DOCS TrackIR how-to

Hi Luis — Thanks so much for the detailed reply, I greatly appreciate it. I went to Page 17 of the manual and read it as follows:

Using Control Points for Curve Editing:
The control points on the graph allow you to change the shape of the curve by clicking and dragging the points. You can manually enter values or fine tune with the arrow keys in the adjustment boxes above the curve. The X value of a control point represents where your head is in actual 3D space. So, a control point with an X value of 15 would represent actual head movement of 15 degrees (rotational) or 15 cm (translational).

The Y value of a control point represents its multiplication. So, a control point with a Y value of 4 would multiply your actual head movement by 4 at that position. A control point with a Y value of 1 would result in 1:1 head/game movement at that position. A control point with a Y value of .5 would reduce your in game movement to 50% of your actual head movement. A control point with a Y value of 0 would result in no in-game movement at that position (a “dead zone”).

Combining the X and Y values into one coordinate determines how much motion scaling will occur at various points of your actual head movement. For instance, a control point coordinate of (15,3) would result in your in-game view control being 3x your actual head movement when your head is at 15 degrees. So, 15 degrees of real life movement would result in 45 degrees of in-game movement. Note : You can zoom in on any area on the graph by hovering over it with your mouse pointer and using the scroll wheel to move in and out or left-clicking and dragging over a region. Click the scroll wheel to reset zoom. You can resize the graph by increasing the size of the entire window or the settings pane.

WOW! I needed to take 2 Tylenol after I read this. Unfortunately my Parkinson’s Disease has adversely affected my ability to easily grasp new concepts. I used to be a Quality Engineer and I loved learning new things like this. These days, I need YouTube videos that I can watch over and over again until the light bulb finally comes on. When I bought the TrackIR it came with a 30 day money back guarantee. Unfortunately, I might need to do so if I can’t figure this out.

When I went to a Skip Barber Race school way back in 2005, I so clearly remember the race instructor telling us not to look where your car is going, but to look when you want the car to go. I was hoping that the TrackIR system would allow me to do just this, to look into the corners to help me apex the turns better to improve my lap times.

 

@FriendOfJah what size monitor are you using? Might be able to help as I've messed around with TrackIR quite a bit. I found that the software can be a bit confusing, but after you figure it out, it eventually makes sense.

If it's overwhelming, I'd suggest to start with one single axis and go from there. Try the 'Yaw' curve first as this should be what is the head turning left/right. Uncheck all the rest of them to start. Set the curve to be dead flat with all the points at 2.0 on the graph. Then, set the Global Speed setting (at the top of the adjusments area) to 0.4 or 0.5. That should result in a fairly natural movement, where your real head movement will be very close to the way the view moves in the game. It probably won't turn so much to show you the right window, but that depends on your monitor size and FOV settings. But it's a good place to start.

You'll probably want to make further changes afterwards, but start there. If you report back, then maybe can help fine tune it further for you.

 

Hi Atak Kat — Thanks so much for the reply and the offer of help. My monitor is a 27” LG HDR NVidia G-Sync monitor. When I’m seated properly, my eyes are approximately 37 inches away at dead center. I’ve totally forgotten how to set FOV in ACC.

I’ll definitely try your suggestions for the setup later on today and let you know how it goes here in this thread with another update. Thanks again for your help.

 

You can use TrackIR to see where you want to go. That is precisely one of the main reasons I use TrackIR, but also because a like a tidy screen (I do not use radar or virtual mirror, for instance), so I can drive as close as possible as to how it’s in RL, (exclusively due to personal choice, nothing else)

Even before you jump to ACC with TrackIR on, you can check how it is tracking your head movement inside TrackIR software.
I set he motion curves for each axis with two things in mind: how much does the image moves - up, down, left, right, tilt - and how fast it moves.
My goal is to have a fast and controlled ingame view change with relatively little head movement, so that with a single “glimpse” I can look to where I want to go, plus, with a slight movement I’m practically just using my normal head/body movement to change ingame view.

I’m using a 34” monitor, FOV 26, around 70cm from monitor and ingame view distance around 10/15 (default is usually 0, some cars may differ).
This set requires a bigger head movement to change ingame view than if I my FOV was higher (36, for instance), if my in game view was more distant (0) or if I was further from the monitor.
In all the above scenarios, a shorter head angle movement would allow for a bigger ingame view change, than how I have it setup, and, in some cases, it would no even require any head movement at all, because the ingame view already includes things that I can only see, with my set, if I look for them with some head movement of my own.

Therefore, in my motion curves, I set a low x value, so that my required own head movement is short, but y values are progressively greater, increasing how much ingame view changes.

In my case, probably it works quite well because I tend to keep my head and body relatively still when driving, thus the image in quite steady.
For instance, if put any friend of mine driving with my TrackIr profile, it’s almost impossible to have a steady image, even if the car is going only straight, because they move their head and body much more than me.

On a side note, they are really surprised to see how much and how quickly they move their head when driving, something that none is aware of because (so I think) the eyes tracking heavily compensates for the head and body movement.

In my own case, I think that my steadiness is due, partly, to me, naturally (I guess from some body movement discipline acquired in several years of martial arts) and a big measure from using TrackIR for nearly 15 years in sims.

 

Hi Atak Kat and Luis. -- Thanks again to both of you for the help and assistance. I went into TrackIR and set it up as shown in the attached picture. I'm not sure if it will display correctly in this post. Here's the URL to the picture file too.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AumjyAX6XBNyjcEjLpW_7PA41zH4hA?e=VVGZia

I then ran a 90 minute session with a friend back in CT at Suzuka. It seemed to work pretty well. I didn't get dizzy at all, and I could see much better into the corners for sure. I got my best lap time ever at that track. What would you recommend I try next? Where should I go from here? Thanks in advance to both of you for your valuable insight and knowledge and making it simple for me to understand.

 

Yaw (left/right) is obviously the more important one.
If you find it good enough for you, keep it.
If you feel there is still any room for improvements, save the current profile, make a copy of it and, in the copy, change it 1.0 at the time (either x or y) and see if you notice any improvements whatsoever,
If things starts to get worse, you always have the first profile to get back to.
You can have as many profiles as you want, so you can switch between them to see if things get better or worse.

Nonetheless, once you feel completely comfortable with how the in game view reacts to your head movement, in terms of speed and amplitude of motion, there isn’t really much more to do, unless you make any significant changes to any of the settings that influence TrackIR setup, namely, FOV, ingame game view positions, monitor size or monitor distance.

From there you can also add pitch and roll, if you want.

Pitch can be useful in case you don't use virtual mirror and the car interior mirror is either out of sight or just partly visible, so you have to look slightly above as well to see it completely.
It may also be helpful if you don't use any of the ingame HUD helpers, and want to check if you have rain lights turned off or on, or low/high beam, because, in some cars, the cockpit lights indication can be out of sight, so you need to look a bit down.

Roll is not required at all, only for immersions purposes, if you want, by rolling the view slightly, accompanying the natural tendency your head and body may have to roll also when turning, so that the ingame image view keeps aligned with your eyes plane.

 

Hi Luis — Thanks again for your very detailed reply and recommendations. I’m going to try out some of your suggestions tomorrow.
Would it be possible to get a screenshot of your TrackIR settings to look at? That would be very helpful.
Also, how do I calculate my FOV for ACC based on the size of my monitor and distance away?
Thanks again. It’s great to be able to tap you as a resource here in these forums with those 15 years of experience with this setup.

 

Here are two videos, that I believe to be better than a single screenshot.

1st video: TrackIR profile, keep in mind that this just my personal preference for how I control the headtracking.
The profile allows for very fast change in yaw and pitch, locked at around 60º left/right, and 23º up/down, so I can look around with little head movement, basically my natural movement to look at corners and just a glance to look at mirrors.
Probably it will not suit you as, until today, none of my friends that tested TrackIR with this profile were able to keep the image view steady even in straight line, however, as you can see, I can easily keep the crosshair centered on the TrackIR testing screen.

2nd video: TrackIR profile in use with ACC. I don't use virtual mirror, radar nor screen arrows, just CrewChief, car mirrors and TrackIR.
At the start you can see how I can use TrackIR to check low/high beam lights on/off and raining light as well.

 

Please delete

 

I'm starting to get used to TrackIr, I think although I am not faster with it, I am definitely more consistent.
It is great when leaving the pits or re-joining the track after an off: combined with triple screens I feel like I am looking around the car not just out of it. Perfect pit stops are just easy!
Here is my profile, where I use all the axes except Roll (I don't need it) and set the Motion Control Smooth value to 20 which seems to suit me better.

 

Thanks so much for sharing.

 

I know this is a little off topic, does TrackIR work with Asseto Corsa? I purchased it on sale at Steam and downloaded it. I haven’t played it yet. I also go Project Card 2 on sale, but I can’t get TrackIR to work with it. Thanks for all replies.

 

For AC, TrackIR works only in Cockpit view .... and for Pcars 2 only in helmet view and PC2 started in VR mode.
I think I didn't forget anything

 

Works fine in AC

Not tried in PC2 but in AMS2 which uses the same engine, you need to start the game in steamVR mode and use the helmet cam to get it working...so maybe try that.

 

Hi Mike - Thanks for the reply. So you don’t need any specific camera view to use TrackIR in regular AC?
Also, I tried running PC2 in SteamVR mode, but I get an error message saying, “No VR headset detected”. I couldn’t find a way to get part this.

 

Hello guys, i have an issue , i just bought a Delanclip wireless using Opentrack sofware, try it on ACC game VR from on steam, opentrack working fine but in the game don`t have at all Yaw, pitch and roll. does anyone have an idea?
I ask to Delan support they said it comes from setting on the Game ACC. i checked evry setup on the software and game but i cannot solve it. is there any requiert file for that in ACC? HELP

 

I don´t own Delanclip but TrackHat which uses Opentrack too (A Trackhat version, but it´s still Opentrack). Everything´s working out of the box without having to adjust ACC. Not every camera view allows head tracking though. Do you use the ACC VR version? Why?

In Opentrack I use the Freetrack enhanced 2.0 protocol. Under select interface I set "Use TrackIR, hide Freetrack". Maybe it helps.

 

Thank u Slowheit, still i have an issue with ur recommandations, opentrack working fine no problem on Dirt2, but in the game ACC don`t have at all Yaw, pitch and roll. Axis X Y Z no probleme it's working, also out in the box Opentrack fine!
so i guess i must missing probably something in ACC... any other ideas??? maybe from Devs departement...heeeelp

 

For me, I think it worked before, but when I tried today, I also just have translation movements (xyz) in ACC using FaceTrackNoIR. Did something change in ACC?

Edit:
A just found out, yaw does not work in the first cockpit camera, just in dash cam.

 

And for completeness sake, it also works in 1st cockpit view now, after resetting the view.