henke on 12/4/2014 at 14:45
(
http://facetracknoir.sourceforge.net/home/default.htm) FaceTrackNoIR is a free piece of software that lets you use a simple webcam to track your headmovement in games. I'm not enough of a sim enthusiast to consider shelling out for a TrackIR kit, but when I heard about this thing I just had to give it a spin. So I hooked up the PS Eyecam to my PC and got to work!
The good news:
It works! :D It actually friggin works! Tracks my head's rotation and tilt and pitch and whatnot quite handily. Plus it was quite easy to set up!
The bad news:
It doesn't work well! :erg: In my Euro Truck Sim 2 test run with it and I had more collisions than I've had during the entirety of my preceding 19 hours with the game. There is just too much lag in the tracking. I turn my head and 0.5-1 seconds later the game responds. The end result is very disorienting. After fiddling with the settings for a bit I managed to make it more responsive but at the expense of more jitter instead.
How well you manage get this thing working no doubt relies a lot on the game, your webcam, the lighting in your room, the feature-richness of your face, the distance between your webcam to your face, and how much you're willing to fiddle with the settings. But despite the wonky nature of the current build, this is an awesome piece of software. Being able to look around in the game completely without the use of peripherals but simply by just
moving my head was pretty mindblowing. This
is 2014! :D
Thirith on 12/4/2014 at 17:30
If you can afford it, henke, I think you'd love the TrackIR - even if it's just for a couple of games. If I'm rational about it, I don't use mine nearly enough, and apparently the company that makes and sells them is pretty dickish in their business practices, but when I use the TrackIR I love it, whether in Arma or in Freespace 2.
Yakoob on 13/4/2014 at 06:38
Err, wait, if it just tracks your head without a headset, then if you turn to the right wouldn't you stop seeing your screen, making it kinda pointless? Or does it just amplify your head movement?
henke on 13/4/2014 at 06:49
Yeah it amplifies it quite a bit. You only have to turn your head maybe 20 degrees to turn 90 degrees in-game.
Thirith on 13/4/2014 at 09:54
At least with the TrackIR this actually works pretty well; you can set up how much your movements are amplified, and it's not just linear, meaning that your movement can be pretty much 1:1 at the centre of your vision and amplified considerably the further you get to the edge. Combined with setting up a dead zone it comes to feel pretty natural quite quickly once you've found a setup that you like.
Muzman on 13/4/2014 at 12:15
I should play with this one day. I'd imagine the quality of the camera and the lighting would make a pretty huge difference.
Someone really keen might even wear something on their head to help it out. I picture people twisting pipe cleaners on their headphones or something.
