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

Post by **mscoder610** » Sat Mar 16, 2013 10:46 pm

Hey adoral84,

If someone only has a Rift / DIY Rift (and no second tracker), will they be able to use the mouse for gun aiming / tracking? (With the assumption that the mouse would only control the gun, not freelook).

If so, then someone could just use the Hydra with mouse emulation. And it would probably make your mod more easily testable by the incoming wave of people that'll have devkits (either with or without the Hydra, but without an additional Hillcrest / YEI tracker).

Post by **adoral84** » Sat Mar 16, 2013 10:52 pm

You can use the mouse or gamepad to turn in game, but the aim stays centered on the screen when not using a second tracker so no free aim currently. Honestly I think mouse free aim would detract more from the immersion than just aiming with the head tracking.

Post by **spire8989** » Sun Mar 17, 2013 2:29 am

I won't get getting my Rift til late April or May or something, but I hope there's Hydra support by then. And I agree, donation page

Post by **Fredz** » Sun Mar 17, 2013 7:32 am

adoral84 wrote:I'd highly recommend getting a YEI tracker over a hillcrest for that reason, you can get an embedded one with a connector soldered on for only a bit more than the FSM-6.

Do you mean the YEI 3-Space Sensor™ Embedded at $99 but soldered yourself, the YEI 3-Space Sensor™ USB / RS232 at $163.00 or something else ?

Post by **adoral84** » Sun Mar 17, 2013 7:39 am

If you contact their support I think you can get an embedded with a 4 pin connector (or a cable) soldered on the device. Unfortunately they don't do micro usb or something like that but adding a 4 pin connector to a usb cable is pretty straight forward.

Post by **German** » Sun Mar 17, 2013 8:05 am

adoral84 wrote:If you contact their support I think you can get an embedded with a 4 pin connector (or a cable) soldered on the device. Unfortunately they don't do micro usb or something like that but adding a 4 pin connector to a usb cable is pretty straight forward.

I wish they sold the embedded style one in a smaller case with those slots and a USB connector at a lower price than the one in the case with two buttons.

Also, please re-think adding basic independent mouse aiming support. Aiming with the view completely negates the purpose of an HMD. Even just adding a 2D crosshair that shoots where the mouse is would be better.

Post by **Alkapwn** » Sun Mar 17, 2013 12:53 pm

Would getting the one with the 4 pin connector be easier than soldering a mini usb port on the empty one? And what would the price diff be between the empty and the one where they solder the 4 pin on? What does the 4 pin look like and how does that go to usb?

I want to try and place my order soon, to make sure I've done all the cable work and such before the Rift gets here.

Post by **adoral84** » Sun Mar 17, 2013 4:41 pm

Alkapwn wrote:Would getting the one with the 4 pin connector be easier than soldering a mini usb port on the empty one? And what would the price diff be between the empty and the one where they solder the 4 pin on? What does the 4 pin look like and how does that go to usb?

I want to try and place my order soon, to make sure I've done all the cable work and such before the Rift gets here.

If you're comfortable soldering that's probably the way to go, I simply did the 4 pin connector because I'm terrible with a soldering iron and didn't want to ruin the sensor. I've attached an image of the options (the 4 pin version is on the right) but you should contact them because the options aren't on their website that I could find.

Post by **mscoder610** » Sun Mar 17, 2013 9:24 pm

German wrote:Also, please re-think adding basic independent mouse aiming support. Aiming with the view completely negates the purpose of an HMD. Even just adding a 2D crosshair that shoots where the mouse is would be better.

I think I'll have to reserve judgment until I actually have a Rift, adoral84 may be right that it would be strange. At least for seated play - if you're independently aiming with a mouse/ gamepad, how would you turn around when needed? I guess you'd be stuck with keyboard keys for turn left / right at that point.
He also mentioned that it will be open source eventually so we can all experiment with the different input modes if needed, I guess.

Even with the Hydra I'm not completely sure what the best control setup will be for me (again, for seated play - if you have a 2nd tracker and can do 360-degrees style of play that might be ideal, but I don't think that's practical with the Hydra's base station).
Maybe something like:
- Right hydra controller is independent gun aim (with arm movement)
- Left hydra controller, analog stick is move forward / back / strafe
For turn left and right when needed (to reorient yourself without 360-degree play) there's 2 main options I think:
- Turn your left wrist left/ right to turn left / right (called Akimbo mode in Hydra's MotionCreator)
- Right hydra controller analog stick. Usually this just gets mapped to actions (U/D/L/R = 4 actions) in most existing MotionCreator profiles I've looked at, but there's usually enough buttons that this could be used for turning.

If anyone else has a Hydra that they've already tested with seated play in games, feel free to chime in with your thoughts too.

Post by **Alkapwn** » Sun Mar 17, 2013 9:56 pm

adoral84 wrote:
Alkapwn wrote:Would getting the one with the 4 pin connector be easier than soldering a mini usb port on the empty one? And what would the price diff be between the empty and the one where they solder the 4 pin on? What does the 4 pin look like and how does that go to usb?

I want to try and place my order soon, to make sure I've done all the cable work and such before the Rift gets here.
If you're comfortable soldering that's probably the way to go, I simply did the 4 pin connector because I'm terrible with a soldering iron and didn't want to ruin the sensor. I've attached an image of the options (the 4 pin version is on the right) but you should contact them because the options aren't on their website that I could find.

Now that I'm thinking about how many people I want to demo this to, and the varying levels of gamers from hardcore to never, I think I'd feel most safe with the one on the far left. Is that one cheaper than the trackers with the buttons? Because I wouldn't be making use of the buttons anyways so no need for the extra cost. Last question, what's the model number of the one on the far left? Gonna try and put the order through tomorrow.

I wish my 6m USB cable would arrive already! >.<

Post by **CyberVillain** » Mon Mar 18, 2013 2:08 am

I played alot of Arma 2 seated with mouse for weapon control and various trackers for head tracking and a Sony HMZ-T1 as HMD
It works very well, and as far as seated immersion go its very good!

Post by **RoadKillGrill** » Mon Mar 18, 2013 8:43 am

Hey a quick update from YEI, after numerous requests we have decided to make a micro USB embedded sensor.
It has the same footprint as the current embedded but has a micro USB connector instead of a the usb and serial solder pads.

I won't have much more details about it until after GDC.

Post by **adoral84** » Mon Mar 18, 2013 9:00 am

RoadKillGrill wrote:Hey a quick update from YEI, after numerous requests we have decided to make a micro USB embedded sensor.
It has the same footprint as the current embedded but has a micro USB connector instead of a the usb and serial solder pads.

I won't have much more details about it until after GDC.

That's great news, that'll simplify things quite a bit. I just wrote up a guide for getting everything up and running, if you're interested give it a read through and if possible let me know if there are any areas that are unclear: http://vrmods.wordpress.com/2013/03/18/ ... tup-guide/

Post by **Alkapwn** » Mon Mar 18, 2013 11:21 am

RoadKillGrill wrote:Hey a quick update from YEI, after numerous requests we have decided to make a micro USB embedded sensor.
It has the same footprint as the current embedded but has a micro USB connector instead of a the usb and serial solder pads.

I won't have much more details about it until after GDC.

Is it possible to place an order in now for one of those? If the Rifts are scheduled to be delivered by GDC, it'd be nice to have the tracker for whenever the Rift's arrive. Any options for like a group buy price or something like that?

Post by **German** » Mon Mar 18, 2013 11:51 am

Alkapwn wrote: Is it possible to place an order in now for one of those? If the Rifts are scheduled to be delivered by GDC, it'd be nice to have the tracker for whenever the Rift's arrive. Any options for like a group buy price or something like that?

If he's replacing solder pads, they're going to have to make up a new PCB and get it manufactured/tested/etc. The solder pads they're using now are on the edge of the PCB and not the right pitch for a micro usb connector.

Post by **RoadKillGrill** » Mon Mar 18, 2013 12:09 pm

@Alkapwn the price and ETA on the micro USB embedded has not been finalized. To add the micro USB to the board required some moving around some parts so its a new PCB design. We are also taking this opportunity to try some newer components too.

There is volume discounts on orders larger than 10, 20, 50,... 1000+.

Post by **Alkapwn** » Mon Mar 18, 2013 12:20 pm

RoadKillGrill wrote:@Alkapwn the price and ETA on the micro USB embedded has not been finalized. To add the micro USB to the board required some moving around some parts so its a new PCB design. We are also taking this opportunity to try some newer components too.

There is volume discounts on orders larger than 10, 20, 50,... 1000+.

Awesome! Thanks for the quick reply. Sounds like it will be in my best interest to wait till after GDC then. I'll also try starting a thread to see if we can get a group of people from on the forums here to put together a bulk buy. Would it matter if each person paid separately and just put some sort of coupon code or note on checkout or something like that?

Post by **3dvison** » Mon Mar 18, 2013 3:43 pm

Is there a way to up the FOV in HL-2 past 90 ? it would be for a Diy with higher magnification than a Rift ?

Post by **adoral84** » Mon Mar 18, 2013 4:57 pm

3dvison wrote:Is there a way to up the FOV in HL-2 past 90 ? it would be for a Diy with higher magnification than a Rift ?

Still SBS stereo and warped though right? Yeah, I'll try to make a convar for that.

Post by **TheHolyChicken** » Tue Mar 19, 2013 4:34 am

adoral84 wrote:The changes I've made should've fixed the hillcrest lag issues with multiple devices but I can't test it properly because I loaned one of my trackers to another dev.

Who is the other dev?

I've been following this closely and I just saw the guide you posted - very clear and looks comprehensive. I'm also very pleased it looks so easy to set up - hopefully this encourages others to follow the same path!

Post by **adoral84** » Tue Mar 19, 2013 6:08 am

TheHolyChicken wrote:Who is the other dev?

I've been following this closely and I just saw the guide you posted - very clear and looks comprehensive. I'm also very pleased it looks so easy to set up - hopefully this encourages others to follow the same path!

I'm glad you found the guide useful, I know spending around $150 for parts is a bit daunting for a single game but there'll be more on the way things progress. The other developer is working on modding a different game supporting the same control schemes, it's still at a very early stage but once Half-Life 2 and Crysis are both rift ready I'll probably help with that.

There are so many cool things that could be done with combination of the rift a high quality tracker like the YEI and non-conventional controllers

- Cave exploration with a physical flashlight that's tracked (or worse yet slender)
- Lightsabers - every good tech needs a lightsaber demo/game

Honestly unless they've got an ace up their sleeve they're holding for GDC I'm really underwhelmed by the TF2 VR demo that valve showed, it looks like they simply did head tracking and warp and called that VR. And the free-aim probably makes it a bit easier to compete online but it's such a disorienting control scheme and still drags over all those mouse aim instincts. I know they have to make it accessible to a broad base so requiring $100+ of hardware isn't an option, but if people internalize VR as the same old games but you can move your head around it's going to be hard on adoption.

I see a lot of people saying "ports of old games won't be as good an experience with the rift", which I generally agree with but I do want to make it clear that I'm not trying to just port in rift head tracking. I'm tweaking everything from movement speeds and game rules to weapon and enemy behaviors to try to make it more effective for VR, and combined with the fact that Half-Life 2 already follows all of the best practices for VR and is very atmospheric, I think it has the potential to be one of the best early VR experiences for a first person story driven shooter.

Now if only they'd release the SDK for Left 4 Dead so I could work on that, there's another game that with some tweaking and independent weapon aim could be one of the coolest coop experiences I can think of.

Post by **brantlew** » Tue Mar 19, 2013 7:24 am

adoral84 wrote:I see a lot of people saying "ports of old games won't be as good an experience with the rift", which I generally agree with but I do want to make it clear that I'm not trying to just port in rift head tracking. I'm tweaking everything from movement speeds and game rules to weapon and enemy behaviors to try to make it more effective for VR, and combined with the fact that Half-Life 2 already follows all of the best practices for VR and is very atmospheric, I think it has the potential to be one of the best early VR experiences for a first person story driven shooter.

Bravo! That's the spirit.

Post by **donkaradiablo** » Tue Mar 19, 2013 12:33 pm

Couldn't agree more

Post by **adoral84** » Tue Mar 19, 2013 7:23 pm

Here's an update, mostly fixing the lagging issues with multiple hillcrest trackers and adding proper support for duel YEIs but there are a handful of other changes as well. There's also a new vr_swap_trackers console variable (give it a 1 or 0) if they're mismatched. Be sure to put it as a line in your {mod_folder}/config/autoexec.cfg so you don't have to enter it every time you start the game as well.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/HLVR/halflife-vr-0.9.5.exe

In the meantime I'm gonna go read the poop-show conspiracy theories that the official rift forum is churning out

I think the next big thing on the list will be adding rift support, and then I'd love to start working on some early stage positional tracking stuff, I think that's going to have the biggest impact of anything I can do. If anyone has experience and wants to be a part of the project let me know.

Post by **Mel** » Tue Mar 19, 2013 8:45 pm

adoral84 wrote:Here's an update, mostly fixing the lagging issues with multiple hillcrest trackers and adding proper support for duel YEIs but there are a handful of other changes as well. There's also a new vr_swap_trackers console variable (give it a 1 or 0) if they're mismatched. Be sure to put it as a line in your {mod_folder}/config/autoexec.cfg so you don't have to enter it every time you start the game as well.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/HLVR/halflife-vr-0.9.5.exe

In the meantime I'm gonna go read the poop-show conspiracy theories that the official rift forum is churning out

I think the next big thing on the list will be adding rift support, and then I'd love to start working on some early stage positional tracking stuff, I think that's going to have the biggest impact of anything I can do. If anyone has experience and wants to be a part of the project let me know.

Your last paragraph is awesome news, a84! And I agree with your assessment about its importance.

I would love to help out with the technical work, but my job keeps me exhausted 12-14 hrs/day, 7 a week (I am a software bozo for a large security company).

If nothing else, though, I posted my idea for naming a line of garments that contain sensors at all the right body joints to give body position tracking (exactly like in the YEI videos, but instead of individual straps, the sensors are sewn into the garments). The product line would consist of a light-weight coat and pants, sold separately or together. They would be called...

oVR-Coat
oVR-Pants

and collectively known as...

oVR-Alls

With names like that, they gotta sell, don't ya think

Post by **Alkapwn** » Tue Mar 19, 2013 9:04 pm

Just as a heads up, woot! has the Razer Hydra on sale again.

http://www.woot.com/offers/hydra-pc-gam ... trollers-1

Post by **TheHolyChicken** » Wed Mar 20, 2013 4:07 am

adoral84 wrote:I think the next big thing on the list will be adding rift support, and then I'd love to start working on some early stage positional tracking stuff, I think that's going to have the biggest impact of anything I can do. If anyone has experience and wants to be a part of the project let me know.

Have sent a PM.

Post by **djdevin** » Wed Mar 20, 2013 10:45 am

Alkapwn wrote:Just as a heads up, woot! has the Razer Hydra on sale again.

http://www.woot.com/offers/hydra-pc-gam ... trollers-1

Thanks! Just bought one. Lowest on Amazon is still $62

Post by **djdevin** » Wed Mar 20, 2013 11:04 am

adoral84 wrote:Here's an update, mostly fixing the lagging issues with multiple hillcrest trackers and adding proper support for duel YEIs but there are a handful of other changes as well. There's also a new vr_swap_trackers console variable (give it a 1 or 0) if they're mismatched. Be sure to put it as a line in your {mod_folder}/config/autoexec.cfg so you don't have to enter it every time you start the game as well.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/HLVR/halflife-vr-0.9.5.exe

In the meantime I'm gonna go read the poop-show conspiracy theories that the official rift forum is churning out

I think the next big thing on the list will be adding rift support, and then I'd love to start working on some early stage positional tracking stuff, I think that's going to have the biggest impact of anything I can do. If anyone has experience and wants to be a part of the project let me know.

Awesome, I will be playing with this today. Just got my Wii Zapper to properly mount my controllers and tracker.

Have you thought about how jump and duck could be implemented through sensor readings? Jump would be pretty easy since it's just an accelerometer reading and you don't have to measure positional data - not that I would really want to jump while holding gear with a VR headset - but I think duck would be really nice if it was variable. Since I just discovered the Hydra it looks like the positional tracking could do this? Or any 9DOF tracker I suppose.

Hahah I was just thinking it would also be great if you could go prone in addition to duck. GET DOWN!

Post by **adoral84** » Wed Mar 20, 2013 11:24 am

I'm going to be looking into duck with the positional tracking in general, I think simulating the accurate head height will be much more interesting than just detecting a general duck motion and triggering the normal duck action like I'd have to do with the current sensors (if even possible).

Post by **Mel** » Wed Mar 20, 2013 11:46 am

And detecting a jump would not be a simple matter of checking the accelerometer. You could 'fool' a jump just by straightening your knees really quickly without your feet leaving the ground. I think positional sensing of your feet, with the floor being the reference point (or ceiling, I suppose), is the only reliable way to reliably detect a jump.

Bit I would be more than happy with just upper-body tacking as a first step.

Post by **djdevin** » Wed Mar 20, 2013 11:53 am

Yeah, Wii-style jumps

Pure head height sounds awesome. I'm not sure how that could modify the hitbox of the player or if it would be a purely visual thing.

Post by **Zoide** » Wed Mar 20, 2013 2:50 pm

adoral84: Do you think it's worth getting the $45 Hydra from Woot? Or are we better off saving up for a gun + tracker setup?

Thanks

Post by **adoral84** » Wed Mar 20, 2013 3:21 pm

I think the hydra's going to be a good option in general and I'm sure a lot of other developers will be supporting it. I'm partial to the gun + tracker myself because I think physically holding a gun shaped prop really increases the immersion and there are things that I want to do that are going to make more sense with the gun, like tonight I was planning on tweaking the gun so that you actually have to pump it between shots. The main reason to get the gun setup over the hydra would be for the ability to play standing + 360. The YEI tracking is going to be much more responsive than the hydra, although generally people seem to be happy with the hydra's latency.

Post by **Zoide** » Wed Mar 20, 2013 4:22 pm

adoral84 wrote:I think the hydra's going to be a good option in general and I'm sure a lot of other developers will be supporting it. I'm partial to the gun + tracker myself because I think physically holding a gun shaped prop really increases the immersion and there are things that I want to do that are going to make more sense with the gun, like tonight I was planning on tweaking the gun so that you actually have to pump it between shots. The main reason to get the gun setup over the hydra would be for the ability to play standing + 360. The YEI tracking is going to be much more responsive than the hydra, although generally people seem to be happy with the hydra's latency.

How easy is it to work with the Hydra versus the YEIs in terms of an SDK for building custom applications? Say I wanted to do data visualization and manipulation in a 3D VR space with the controller(s).

Post by **djdevin** » Wed Mar 20, 2013 7:30 pm

Having issues launching 0.9.5, 0.9.2 still works fine.

Launches to valve video then flashes the loading screen and dies, still investigating.

"Engine Error
Could not load library client"

Post by **3dvison** » Wed Mar 20, 2013 11:25 pm

djdevin wrote: "Engine Error
Could not load library client"

Welcome to my world.
I have installed, reinstalled, re-re-installed more than a few times with no luck.

Sounds like I should try 9.2.

Post by **Zoide** » Thu Mar 21, 2013 12:26 am

Zoide wrote:
adoral84 wrote:I think the hydra's going to be a good option in general and I'm sure a lot of other developers will be supporting it. I'm partial to the gun + tracker myself because I think physically holding a gun shaped prop really increases the immersion and there are things that I want to do that are going to make more sense with the gun, like tonight I was planning on tweaking the gun so that you actually have to pump it between shots. The main reason to get the gun setup over the hydra would be for the ability to play standing + 360. The YEI tracking is going to be much more responsive than the hydra, although generally people seem to be happy with the hydra's latency.
How easy is it to work with the Hydra versus the YEIs in terms of an SDK for building custom applications? Say I wanted to do data visualization and manipulation in a 3D VR space with the controller(s).

Hmm... It looks like the Hydra would be a pretty good solution: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5bSzVByLjM[/youtube]

Post by **adoral84** » Thu Mar 21, 2013 6:02 am

djdevin wrote:Having issues launching 0.9.5, 0.9.2 still works fine.

Launches to valve video then flashes the loading screen and dies, still investigating.

"Engine Error
Could not load library client"

You might want to try verifying your source sdk 2007 local files, I've had dlls recently just go missing out of that folder which prevents the game from starting up. Aside from that, shoot me the info on the trackers you're using and I'll test that combination out again.

Post by **djdevin** » Thu Mar 21, 2013 8:56 am

3dvison wrote:
djdevin wrote: "Engine Error
Could not load library client"
Welcome to my world.
I have installed, reinstalled, re-re-installed more than a few times with no luck.

Sounds like I should try 9.2.

Alright looks like I'm not the only one. I've tried re-jiggering the SDK to no avail. I did notice it updated itself, so maybe this has to do with that...

Next step is completely erasing all the SDK stuff and redownloading I suppose.

adoral84 - two hillcrest trackers, but it did the same thing even if I unplugged them both, doesn't seem to be related.