There are 2 types of head tracking that I am aware of, the first is when you turn your head left and right and the in car camera moves to the left and the right (as seen in many PC racing games) much like using the buttons on our wheels to look out the side windows. The second is a lot more intersting as it creates the illusion of an actual 3D space and according to what's been posted on the US official Gran Turismo site it seems to be that the latter kind may be included in GT5.

"By moving your face parallel to the screen, you can change your point of view (field of view). This makes possible a sensation as though you are actually inside your chosen car."

Source.

Here's a video of this type seconds type of head tracking in use.

The EU GT site seemed to me to suggest the first type of head tracking.

housey72 wrote:The EU GT site seemed to me to suggest the first type of head tracking.

This is a video of the first type of head tracking that I'm talking about, he's twisting his neck left/right and nodding his head up/down to control the movement of a camera. The in game camera is mainly rotating/panning on a fixed axis, mimicking the movement of his head, which gives a full view of the cockpit, but an unatural perspective. He is using Track IR which many PC sim racers also use and as you can clearly see he's not moving his face "parallel" to the screen much.




This is a video of someone using the second type of head tracking which is very similar to the Playstation 3 Video in my first post. As you can see he is not twisting his neck left/right and nodding up/down to control the camera, rather he is moving his face "parallel" to the screen and is able to look behind objects, this creates a more natural perspective as if he is looking out of a window into another world. The in game camera here is not rotating/panning on a fixed axis but is moving horizontally left/right, vericaly up/down, backwards/forwards & in various combinations of all 3 in a virtual 3D world, mimicking the users head position in the real world.



By the way it's not true what he said about the Sony video not zooming, watch the video in the first post again to confirm!

I love that second version, it's pretty amazing. I would love to see that in GT5. Not so sure it would help when driving but it would be good in the walk about feature.

housey72 wrote:I love that second version, it's pretty amazing. I would love to see that in GT5. Not so sure it would help when driving but it would be good in the walk about feature.

It would be a great help when racing only if you use the cockpit cam, you could move your head closer & to one side to get a better view out of the side window & of the wing mirror. Also, in a car where the steering wheel obscures the dials slightly you could raise or lower your head to see behind it & moving closer to the TV then downwards would allow you to see more of the sky out of the windscreen.

This will give all cockpit cam racers an awesome experience if used & the extra realism it would add to the simulation I find very exciting. Of course it will look much more subtle in GT than in these videos because there wil not be loads of brighlty coloured spheres at different distances & points in space to accentuate the effect!

Oh dear, I am disappointed, judging by this video it does seem that all they've implemented is the old type of head tracking as found already in many PC games. They could've done so much more with it, looks like I won't be getting a PS Eye after all.

VBR wrote:Oh dear, I am disappointed, judging by this video it does seem that all they've implemented is the old type of head tracking as found already in many PC games.

Thought as much.

MMM looks ok, but i must admitt i expected more, nothing to get to excited about, after seeing the interview at E3 games show i thought we where going to get something spectacular, may aswell set the buttons up on your wheel.

So this way head tracking will save you 1 button assignment on the wheel. Example: right = look back, left = trigger head tracking for looking left and right. Can't help but wonder if headtracking could be useful if turned on permanantly without having to use a button, or that it would be undriveable because every headmovement is translated somehow to the screen and we by nature move to much when playing?