@3dvison: I'm thinking the Hillcrest may be the best option as a head-tracker on the HMZ-T1. Though I've never used it or the software, seems legit.

Also, the Peregrine is NOT a data-glove. It can only be used for macros and things like that (e.g. touch your thumb to your middle finger). It doesn't track motion, or bending. It just has contacts on special parts (like the tip of the thumb and fingers). Pretty much useless for VR, except it does look cool.

The P5 glove has nice finger bending tracking, but the motion/position tracking is wonky. I never got it to work quite right. At times it was cool, and some of the demos were nice. But it is a little limited. No where near what something like the Razer Hydra provides. But again, it looks really cool. Probably worth $50 just to try it if you are into VR.

Fakespace disagree!

http://www.inition.co.uk/3D-Technologie ... nch-gloves

Ok, well I guess you can still call it a data-glove, but it is not what you think of from movies.

@machine - Thanks for the info. Thanks for your help to find out the voltage requirement for 3rd Space Vest. I just check their website but currently they only have XL size. I need M size. The VR pod looks nice and that give me another idea. If we can build something like the VR pod but with a full circle at waist height (maybe buy some hula hoop to hack up a VR pod). Then we can mount four large button on our waist at front, left, right and back. Think of us as one giant joystick. Then tie a wiimote to one of the leg for sprint and jump action.

@Palmer - I check out the energizer battery manual but it mention the 9v-12v output is in 10.5v 2A. Do you think it will work for 12v 2A requirement for ASUS WAVI. I can't work out the calculation for the capacity based on the product spec. Let's say for 24W requirement (12v, 2A), how long would the battery last?

@pierreye: The hula-hoop thing is not a back idea. Maybe instead of pushing buttons, there are ropes attached that pull the buttons. May allow for better movement.

@cybereality - I'm thinking about button on the body will provide freedom in orientation as it doesn't matter where your direction is.

Yeah, that makes more sense. Ideally we could do the same thing using positional trackers for a much cleaner setup.


Made some progress on my head-tracking app. Now the 1200VR is supported!



Tracking is really choppy right now, so I still have a little to work to do before its usable. But when this is finished it will allow head-tracking with 1200VR in any game. Later I can add support for other stuff people might want (Hillcrest IMUs, etc.).

Good! You actually should consider to add VRPN support, it's open protocol which immidiately will make your software compatible with a lot of different tracking systems.

I hadn't looked into it before, but it looks like they support a ton of stuff. I will certainly explore that option at some point.

Thats great cybereality,
Even with the stutter, I can still see how the new 6dof Vuzix head tracker seems to respond better than the old 3dof tracker. This is only from watching videos, but the new tracker looks like it moves when you move, the old tracker looked a bit sluggish or drunk, kind of a marshmallowy movment. There was a delay from when you move and it starts to move ? But it would catch up, like you were hooked to the tracker with a springy marshmallow...LOL...Does that make sense from your use with the VR920 ?
Like I said, I am not talking about stutter. That is different.
This new tracker with your driver, looks to have stutter, but the marshmallow movment is gone. Nice work...

The new tracker is way better than the one on the VR920. This new one has almost no jitter, and much smoother overall performance (less cross-talk, etc.). There still is a slight delay (more than the Razer Hydra, for example) but you can only notice if you move fast. Otherwise its really top-notch.

Here is a video of a quick test I did in the OGRE 3D engine. Should give you an idea how smooth it is:

speaking of the Razer Hydra...
some spread the concern that the magnetic field device that tracks the motion wouldnt be suited for full 360°-Freedom Movement coz of the short distance of tracking the controller.
But what if the magnetic device will be placed upside down on top of the ceiling, where the distance is always the same whatever side the user is turning to. Sure there have to be some code implementations but it should work. or not?

That may be possible, but you are still limited by a relatively short cord. Unless you found a way to make it wireless I don't see how it would help.

I mentioned in a previous post somewhere that it should be possible to mount it on the ceiling directly above your head (or under a platform under your feet) with the front half facing you. That way you'd have less variation in the range and generally a gun emitter will be in the sweet spot more than if you have it directly in front of you, so that when you turn away the distance is greatly increased.

Theoretically it would gain you some extra range in the most needed dimensions, but I think you'd need to hack up drivers to convert motion viewed by the tracker from that angle into a 'normal' angle.

Note that I just have the hydra on the desk directly in front of me, and it tracks fine for me when I turn 180 degrees away.

I'm going to tryout head tracking. Just order the wii extension cable that would allow me to mount the wii motion+ on my head using bicycle helmet or headband and connect it to wiimote with the extension cable either to the hand or leg for additional function. Will try to modify the script to read data from 2 different wiimote.

I had an idea: What if you used a headtracker on an HMD (for example on the 1200VR) with simple mouse emulation (yaw, pitch). Then additionally you used a controller (say the Wii Motion+) for a gun, but only enabled the pitch. So yaw would only be on the headset, basically you would have to physically turn to shoot. But the controller would still have some movement (pitch only). So basically you would not have to rotate your head if you didn't want to. You could rotate your whole body, and then move the controller up or down to aim. Would this work?

Another idea I had: same setup with 1200VR and Wiimote+. However both support full mouse emulation in yaw/pitch. However you would need to hold a button down (say the trigger on the nunchuck) to enable the movement of the controller. So if you didn't press the button, the view would only be changed by the headtracker. That way you could turn around without double turning (since the Wiimote also effects yaw). But then if you stopped, you could enable the gun to move and aim. Seems like a decent setup. What do you think?

Obviously it would be great if you could move head and gun independently, but there is not the software to do that yet (but I am looking into it). Any other ideas to solve this problem?

I'm not sure it would be possible to decouple head movements from head movements in most FPS games, even by intercepting DirectX calls since the visor corresponding to the gun is always centered in the screen.

It may be possible by doing a two-step rendering pass, one for the game logic to account for the gun, but without any rendering, then another one without the game logic but with a rendering with altered coordinates to account for head movement. In this case the position of the visor should be calculated to display it at the proper position. Also the timing of the game logic should be kept identical for the two passes to not have drift while shooting, which sounds quite complicated to do.

Could be funny to try that on a FPS game with full access to the source code like Quake III for example. It could help test the concept without all the difficulties related to DirectX DLL injection/interposition at first.

cybereality - The idea looks good. We can try it out in action to see how good is the integration of head tracking with pointing gaming device. I can rewrite the script that without pressing the C button on Nunchuk, it will pass the control of mouse move to head tracker. When press the button, the mouse move action will be pass to gun devices. Currently I don't have a HMD to try it out but I'll prepare the script once I got my extension cable.

fredz - I believe what we want is a combination of on rail shooting game where we can move the shooting cursor within the view and fps shooter mouse look where the head tracking will change our view. The question now is without developer support, how can we move the shooting cursor within the view instead of fix position in the center. Without access to source code, I can't see how this is possible. HL2 source might be a good place to start but we need someone with programming mojo.

Thinking about it a little more, I guess it may be a little bit simpler than I initially though, in fact it could just work like standard stereoscopic rendering.

At the start of each new rendering pass you'd need to read the position of the head from the HMD head-tracking, which you'd use to modify the camera matrix for each corresponding Direct3D camera function call to account for the head position.

Hopefully the collision detection is not based on rays intersections with rendered polygons, so the logic would work as if the view was rendered from the initial position (mouse position for the gun). You would then only have to render the crosshair at the correct position just like in a stereo 3D driver.

I guess it should also be possible to account for roll/yaw/pitch by simply modifying the camera matrix accordingly.

Interesting project indeed, could be funny to try even without an HMD with only a mouse (head) and a Wiimote (gun) for a start.

Yes, that is what I had in mind. It should be just as complex as writing a 3D driver. In fact DDD had some experimental head-tracking that worked kind of like that. It used a web-cam, but the tracking was very bad. However you could see how it would work in theory. I might also probably put together a quick proof-of-concept in a custom 3D engine (using OGRE, etc.) just to test the control schemes quickly. But I think I have a good idea how it should work just based on the mod Vuzix did for UT2004, which includes like 4 different head-tracking schemes.

@ Cyber: I had an idea: What if you used a headtracker on an HMD (for example on the 1200VR) with simple mouse emulation (yaw, pitch). Then additionally you used a controller (say the Wii Motion+) for a gun, but only enabled the pitch. So yaw would only be on the headset, basically you would have to physically turn to shoot. But the controller would still have some movement (pitch only). So basically you would not have to rotate your head if you didn't want to. You could rotate your whole body, and then move the controller up or down to aim. Would this work?

Thats basically what I have done, only I dont believe you really need the button! If you set the sensitivity right on both the gun and the headset, then when you turn your whole body (gun + headset) you get accelerated turn (you can turn down sensitivity to adjust this if you need). When you just turn your head, you can correct your aim with the gun. It might feel weird to some people, but it definitely helps the immersion for me, over just using the gun. I can quickly look over my shoulder and aim my gun at people, or I can just look ahead and fine aim with the gun, etc.

@ pierreye: if we have source code, it should be fairly easy to add in independent aim/movement. Easiest way would be to keep the existing system, and just add a new viewpoint, kind of like Fredz was talking about using the drivers, but using the source code would be much better in terms of tuning etc. Maybe we should all decide on a game to work on and see who can hack it first! winner gets a Sony HMD! Ok, dreaming now ;'-0

Regarding the head tracking and gun tracking at the same time, I had another solution. If I can feed both data into GlovePIE, I can detect if both sensor turn at the same time, I can do a offset value to compensate for both sensor to cancel out the double turning rate. Also, WiredEarp solution does make sense. Set the gun motion sensor to lower sensitivity for fine aiming.

Try to look at Valve Source SDK. I read there are few fan mod games available. Someone had integrated head tracking for lean function in HL2 as his PhD research. If we managed to mod the aiming cursor that is movable within the screen, then we'll hit the jackpot for FPS VR gaming.

Having both move at the same time could work, and may be the more natural solution. I will have to test this out.

Man I hope my Wiimote+ comes soon. I ordered from Hong Kong and they take forever.

Hi Cyber. Is that a nintendo wiimote or a clone? I read that some of the clones are pretty horrid.

You don't need access to source code to do this, you only need to write an interposer for DirectX calls, just like NVIDIA, DDD or iZ3D did for their stereo drivers. I've done that already in Linux but I've never tried in Windows yet. This way you can alter any DirectX function call in a game and adapt it to your needs, for example by modifying the camera matrix to present another part of the scene or by displaying the laser sight at another position (or none if not in the viewing zone).

That's a bit simpler than writing a 3D driver I think, because you only have to write some interception code and modify the camera matrix. You don't have to manage all the other things related to stereoscopy, like rendering twice, managing different outputs (page flipping, interlaced, etc.) or types of glasses.

It must be possible for hl2 as someone already made a wiimote mod for that. Don't think it would be much use for a hmd though as it uses the ir sensor not the gyro.

@bobv5: It looks real, but you never know ordering from Hong Kong. Hopefully it will work, otherwise I will just buy the real one.

@Fredz: Well yes, it may even be easier since I wouldn't need to support all kinds of crazy hardware. I was just referring to hooking DirectX and adjusting the camera matrix, which is similar to how you would start if writing a 3D driver.

@bobv5: if theres already wiimote code using IR leds, then it should be pretty easy to just replace the IR position information with gyro position info...

Possibly, but as far as I know the source code for the mod isn't available anyway. The forum for the mod has only had one post in three years so I guess the guy who made it has givien up on it.

http://wii.hl2world.com/

Perhaps something can be done with glovepie, but I don't think it will allow you to fake a wiimote output, only convert wiimote input to other outputs.

Ok, I just got another idea for the tracking. This only assumes you have 2 3DOF trackers, one for head one for gun. The head-tracker controls the view angle in a 1:1 ratio, just like you would expect. The gun also controls the view angle in a 1:1 ratio, however it is the offset (delta) from the head angle. So if you turn 180 degrees around, but keep the gun facing forward the whole time, then the character in the game will rotate 180 degrees. If you stop at this point and aim 20 degrees to the side with the gun, then you will be at 200 degrees. So both have 1:1 movement, but the gun's movement is relative to the head (head is absolute). This would avoid double turning, and any confusion with having to hold down buttons or anything. Plus, I think this would be easy to support with my head-tracking app, I will just need to implement Wiimote support. Anyway, this might already possible with GlovePIE. Thoughts?

Makes sense. So basically, you are going to get the head angle, and the gun angle. Find the difference between then, and add that to the head angle. Would make sense, that way you can turn, and wave the gun around, and yet you still will have 1:1 turning.

Having said that, it doesn't seem that 1:1 turning is actually necessary for immersion. my 270 degree 360's feel 'real' to me, and are less hassle than the full 360's...

Oh, one thing about the head tracking + gun thing. Seems the immersion level goes this way from best to worst:

Head tracking + gun
head tracking
gun tracking.

SO, despite gun tracking FEELING more real than aiming with my head, the loss of head movement really cuts the immersion a bit. I keep moving my head and realising it does nothing if I just play with the gun.

The combination is definitely more immersive.

The offset position for gun from head tracking is doable. Just have to think how to translate that into GlovePIE script. This could bring the immersion to next level. Now, waiting for Sony HMD impatiently. I'm going to get ASUS WAVI as I don't see other solution in the near future for wireless HDMI.

Interesting ideas about the head/gun tracking combos guys, I really need to try this to see what it is like, I think I will be playing alot of ArmAII though because i dont think you will be able to beat properly implemented head tracking with seperate gun aiming and that is the only FPS game I know of that has it.

Good work Cyber on the head tracking software, I hope it can be deveoped into a DirectX driver like what Fredz was talking about that would be awesome!





The power adaptor for the 3rd space Vest compressor is 12V 1.5A the vest itself is powered on USB
so same volatge as ASUS WAVI which makes it easy

@ pierreye, I've been looking into the Navigation controller for the sharpshooter, I found a couple of solutions using libusb with a work around for 64bit systems, but the best one seems to be motionjoy especially for Win 64bit. I have got the PS3 controller and the Navigation controller working with all the analogue triggers and sticks using the usb lead but unfortunately both the blue tooth dongles that I have are not compatible with the PS3 controllers, they are notoriously picky with the dongles. You can check the compatibility of your dongle under the BluetoothPair tab, Supports feature in motionjoy. Here you will find a list of about 50 features, they will either have ticks or crosses next to them. If it supports features 25, 26 and 39 there is a good chance you can use it to connect to the controllers, if any of them have crosses next to them you need a different dongle, just make sure the pad is connected via the usb when features are checked as it seems to change some crosses and ticks when connected, as one of my dongles has 25, 26 and 39 ticked when checked without the controller connected then crosses when it is. Am I right in thinking you have the move buttons working over bluetooth, Im supprised that if you can connect the move controller via your bluetooth dongle, that the navigation controller dosnt work fully. I will try and source the best dongle for the job and will let you know how I get on. Can you let me know if your dongle has those 3 features ticked. At least It looks like there shouldn't be any problem getting the navigation controller working once we find the right dongle, this will give us a load more buttons and functionality to the setup.

I just found that there is a reset button in a hole on the bottom of both the sixaxis pad and navigation controller once I pressed it the bluetooth fetures didnt change after connecting the pad, I now have 25, 26 and 39 ticked but am still having trouble connecting the pad using bluetooth atm. The Navigation controller now only knocks out 39 after a reset and is still not connecting. For me I think I just need to get another dongle but thought the reset trick may help others trying to get theirs to work.

I received the usb bluetooth that I bought through MotionInJoy website (Accygame.com) and glad to report it work fine with both PS Move and PS Navigator. The connection is a bit tricky. You need to connect the PS Navigator first then PS Move. Anyway, both controller had the connect light blinking but it work fine. Previously I get solid light on Move Controller when connected.

Now I can eliminate Nunchuk and need to modify the script to cater for second joystick.

@James - My previous USB bluetooth had all the function cross but somehow still work with PS Move. The new one that I bought through the MotionInJoy website works fine. I think feature 25 and 26 are important for bluetooth connection as mention somewhere by the developer.

Attached is the updated script with PS3 Navigator. The advantage using PS3 Navigator is you had access to more button and joystick click.

- No longer use Joyx and Joyy analog for sprint. Instead I use L3 (joystick press) on navigator for sprint. Another advantage L3 is use to hold the sniper gun steady. L3 = Shift.

Thanks for the new script pierreye it would take me a long time to work it all out without your scripts, your efforts are much appreciated, especially as my time I have to play is at the lowest its ever been at the moment My motion plus turned up yesterday and my asus dongle (that should be compatible with the PS gear) should hopefully turn up tomorrow along with a wii gun that I plan on breaking down and using the holder part to attach to the sharpshooter. If it all turns up I am hoping to give the setup a try this weekend with the battlefield beta before it goes off line on Monday.

I was wondering whether the new dongle you have got allows you to access all of the move buttons, including the move specific one located under the trigger of the sharp shooter. Also I was wondering whether you have tried the switch used for selecting fire rate on the sharpshooter, it is suppose to have functionallity although no game has used it that Im aware of, if you have is it giving any signal when changed. If it dose I would love to use it on battlefield 3 as it has full auto, semi auto and single shot on alot of the weapons.

The firing rate switch and the reload button doesn't register in Joystick Control Panel as any button or axis/slider so I can't map that into any action. The move button under the trigger is working and I'm using that for iron sight view.

I found out sometimes when the PS3 navigation analog joystick doesn't register as X/Y axis in Joystick Control Panel, you just have to press enable button in DSTool just above "disconnect" button.

Hope it works for your setup. The next step is to mod the shoulder button with slim silicon button.

I got the Wiimote. Thing is legit, way better than I was expecting. I think this is actually going to work out.