Half-Life 2 VR mod with head tracking (download now)

[adoral84]

Hey @adoral84:

Any chance we (I'm including everyone else in this request without their express permission...forgive me everyone ) could talk you into adding a third sensor into your mod that gets mounted at the base of your neck. You could then give us the much needed head location tracking. I think that this, more than anything else right now, is what the Rift truly needs.

Begging is not beneath me, so...Please, please, please. (Pretty please).

Are you basically wanting a neck/shoulder sensor that can provide positional information by modeling the spine angle in addition to the head/neck model using the head orientation? Makes sense, it would pretty much handle most positional adjustments pretty well aside from bending at the knees. it'd also allow for movement inputs to be body relative rather than head.

Here's a new build, it should still support hillcrests the same but if you have a YEI tracker right now I've got it only tracking as the gun if you have a hillcrest also plugged in. .
https://s3.amazonaws.com/HLVR/halflife-vr-0.9.3.exe

Great News adoral84,

I am near done on my Diy Rift and I think having the better of the two trackers (YEI 3) set to gun is a good idea anyway. Seems that is where you would want the better tracker.

I think it depends on what you're going for, the YEI as a head tracker will probably be more immersive because the latency is much more noticeable when it's your entire view vs just the gun but you could probably shoot a bit more accurately with it on the gun. I was originally thinking the same thing but after swapping them for a bit I'll probably end up going with the YEI for a head tracker. I'm just looking forward to the dev kit and having a great head tracker + the 3-space on the gun.

[Mel]

Hey @adoral84:

Any chance we (I'm including everyone else in this request without their express permission...forgive me everyone ) could talk you into adding a third sensor into your mod that gets mounted at the base of your neck. You could then give us the much needed head location tracking. I think that this, more than anything else right now, is what the Rift truly needs.

Begging is not beneath me, so...Please, please, please. (Pretty please).

Are you basically wanting a neck/shoulder sensor that can provide positional information by modeling the spine angle in addition to the head/neck model using the head orientation? Makes sense, it would pretty much handle most positional adjustments pretty well aside from bending at the knees. it'd also allow for movement inputs to be body relative rather than head.

Yes, that's exactly what I (we all?) are looking for. What do you think? Can you make it happen?

[brantlew]

So a quick update, I have the YEI tracker working at it's full 1000hz with the custom sensor fusion and like the hillcrest the results are much better than the onboard fusion. I haven't done any scientific comparisons between the two (I'll try to put something reasonable together) but the 3-space is definitely very responsive, enough to feel a difference when switching between the two. The lack of yaw drift is really nice when playing with another physical point of reference as well, since I also want to work with cockpit style games. I haven't had the chance to play with it in game very much but so far it's exceeded my expectations.

Here's a new build, it should still support hillcrests the same but if you have a YEI tracker right now I've got it only tracking as the gun if you have a hillcrest also plugged in. It also prompts the source sdk installation if not found per @drgroove101's feedback.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/HLVR/halflife-vr-0.9.3.exe

thanks for the info. I've been curious about the comparative performance of the YEI for a while, but not many people who have tried it have any experience with other sensors.

[Krisper]

This is great stuff. I've been following this since you first released a few months ago, and this is now at a point where it is very usable. Thanks for all your effort.

Current setup:
HL2-VR 0.7.1
ST1080
Hillcrest Tracker
Good headphones
Vireio Perception 1.0.4 for side by side 3D
Working on gamepad- currently mouse + keyboard

I have finally found some time to plug in all my gear and try this mod. I only have a single tracker at the moment, a Hillcrest one. I also have an ST1080. I was wondering what settings you have in game to get SBS 3D working with the ST1080 love2scoot? The closest I could get was setting the game resolution to 1280x720, and running Vireio Perception 1.0.4 set to Side By Side. The screen looked fine on my laptop, but then I couldn't select SBS on the ST1080. If I leave the game set to my laptops native 1366x768 I then have the SBS option, but the Vireio Perception obviously doesn't support this resolution. Any ideas on what I should try to get 3D working?

I also need a second tracker for the gun, I am guessing that the The YEI 3-Space Sensor™ USB / RS232 would be the one to get? Will the mod support 2 of those instead of 1 Hillcrest and one YEI? It would be good not to have to correct for drift.

[love2scoot]

I set in game resolution to 1080p then Vireio to side by side and no tracking hardware. This worked great.

[adoral84]

This weekend I started modding crysis to support the same functionality as my HL2 mod, it's still a really early version so no weapon tracking but the head tracking works well enough if you want to try it out. There is no head/neck model yet though, I didn't realize how much an impact that made until I started playing without it again That'll come soon along with the weapon tracking. If you try it out let me know how it works, but beware that crysis is still a terribly optimized game, on my machine that has no issue running 1440p in games like BF3 and Far Cry 3 I'm having to tweak things pretty hard to get solid 60 fps in stereoscopic 3d. It's worth dialing back whatever you need to get the 60 fps since it really hurts the tracking latency. I haven't tested this with vireio or any other stereo drivers yet either

Here's the installer, you just need to have crysis installed (it defaults to the steam location for now). After install there should be a bat file to launch it in {your crysis install}/Mods/CrysisVR . I'll make all the nice start menu and desktop shortcuts later. I'll post a video of the mod probably next weekend when hopefully I have it all functional and crysis tuned up as much as possible.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/CrysisVR/crysis-vr-0.1.0.exe

There's another game that I'm helping someone else with but it's not quite there yet.

Yes, that's exactly what I (we all?) are looking for. What do you think? Can you make it happen?

Yeah, I'd guess that getting support for other trackers would probably need to happen first, I can't imagine very many people have 3+ hillcrest/YEI trackers

[Mel]

This weekend I started modding crysis to support the same functionality as my HL2 mod, it's still a really early version so no weapon tracking but the head tracking works well enough if you want to try it out. There is no head/neck model yet though, I didn't realize how much an impact that made until I started playing without it again That'll come soon along with the weapon tracking. If you try it out let me know how it works, but beware that crysis is still a terribly optimized game, on my machine that has no issue running 1440p in games like BF3 and Far Cry 3 I'm having to tweak things pretty hard to get solid 60 fps in stereoscopic 3d. It's worth dialing back whatever you need to get the 60 fps since it really hurts the tracking latency. I haven't tested this with vireio or any other stereo drivers yet either

Here's the installer, you just need to have crysis installed (it defaults to the steam location for now). After install there should be a bat file to launch it in {your crysis install}/Mods/CrysisVR . I'll make all the nice start menu and desktop shortcuts later. I'll post a video of the mod probably next weekend when hopefully I have it all functional and crysis tuned up as much as possible.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/CrysisVR/crysis-vr-0.1.0.exe

There's another game that I'm helping someone else with but it's not quite there yet.

Yes, that's exactly what I (we all?) are looking for. What do you think? Can you make it happen?

Yeah, I'd guess that getting support for other trackers would probably need to happen first, I can't imagine very many people have 3+ hillcrest/YEI trackers

I think the YEI tracker you bought is available in an unfinished package for half the price of your deluxe one ($100 versus $200). If someone was willing to do some soldering, then three YEI trackers could be had for the cost of one Hillcrest and one deluxe YEI. Just sayin'.

You mentioned that having a head/neck model has an impact on the experience (presumably a favorable one), and I can imagine that adding in a neck/waist model would have a *huge* impact.

Edit to add: Isn't this the same YEI tracker as yours, but without the case and connector:
http://tech.yostengineering.com/3-space ... y/embedded

If so, it's a hundred bucks.

[3dvison]

The nice thing about the YEI in the case, is not just that you don't have to solder, it's that the YEI in the case also has two buttons just like a mouse, which does come in handy when hand held, not so much if you are going to strap it to your neck...LOL

[Mel]

The nice thing about the YEI in the case, is not just that you don't have to solder, it's that the YEI in the case also has two buttons just like a mouse, which does come in handy when hand held, not so much if you are going to strap it to your neck...LOL

So the mouse buttons are only helpful during testing, or do they have a real-world gaming use case?

[3dvison]

The nice thing about the YEI in the case, is not just that you don't have to solder, it's that the YEI in the case also has two buttons just like a mouse, which does come in handy when hand held, not so much if you are going to strap it to your neck...LOL

So the mouse buttons are only helpful during testing, or do they have a real-world gaming use case?

I was thinking I could hold it in my hand and use them like Fire, Alt-fire or anything else you may use buttons for.

adoral84,
When using the YEI 3 as a hand tracker can you use its buttons with your Mod ?

[Mel]

The nice thing about the YEI in the case, is not just that you don't have to solder, it's that the YEI in the case also has two buttons just like a mouse, which does come in handy when hand held, not so much if you are going to strap it to your neck...LOL

So the mouse buttons are only helpful during testing, or do they have a real-world gaming use case?

I was thinking I could hold it in my hand and use them like Fire, Alt-fire or anything else you may use buttons for.

adoral84,
When using the YEI 3 as a hand tracker can you use its buttons with your Mod ?

I suppose my original point was that one could get 6DOF head tracking with three $100 YEIs instead of only 3DOF using the more deluxe YEI (which provides functionality that is likely of no use for the HL2 mod; the gun controller is the mouse substitute).

[adoral84]

I suppose my original point was that one could get 6DOF head tracking with three $100 YEIs instead of only 3DOF using the more deluxe YEI (which provides functionality that is likely of no use for the HL2 mod; the gun controller is the mouse substitute).

I haven't tried the buttons yet, it could be somewhat useful to have two additional buttons where you mount the tracker but I'd definitely trade that for the 50% off version Mel is referring to. Has anyone here every soldered on a usb connector? It doesn't look like it should be to hard but I'd love to see a video or something first.

[Mel]

I suppose my original point was that one could get 6DOF head tracking with three $100 YEIs instead of only 3DOF using the more deluxe YEI (which provides functionality that is likely of no use for the HL2 mod; the gun controller is the mouse substitute).

I haven't tried the buttons yet, it could be somewhat useful to have two additional buttons where you mount the tracker but I'd definitely trade that for the 50% off version Mel is referring to. Has anyone here every soldered on a usb connector? It doesn't look like it should be to hard but I'd love to see a video or something first.

Soldering would be trivial...assuming you have the right equipment. You could just cut one end off an existing USB cable and solder the cable's bare wires directly to the sensor (although strain relief would be a concern...you'd have to provide strain relief on the cable at the point where the sensor is attached to the object being sensed -- HMD, shirt collar, gun, whatever).

[Mel]

I suppose my original point was that one could get 6DOF head tracking with three $100 YEIs instead of only 3DOF using the more deluxe YEI (which provides functionality that is likely of no use for the HL2 mod; the gun controller is the mouse substitute).

I haven't tried the buttons yet, it could be somewhat useful to have two additional buttons where you mount the tracker but I'd definitely trade that for the 50% off version Mel is referring to. Has anyone here every soldered on a usb connector? It doesn't look like it should be to hard but I'd love to see a video or something first.

Also, for those getting a real development Rift unit, they would only need to buy two more $100 sensors. Hopefully Oculus will allow direct access to their tracker's raw data so that it could be fused by your code along with the other two YEI sensors.

(See what I did there? I'm talking about this as though you've already committed to doing it )

[3dvison]

I haven't tried the buttons yet, it could be somewhat useful to have two additional buttons where you mount the tracker

I was not going to mount the tracker to anything, thats the nice thing about the YEI3 in the case with the two buttons. I wanted to hold it as is, in my right hand so it could be your gun/flashlight or whatever you are holding in game with that hand. Then in your left hand have a controller with more buttons available for other uses.

[Mel]

I haven't tried the buttons yet, it could be somewhat useful to have two additional buttons where you mount the tracker

I was not going to mount the tracker to anything, thats the nice thing about the YEI3 in the case with the two buttons. I wanted to hold it as is, in my right hand so it could be your gun/flashlight or whatever you are holding in game with that hand. Then in your left hand have a controller with more buttons available for other uses.

Your desire to have the extra buttons won't prevent adoral84 from adding 6DOF functionality, though

[3dvison]

Your desire to have the extra buttons won't prevent adoral84 from adding 6DOF functionality, though

You are right, everyone can have what they need.

[RABID]

adoral84, any plans to add separate gun tracking to DOOM3 BFG?

[Dantesinferno]

hey @adoral84 i'm looking to create my own plastic vr gun, and i have a question should i use the YEI tracker or the Hillcrest tracker? I know the hillcrest tracker uses "freespace motion studio" and "libfreespace." What can YEI tracker be used and where would be the best place to put the tracker on the gun?

[adoral84]

adoral84, any plans to add separate gun tracking to DOOM3 BFG?

I'll eventually get to Doom 3 if no one else does but I want to make sure I get the HL2 and Crysis mods done right before I move on. Oh and I did a quick port of the crysis mod into CryEngine 3 yesterday, looks like that'll be really easy to migrate for anyone looking to building something using the cryengine 3 sdk.

hey @adoral84 i'm looking to create my own plastic vr gun, and i have a question should i use the YEI tracker or the Hillcrest tracker? I know the hillcrest tracker uses "freespace motion studio" and "libfreespace." What can YEI tracker be used and where would be the best place to put the tracker on the gun?

YEI has it's own api that you can download and build against, but I've already included YEI support for the mods I'm working on so it should be as simple as getting the hillcrest trackers working. Placing the tracker on the gun is pretty flexible as long as you have it oriented correctly, I've been typically mounting it to the top rail where the scope would go.

Your desire to have the extra buttons won't prevent adoral84 from adding 6DOF functionality, though

You are right, everyone can have what they need.

I'm going to play with an additional tracker for 6dof movement this weekend, it does seem like it could be really cool. If you haven't seen this video, it's pretty much the same concept taken to the extreme (both in coolness and price with the 7+ YEI trackers)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSTge5IDxF4[/youtube]

[Dantesinferno]

@adoral84 In creating my gun from scratch.. Do you think that pressure sensitive triggers are must? Did the top shot elite have it, and if not, did it feel very responsive? Also,would it be best to create gamepad buttons/trigger that, when pressed, emulate an Xbox 360 controller such as this program http://code.google.com/p/x360ce/ Also, I looked into RF transmitters and RF receivers and i have come to the conclusion of using Bluetooth, is Bluetooth the best/cheapest option for transmitting information the fastest, and if not, what would you recommend? I know these are a lot of questions and if you can't answer them all i understand. I will probably just buy a top shot elite from Walmart and open it up and see how everything is set up. I also plan to add vibration for slight weapon recoil. I want to put the tracker on the inside of my weapon, but i'm not sure how i could transmit the information from the tracker wirelesslly using the Bluetooth transmitter chip(i need to do more online searching!) I'm a bit of a newbie but i have a sweet weapon design i want to make. These are a lot of questions, i know, and i'm still doing research, but if you have any answers that would be great.

[RABID]

this guys custom xbox gun is really nice
http://youtu.be/6l6jso-tcH4

[WiredEarp]

When using the Hydra, I prefer to shoot using the buttons, not the pressure sensitive triggers. Easier and quicker to fire rapidly...

[bobv5]

Look at electronic paintball guns. The guys building those seem to be the experts on electronic weapon triggers.

[Alkapwn]

What about adding one of these to the Half Life 2 mod? Does anyone know if these guys are still in business? Seems like the last update was in 2011 which is kinda sad.

http://tngames.com/products

[adoral84]

What about adding one of these to the Half Life 2 mod? Does anyone know if these guys are still in business? Seems like the last update was in 2011 which is kinda sad.

http://tngames.com/products

I actually just picked one up dirt cheap off ebay a few days ago. Supposedly it's already supported for HL2 but if not the API looks pretty simple. I'm curious how well it works, not something I would've ever bothered with for sitting at a desk but for this type of setup I figure it's at least worth a try.

[Alkapwn]

What about adding one of these to the Half Life 2 mod? Does anyone know if these guys are still in business? Seems like the last update was in 2011 which is kinda sad.

http://tngames.com/products

I actually just picked one up dirt cheap off ebay a few days ago. Supposedly it's already supported for HL2 but if not the API looks pretty simple. I'm curious how well it works, not something I would've ever bothered with for sitting at a desk but for this type of setup I figure it's at least worth a try.

Sweet deal! Please let us know your findings. This was one of the first things I added to my wishlist for the Rift as I figured it would add incredible immersion when you're "inside the game" as apposed to looking at a screen and knowing that there can't really be anyone behind you. Looks like I may have to take to Ebay then and see. Amazon looked like it had a few, but the sellers seemed kinda sketch. Got the Top Shot already, know just gotta research how tricky the soldering would be for the YEI 3-Space.

[cybereality]

The Third Space vest is cool, it really does sort of feel like you are getting shot (not that I would know what that feels like). But the software support is horrible. Worked good for me on HL2 and COD2 (multiplayer only) but otherwise could not get any games working. I guess if you are making your own games it could be cool, never got around to playing with the SDK.

[Alkapwn]

Kk, I found some info bought soldering the YEI tracker.

Page 18 has the pin layout:
http://tech.yostengineering.com/3-space ... ct2012.pdf

Here's a DIY for regular USB cable hacking, but I'm sure it's easily applied to this. Just line the colours up it seems:
http://www.androidcentral.com/weekend-p ... old-cables

Hardest part seems to be locating a female micro USB connection. Found some on the trusty Deals Extreme site though:
http://dx.com/p/replacement-micro-usb-5 ... ver-169061

Think I may purchase the bare bones YEI and dabble in some DIY.

[adoral84]

The Third Space vest is cool, it really does sort of feel like you are getting shot (not that I would know what that feels like). But the software support is horrible. Worked good for me on HL2 and COD2 (multiplayer only) but otherwise could not get any games working. I guess if you are making your own games it could be cool, never got around to playing with the SDK.

Yeah I read through your thread on the vest a while back, it's unfortunate that they never had great support because most people seemed impressed. Since I already have to mod things to support the tracking adding in the haptics support shouldn't be too much extra work and I'm betting the two go together really nicely. I think the 3rd space vest is another example of a product that just didn't make sense before something like the rift, I hope a new round of devices like that come out.

Since the vest already has a cable running to it I was also thinking about putting one of the spare mini bass-transducers in the vest as well, I know my buttkicker on my office chair adds a lot of immersion and I have all the parts already so it's at least worth a test.

@adoral84 In creating my gun from scratch.. Do you think that pressure sensitive triggers are must? Did the top shot elite have it, and if not, did it feel very responsive? Also,would it be best to create gamepad buttons/trigger that, when pressed, emulate an Xbox 360 controller such as this program http://code.google.com/p/x360ce/ Also, I looked into RF transmitters and RF receivers and i have come to the conclusion of using Bluetooth, is Bluetooth the best/cheapest option for transmitting information the fastest, and if not, what would you recommend? I know these are a lot of questions and if you can't answer them all i understand. I will probably just buy a top shot elite from Walmart and open it up and see how everything is set up. I also plan to add vibration for slight weapon recoil. I want to put the tracker on the inside of my weapon, but i'm not sure how i could transmit the information from the tracker wirelesslly using the Bluetooth transmitter chip(i need to do more online searching!) I'm a bit of a newbie but i have a sweet weapon design i want to make. These are a lot of questions, i know, and i'm still doing research, but if you have any answers that would be great.

Pressure sensitive buttons aren't a must, I don't think any of them are on the top shot, but two analog sticks are a must though for this type of setup. XBox 360 controller emulation would be best since it's widely supported in most games while normal xinput support is fairly limited. the easiest way, and something I've started but haven't gotten very far) for a first pass at a custom gun would probably be to buy a top shot and gut it, the components are really easy to take out, and there is enough slack cable between the components to try different setups. I don't know much about recoil etc, the Mag II just does a little rumble when the trigger is pulled which does add just enough feedback to give a nice effect.

[Mel]

The really nice thing about the vest is that it gives you something to connect a third YEI sensor to

[Krisper]

Hey adoral84, does your mod support 2 of the YEI sensors? I have a hillcrest, and am about to buy the YEI, just wondering if I should get 2 and have no drift problems?

P.S. this mod is awesome, can't wait to try the separate gun tracking.

[adoral84]

Hey adoral84, does your mod support 2 of the YEI sensors? I have a hillcrest, and am about to buy the YEI, just wondering if I should get 2 and have no drift problems?

P.S. this mod is awesome, can't wait to try the separate gun tracking.

It doesn't at the moment but I was planning on adding multiple YEI support this weekend. I'm personally just going to deal with the drift until I get my rift dev kit and then use the YEI on the gun, the drift doesn't really bother me much since I have the recenter weapon command bound to a button on the gun.

[Dantesinferno]

@Adoral84 I just sent you a message!

[Krisper]

Hey adoral84, does your mod support 2 of the YEI sensors? I have a hillcrest, and am about to buy the YEI, just wondering if I should get 2 and have no drift problems?

P.S. this mod is awesome, can't wait to try the separate gun tracking.

It doesn't at the moment but I was planning on adding multiple YEI support this weekend. I'm personally just going to deal with the drift until I get my rift dev kit and then use the YEI on the gun, the drift doesn't really bother me much since I have the recenter weapon command bound to a button on the gun.

Thanks mate! I am waiting on a rift too, but I have an ST1080 which will still get some use so I think I'll go ahead and buy 2 YEI trackers.

[3dvison]

Hi adoral84,
Is there a way, or will there be a way, to use the two buttons on the YEI 3 that comes packaged in a plastic case ?

[adoral84]

Hi adoral84,
Is there a way, or will there be a way, to use the two buttons on the YEI 3 that comes packaged in a plastic case ?

Ideally they can still function as mouse clicks even when the device is being accessed via the api, but somehow I doubt that. I'll poke around and see if there is an option for that.

[3dvison]

Hi adoral84,
Is there a way, or will there be a way, to use the two buttons on the YEI 3 that comes packaged in a plastic case ?

Ideally they can still function as mouse clicks even when the device is being accessed via the api, but somehow I doubt that. I'll poke around and see if there is an option for that.

Thanks,
I only ask because I was not going to strap it to anything else that would have extra buttons to use.
I thought its two buttons, would be all I need in my right hand and with its nondiscript shape, in the game world, it would make a good gun, flashlight, crowbar, ect,ect...but I will need those two buttons to make it work..
I am chopping up an old Nostromo N50 to hold in my left hand for anything I might need buttons for and it has a d-pad..

[djdevin]

I caved and bought another Hillcrest tracker to see this in action - works well!

It'd be nice to get an option to flip which tracker is gun and which is head.

[BillRoeske]

I'm certainly interested to hear how your experience goes with the 3rd space vest. I grabbed the SDK documentation today, but haven't signed up for a developer account to get the SDK itself. With all of the talk about them being unresponsive to emails, I hope that account creation is automated.

On a side note, it seems like it'd be pretty important to track body orientation separately from head orientation in order to put the feedback into the proper zone on the vest.