorn was eaten  

 

Edited August 21, 2021 by cfrag

[motoadve]

So what happened with this?

Do we have restrictions?

I don't see a big deal for single player, everyone can select it or leave it.

For MP is the server option.

[trevoC]

IMO VR Boundary restrictions (although at first glance seem reasonable) are horrible in practice.

they do not add to immersion when you are still moving your head, but your virtual view has stopped. This disconnect from your VR view to your actual movement never happens in real life.

Restricting your movement in VR will not prevent people from moving outside that boundary physically.

On the flip side, You can prevent yourself from moving outside the boundary of the aircraft by NOT DOING IT. This method prevents the disconnect from ever happening.

This boundary is also plenty buggy from my experience and will many times prevent you from looking where you could easily look otherwise.

Imagine trying to look down beside your seat to flip a switch but are unable to do so because your virtual helmet is hitting the canopy. I guarantee that many of the switches I view would be prevented from me using that viewing angle even though my line of sight is not outside the cockpit.

I have hundreds of hours in DCS and the only time my line of site is outside the cockpit is when I've done so on my own accord. I can't imagine this being a huge problem for anyone unless you are not setup correctly.

This is the worst Idea I've heard so far for VR users and it would be incredibly frustrating if implemented.

 

[motoadve]

On 8/16/2021 at 8:06 AM, Magic Zach said:

Aside from that, being trapped in a small box is part of the experience of flying our aircraft...probably the most tangible one, in reality.

This is the main point. 

And yes the bubble canopy on the Spit might as well be just a flat canopy, with current DCS no limits we have more than a bubble canopy in all the planes , since we can stick our head out.

IL2 I got used to it quickly, but it is too restrictive, for example, I cannot see the fuel contents of the P51 fuel gauges, so doing it right, with the limits where the head cannot get out of the cockpit would be great, but that you can still move around and be able to see fuel gauges like in the P51, I am all in for it.

[trevoC]

you can't restrict head movement and allow VR users to properly move around the cockpit and see gauges. It doesn't work. IMO, if you don't want to stick your head out of the aircraft, don't stick your head out of the aircraft.

I can't think of a single time in 4 years of VR gaming that I've had my head clip outside the aircraft unless I did it on purpose.

On the other hand. Games that restrict your movement prevent you from being able to move your head in a way that seems natural (e.g. to see a strange fuel gauge on the floor or behind you) without causing issues and many times preventing you from seeing it at all. Worse it creates weird clipping and jumping issues that are more immersion breaking than the top of your head being able to clip outside without you noticing it.

Also, your head in VR when it hits a barrier stops moving even if you continue moving which is extremely immersion breaking when your head movements stop matching your in game movements.

I can't imagine anyone who's ever experienced a "virtual box" for their head in any game wanting this feature implemented and can only guess that it seems good on paper but you haven't experienced it.

It is the most frustrating thing I've ever experienced in VR, enough to not want to play that game, especially when it makes it impossible to interact with certain switches or gauges.

You probably clip the aircraft (top of your head for instance) all the time without realizing it. You may look down and left and twist around in 6dof to see a switch in a WWii fighter and not realize that the top of your head is clipping some component in the model. If we limit this, you can no longer properly interact with that switch and the head movement doesnt match etc....

Its just awful IMO.

[Magic Zach]

On 3/27/2023 at 4:37 AM, trevoC said:

you can't restrict head movement and allow VR users to properly move around the cockpit and see gauges. It doesn't work. IMO, if you don't want to stick your head out of the aircraft, don't stick your head out of the aircraft.

I can't think of a single time in 4 years of VR gaming that I've had my head clip outside the aircraft unless I did it on purpose.

On the other hand. Games that restrict your movement prevent you from being able to move your head in a way that seems natural (e.g. to see a strange fuel gauge on the floor or behind you) without causing issues and many times preventing you from seeing it at all. Worse it creates weird clipping and jumping issues that are more immersion breaking than the top of your head being able to clip outside without you noticing it.

Also, your head in VR when it hits a barrier stops moving even if you continue moving which is extremely immersion breaking when your head movements stop matching your in game movements.

I can't imagine anyone who's ever experienced a "virtual box" for their head in any game wanting this feature implemented and can only guess that it seems good on paper but you haven't experienced it.

It is the most frustrating thing I've ever experienced in VR, enough to not want to play that game, especially when it makes it impossible to interact with certain switches or gauges.

You probably clip the aircraft (top of your head for instance) all the time without realizing it. You may look down and left and twist around in 6dof to see a switch in a WWii fighter and not realize that the top of your head is clipping some component in the model. If we limit this, you can no longer properly interact with that switch and the head movement doesnt match etc....

Its just awful IMO.

1) See points below...
2) Happens to me all the time, it's irritating and immersion-breaking
3) Well this isn't like other games, DCS wouldn't have to make the collision box so big
4) What's more immersion-breaking than your view stopping at the canopy (novel physics concept) is your view going right through the glass
5) I've experienced it loads....the game would be better for VR players and integration with it.  The way VR is implemented in DCS currently, actually it feels pretty bare minimum
6) I can't think of any time I've had a severe issue with it making it hard to view gauges, aside from the P-51 in the other game but that was a pretty fringe case.  Also if it was hard to see a specific gauge irl....then it should be in DCS too (woah!).
7) As far as vertical headspace, I'm not exactly jumping up and down in my chair while in VR so the only axis limitations that would be encountered would be the horizontal and forward/aft
8 ) disagree

Edited April 3, 2023 by Magic Zach

[Baldrick33]

I spent some time with the other solution to see if I would find it any less immersion breaking than previously.

it is still horrible that you can shove the plane around with your head as the positional tracking suddenly stops at what feels an arbitrary point - there is no forewarning it is going to happen other than memory and if you jump from plane to plane it is easy to forget the point tracking stops.

That said it becomes possible to react quickly to the breaking of 1:1 head movement in much the same way as reacting to the onset of clipping, so that both are effective as a very clear indication of limits. For me the clipping is a much less immersion breaking method. It isn’t difficult to be disciplined enough not to stick your head through the window and you don’t get the sensation of breaking VR. It provides an early warning with a few pixels of clipping that a hard limit is simply unable to provide- the tracking stops.

If it genuinely is considered a cheat then that is a different debate but to present it as being “better for VR players” is an opinion I would refute.

Maybe an option would be a hybrid of the two, a small amount of clipping followed by a hard limit, so players could avoid the immersion breaking broken tracking sensation by having an early warning they are at the limits. Maybe even add a clunk of helmet hitting glass.

[draconus]

4 hours ago, Baldrick33 said:

...having an early warning they are at the limits.

Unrealistic - IRL you freely move the head until you bang on the canopy. There is no warning.

A lound clunk is mandatory.

[Baldrick33]

1 hour ago, draconus said:

Unrealistic - IRL you freely move the head until you bang on the canopy. There is no warning.

A lound clunk is mandatory.

It is all unrealistic short of building a canopy to limit physical movement, it is just finding which seems the least immersion breaking, which is a personal thing. All for options just don’t agree with specific ones being mandated at the expense of immersion in VR.

[PLUTON]

DCS: do as for unlimited ammo?
Solo you give the possibility to deactivate the limitation of the cockpit in VR and on the servers this function cannot be deactivated! as everyone would be happy.
Personally I never take my head out of the canopy in VR because I find that it breaks the immersion, because for me the immersion is what it is
  is more important in DCS.

[JCTherik]

Howbout:

1. Loud clunk

2. Short but sharp visual twitch effect simulating a head bump

3. View gets gradually blurry after crossing the canopy boundaries

4. Head tracking won't get disturbed, but poking your head out of the canopy would be pretty useless due to the blur

5. When part of your head is outside of canopy, it's a little blurry

6. When your whole head is outside of canopy, it's very blurry

7. Only the canopy boundaries and outer fuselage boundaries being considered, in order to prevent this triggering when bending over backwards to see an obscure gauge.

8. If you stick your head into the wind IRL, you'd see blurry too.

Edited April 3, 2023 by JCTherik

[trevoC]

What doesn't happen IRL is my head continuing to move while my site line is restricted. Considering that this has never happened to me in any of the DCS modules (I own all but 4) I can only conclude (possibly in error) that our setups are very different and this effects some but not others.

[=475FG= Dawger]

17 hours ago, trevoC said:

What doesn't happen IRL is my head continuing to move while my site line is restricted. Considering that this has never happened to me in any of the DCS modules (I own all but 4) I can only conclude (possibly in error) that our setups are very different and this effects some but not others.

This is mostly driven by folks who think VR is some sort of advantage and seek to make it miserable to use. 

[Dangerzone]

16 minutes ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

This is mostly driven by folks who think VR is some sort of advantage and seek to make it miserable to use. 

I'm suspicious of that too. I've seen people protest against requests of having an option to remove the rotor blur in the Apache from VR (since the motion reprojection creates all sorts of problems including blurry IHADD numbers as the motion reprojection catches those as well as the rotor and tries to replicate, etc). Objectors outcry about how removing it would be giving VR users a 'cheat' and unfair advantage.  

Edited April 14, 2023 by Dangerzone

[draconus]

I play SP and still would like the option.

[=475FG= Dawger]

2 minutes ago, draconus said:

I play SP and still would like the option.

Its pretty easy to make a custom Papier-mâché canopy to put over your head to get the ultimate in realistic head limits for VR.

[Nightdare]

Heh, was looking for this topic (Figured I wouldn't be the only one with the idea).

 

I flew quite some hours in CloD using Nero GameVR and OpenTrack and I never had any problems with the VRysical boundaries in that game concerning closed canopies.

Just like the people here that 'don't stick their heads out of the canopy', you very quickly get used to the limit.

[JCTherik]

Guys, just make a clunk sound, some image twitch, and then blur the view a bit when sticking your head through the glass.

 

A blury view in VR won't remove tracking, it won't make people dizzy and it won't be nearly as immersion breaking as stopped tracking or completely black screen.

But it will also prevent me from sticking my head through the canopy to look under the plane.

 

[cfrag]

1 hour ago, JCTherik said:

But it will also prevent me from sticking my head through the canopy to look under the plane.

Which only applies to some warbirds anyway. If you manage to stick your head outside of an F-18 or A-10 to look under your plane, Cirque de Soleil will hire you on the spot. 

[JCTherik]

On 4/28/2023 at 3:01 PM, cfrag said:

Which only applies to some warbirds anyway. If you manage to stick your head outside of an F-18 or A-10 to look under your plane, Cirque de Soleil will hire you on the spot. 

just lean on the chair

[RuskyV]

If head restriction ends up being implemented further down the road, I think it also good to add in some sort of "neck saver" or a non linear option that allows people to look to the 6 o'clock position a little easier.