Like many on this forum I have been looking for an accurate head/motion tracker that is capable of 360deg rotation. I am trying to have my setup ready for the Sony HMZ release, this will be my 1st HMD although I have always wanted one. I am specifically looking for something to make a game gun to work in Battlefield 3, this obviously needs to be quick, accurate and not suffer from much drift. I would like a secondary unit to act as a head tracker for the cockpit look around as I noticed on one of the trailers but the gun comes first for me.

As you most likely know the main problem is there is very little to choose from that isn't either flawed or ridiculously expensive. I have trawled the internet looking for something that is pre made and would do the job and everything I have found so far is either too expensive to spend for playing a game or just would be a compromise on what I want. I'm willing to spend about £200 which is about $300 USD.

I started looking into Inertial Motion Trackers but anything I could find that was made up as a package cost £700+. I then started looking for the components themselves and I think I have found an IMU from sparkfun that is accessible for pretty much anyone that uses this forum as they have distributors all over the globe. It costs around $120 in the US and about £80 here in the UK, it can also have Bluetooth and a battery easily added to it for low cost. From the basic research I have done over the last few days this looks like it may do the trick. Here are the specs

http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10736

Here is some videos of the IMU working, it looks pretty smooth

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cjldqIE-MM

Here is a video of someone using it to control a plane in a flight sim

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFL6XqIfVBE

This video shows it can be linked to a Lithium Ion Battery and connected to a computer using blue tooth, although it is just raw data on the screen so the smoothness can't be seen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vyjo64XDz8c

I think it looks fairly promising but I don't have the expertise to program without learning from scratch. That's why I am suggesting/hoping that a few people are also up for trying to make one up at the same time, we could work on it and share our findings. There is a number of other people that have written code for this that is freely available but not to control a mouse as far as I know, it been more for UAV's etc. Hopefully some of you more experienced ones with programming skills may be able to help get the code together. If we can make one we could share how to do it with the rest of the forum maybe with a tutorial, then everyone will be able to have HD VR once and for all!!!

There are a few other models that are a bit more expensive but we can look at them if this is not suitable for any reason.

Let me know if I am missing something or if you are up for working on one.

This looks promising. I have all but given up on the 1200VR, and the only thing keeping me from chucking it is the fact that the headtracker is actually good. But it seems like the Sony HMZ-T1 is going to be world's better, so all it needs is a decent tracker. That Sparkfun unit actually looks nice from the video, maybe better than the Vuzix 6TC. So that is good for $120. Seems like it would be a decent about of work hacking that to work on a computer, and then getting it to interface with the game. I mean, it could be done, but its probably not a simple "plug-and-play" affair. I do have some programming chops, but I haven't worked with hardware too much. I don't imagine it would be that difficult, though. I bet there is probably code available (or that comes with it) to get you started. I would want to help with this, but I'm so busy I don't know how much I could get done (or by when).

There is also this thing from Hillcrest Labs, which might be better since it takes batteries and already has a wireless interface:
http://www.hillcrestlabs-devstore.com/s ... h-1/Detail

Potentially theres this tracker from Aiken Labs:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/11/aike ... e-give-it/

The Aiken Labs thing is cool, because it can track multiple things at once. So you could use one for your head, one for a gun, etc. But who knows if that will ever come to market.

Obviously, there is also the Nintendo Wiimote with Motion+. I know the tracking isn't great, but its cheap, they have nice gun shells, and there is already tons of software support. See the video here, it look a little low-quality compared to those IMUs, but its not horrible all things considered:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXEzMJbfuJ0

However, if you only want a stationary setup (ie sitting in a seat) then the Razer Hydra wouldn't be a bad choice. It does feel more immersive than a straight mouse/keyboard setup, and its relatively cheap. It also has decent software support.
http://store.razerzone.com/store/razeru ... .228849000

The Hydra also has some incredible accuracy and precision, as you can see in this video I put together using the SDK:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJHxbDa_tAA

Also, a little old but maybe still relevant: The Novint Falcon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ1Rz2clLS0

Again for a stationary setup, but it can add a lot of immersion for supported games.

But what we really want is THIS!!!!!!!:

I too is looking for 3 DOF tracking for Sony HMZ-T1. Based on my research, Wii Motion Plus should give you good 3DOF. Another option I'm exploring is PS3 Move using MotionInJoy Driver. If I can use my PS3 sharpshooter and map the 2DOF to mouse and the rest of the button and analog stick to PC, I think it would be a very immersive experience for PC FPS. I'm experimenting with different option and as long as we can hack the tracking to a gun devices, it would be good enough as most FPS game only allow fix shooting point at the middle of the screen so we should hold the gun parallel to our vision. In this case, motion tracking on the gun is good compromise instead of tracking the head position. I mean we don't look right and point the gun at the left, right?

I've been tossing up adding the Falcon to my stable of toys. Its pretty cheap now and I hear it is just as accurate as mouse once you have gotten used to it... is it supported in many modern games or is it just older stuff? Novint seems to be doing good things, like the look of their upcoming exoskeletal toy thing.

Re head trackers, one thing that would be worth looking into would be (as Cyber says) the Wii Motion Plus. This contains a 3 axis gyro + 3 axis accelerometer, and theres a fair bit of code out there already for it using arduinos (its also very reasonably priced). This board is used in quite a few RC projects as the basis of an autopilot. You can probably find more info and links elsewhere from here:

http://www.multiwii.com/

I've just started looking into tracking solutions as well. Thanks for the link. Good to know there are high level components out there to start with. I have the coding skills and the hardware experience to pull off a project like this, but not a lot of time and a couple of other projects in the pipeline - but if nobody else does it, then eventually this sounds like a fun little project to work on. If PalmerTech's DIY HMD doesn't include a tracker then this would make a nice extension to that project.

The level of technology that can be put together cheaply these days is astonishing. Not just in sensors and display technologies, but in robotics, sound and video editing, software components, etc... Hell there's a guy out there that made an electron microscope in his garage. This really is a golden age for DIY'ers.

You can download wiimouse and connect through BT to your PC. It allow mouse emulation either using the IR sensor bar or MotionPlus gyro data. For 360 degree, you definitely want to use the MotionPlus.

@ brantlew 'I have the coding skills and the hardware experience to pull off a project like this, but not a lot of time and a couple of other projects in the pipeline'

Yep. Thats exactly it for most of us I think We all have the skills to do what we want (or, know we can attain them if required) but its just finding time, prioritizing projects and interests etc. I tend to flip from hobby to hobby (spending more time on my RC and telepresence stuff than VR etc) - sometimes I wish I could just stick at one thing and make it wicked...

It is indeed a golden age of VR I think. For a long time, people have be saying VR is dead, but I think it has been waiting for the underlying technologies to become inexpensive. All we really need now is a big company to release a console or PC peripheral (like Sony) with head tracking, and a good game. Its that one good game that is going to make VR take off, just like Avatar has been a big help for the 3D movie industry. Who knows, maybe someone on here will be responsible for writing it - there's definitely a lot of talent spread across these forums.

The MotionPlus is ok, but you're better off with accelerometer, gyro, and magnetometer sensor fusion. The Wii Remote/MotionPlus has only the first two.

I think the PS3 Move controller is the only cheap mass market peripheral that covers the criteria of having all three sensor types. People have written APIs to interface it, but they appear to only cover raw sensor data minus magnetometer data. You'd need to implement your own kalman filter and fusion algorithms and figure out how to pull magnetometer data out of the device. EDIT: It seems magnetometer data is there and exposed by the API.

There are indeed several SparkFun boards that would also work, but would again require implementing a filter and sensor fusion. There is open source software that does this for you available for some of the boards, like this one.

As far as ready made products that directly provide you with useful output go, I'm not aware of any that are currently being sold. I have a SpacePoint Fusion that does this perfectly, but it seems the company no longer sells them directly to the public.

@ cybereality the Hillcrest Labs’ patented Freespace motion solution does look interesting, my only concern is that it is only 6 axis not 9 so it dosnt have the magnetic tracking to stop the drift. I looked at the specs see here

http://hillcrestlabs.com/products/downl ... f-v1.1.pdf

It says that the angular accuracy is between 1 and 2° depending on axis which is good enough. The angular velocity is ± 500 °/s which is the same as the board we are looking at so that is good to. It states the drift is < 100 mickeys / hr which equates to 1/2" per hour which isnt to bad if that is accurate. I would like to see it in opperation but it does look promising, nice find cyber!

I had seen the Aiken Labs device but that isnt out yet and I thought it looked a bit judery on the videos, I could be wrong as they did win an award for it, they mentioned how the money from the reward will help them continue to develop the product, so they are only a small company so it may be quite a while till we see this on the market.

I have come really close to buying both the falcon and the hydra but I have resisted as I am really looking for a stand up, turn, gun in hand, HD experience, its what Iv always wanted but up until now it was out of reach.

I am really looking forward to the XIO but that is not due for a release till next year the fact the videos Iv seen have it running on bad company 2 and it looks good doing it makes me want it even more, but I recon there will be a big price tag on it.

@ pierreye, I have tried the wii (without the plus) to control my mouse but it just didnt seem good enough or accurate enough to play a FPS, Im not sure how much difference the plus will make but I am looking for somthing to take on the mouse and keyboard in online play, which isnt an easy task. I also have the sharp shooter and the move controllers, I plan on using the gun and the controllers for my buttons and walking etc but dont think the controllers are good enough because of the drift you get when playing the playstation. This drift happens even when the orb tracking is included, we will be loosing that bit of information so I only imagin it will get worse. I mean I calibrate the move in game and sometimes within seconds it is inches off when I aim down the gun. I think this drift will cause problems as you will be able to feel your not aiming in the right direction or you will have to tilt your head to compensate.

@ WiredEarp, I think the arduinos board is one of the boards the sparkfun board I mentioned uses, I will have to check. If it does could we not just use the same code used for the wii mote and use the sparkfun board for a more accurat set of inputs? I may be way off the mark here but if we could that would be great.

@ brantlew & WiredEarp, I understand the time isue lads as I start my 4th year of my masters degree in Civil & Structural Engineering on monday so I am going to be struggeling to fit this in to, thats why I was hoping we could all pitch in, swap ideas, share code etc to see if we can sort this in as little time per person as possible. Im glad we have people like yourselfs and cyber to atleast bounce our ideas off if nothing else.

@ nrp, I had a look at that SpacePoint Fusion after reading one of your posts on another thread I was gutted when I read they dont sell to the public anymore. I wanted to ask you out of interest how much did it cost, Im hoping it was a lot so I dont feel so dissapointed, if it was cheap and it is really good I will get on to the company to see if I/we can get one.

I dont have one, but I think the Wii Motion+ will suffice. Check this video (skip to 0:50):

I'll try out PS3 Move and MotionPlus tomorrow. I got all the driver ready. We all just need to share our ideas and see which off the shelf solution work best for FPS.

I had try out Wii Motion Plus with WiiMouse and GlovePie 0.43. The cursor is pretty accurate in the Desktop using WiiMotion Plus without the sensor bar. I can click on icon without problem. But when I start Modern Warfare 2, I had no problem navigating the menu using WiiMote with WiiMotion Plus. The only problem now is in the game. I don't know why the screen doesn't move like a mouse. When I point the wiimote slightly to the left, it will keep on spinning to the left until I point back to the center. The further I point out to the left, the faster it spin. I don't get it why it doesn't behave like a normal mouse where we move the mouse slightly to the left, then the screen will shift left a bit and stop. Need to do more research.

That sounds like its something you could probably tweak in GlovePIE. Seems like the hardware itself is working.

It was $100.

@ cybereality it looks pretty smooth but he does mention that it drifts, I just think if every 20-30min you need to exit to recalibrate because your either having to aim with your gun towards the sky or floor slightly, it would cause it to get annoying. I think if anything is off in the VR, it would not feel right as your mind knows when your looking straight ahead. If your having to look high or low to appear as you are looking straight I think it may cause nausea as it confuses your brain and your natural balance. Thats all Im worried about I could be wrong though, but thats why I really want somthing that is 9 axis and includes the magnets so as much drift can be eliminated as possible.

@ pierreye I think I know what the problem your having might be, I cant remember the exact reason for it as it was somthing I came accross but didnt get to the stage of using it in games, I only simply used it to move the mouse pointer about etc. I belive it comes from the way the mouse pointer moves on the desk top ie it moves around the screen but in games the screen stays central. If I remember correctly there is two ways of determining the mouse position. I may be slightly off on this as it was a long time ago but its something like that. I learnt it from a series of tutorials someone had done on youtube they were quite good, if I can find the one I will post a link for you probably tomorrow as I off out on the razz now.


@ nrp thats a great price if it works well. have you tried it for FPS's with a HMD did it drift at all?

I used it for this project. No drift.

@nrp: Wow dude! Thats really cool.

Also, I bought this:


Including the gun, a black Wiimote w/ Motion+ and the Nunchuck, and a USB bluetooth adapter: $25. Can't beat that price!!!

I read through some tutorial regarding mouse look in the game compare to desktop cursor. Seems like the game basically ignore the desktop cursor position but base on mouse relative movement from last position. I think this is going to be a big issue as we can't really tell the game that when the wiimote is level, it is at the middle of the screen. This need native support in the game to track the orientation. So far WM+ does provide pretty accurate coordinate in 3D space and the only problem is game support to read the coordinate.

This is a really hard problem to solve, unless you mod the game (or have native support). Mostly everything is designed for the mouse, which is relative. The best thing to do is to have a "ratchet" function (like on the Razer Hydra). This is sort of like picking up the mouse. It allows you to suspend tracking for a moment, and then move the controller back to where it should be. Probably the best thing to do without getting into some serious modding/hacking.


I am going to look into how hard it would be to create a quick driver to do some of this. I'd like to be able to use the 1200VR tracker with more games, but I guess I could also do something for the Wii Motion+. I just have to figure out how to hook into Windows and move the mouse. Hopefully its not that difficult.

Good news guys. I managed to change the code from absolute mouse position to DirectX Mouse Input and it work better than expected. The turning is working perfectly in 360 degree. The only minor issue is pitch. Due to the game have no idea on the absolute position, you just need to recalibrate once in a while by holding an assigned button to stop the movement and manually level the wiimote against the screen. Not really difficult once you try it out. So far I try out for 10 mins and no drift from the gyro. The only thing is do not plug-in the nunchuck. Somehow it screw up the gyro data.

Here's the code to take note if anyone is interested. The division is use to reduce the sensitivity. I need a faster pitch compare to raw which is why I divide by 2 for pitch and 3 for yaw.

var.moveX = wiimote.MotionPlus.RawYawSpeed/3
var.moveY = wiimote.MotionPlus.RawPitchSpeed/2
Mouse.DirectInputX = Mouse.DirectInputX + var.moveX
Mouse.DirectInputY = Mouse.DirectInputY - var.moveY

Now the last hurdle is where to get WHDI that support 3D?

@pierreye: Can you post links to all the software you are using for this Wiimote thing? See here for discussion on wireless HDMI 1.4a:
viewtopic.php?f=120&t=13594

Also, I decided to spend about and hour to start hacking on that driver I have been talking about. So far I managed to simulate a mouse-click into a window of my choice. Making the mouse move should not be much harder. This may actually be a lot easier than I thought.

Hardware:
Bluetooth dongle for your pc.
Wiimote and WiiMotion+
A gun attachment. I temp strap it to Sharpshooter as I intend to use Move Navigator and Move for fire trigger. Future, I might try to strap the Wiimote to a bicycle helmet. Basically Wiimote is for head tracking only. Move and navigator will handle movement and other action using sharpshooter.

Software:
GlovePie http://glovepie.org/
Script for mouse view. Need to clean up the code. I prefer not to press the button for mouse move so need to reverse the code.

@ pierreye sorry I couldn’t be anymore help glad you got it sorted, I thought it was just a simple change over and it would process the mouse movements properly.

@ nrp nice one, I was hoping you might put up a video of it in opperation Ill contact the company this week and see if there willing to sell to the public again.

Thanks guys for all your input so far, at this rate I’m sure we can have a solution to this problem one way or another by the time the HMZ hits the shelves

I managed to combine wiimote, wiimote+, nunchuck and ps3move in sharpshooter. The whole setup in fact work quite well in COD: MW2. There is an option to "center view" so just map that to a key and you can easily level the gun to the view. In fact, I find the aiming is easier using this setup than using a mouse. 360 degree turning is not an issue but as I'm playing on the TV, when I turn 180 degree, I need to look at my back to the TV to aim

Here is the script that combine all 3 devices into PieGlove. Note that you need 2 USB bluetooth device as once you configure one of the bluetooth for MotionInJoy device driver, it no longer show as bluetooth device in Windows. So you need the 2nd dongle to communicate with WiiMote.

I'm still investigating how to connect PS3 Move Navigator through MotionInJoy. I only manage to connect in USB mode but not bluetooth. If this is successful, I can replace Nunchuck with PS3 Navigator which come with more button and a dpad.

@pierreye: Thanks a bunch for the scripts. Will have to check it out when my Wiimote comes.

So we have about 2 months to sort this out. I guess it can be done.

Here's the photo of wii sharpshooter hack. Below setup is for COD: MW2. roll left and right can be use for lean function if the game support it.

wiimote and wiimotion+ for 2 DOF for mouse emulation, roll right for reload, roll left for change weapon. Will map additional function to d-pad, A button, button 1 and 2.
Nunchuk for movement, crouch and center view
PS Move for fire trigger, iron sight, jump and grenade

I'll try to shoot a video how it would work. This setup should work for most generic FPS that don't support absolute coordinate from 3DOF tracker.

Nice! Talk about garage VR!!!! Looks functional, though.

@ pierreye, nice work on that I especially like you have a centre button as this sorts out the problem of drift. I am a bit busy today but I will also try and get the move navigation controller operational and will let you know if I have any luck with it. I wrote off the wii and move thinking they wouldn’t work well, seems like that may of jumped the gun on that.

Has anyone had the chance to compare the Move against wii plus in terms of accuracy and smoothness, I am under the impression the move is more accurate and responsive but am not sure if this was because of the implementation of the orb or whether the gyros etc are better quality. If the move is better I will try and get the data from that, there isn’t as much on the web as there is with the wii but I have seen it done. That way we could just use the sharpshooter set up.

I found a thread in the MotionInJoy forum that looks like it would be helpful for the Move controllers. I haven’t had chance to read it yet but its here if you want a look.

http://forums.motioninjoy.com/viewtopic ... &start=220

I also found this from Sony themselves looks interesting, think I can get it free as Im a student at the moment

http://us.playstation.com/ps3/playstation-move/move-me/

Looks like the sony site is having problems as I cant log in to get the move.me software at the moment

These videos explains a bit about it, the only problem I can see it may have with it is there may be a bit of lag as you use a connection through your ps3 to your pc, so at the moment this dosnt look like it will be any good for those that havnt got a ps3

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rko2GatzHvg

@James. I only managed to connect the PS3 Navigation controller using USB. No luck using bluetooth. It show connected but in Joystick control panel, I can't see any output from the controller. PS3 Move worked just fine after the initial setup. Only problem with PS3 Move are no gyro data and I can't find a way to map RL button from sharpshooter. Hope you can get more useful data from PS3 Move and Navigation controller so we can get rid of Motion+ to simplify the setup.

http://code.google.com/p/moveonpc/

Please note that the gyro data from wii is relative to previous position. If you hold the controller still, you should see x=0 and y=0. If you get other data, then you have a drift in the gyro. For full VR in most PC shooter, the absolute position for North is not important. Say you standing facing North and turn 360 degree and end up facing 45 degree from North (although in the game you just face North), this doesn't matter cause you are wearing HMD and remove your reference from the surrounding. Your sense of position is now in the game. The "Center view" command is from COD: MW2. What it do is when you press "center view" button, it will reset your view back to 0 degree pitch even though you are looking at the sky/ground. This will help you to reset your pitch.

@pierreye - that gun looks mean! Funnily enough, I made a gun (well, two actually) this weekend myself. Cyber, if you think pierreye's gun is garage, mine must be ghetto first one was just two hydras taped to my paintball gun. 2nd attempt was a lightweight stick and paintball stock (paintball gun was sweet but way too heavy) with my two hydras taped to it (it was just for testing, didn't want to permanently mount them or take them apart yet).

Its SWEET. I played with the Hydra config for L4D2, and was able to play L4D2 standing up, looking and aiming with the gun controller while wearing my Z800's. If i had more FOV and force feedback on the gun it would be pretty damn immersive. I was able to turn 360 and aim without losing accuracy or having skips, so I think maybe CyberReality was suffering interference before when having Hydra issues? Could also be because my 'aim' Hydra is the one closest to my body, so may have been close enough to me even when facing away to track correctly. I'm going to investigate attaching a speaker to my gun to add some sound vibrations when firing it. The other big problem I find with my gun tracker, is that after playing L4D2 for a bit, I really want separate head tracking. It would be so much nicer to be able to look behind me without having to aim my gun behind me as well. Roll on games that support unlocking the view from the gun!

Its almost exactly 1:1 aiming now, which is great, but I have to say, stand up is a bit too much hassle when playing stuff like l4d2! I have to constantly twist/turn around to face the other direction etc, and its a bit of a PITA sometimes tell the truth. I do have to 'ratchet' the up and down occasionally to level things, but not very often at all. Dont need to ratchet left/right at all since I can turn 360.

Still to do is modifying the Hydra config some more to allow me to change weapons etc with gestures (reload is done). I'm going to try and make a velocity config whereby if I lower the gun quickly it makes my character duck (not sure if i'll try implementing the same thing for jump).

Pierreye's (and CyberRealities) guns looks great. My next step will be to buy a toy gun, or wiimote gun, and modify it in a smilar way to Pierreyes. Unfortunately, due to the design of the Hydra, there is no easy way to mount them. This leaves me with a couple of options, I can open the Hydras and see if I can attach mounting holes etc to them (will try this first, so I can use them as Hydras as well as a gun when required), or i'll need to basically disassemble my Hydras and build them into a gun permanently. I wonder if its possible to buy replacement Hydras (but not the base station) and how much they will cost. If 50% of the Hydra cost or less, I'll buy another pair and mod those into my gun, then I can just plug in whichever Hydra peripheral I want to use whenever.

@nrp - i might look into the PS3 Move at some point if I become unhappy with the Razer etc. It sounds quite promising, perhaps will be better for a move about VR as well.

I haven't seen them selling replacement Hydra parts. Don't know if they will.

I was probably getting interference. Now that I think about it, the range got worse over time. But I have so much junk in my room, who knows what caused it.

Left4Dead would be a little crazy with a stand up setup. There are probably other games that are a little more slow paced. But I guess thats half the fun. Never actually got to try a full freedom type of thing before. I've just gotten up from my seat and turned a bit, but I never had a good laptop or a nice wireless controller. That is all going to change soon, I can't wait.

Also, slightly off-topic, but do you guys think this will be a good laptop to use in a backpack for VR:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6834214410

It has a 3D screen and its around $1000, don't want to break the bank here. Think it will work?

That laptop looks good! Right now, I am rocking an Asus G51 with a GTX 260M 1gig, 4 gigs of ram, and a Core 2 Duo at 2.1ghz. It runs most things really well, that laptop has significantly higher specs.

If you make a backpack setup, please make a thread so I can give advice. I struggled with finding a way so mine would not overheat. Figured it out, but don't want to sidetrack this thread too much.

Here's the update after more fine tuning. Pretty much the whole setup is playable. I manage to go through one chapter with gun mod without problem. Aiming is definitely easy compare to mouse. I had update the script to put in variable turning rate when in iron sight mode. Also add-on is additional key map to wiimote remote mounted on top so you can use that for other purpose.

Here's the guide for calibration. When you first time fired up the GlovePie, make sure you take off the nunchuk connection. As I mentioned earlier, the nunchuk will screw up the gyro. After connected in GlovePie and calibrated by facing the remote down, stop the script and plug-in your nunchuk. Start the script again and look at the debug window. I output Yaw, Pitch and row in the debug window so I can check the drift. If it show 0 for both Yaw and Pitch without moving your Wiimote, then the calibration is sucessful. The Row will depends on your wiimote roll position. Face down is 180 or -180, sit on your remote right hand side is 90 and your remote left hand side is -90. Facing up is 0.

Also note that the current turning rate is too fast for 360 degree. I purposely set this value as I'm playing on the TV so it's easier to aim. For real 360 1:1 mapping, you need to double the X value.

Here's the youtube video on how the setup work.

@ pierreye that’s looking really good mate, well done, I love the fact you feel already, at this early stage, that it is easier than a mouse to aim, to have something that you can play competitively online was my end goal for this project and with seeing how yours performs already I think it is a goal we can definitely realize. I mean the problem with the move on PS3 is that to turn you have to look at the edge of the screen, then it starts turning at a set rate, then once you have spotted a target you need to aim back in the centre of the screen to take your shot, by which time they have usually shot you. Having that direct aim and turning takes all that messing around out and levels the playing field.

At the moment I’m am just playing catch up with the playstation move and the other things that go with it; I’m in the process of reading all of the forums on the subject. If we can get it to just use the move that will be awesome, but if we can’t, after watching how your setup is working I think I’m just going to buy the wii mote and just use that. At this rate though I recon we should have it sussed and working perfectly by the time the HMZ hits the shelves.

@James - That's true. I feel aiming in Killzone 3 using Move is not as accurate as full 360 degree freedom due to the turning issue too. Headkill is easier using this setup. We are pretty much there for an immersive VR experience. This is my dream gaming system when I first saw VFX-1.

Another breakthrough. I had figured out how to auto level the pitch. Basically wiimote does provide pitch (tilt) in degree. So I modified the script to check if the wiimote is within +2/-2 degree in pitch (hold in 0.1 s) every 5 seconds. If yes, then it will automatically press the "center view" button. This is pretty much complete 2DOF experience for FPS.

//Auto Calibrate "Center View" every 5 seconds. Only click center if pitch within 2 degree up/down in 0.1s.
var.wiiPitch = wiimote.pitch

if KeepDown((var.wiiPitch >= -2 and var.wiiPitch <= 2), 0.1) {
Key.B = true
var.DebugAutoCenter = " Center at " +var.wiiPitch
wait 5000 ms
}
else {
Key.B = false
}

@pierreye: Nice dude! Looking really good. I'm going to start with just the Wii Motion+, but if I need to maybe I will copy your design and go with the Move Sharpshooter. It looked like the tracking was pretty smooth in the video.

Why has no one mentioned this? Am I missing something here?

Yeah I've seen a few of these gameguns around, mostly gyro mouse based.

Came across another one a couple of nights ago that was a P90 gun controller. Looked pretty mean.

I'm getting the same type of gameplay as pierreye using my Hydra gun (no vids tho, its UGLY). Its really accurate, i'm surprised how easily i can get headshots. I reckon I could be as good as with my mouse with a bit of practise.

Your gun looks really good pierreye (nice work on your script), I'm going to have to make a decent looking one now

One thing I'd like to do with mine would be to add some sort of force feedback so it feels more alive. Was thinking for now I could just put a speaker on it so it vibrates with noise. I could use a solenoid or vibrating motor but I don't really know if it would be possible to easily make it work in my games...

Yeah the Novint Falcon is nice, it has amazing Haptic force feedback, for FPS games the experience is comparable to what a high end FFB Racing wheel and pedals bring to a racing setup over a keyboard and mouse setup. It does take a bit of getting used to though but yes once you clock up some hours on it you can get almost as good as a mouse (some say as good). Novint are constantly bringing out support for new games and classic games alike and with the FGen tools you can even make profiles for games your self which is useful for custom apps (may take a fair bit of learning how to do it though but you should be able to get help with this on the Falcon Army forums)

@WiredEarp
I have a Falcon and I may consider to sell it (need money for other projects) PM me if you are interested, could be a good option as the shipping is a killer to NZ on items this large!