Hi. I've read a few comments on various forums regarding games that require a key or button to be held down to enable mouselook. For example:
Operation Flashpoint: hold ALT to move your soldier's head around with the mouse (as opposed to the typical FPS manner of moving your whole body: can be used to look around while in motion, without changing direction; can also be used to look around in, say, a helicopter cockpit without moving the vehicle)
WoW: hold RMB for mouselook
Now, I don't have my TIR yet, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but:
My understanding is that mouse emulation mode is instantly overridden by actual mouse movement. So my suggestion is to be able to specify a key or mouse-button hold that the TIR software will emulate whenever the TIR is in control of mouse movement, and which will cease when the mouse takes over. So for example, in Op Flashpt.:
> I'm looking around using the TIR, mouse is still: TIR emulates ALT + mouse movement (my soldier's head is looking around, independent of wepon aim or body/vehicle direction).
> I move the mouse: the TIR's ALT + mouse emulation stops, mouse takes over (I'm aiming and moving as normal).
For completeness I would suggest also making the feature reversible, just in case a game requires the opposite (ie, a held button or key for aiming or cursor movement or some other mode, but none for mouselook). I know that is less likely, but here's an example: in Outcast, unmodified mouse movement looks around; holding RMB+mouse movement draws & aims your weapon. So how would you like this:
> Using TIR, mouse is still: TIR emulates mouse, no modifying keys (I'm looking around, no weapon drawn).
> I move the mouse: TIR relinquishes mouse control, but begins emulating a held RMB (so as soon as I move my mouse, my weapon is drawn; as soon as my mouse is motionless and I move my head, the weapon goes away again).
Is this possible? Is it a good idea?
If it's already been put forward, don't worry, I'll give myself a slap
Suggestion for "held key" mouselook games
Re: Suggestion for "held key" mouselook games
You can already do this.
All you do is create a custom profile or edit an existing one and uncheck the option 'toggle' under Hotkeys so that when you press the key it turns on the TrackIR and once you let go the TrackIR turns off.
All you do is create a custom profile or edit an existing one and uncheck the option 'toggle' under Hotkeys so that when you press the key it turns on the TrackIR and once you let go the TrackIR turns off.
Re: Suggestion for "held key" mouselook games
Thanks for your reply, and sorry for my incredibly slow one...
But I guess I wasn't being clear, that's not quite what I was talking about. I was thinking of a system similar to that used by gamepad profiling software, which emulates keystrokes.
So my reasoning behind this suggested feature is that the player doesn't have to press a key at all, and the purpose of the emulated key-hold is to send a command to the game, not the TrackIR driver.
I'm not sure how I can clarfiy this... OK, the TrackIR is on all the time, we don't want to be turning it on and off either by toggling or holding a key. Let me take Op Flash as an example again: what we want is for the TrackIR software to tell the PC that the ALT key is being held (even though it isn't) whenever my head is moving, but not when the mouse is moving. Does that make sense?
> So when I'm not moving the mouse, my TrackIR & head movement gives me the same effect as ALT + mouse movement within the game;
> When I move the mouse, it overrides the TrackIR as normal and we lose the emulated ALT key-hold.
And this would be without the player pressing any keys, so he/she can go from looking around in the world, checking flanks while running, etc. to aiming and firing a weapon without having to hit or hold a key at all.
[ March 09, 2006, 07:34 AM: Message edited by: piln ]
But I guess I wasn't being clear, that's not quite what I was talking about. I was thinking of a system similar to that used by gamepad profiling software, which emulates keystrokes.
So my reasoning behind this suggested feature is that the player doesn't have to press a key at all, and the purpose of the emulated key-hold is to send a command to the game, not the TrackIR driver.
I'm not sure how I can clarfiy this... OK, the TrackIR is on all the time, we don't want to be turning it on and off either by toggling or holding a key. Let me take Op Flash as an example again: what we want is for the TrackIR software to tell the PC that the ALT key is being held (even though it isn't) whenever my head is moving, but not when the mouse is moving. Does that make sense?
> So when I'm not moving the mouse, my TrackIR & head movement gives me the same effect as ALT + mouse movement within the game;
> When I move the mouse, it overrides the TrackIR as normal and we lose the emulated ALT key-hold.
And this would be without the player pressing any keys, so he/she can go from looking around in the world, checking flanks while running, etc. to aiming and firing a weapon without having to hit or hold a key at all.
[ March 09, 2006, 07:34 AM: Message edited by: piln ]
Re: Suggestion for "held key" mouselook games
I think you could get something very similar to this effect if both TrackMapper and Mouse Emulation could run at the same time.
(basically, trackmapper could trigger the alt or shift key when you moved outside an adjustable central deadzone. Mouse Emulation can already be setup so that the mouse overrides your TrackIR-mouse-emu as soon as you move the mouse. You would release the virtual alt or shift key by returning to that adjustable central deadzone.)
But these two programs won't share TrackIR input.
I'll ask our programmers how hard they think it would be to allow this, and i'll mention the idea of directly supporting what you describe, piln.
(basically, trackmapper could trigger the alt or shift key when you moved outside an adjustable central deadzone. Mouse Emulation can already be setup so that the mouse overrides your TrackIR-mouse-emu as soon as you move the mouse. You would release the virtual alt or shift key by returning to that adjustable central deadzone.)
But these two programs won't share TrackIR input.
I'll ask our programmers how hard they think it would be to allow this, and i'll mention the idea of directly supporting what you describe, piln.
Re: Suggestion for "held key" mouselook games
Thanks a lot Warren. Looking back over it, it does look like kind of a frivolous suggestion , but I know there've been requests for seamless use in WoW and Op Flash, and this would probably acheive that. And I guess it would work in any unsupported flight or driving game that allows mouselook via a held or toggled key.