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It would be really interesting to have your feedback on how it feels on the Thrustmaster wheel. But if you are using it to control GPB in default steering, I believe learning DS could greatly mess up your usual steering. That is the same reason I never switch to the default steering while using the wheel. If, on the other hand, you mostly use a joystick or a gamepad with GPB, I'd say absolutely go for it! I personally have no problem either using the keyboard or my HOTAS system with other bike games, because these are very different approaches to controlling the bike. With the wheel I just imagine I'm pushing on the handlebars, with the joystick it's like I'm tilting the bike itself.

You just need to burn the philosophy of counter-steering into the back of your mind. A bike turns only when it runs while leaned over. Once it's leaned, it tries to fall inside. You have to catch it and maintain the angle by turning the wheel (and the bars) inside a bit. However. To achieve that lean you mostly have to turn the bars outside first: the front wheel goes to the outside from under you and you fall inside with the bike. At very low speeds counter-steering is almost unnoticeable and you can also affect the leaning a lot with your own body weight. At higher speeds you'll be able to see it clearly. At even higher speeds gyro effects come into action.

Direct steering will teach you a lot about motorcycle handling. Not to mention it's extremely addictive when you are finally getting it right. Also, I'm sure your wheel will make a much better job of presenting you with the forces involved.
By the way, I had a long history with bike sims, starting with the SBK2000/2001 titles and GP500. But it wasn't until I tried direct steering when I started to finally realize how exactly do you handle a motorcycle and why does it behave the way it does.

As for the FOV, I run the lowest possible in GPB, as that's the correct calculated one for my monitor size/distance ratio (Yes there is a calculation for FOV, and yes there is a 'correct' one, its not just personal preference.

It's funny how we mentioned the same thing at the same time, but in a diametrically different manner

As for the in game character vs camera positioning, the one we have now is a good balance I feel between moving and not being over exaggerated like the real movement has the potential to be, although a 3rd 1p camera option with this as a setting would be a nice compromise. Or at least some sliders.

Absolutely agree on that.

Flat single screen first person views in sims are a highly debatable topic. There is a lot of online calculators for the "correct FoV". I wanted the geometry projected on screen to correspond to what I'd actually see if it was not a monitor, but a "window into the virtual world", so I did that calculation a long time ago by myself and used the result for a while. Tried getting used to it. Tried hard. But there is no such thing as a "correct FoV formula for a flat screen". What actually works is asking your brain whether the picture you see looks "just right" or not. Keep adjusting the FoV until you get into that spot between "too zoomed in" and "too zoomed out".

The "proper" formula would suggest me a field of view angle less than 40° for my setup. With the correction for intraocular distance (not sure if any of those "calculators" do this) I'd have it slightly above 40, I think... But with angles like that I can't judge the distance to objects properly. When I dial it up closer to 50° (I think 48° does the trick), it works fine. Even though I couldn't come up with any other factors (apart from people generally having two eyes) that could influence the result so much.

That's for cars. For bikes, for whatever reason, I have to go much higher -- to about 70°.

I spend A LOT of time on kart tracks, i've been on pf international a fair amount recently simple and easy but a lot of fun!

I'm currently going through all the kart tracks I can get my hands on. I tried PF yesterday or the day before that. Though I don't remember what it looked like, I remember I took a mental note of it, so I think I also liked it. In fact, there is quite a lot of good kart tracks out there. I even found an indoor one (maybe a bit too big to be called "indoor") that was surprisingly good and fun.

I also wanted to try MXB tracks (own both KRP and MXB, just in case), but they tend to crash for whatever reason... I remember there was quite a nice supermoto track for MXB that I could definitely make use of in GPB.

[years]

Again, I came to these particular settings after a lot of trial and error. It may seem like there is not much difference at all, but for me personally going from higher to lower lean heading made a world of difference (though no lean heading is also not helpful).

I'm not "acting". I spent a whole lot of time adjusting the view to my needs, not to mention years of learning to direct steer. This is quite a big problem for me if you want to suddenly change things in a way that will work for me in a way nobody knows in advance. Because I tried different settings before that I was sure would work the best (like your suggested setting lean heading to the max), but it all failed.
You see, when your head is turned in RL, the brain "post-processes" the "picture" so that it would appear normal to you. When you are presented with the same picture on screen, it's not the same, because the brain doesn't really care that much for flat images.

I tried MaxHUD several times, but it never worked well for me. Not only it lead to quite a performance hit, I'm sure there were worse effects (either stuttering or more input lag). And while a tilting helmet overlay sounds like a good idea, I don't think my peripheral vision would get the angle anyway (might give it a try though).

"My point is that no matter how you configure the settings at the moment, it will never look real because the 1p view position is simply wrong."
Well, it will only look real with VR anyway... Then again, the VR users are complaining at the moment.
Also, consider getting yourself some cheap headtracking equipment. You'll be able to look and move your head however you want. I do have it, just can't currently use it for now. Also, great for flight sims.

In a nutshell: you are suggesting me to try more realistic view settings (already tried, like my settings better), I'm suggesting you to try a more realistic steering (just so that you could see for yourself a little change to the view could make a lot of difference). So I guess we are at an impasse here...
Then again, why are you so against a third FPV camera anyway? It's not like GP Bikes has a lot of first person cameras to begin with.

By the way, as an experiment, you could give me the view settings you think I should use and I could record my results with that, just out of curiosity. Who knows, maybe that will indeed work now.

Edit: And btw, once I started using higher lean heading settings, 1p view became much more playable for me and I got a lot faster. It's very important to look far enough ahead in order to ride good lines through corners. Just like in real life.

It is very important, sure. But try looking that far while direct steering and tell me if that doesn't make it much more difficult not to drop the bike during cornering.

I use that low a setting for a reason After a lot of testing I decided on these values for the camera as the ones helping me to boost my "vestibulary sense" the most while still not getting in the way too much.
Yes we have two FPV cameras. I personally don't find the fixed to the bike one of any use. That leaves me with the camera you are proposing to change. That change most likely will render me unable to ride in GPB. I'm absolutely against that, however "realistic" you'd call that. I personally believe that if you want to start with realistic, you need to switch to direct steering first.
Still, if Piboso will add a third FPV camera, I'm ok with that. But I'm against any changes to this one. I didn't invest years into taming direct steering to be simply robbed of it just when I've started getting better.

"Closer to the ground in corners" means "less bike visible closer to the center of the screen". I already tried that and I didn't like it.

Well, that still looks a lot different, even though there is indeed a ton of head movement. And I don't think the FoV is the problem there.
As for making the view move more... Only if that will be made into a yet another camera. Because if it's going to move like in that RL video, I'm going to fall pretty much in every corner. I have no intention to give up direct steering, but I do need to see both the horizon and the bike for reference.

Edit: are you sure you will be ok even with the default steering like that? You won't be able to tell how exactly is the head placed and oriented relative to the bike.

Bad thing is that I hate ginger, good thing I have no VR headset yet... or wait, is this really a good thing?

While I agree that there might be less movement than needed in the 1st camera mode, don't you feel the head movement in the video you linked is heavily exaggerated (as if the head actually detaches from the body at times)?
Also, check this thread by the author of the video: https://forum.piboso.com/index.php?topic=6630.msg97346

By the way, I suppose my kart circuit video probably looked too slow (unless you know what to expect of a narrow, twisty course over a sloped terrain in direct steering), so here's a more "normal" video. It also proves you can direct steer the default M2 too, even though anything less than a liter is usually tricky to control:

Hopefully, looks more like it.

Hmmm? GPB has two 1st person cams. While the second one is indeed stationary, the first one moves with the rider's movement. This is the cam I use all the time.

By the way, I think you even saw one of my videos featuring that and commented on it. Or did you think I used head tracking there?

Well, I suspected there might be some problems regarding using VR with vJoy. Hopefully it will be possible to make them work together.

Not sure how relevant this is, since I don't own a VR headset. But I do have a TrackIR-alike thingie that I was trying to use with GP Bikes at some point (can't use it at the moment though).

So, before Piboso implemented rider tracking I was thinking of utilizing head tracking for the rider lean input purposes. And I did find a solution for that. Just use vJoy to map the head tracking translational axes into rider lean in GPB.
It was more than a year ago, I think, so I can barely remember how exactly I did that, but it shouldn't be too hard.

I have no idea if vJoy also understands VR input, but I'd be surprised if it doesn't.

Of course, it's a workaround. And probably not the best one at that. But until Piboso came up with a better way of managing rider lean, I guess trying this out won't hurt.

There is a better thing. A map called "trial" (nevermind the name, it has a big parking lot in the starting area).

Also, I'd highly recommend using kart tracks for practice. I would have never guessed, but they are also extremely fun to ride at too.