Dirt 2 - FOV - Camera Editing - Head Tracking

[pizzy00]

Hey fellow Rift users.

Since the DrivVR demo we have seen from Oculus at GDC is not available we can work on this instead.

I have been doing some research on Dirt 2 and the Vireio driver. I have a Logitech MOMO driving wheel http://www.logitech.com/en-us/support/3 ... =14&bit=64 and would like to experience a driving game using the Rift.

If anyone has tried it out like me you will see the FOV and Camera setting will need to modified if it is ever to be playable on the Rift.

Here is a link to a forum post that has some information and software needed to hopefully accomplish this.

http://www.nogripracing.com/forum/showt ... ?p=1627851

The head tracking is not currently working for the Rift also.

I am no programmer so I am not sure how hard it will be to mod support for the Rift for Dirt 2.

Since it is early days for Rift I might as well try to help mod and provide feedback for modding existing games to support the Rift.

Thank you for any help and support.

As with any modding be prepared to break stuff, always make backups, and be prepared to possibly have to reinstall games.

[Diorama]

I have noticed in the list of 'supported games' on the VorpX site that most racing games have no support for head-tracking, at a hugely disproportionate rate compared to non-racing games.

Is there something inherent in the programming/modelling/design of racing games that makes linking camera-control to the sensor difficult?

[cybereality]

It may be possible to rotate the camera with an injection driver. In fact, I tried it, and it was almost working on some games. The main issue is that games normally cull (hide) geometry that is outside the view of the camera. So even though you can adjust the camera, it will look strange, and most of the scene (in that direction) will be empty. In addition, sometimes the inside of the car is not fully modeled, and there actually isn't even a side or back of the car in the game. Although some games do let you look around the cockpit with the analog stick, so maybe there is something that could be done there. I honestly didn't spend a lot of time with it.

[pizzy00]

It may be possible to rotate the camera with an injection driver. In fact, I tried it, and it was almost working on some games. The main issue is that games normally cull (hide) geometry that is outside the view of the camera. So even though you can adjust the camera, it will look strange, and most of the scene (in that direction) will be empty. In addition, sometimes the inside of the car is not fully modeled, and there actually isn't even a side or back of the car in the game. Although some games do let you look around the cockpit with the analog stick, so maybe there is something that could be done there. I honestly didn't spend a lot of time with it.

I completely understand what you are saying here.

Here is what I tested so far. I mapped up, down, left, and right view to xbox controller. I was able to control how fast I moved the view. Looking left and right I would say the guessing the whole angle viewable in game is around 110 degrees. So everything outside of the would be like you say not created in game. So even though it may not be possible to look behind or completely right or left, due to car not being modeled or other issues. The up and down view guessing on viewing angle is less than 90 degrees.

I will make a video showing the view extent in the game here in a bit.

[pizzy00]

Here is a video showing the view extents.

link http://youtu.be/mBEGDtT7q1Q

Showing Dirt 2 view extent. Xbox controller mapped to view controls. Guessing on viewing degrees up and down view 40 to 60 degrees, left and right view 60 to 90 degrees.

[cybereality]

In that case it could probably be done. At least to around 60 degrees maybe.

[pizzy00]

I think it would still be fun to try out. Having some head movement is better than no head movement imo. I notice on a replay of an exterior view of the car you can see they modeled some roll cages bars, seats, and extras at least on that car I featured in the video. If it was possible to go past the current view extents there would probably be some culling. I was thinking since their are some values for the camera position x,y,z it would be cool to edit those to push the camera back allowing a potential higher visible FOV since I think there is a limit on max FOV, again there may be culling.

[mm0zct]

I have Dirt2 working with head tracking!

I've made a Rift sensor input plugin for FaceTrackNoIR, which has Freetrack Support (which hooks into the TrackIR input for Dirt2 and 3).

This will be in their release 1.8, but I'll make sure a pre-release is available for people to play with asap, I'm just working a few other niggles out.

I do have a problem with Dirt2 though, the walls and other physics objects are not rendered correctly, and seem to pop and jump about as you move with virieo enabled. Also I'm struggling to persuade the FOV to be larger, even editing the car's xml file to push the FOV to 110 it's not changed it, and this makes the distortion wrong. Shadows/lighting is also a problem, I noticed Dirt3 has an ultra low shadow option which dirt2 does not, so maybe a setting configuration can get rid of the shadows completely.

After trying dirt3 I have to say that was a disaster. The car and ground in the menu, and all the 3d text had just exploded into vertices at 0 and infinity, somewhat like borderlands 2. Since the menu wasn't there I obviously couldn't play any games but I doubt it would have been pleasant

[cybereality]

Very cool.

[joakizmo]

I have Dirt2 working with head tracking!

I've made a Rift sensor input plugin for FaceTrackNoIR, which has Freetrack Support (which hooks into the TrackIR input for Dirt2 and 3).

I've been playing Dirt2 with this for a couple of days now. It's not just completely playable, it's super fun.

I do have a problem with Dirt2 though, the walls and other physics objects are not rendered correctly, and seem to pop and jump about as you move with virieo enabled. Also I'm struggling to persuade the FOV to be larger, even editing the car's xml file to push the FOV to 110 it's not changed it, and this makes the distortion wrong. Shadows/lighting is also a problem, I noticed Dirt3 has an ultra low shadow option which dirt2 does not, so maybe a setting configuration can get rid of the shadows completely.

Except for the FOV, which I kind of feel is alright as it is, I haven't noticed any of these problems. Objects seem to render normally and no problems with shadows or lightning. I'll play around with the graphics settings later on to see if anything weird happens.

[joakizmo]

Tried just about every ingame graphics setting, it's all looking very good here. All shadows are correctly showing and no pop up objects.

Also;

Having some head movement is better than no head movement imo.

I agree. Head tracking in racing games are mostly so you can look into corners. While vertical view is somewhat limited in Dirt2, it's just about good enough for slight up and down movement of your head, which is all you'd normally do in a car. The horizontal view is good enough for looking out both side windows, which is more than enough for peeking into corners, or even so that you can lay sideways, dRifting, looking the way your car is going instead of straight ahead, relative to the car. It would be fun to look out the back window instead of the mirrors while reversing, but for now this works really good imo.

[mm0zct]

Great which version of virieo are you using? And what's your config file's game mode setting? The dirt3 fov changer utility works on dirt2 too, i found 88-90 to be best.

[joakizmo]

I'm using 1.0.5 rc1. Haven't done any changes to any config files, so I'm guessing these are standard settings? If these even are the settings you're talking about. Game mode?
<profile game_name="DiRT 2" game_exe="dirt2.exe" game_type="301" separation="0" convergence="0" swap_eyes="false" yaw_multiplier="25" pitch_multiplier="25" roll_multiplier="1" />

edit: changed FOV to 90. thanks for the heads up, this is much better.

[mm0zct]

that's really odd. what are your system specs? it's still all messed up for me. are you playing the steam version?

[joakizmo]

Steam version, GTX Titan and a couple of years old 950 i7. In other games with well known bugs, the Titan has just about the very same problems as the 680 (and similar). So "bugwise" that would be a good comparison.

[WiredEarp]

Guys, just thought i'd point out that most racing games have support for TrackIR already, so if you have a TrackIR, you can probably just stick the reflectors to your Rift to control the view.
That means that you probably just need the Vireio drivers to warp and side by side the image, saving a bit of hassle.

@ mm0zct: Your Rift sensor plug in sounds like it could be very useful!

[mm0zct]

it's that trackir support that ftnoir/opentrack abuses, so I'm feeding the rift sensor data straight into the trackir head tracking code. this avoids all the faff of camera based traking.


my system is an amd 7870 and 6 core phenomII. I am also using the steam version. what windows version are you running? it's most likely to be graphics driver or os based differences.

could you upload your working hardware-config.xml for dirt2 please?

[joakizmo]

Win 7. Encoding a gameplay video i frapped now, uploading within the hour.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<hardware_settings_config version="51">
<cpu>
<threadStrategy parallelUpdateRender="true" workerMapFile="system/workerMap8Core.xml" forceFeedbackProcessor="6" dvdStorageProcessor="7" dataSetMonitorProcessor="4" renderProcessor="0" updateProcessor="2" fileStreamProcessor="5" />
</cpu>
<audio_card>
<audio mixing="rapture3D" />
</audio_card>
<graphics_card>
<directx forcedx9="true" />
<resolution width="1280" height="800" aspect="normal" fullscreen="true" vsync="0" multisampling="8xqcsaa">
<refreshRate rate="60" />
</resolution>
<gamma level="1.0" />
</graphics_card>
<graphics_detail level="high" />
<shadows enabled="true" size="2048" maskQuality="1" />
<particles enabled="true" wind="true" dynamicRes="false" />
<crowd enabled="true" detail="1" tessellation="true" />
<cloth enabled="true" detail="1" />
<postprocess quality="1" />
<groundcover mode="blended" clutter="true" />
<objects lod="1.5" maxlod="0" />
<trees lod="1.5" maxlod="0" />
<vehicles characterQuality="4" lodQuality="3" />
<envmap faces="6" size="512" forceBilinear="false" />
<water update="true" detail="2" tessellation="true" />
<mirrors enabled="true" forceBilinear="false" width="2048" height="512" car_maxlod="0" car_culldist="500.0" />
<skidmarks enabled="true" />
<dynamic_ambient_occ enabled="true" quality="1" />
<night_lighting volumes="true" lights="0" shadows="true" />
<physics environmentalDamage="true" vehicleDamage="true" />
<input device_type="auto" />
<motion enabled="true" ip="dbox" port="20777" delay="1" extradata="0" />
</hardware_settings_config>

[joakizmo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ucyefre84I

[kalabalik]

Very very nice to see this, but I'm wondering if the tracking is 1:1 or at least feel natural when driving?
I got a Fanatec wheel just aching to go VR with me!

[mm0zct]

tracking is 1:1.

i'm so jealous that it is working for you. i'm on win7 x64, i'll try your profile tomorrow thank you.

edit: it looks to me from the video that you have no stereoscopy, a if it is in mode 0. this explains why it looks correct, but I don't know why it's happening.

[joakizmo]

i'm so jealous that it is working for you. i'm on win7 x64, i'll try your profile tomorrow thank you.

Hope it works out. Might be a bug with AMD drivers. I posted the video in the Rift forums, so people will probably flock in here soon to try it. Should be easy to narrow it down with more testers.

[mm0zct]

please see my edit. could you upload a screenshot for an eye difference comparison?

[pizzy00]

This is great. That would cool if someone could create a guide for this. I could see this becoming a new roadtovr/com article. I could never get the FOV program to work it messed up my Dirt 2 game I gotta reinstall.

How did you get the FOV program to work?

I got the Logitech MOMO wheel it moves 1:1 I know from past experience. I have an AMD 5850 I can test for graphics issues. I thought there was a shadow issue in the past.

Have you tried an FOV higher than 90? Not sure if it is possible go up to 110 FOV?

Did you have any lag from controller?

[joakizmo]

edit: it looks to me from the video that you have no stereoscopy, a if it is in mode 0. this explains why it looks correct, but I don't know why it's happening.

please see my edit. could you upload a screenshot for an eye difference comparison?

Hmm, pretty sure it has stereoscopy? When I pause the video and close one eye and then close the other and switch back and forth, the two images clearly has different degree of depth. Or is that just one of the frames being ahead of the other? Screenshot coming up.

[Raptor5150]

Excited for this.. Finally the game I wanted to have rift support does!

I didnt pick up dirt 2 in the sale.. but i got dirt 3 awhile back for cheap so hopefully if we can get the shadows thing worked out I can play that just fine

I bought my rift yesterday so I have a long wait ahead of me.. but Dirt 3 and iRacing will surely be worth it.

Added you to steam btw joakizmo

[joakizmo]

Or is that just one of the frames being ahead of the other?

Yep.


It looks surprisingly good in mono though. I'm afraid to tinker with the separation now, in case I get glitchy shadows and objects.

Added you to steam btw joakizmo

Cool!

[pizzy00]

I just tried it on Perception 1.0.5 rc1. I have shadows on ultra low and had issues. I have not figured out how to disable shadows on the game yet. My current AMD drivers version is 13.3. EDIT: These shadow issues seem similar to the shadow issues in Far Cry 3 and Skyrim.

EDIT: @joakizmo What are you using for head tracking? I see you are using FaceTrackNoIR from youtube description.

[joakizmo]

edit: it looks to me from the video that you have no stereoscopy, a if it is in mode 0. this explains why it looks correct, but I don't know why it's happening.

Well at least there's nothing wrong with your setup. I got the exact same problems you mentioned when I tried to increase the separation. F6 to reset and everything looked fine, although in mono.

However, and this might seem a bit weird, but because everything inside the car is static, and everything outside the car is at a distance, it still looks real good, and I don't really think you'd see much difference with stereoscopic view. I'm guessing the render would probably be close to the same as in mono.

edit; I'm just super glad the head tracking works. Much more important for driving cars in virtual reality than stereoscopic 3d imo. Thanks.

[joakizmo]

How did you get the FOV program to work?

Downloaded it and used the location of Dirt2 instead of Dirt3. Pushed the big red button that said "do not push".

Did you have any lag from controller?

I had some degree of lag on both the controller and the tracking when vsync was enabled. Close to none when it was disabled.

I just tried it on Perception 1.0.5 rc1. I have shadows on ultra low and had issues. I have not figured out how to disable shadows on the game yet. My current AMD drivers version is 13.3. EDIT: These shadow issues seem similar to the shadow issues in Far Cry 3 and Skyrim.

Try it with no separation. It's mono but at least there's no shadow glitches.

EDIT: @joakizmo What are you using for head tracking? I see you are using FaceTrackNoIR from youtube description.

This;

I've made a Rift sensor input plugin for FaceTrackNoIR, which has Freetrack Support (which hooks into the TrackIR input for Dirt2 and 3).

You'll need - Facetracknoir build 20130428 2.7 http://speedy.sh/J2RjC/ftnoir-posix-20130428-2.7z (pre-alpha 2.8) or above, and Vireio Perception.
(..)
Start FacetrackNoir (ftnoir.exe), set the first Tracker Source to "Rift". Set the Game Protocol to "FreeTrack 2.0"
You need to edit the curves to allow free head movement.
Start perception.exe, and select "Oculus Rift" in the drop down menu with "No Tracking".
Put on the rift and in the Go! box click "Start"

[cybereality]

Neat.

[LordJuanlo]

Wow I got it working in Dirt 2, it's very nice! Is there any way to change the driver position? It feels very zoomed. I have read that to change field of view you must edit the cameras.xml file for each car.

Thanks for the detailed instructions and for sharing your config joakizmo. I got everything up and running in 10 minutes.

[joakizmo]

I have read that to change field of view you must edit the cameras.xml file for each car.

Try this;

http://www.nogripracing.com/forum/showp ... ostcount=6

The dirt3 fov changer utility works on dirt2 too, i found 88-90 to be best.

[mm0zct]

Instructions for tracking in Dirt, fsx, wings of prey, other trackir, freetrack, simconnect games


Download opentrack:
Http://ananke.Laggy.pk/opentrack/opentr ... 0501_1.zip
extract the archive somewhere (it's a zip, it doesn't matter where you put it)
launch the ftnoir.exe/opentrack.exe application
select the input tracker to be Rift
click the curves button and edit the first three by dragging the control points (starting right to left) to the top right hand corner so they are a straight line from 0,0 to 180,180, we don't want any weird curves for the Rift.
Select the output as FreeTrack2.0 (or simconnect for some games, also support mouse or joystick emulation)
make sure your Rift is facing forwards and press "start"
you should now see tracking information displayed

Now fire up your game and hope it works, I had no issues with Dirt2,3 or Wings of Prey.

To get a game to work in mono with virieo take the line for dirt2, copy it, and change the game_type to be 0. Also edit the executable name and make sure your game is running at 1280x800

You will probably want to set the fov to about 90, you can do this for Dirt2,3,GRID with dengo's utility at http://www.nogripracing.com/forum/showt ... ?p=1627851
For Dirt2,3 I used an FOV of 88 and Y and Z offset of 0.02 in this utility (I felt a little short and far away from the wheel)

Using this post you should be able to get going in a lot of trackir/simconnect simulator games

[LordJuanlo]

After adjusting the fov is much better, thank you very much!

[RoTaToR]

After ~2-3hours of reading/buy the game/download/reading more/config/trying/reading/config/trying...

1) Headtracking works
2.) Perception works

now i only need the fov-changer. Waiting for Registration-Email. At the moment it works "sub-ok" it feels like i´am 3" behind the wheel. Not comfortable...

Edit:
Now with FOV 88 it sems to be very good. The problem is, when you drive fast, you dont move your head and watch 90° left/right. But the experience is... you are inside the car... i need such a G27 weel

Edit2:
The Wheel is sold out!! - other rifters where faster?

[ibaned]

Hello first post here but thought i would add my experience here with DIRT 3 trying this with the post above.
I change the dirt 2 xml profile in perception to this.

profile game_name="DiRT 2" game_exe="dirt2.exe" game_type="601" separation="0" convergence="0" swap_eyes="false" yaw_multiplier="25" pitch_multiplier="25" roll_multiplier="1" />

Changed game_type to "601" from "301"

Rename DIRT 3.exe to dirt 2.exe

Then pressed f6 to swap eyes when in game, worked in stereo for me .

Trying with game_type = 301 game had bad graphics glithes ,driver flooting in air etc.

Found mono to hard to judge distance to corners corners felt 1 meter away instead of 500 meters away.

Only glitchs i noticed was side mirror not in stereo .

Head Tracking drifted needed to be recentered sometimes.

MY CO DRIVER WAS FROZEN WITH FEAR lol

Best racing fun i had in ages just a blast.

Ibaned

[joakizmo]

Rename DIRT 3.exe to dirt 2.exe

I can't run dirt3.exe renamed to dirt2.exe. Probably because I'm running through Steam, which I assume you're not?

[mm0zct]

He meant he substituted it in the profile, not renamed the actual exe. Good catch on it working better with te other game profile, i believe that's skyrim's? I'll be getting the magnetometer correction in later this week so that should fix the drift hopefully.

[joakizmo]

edit: nevermind. i was running dx11.

I'm running these settings, with shadows turned to "ultra low". Nice stereoscopic 3d, but could use some more tinkering.

<profile game_name="DiRT 2" game_exe="dirt3.exe" game_type="601" separation="0.00718" convergence="-0.3432" swap_eyes="false" yaw_multiplier="29.485" pitch_multiplier="25" roll_multiplier="1" />

Did another video;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCcGNjrlWXs