Mouse Emulation Support

baggyg
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue Apr 02, 2013 6:31 am
Location: Slovakia

Mouse Emulation Support

Post by baggyg »

Hi Guys,

This is more a topic for the community. I have been playing around with mouse emulation support in a few games. I have actually found in a lot of instances this works quite well. However it is hit and miss. I was wondering if there was a list of "supported" (I.e. mouse emulation works at least) games anywhere. If not it might be good to start a list here so that new users like me know what games they can try. I think the perfect games for this are generally slow FPS.

Currently I have tried:
Working:
Skyrim (Excellent - suggest one:one profile)
Pyschonauts (Working - mouse for camera control)

Non-Working:
Slender: The Arrival (May have been too scary anyway!)
The Witcher (Again would not have been well suited anyway)

I will try and keep this up to date as I try new stuff. For clarity I use track ir with a HMZ-T1 so some of my suggestions may not be as good with a standard monitor setup.
baggyg
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue Apr 02, 2013 6:31 am
Location: Slovakia

Re: Mouse Emulation Support

Post by baggyg »

After playing with Skyrim for a while I played around with the profiles combined with the in game look sensitivity setting. The problem is that you want the mouse (when used) to be quite snappy but the head look to be a bit slower (for general wandering around). I therefore settled on having a high look sensitivity (around 1/2 of the in game gauge) whilst having a profile that was one:one but with the curves (straight line in this case) moved up one notch. This seemed to give the best results.

Gonna have a go on bioshock this afternoon
baggyg
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue Apr 02, 2013 6:31 am
Location: Slovakia

Re: Mouse Emulation Support

Post by baggyg »

Shame I cant edit my own posts (that I can see).

Tried Bioshock today and works well with mouse emulation. However after much reading and learning found out I can do general mouse emulation with Track IR and freePIE so every game is technically unofficially supported. Tested on Slender: The Arrival and working great (apart from being scared to death!).

Therefore not much need for this thread anymore...
NaturalPoint-Dustin
Posts: 609
Joined: Tue Mar 19, 2013 5:03 pm

Re: Mouse Emulation Support

Post by NaturalPoint-Dustin »

I actually find it pretty useful babbyg. I wouldn't mind helping you out with your efforts. I have a ton of games on Steam. I was excited to see it works with Skyrim.
Dustin
Technical Support Engineer
OptiTrack | TrackIR | SmartNav
baggyg
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue Apr 02, 2013 6:31 am
Location: Slovakia

Re: Mouse Emulation Support

Post by baggyg »

Thanks Dustin,

Don't get me wrong, I think there is a definite need for people to share their experiences with TrackIr so others know which games are good to play, but not on the 'official' list. I more meant there is no more need to document what works and what doesn't as every game can technically be played with freePIE.

I will be also going through my game list on steam (have around 300 titles there - feel free to add me [baggyg]) to see what is a good fit and I will update in this thread.

I think what is definitely useful is knowing which games suit the method. At the moment I feel the good ones are those that give you control over the field of view (shooters).and that aren't too reflex based.

RE: Bioshock
You can set up hotkeys to change the field of view through the Users.ini, I found 90 to be about right for me. Its another one where you need to strike a good balance between the head tracking being nice and smooth (and relatively slow) but the mouse being responsive. Mouse sensitivity is in the control menu. I actually found I almost had to put this down to just above one:one to get a good feel.

For those playing with HMZ and 3D vision Helix's mod makes this damn near "3d ready".
baggyg
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue Apr 02, 2013 6:31 am
Location: Slovakia

Re: Mouse Emulation Support

Post by baggyg »

Another full weekend of testing, another possible control method.

So this weekend after some reading I tried using Track IR 5 with FreePIE and the Oculus Rift Open Source Driver Virieo Perception. This is only applicable with people who can view 3d content (I used SBS in my HMZ). There are only a few games this currently supports. After some playing with the config I tried it in Skyrim. The first thing I noticed was the really low latency. The headtracking was quick! This should be used with the one:one profile because cyberreality created his own in game multipliers.

The quickness of this made me question quite a few things, namely the higher latency when using mouse emulation. This lead me on a series of tests to see where the problem was whilst using the other methods.

First thing I have done is completely stopped using the TIRmouse facility. This is because I can program different scripts per game using freePIE. I also have anecdotal findings where freePIE is quicker (note I said anecdotal here, I dont intend to test more - read on for the reason).

I now use one:one profile for everything (mouse emulation wise) and use the freePIE scripts to handle the multiplication rates. I eventually found that the reason the perception app was quicker was simply because the FPS was higher. My Geforce Experience was being a bit optimistic with Skyrim probably because it was not taking into account 3d vision and the mods Ive put on. By playing with the in game settings I was able to to match the low latency of Perception. I must say this makes a huge difference so much so in fact that when I stopped playing and took the HMZ off my vision went all funny probably because my brain had adjusted to the latency.

I applied the same logic to bioshock and received the same results - really quick responsive head tracking with little or no lag (note that I did not have to change any settings in bioshock hence my assertion that freePIE may be quicker).
Last edited by baggyg on Mon Apr 15, 2013 2:06 am, edited 0 times in total.
Reason: typo
baggyg
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue Apr 02, 2013 6:31 am
Location: Slovakia

Re: Mouse Emulation Support

Post by baggyg »

Ghostbusters: The Video Game
Method: TIRMouse (this supports DirectInput although I would recommend freePIE for all games now).

Results: I was keen to test a third person shooter where the headtracking controlled either the camera or aim (Psychonauts worked surprisingly well). Maybe unsurprisingly this was a mess. Really loose control and the character kept turning for no reason. I stopped using the headtracking and found that general mouse keyboard control for this game was also awful. Switched to a Xbox controller and all was fine. I am not yet ready to drop the idea that headtracking can be used well over the shoulder but this game certainly isn't it.
Cardinaluk
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Apr 14, 2013 2:03 pm

Re: Mouse Emulation Support

Post by Cardinaluk »

Any chance you could share the Script for FreePIE that you use with Skyrim?
baggyg
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue Apr 02, 2013 6:31 am
Location: Slovakia

Re: Mouse Emulation Support

Post by baggyg »

Here is what I currently use with Skyrim.

1) Make sure you have the latest FreePIE.
2) Turn on TrackIR and use one:one profile (we change sensitivity through freePIE)
3) Launch freePIE and select trackir from the plugins drop down.
4) A small window will appear. Click OK. You can also click enabled logging if you like although generally you don't need this if everything is working fine.
5) Run the following script:
#Use PageUP to toggle on/off and right mouse to activate head tracking
#Use on Sky rim one:one profile
def update():
yaw = trackIR.yaw
pitch = trackIR.pitch

deltaYaw = filters.delta(yaw)
deltaPitch = filters.delta(pitch)

if (enabled):
mouse.deltaX = -deltaYaw*multiply
mouse.deltaY = deltaPitch*multiply

if starting:
enabled = False
multiply = 17
trackIR.update += update

toggle = keyboard.getPressed(Key.PageUp)

if toggle:
enabled = not enabled

EDIT: Just noticed that this forum removes the indents that are needed. If you have problems getting this working I have placed the original file here (http://www.grantbagwell.co.uk/skyrim.py)


6) Please be aware the tab indent are important as this is what python uses to declare functions / conditionals etc. When running press the PageUp key to toggle mouse emulation. I generally use this so that you can turn it off if there is an element of the game you dont want mouse look in. Make sure this is working on the desktop before launching Skyrim.

7) Launch Skyrim and give it a go. You may also need to edit the in-game mouse sensitivity. Generally I keep this quite low.
8) Another important note is that you really need Skyrim to be running with a high frame rate to make this smooth. Generally I aim for 60FPS on 60Htz to get the best experience.
9) If you find the sensitivity of head tracking is not as you would like, check the following:
a) Make sure TrackIR on One:One profile
b) multiply = 17 - find this line in the script and alter lower is slower / greater is faster. (You will need to stop the script before altering and run again).

Hopefully this will put you in good stead. Let me know of any issues you have and I will try and help out.
Last edited by baggyg on Mon Apr 29, 2013 2:21 am, edited 0 times in total.
Reason: indents not working
baggyg
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue Apr 02, 2013 6:31 am
Location: Slovakia

Re: Mouse Emulation Support

Post by baggyg »

Tomb Raider (2013)
Method: freePIE

Results: I wanted to give another 3rd person perspective game a go after the catastrophe of Ghostbusters and also was looking forward to this reboot so gave it a go. First thing I would say (off topic) is that this game is absolutely beautiful in 3D. Anyone with a compatible setup should really check this out. Probably best 3d supported game I have played.

This game really was developed well for the PC and has a lot of nice features. The mouse controls mouse look so wasn't a bad fit. This is much much better than Ghostbusters. You can use trackIR to look around and then more precisely when aiming. It is definitely worth a go however I am not sure I would continue to play with this setup since just using the mouse or xbox controller feels a lot more natural. This game obviously isn't the main focus for a trackIR experience but there may be some people who quite like using this method. The only other thing I noticed is that the sensitivity of pitch is a bit lower than yaw so it may be worth adjusting trackIR profile or freePIE script to compensate.

As a side note the game switches well between XBOX controller and mouse. This would be perfect if you could play with the controller while using the trackIR for looking around. However this is not usable since the game assumes you are using one or the other (and there is a delay in switchover where you need x amount of mouse movement before the games switches). This is a shame because would have been very useful.

However I am currently working on a freePIE profile for controller emulation so that on any game (looking at you skyrim) you can use the trackIR for looking around combined with controller for movement. Will post script here when I have something I am happy with.
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