Head Bobbing controls - 2D without head tracking

[=/WoVi/=kirumovka]

Currently in IL-2: BoX/GB, there is only one option for camera controls which is to remove the vibration effect found on some aircraft like the A-20 when you open the cowling.
There is no option to remove or limit head bobbing.

While the head-bobbing can be immersive and an enjoyable prank with air sickness effects, the linear delay for G force effects is very disorienting when zooming in and is highly detrimental to my ability to aim and most importantly, track targets as a user who does not fly with head tracking. I have VR which I currently don't use for technical *ahem* steamlink issues, so I continue to fly flatscreen most of the time.

VR users do not have any head bobbing effects whatsoever, which makes them practically immune to air sickness effects minus blurring, so there should not be any excuse to not have a function to at least disable the head bobbing effects.

 

What makes the issue especially more important is that for most of the time I've flown IL-2, I've used crappy monitors with massive draw latency. It wasn't a major deal for me in the past when I used to fly with 75hz 580p custom resolution on a 5:4 monitor out of multi-tasking necessity and FOV preferences (FOV is based on window verticallity in most games after 2000s including IL-2, so vertical screens are highly disadvantaged) and the spotting/identification was very terrible mostly because of the resolution problem (yak's wings were invisible as close as 300m) but I digress.

 

I now fly with a 60hz monitor but the draw ghosting went up from 2-3 frames to an eyewatering 10 frames or so.

My issue now is this ghosting which I'll hopefully solve when I get a new monitor eventually but that won't solve the issue that the game has this obsession with head bobbing motion which may still pose a problem even after I get a new higher refresh rate monitor.

The head bobbing wouldn't be so much of a problem if it was a bit more realistic, but it animates with a 1 second smoothing delay in the form of an S-curve, so when you pull the stick to align the camera speed with a target to identify it better, you can see the whole environment move but then it slows down then speeds up again even though your hand hasn't moved.

 

This makes visual alignment very annoying as your stick input does not match the visual environment and as a result, if I only have a second to identify an enemy or friend and what type of aircraft it is, it can be very annoying as even a knife-edge orientation bf109 or a p-47 carrying a bomb will look like an me 262 when it's smeared enough with a black sooty trail contrailing it.

It also adds a disconnect between what my aircraft is doing and what I think its doing, which is probably why my aim is so much better in VR with an eye closed even though I'm not doing anything different.

 

TL;DR:
Is there a way for me to disable or scale head bobbing effects? If not, can the option PLEASE be added?

Edited October 19 by =/WoVi/=kirumovka

[Zooropa_Fly]

You can enable / disable 'Head Shake' if you go into settings / Camera...

[=/WoVi/=kirumovka]

8 hours ago, Zooropa_Fly said:

You can enable / disable 'Head Shake' if you go into settings / Camera...

 

10 hours ago, =/WoVi/=kirumovka said:

IL-2: BoX/GB, there is only one option for camera controls which is to remove the vibration effect found on some aircraft like the A-20 when you open the cowling.
There is no option to remove or limit head bobbing.

 

If you think I'm wrong, show me a video of a 2D screen player without head bobbing. There's no way to disable the bobbing from within-game, I'm asking if there's a config file somewhere I can change to remove the bobbing effect because head bobbing doesn't exist on VR.

[R33GZ]

7 hours ago, =/WoVi/=kirumovka said:

 

 

If you think I'm wrong, show me a video of a 2D screen player without head bobbing. There's no way to disable the bobbing from within-game, I'm asking if there's a config file somewhere I can change to remove the bobbing effect because head bobbing doesn't exist on VR.

So you have disabled 'head shaking' then?

 

Personally I find it immersive, somewhat similar to real flight... more so than a completely static cockpit at least. And yes, I fly 2D.

Edited October 20 by R33GZ

[Dauntless]

Check in startup.cfg 

shake = 1  and change it to shake = 0

[=/WoVi/=kirumovka]

6 hours ago, Dauntless said:

Check in startup.cfg 

shake = 1  and change it to shake = 0

I'll say it again, I want to remove bobbing, not shaking. They are NOT the same thing! I actually want translational shaking enabled (albeit reduced intensity) as it helps give the feedback that would otherwise be missing but its not that important.

Just in case, I checked it, and what do you know:
 

[KEY = camera]
	cinematic = 1
	head_smooth = 0.50000
	hmd_restricted = 0
	shake = 0
	vr_zoom_speed = 0.30000
[END]

I doubt head_smooth is the thing I want adjusted since there's also another setting in-game that corresponds to that name but I'll try setting that to zero, and I'm pretty sure cinematic is just the camera wobble in third person as there's an in-game setting corresponding to it.

EDIT: Yup, just confirmed. head_smooth is exactly what I thought it was, its just camera input smoothing which mirrors the in-game setting. It does not remove bobbing.

Edited October 20 by =/WoVi/=kirumovka

[Zooropa_Fly]

So is this the effect then ?

 

Spoiler

 

Edited October 20 by Zooropa_Fly

[BlitzPig_EL]

I'm still trying to understand what is meant by "head bobbing" myself.

An in game track showing what it is may be helpful.

 

[MDzmitry]

25 минут назад, BlitzPig_EL сказал:

I'm still trying to understand what is meant by "head bobbing" myself.

An in game track showing what it is may be helpful.

 

I think it means the head "sinking" lower when the pilot experiences a certain amount of G force

[BlitzPig_EL]

Ahhhh.  Thanks.

[Dauntless]

Try turning off "cinematic" 

I tried it and it looks like what you are looking for! 

Edited October 20 by Dauntless

[R33GZ]

Looks like you asked the same thing in 2024 and got a similar response. I think the answer you are looking for is no, you can't. Also unlikely it will be changed is my guess.

 

Best of luck to you.

 

12 hours ago, =/WoVi/=kirumovka said:

I'll say it again, I want to remove bobbing, not shaking. They are NOT the same thing! I actually want translational shaking enabled (albeit reduced intensity) as it helps give the feedback that would otherwise be missing but its not that important.

Just in case, I checked it, and what do you know:
 

[KEY = camera]
	cinematic = 1
	head_smooth = 0.50000
	hmd_restricted = 0
	shake = 0
	vr_zoom_speed = 0.30000
[END]

I doubt head_smooth is the thing I want adjusted since there's also another setting in-game that corresponds to that name but I'll try setting that to zero, and I'm pretty sure cinematic is just the camera wobble in third person as there's an in-game setting corresponding to it.

EDIT: Yup, just confirmed. head_smooth is exactly what I thought it was, its just camera input smoothing which mirrors the in-game setting. It does not remove bobbing.

 

[=/WoVi/=kirumovka]

On 10/20/2025 at 10:32 PM, Dauntless said:

Try turning off "cinematic" 

I tried it and it looks like what you are looking for! 

Nope, that's external only. I just double checked to make sure I was correct and it seems exactly as I thought it would be. I said earlier it matches the settings in the in-game UI, so I'm not sure why you think what you said was true