Crazy underground camera, other camera issues

[thelusiv]

Again on Road Atlanta with the TL2, I try to change the camera to hood view right after starting a game, and instead it goes underground. If I switch back to in-car it is still messed up, but the other camera views work OK. This is not very consistent, a few times I have started up a game and it switches just fine. As I start driving down the track it eventually fixes itself. I have some screen shots of it messed up that I'll upload shortly.

Another issue is that the camera position doesn't get saved between games, so every time I start a new game I have to change my camera position, since I prefer hood view over in-car view. edit 2: I see there's already an issue in the tracker for this: http://code.google.com/p/vdrift/issues/detail?id=116

edit: Here are the screenshots:
http://vdrift.net/Gallery/album.php?aid=69

[joevenzon]

Again on Road Atlanta with the TL2, I try to change the camera to hood view right after starting a game, and instead it goes underground. If I switch back to in-car it is still messed up, but the other camera views work OK. This is not very consistent, a few times I have started up a game and it switches just fine. As I start driving down the track it eventually fixes itself. I have some screen shots of it messed up that I'll upload shortly.

I haven't been able to reproduce this. Any tips?

[thelusiv]

I think this is related to the Bouncy Camera. I have seen this happen also on Ring 2007 when starting out with the TL2. The camera seems to be very erratically bouncing from below the ground to high in the sky and then back to the car. It's hard to tell because the framerate drops significantly when this happens.

edit: My Camera Bounce setting is at 52%.

[joevenzon]

The camera seems to be very erratically bouncing from below the ground to high in the sky and then back to the car. It's hard to tell because the framerate drops significantly when this happens.

From the order of what happens when, it possible that the framerate drops could be causing the erratic camera behavior? That seems plausible....

[alex25]

The camera seems to be very erratically bouncing from below the ground to high in the sky and then back to the car.

i just saw this at mosport with the F1-02 car. i tried to record it but it doesn't show up in the replay (even though it was happening as i was recording the race).

--alex--

[joevenzon]

I think I've ruled out a framerate effect and now I'm thinking that the random number generator I'm using might be crap. I'll try moving to pre-generated random numbers that I know have the distribution I want and see if it fixes things, ETA sometime in the next couple of days. I opened issue 118, since I think this is a bug that is critical (blocks release):
http://code.google.com/p/vdrift/issues/detail?id=118
... but please continue to put any new info in this forum thread.

[alex25]

if i set the camera bounce to 0% i don't see it behave weirdly any more (looking at a recording i made at mosport). set it to 100% and the camera bounces wildly (but only briefly and then it's normal again).

--alex--

[joevenzon]

Can you try R2319? I'm just using the normal system rand() calls now, which should be much better distributed. I think this might fix the problem.

[alex25]

Can you try R2319? I'm just using the normal system rand() calls now, which should be much better distributed. I think this might fix the problem.

i've tried it quite a few times at mosport and haven't seen the crazy bounces yet (also looked at the old replays and they played fine). looks like it's fixed now.

--alex--

[joevenzon]

Excellent. I've marked the issue as fixed.

[thelusiv]

This just happened to me again at Sepang after updating to r 2322 and building. Screenshots coming soon...

edit: I made an animated gif this time.



edit 2: I have been able to reproduce this pretty consistently for one session of the game. I'm not sure that the track or car matters much but I'm using Sepang/TL2.
1. start vdrift, go to practice game, select car and track, start game
2. if the camera doesn't go crazy, exit vdrift and repeat #1
3. when the camera goes crazy, ESC, leave game, start a new practice game with same settings -> it should happen again

I have found that the camera will go crazy right as I drive towards the start line. If I put it in 1st, start rolling slowly, then put it back in neutral and roll forward, this does not happen. If at any point I put it back in first and start accelerating, the camera goes into outer space again. I tried very light accelerating and could prevent it but any kind of normal racing will set it off. If it happens one time, it seems to happen consistently no matter how many times I leave the practice and restart.

[joevenzon]

I can't reproduce this, even with your detailed instructions. Alright... as of R2323 the camera bounce is now completely deterministic. So, hopefully this is fixed, but if not, I'll have a better idea of where to look.

[thelusiv]

I can still reproduce this as of 2326.

[joevenzon]

What happens if you change src/camera.cpp line 205 from:

Code:

return anchor+(modbody+bouncesim.GetOffset())*offset_effect_strength;

to

Code:

return anchor+modbody*offset_effect_strength;

[joevenzon]

If that fixes the problem, then can you revert the line back to normal, uncomment line 98, and dump stdout to a file?