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GP Bikes => Suggestions and wishlist => Topic started by: poumpouny on September 07, 2017, 09:23:20 AM

Title: An alternative mode between DST/DSA steering and Default Steering mode
Post by: poumpouny on September 07, 2017, 09:23:20 AM
Hi there,
As i think you know i'm a fan of hardcore simulation, i'm still learning DSA/DST and even if i like thing to be the harder way i think DSA/DST is way more to difficult to handle, mainly because of the lack of feedback you get from the bike in DSA/DST mode.

So not talking about hardcore counter steering wich i think people is doing instinctively ( i think 70% of people riding a bike don't even know they turn the steering the opposite way when turning)
will it be more natural and more accessible to a lot off people to get a mix version of DSA/DST, to the Default normal steering mode. Let me explain :

In Default steering mode, you are dictating the bike leaning with your controller, and the software do the rest to match the steering, rider leaning and balance of the bike ... The problem is that you do not have to worry about lean angle limit so you can just push your joypad ton the maximum on a hard turn and wait the bike to turn without worriyng about nothing else that your trajectory.

In DSA/ DST you have no leaning angle limit but you have to control the angle or the torque applyed to the handle bar and guess the resulting bike leaning, wich with a very limited feedback from the bike is very difficult and not natural at all.


So why not take the Default steering mode and just remove the bike lean auto-limiter, with that you are dictating directly the bike lean without worrying about countersteering, but you have to limit you lean angle yout self.  So for example on a wheel, say you put a 140° angle limit for your wheel wich is a normal moto gp lean angle limit (70° left and 70° right) so you know (depending on wich bike you ar) how much can you go with leaning.

Thanx :)
Title: Re: An alternative mode between DST/DSA steering and Default Steering mode
Post by: passerBy on March 01, 2019, 07:29:27 AM
I think that first of all direct steering needs to be added to the menu as maybe a separate profile, so that you could configure your controls for the default steering, for DS1 (for using it with a gamepad or a joystick, for example) and for DS2 (FFB wheel). Then both "hardcore" modes could be coupled with an assist autopilot that would basically ride the bike the same way as in the default steering, except instead of telling it a goal lean angle from zero to max you'd be telling the torque you want to additionally apply to the handlebars or the bars angle you need it to reach ASAP when it's not busy catching the bike from falling over.

A slider would tell the engine just how much of direct control you want. Preferably, two sliders for both DS1 and DS2.
Title: Re: An alternative mode between DST/DSA steering and Default Steering mode
Post by: poumpouny on March 06, 2019, 12:49:23 PM
I don't understand what you mean, does DS1 and DS2 mean DSA (direct steer Angle) and DST (Direct Steer Torque) ? What is the point of having direct Steering mode and having an autopilot to keep you from falling, because it's already what the normal steering mode does.

What you said about "additionaly apply torque to handle bar ...." it's already what DST does now

Gpbikes has 2 steering mode :

Normal mode : when you have to use your joystick or FFB Wheel input to tell the engine you want to lean Left or Right, and how much, then it lock your leaning at maximum possible angle (keep you from falling)

Hardcore mode DSA : you are responsible of your leaning (depending on steering input and rider lean input you have to control both) and the is no limitation, if you lean too much then you fall, nobody is catching you from falling

Hardcore mode DST : the exacte same thing exept you do not input Steering angle, you input torque which is convert by GPbike physic engine to the correspondant steer angle.

What i suggest is simple : Take the normal steering mode, and get rid off the lean angle limitation. So you can controll the bike easily (you just input in what direction you want to lean and how much then the virtual rider put the correspondant steering angle /torque and rider lean, but then you have to limit yourself leaning ......so if you lean to much, you fall .......
Title: Re: An alternative mode between DST/DSA steering and Default Steering mode
Post by: passerBy on March 06, 2019, 07:18:06 PM
DS1 is referred by me to using the directsteer=1 key, while DS2 stands for directsteer=2

The point of having some help from the autopilot even in one of the direct steering modes is to make them more precise and easier to use. And that might be desirable because different people use different peripherals and you can't exactly plug the sim to your vestibular system to tell you the exact moment when you should start saving your fall (not to mention such an ever present nuisance as input lag).

A proper implementation of such a helper would allow you to focus more on the lap times rather than on trying not to drop the bike in the trickier low speed corners where the stability depends more on quick reaction to the bank rate change. A reaction that should also be precise and should not straighten the bike up too much (which is not too easy to achieve with a gear-driven FFB wheel with 1:1 steering ratio).

The majority of GP Bikes users who ever tried direct steering found it inconvenient for a variety of reasons. And as it is, it's much harder to learn than real life riding because of the very limited feedback (mostly visual), lack of control precision and lack of control immediacy.
Even the DS2 mode, I personally prefer ever since I've gotten myself an FFB wheel, is not perfect for trying to ride with as little care for sudden falling as you'd do on a real bike. DS1 is just plain weird for perception. Granted, I started learning with this mode first, since I didn't have a wheel at the time nor did GPB have support for the alternative mode (DS2) and even managed to more or less ride the bike without falling every single lap (and with THAT beta it was much harder than with, say, beta 10). Still, in my opinion DS2 remains the optimal mode.

As you have probably guessed already, I'm not new to GP Bikes and especially to direct steering, so there is no need to explain to me what different steering modes do. In fact, I was probably the only one who nagged Piboso a lot back in the day to include direct steering into GPB after I saw it in MX Simulator first. It was back in the old forum though...

What I don't like about naming these two submodes DSA and DST is that it can get confusing, whereas with DS# you can see exactly which one was meant.

DST is the first submode. It was coined by someone (not Piboso) DS-Torque because from the simulation's standpoint you are feeding it the torque value. It's all good, but from your perspective you are changing the joystick or thumbstick's angle. So, for you it turns into "DSA".
If this wasn't confusing enough, the second submode was called DS-Angle because you command the required handlebars angle to the sim with an FFB wheel and the solver does its best to reach that angle. But using 1:1 steering with FFB on my wheel I don't really care for the angle, I'm pushing on the sides of the wheel, inducing torque on it! Now, doesn't that make it into "DST"?

That's why I think it's much easier to just call them DS1 and DS2.

Now, about your idea. It will supposedly make GPB's default steering more "hardcore", but you are forgetting several things. First of all, you need to waste some of the joystick's total deflection as "an angle where you fall and slightly beyond that". That makes steering even less precise, while at the same time the critical angle remains pretty much the same and you'll just develop muscle memory for it. Though you could always go beyond the angle with a slip of the wrist or a thumb, turning the whole thing into a weird very artificial mini-game. Do you really need that?

Direct steering, on the other hand, is a natural way of controlling a bike. The only proper way. It just needs more work to make it feel polished. Including adding helpers. The default steering is just too much of a helper. Deflect the joystick fully to a side and the virtual rider will do its best to assume the steepest angle possible. Anyone can do that without even trying.
Your method turns it into an unnatural challenge that has little to do with simulation. It adds even more artificiality just so you could also fall over similar to using direct steering. There is no need for that. There is already direct steering. You are not trying to guess the right lean angle with it, you are controlling the actual angle yourself and feel the resulting feedback. Just put some adjustable vestibular helpers into the equation and you get the direct steering that doesn't require you to constantly be conscious of the impending fall. Because in reality that is ALSO done automatically for you. By your body's reflexes. But you don't tell your body, "hey, let's achieve 45° now" or "let's achieve the max angle". You have to work to put your knee slider on that tarmac.
Title: Re: An alternative mode between DST/DSA steering and Default Steering mode
Post by: poumpouny on March 07, 2019, 09:01:16 AM
- For me, exept for Klax, who is just a genius, and who represent may be 0.001% of the humanity, playing GPbikes with DS mode with a gamepad doesn't make any sens !

- The discussion about DSA or DST have been discused widely in the forum, the only thing is that with DST torque applyed to handelbar is directly influenced by torque resulting from rider lean. In DSA you have 2 different input, the angle from the steering and the torque from the rider lean (which result in a sort of approximation if i can use that word).

- As you said, the main difficulty for DS mode is the lack of feedback. In real life, you use your knee to check your leaning (+ some natural intution and reflex). why not just use a FFB vibration on the wheel for exemple to tell you that your virtual knee touch the ground so you are aware. You say it's is a muscle memory, of course it's a muscle memory even in real life ....... that doesn't mean that you cannot go behond that warning of course you can but depending on speed, grip, track etc, which is already calculated by gpbikes now ........

- With the current model, you don't have any feed back until you loose the front ...... and the only thing you can do is a Visual aproximation of the leaning ..........
Title: Re: An alternative mode between DST/DSA steering and Default Steering mode
Post by: passerBy on April 16, 2019, 05:21:07 AM
Took me a while to get back here...

I never said DS1 makes much sense myself, have I? That's exactly why I'm using DS2 with my FFB wheel. Even though I used DS1 in the past with a joystick and even could manage to keep the bike up for a lap or even two, using it in its current form is highly impractical (although that could change with a "vestibulary helper").

After practicing a lot more with DS2 I should say that it's already pretty much ok as it is. What would really help a lot is moving on to some better wheel. Preferably a direct drive one. I have a feeling that with such a wheel catching falls would be a breeze thanks to highly detailed and strong FFB. For now I'll have to do with my Logitech wheel, but I have already gotten pretty good at it, if I say so myself.
Title: Re: An alternative mode between DST/DSA steering and Default Steering mode
Post by: Chris_Beeves on April 20, 2019, 06:56:51 AM
Has there been any interest from Piboso's side regarding this?
It's a quite large leap between regular steering and directsteer.
I would love to be able to have checkboxes per aid. Or maybe even sliders!  :-*

There is no doubt in my mind that I will eventually end up loving ds2, But for now it's mostly annoyingly difficult.
Title: Re: An alternative mode between DST/DSA steering and Default Steering mode
Post by: passerBy on April 21, 2019, 07:13:08 PM
I wish I could answer that, but what Piboso is thinking about this escapes me completely. Still, I'm happy direct steering is there and it's not impossible to make use of it.

Speaking of aids, ironically, now it feels like there is some sort of an aid in GPB I was talking about in this thread a little while ago. And just like that "autoriderdab" thing it appears to get in the way. Previously, my biggest gripe with GPB was the bike suddenly lunging in while going through a tight corner. Now, however, I'm having a problem with the opposite effect: the bike not only wants to stand up in the corner sometimes without me asking it to, but when it's actually up it tends to kind of "stick" in that position for a while. Even if the rider is fully leaned to a side. I have a huge suspicion some kind of a "helper" does that. Because it always feels so out of place... Well, at least it doesn't get in the way too much.

Ah, and now I'm taking my thread suggestion back :) If this is how the "artificial inner ear" is going to work, then maybe it's best not to use any aids at all.

As for "annoyingly difficult"... Well, imagine how things were when direct steering was just released. There was only DS1 available (and I didn't have a wheel anyway). The moment I'd hit the track, the handlebars would immediately try to drop to a side. I would try to "push" more on them with the joystick, and at some point they would budge... only to hit the opposite lock shortly after. So, in order to get going you would need to coordinate both your "pressure" on the bars with the throttle and the clutch. And just when the bars start approaching the middle position, release the clutch and get yourself running... Now that was annoying. I even suggested Piboso to include a button that would tell virtual rider to straighten the bars for as long as it's pressed. Well, he was not really interested.

I have not a single idea how Klax managed to ride fast in that mode, to be honest. I invested a lot of time in DS1 back then. Simply because nobody knew another DS mode was incoming, and I had no idea I was going to buy myself an FFB wheel either. When I just started learning, I would easily drop the bike 20, maybe even 50 times before I could manage to get the darned thing going. Taking it to a track was out of the question, I had enough problem going anywhere at Funring :) Also, the early GPB beta that first received the direct steering mode was twitchy enough in itself, not to mention the dreaded "core.exe". So, after a long time practicing that my biggest achievement was to lap Cadwell Park two times in a row without falling. That looked NOTHING like Klax' videos, mind you, but for me it was probably the biggest achievement of my life at the time :)

When Piboso had finally introduced DS2, that was simply revelation. It was infinitely easier to use than DS1 (at least for me). The first time I held the wheel in the middle and saw the bars also centered, I was grinning like an idiot :) "How did I live without this?!" Well, after giving it more time I discovered it was FAR from easy to use. And it took me years to get where I am now. Though I was taking a lot of long breaks, to be honest...

Either way, it takes a lot of practicing. Just don't forget that a little bit of front brake in the corner will help with preventing the bike from falling over. Though, when you'll let go of the brake, the bike will try to meet the pavement finally. You need to act with the throttle in advance (it also helps with straightening the bike up, but in a different manner).

Another thing: it's rather unexpected, but using kart tracks for practicing can actually help improve your cornering and stability a lot.

If you need to know the settings I use or need more tips, I'll gladly help.