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Greetings brave Trackers,

count me in for strongly supporting TrackIR for Skyrim.

This post of a user successful using TrackIR in Skyrim and attched youtube video might be very helpful in this regard:

AVS Forum succesefull use of TrackIR in Skyrim

I'd love to know how he got that to work in wow

I asked Vic-Viper(the user so nice to share this with us the following questions):

Super awesome, Vic-Viper! That's incredibly good news!

I am eager to know more details, if you please:

1. Is the head movement in addition to mouse control and keyboard control? So can I look around with the mouse (fast turns, when my neck gets tired) as well as with my head alone?

2. How are the menus operated? When mouse and keyboard still work, it should be no problem, otherwise it might be hard...

3. If mouse and head tracking work at the same time - how are conflicting inputs resolved?

4. Is there much extra workload on the processor, i.e. do frames significantly drop?

5. Does the head tracking allow for as fluid looking around as the mouse view?

6. Does this work equally well in first and in third person when playing Skyrim (I guess for it's just camera control?)?

7. Does it work out of the box with Skyrim or is some additional tinkering/programming needed (if so, you obviously did it)?

8. I guess it can be used in full stereo 3d mode, i.e. windowed mode is not neccessary?

Wow, so many questions, so fast. I would really appreciate some more info on this - many thanks in advance!

This is what he just kindly answered:

1. The movement is using mouse emulation. It works surprisingly well.

2. Mouse and Keyboard also work. You can look around with the HMZ, and also look around with the mouse. Menu nav and aiming still works great.

3. TrackIR uses a deadzone in the center to reduce input noise. I had no difficulty tracking and using the mouse.

4. Hard for me to tell. I have a Core i7 2nd Gen running at 3.4ghz with a nVidia 580 GTX and 16GB of RAM. At max settings I was running a solid 60fps.

5. Yes

6. Yes. You can see how this looks in the World of Warcraft section of the video. It works the same in Skyrim.

7. Out of the box. Only adjustment I did was reducing the mouse emulation speed in the TrackIR software.

8. Windowed mode was just for showing off on my monitor as I played. Full 3D stereo is supported (and works VERY well).

It sounds as if it would work naturally - but it confuses me a little that you as devs are surprised by this then. Sorry, I do not mean to soun rude or unpolite to anybody, just really confused. Perhaps you can look into this? Many thanks in advance.

[quote=youngneil1]It sounds as if it would work naturally - but it confuses me a little that you as devs are surprised by this then. Sorry, I do not mean to soun rude or unpolite to anybody, just really confused. Perhaps you can look into this? Many thanks in advance.[/quote]
We include a free mouse emulation tool as part of our TrackIR distribution specifically for cases like this--where users would like to experiment with quasi-support where official support isn't present. "Official" TrackIR support is integrated via our API, which adds the important ability to separate movement and aiming--essential to the "intended" TrackIR experience. All of the games on our TrackIR Enhanced list employ this type of functionality, and it's what we feel is the most immerserive, natural, and useful utilization of our tech.

However, we do think it's neat when users are able to get extra mileage out of their TrackIR with the mouse emulation utility. That's what it's there for!

If either Bethesda or Blizzard integrated TrackIR directly, the role that it would play in your control setup would be a bit different (and improved) from what you see in these videos. Instead of the head tracking controlling the mouse in Skyrim, it would break the aiming and view into two separate controls. The mouse would still control the aiming, but TrackIR would independently move the view--essentially like real life, where your neck articulates independent of your arms.

I think Mike was expressing interest not because we weren't expecting to see mouse emulation as a possible pathway, but rather because he was curious if the WOW API was being accessed to control the game's camera directly--something that we would be interested in exploring if someone in the community discovered the right API hook for that.

Similarly--if someone discovered a camera hook in the Skyrim Creation Kit that we could use, we'd love to hear about this. I think that's quite unlikely though, given the nature of that SDK. More promising is the memory-level modification that Mindsphere referred to as employed by the graphics extender mod. Or, of course, direct integration by Bethesda.

Thanks a heapload, Seth. That clarifies it for me. Great nonetheless (even "just" as mouse emulation right now) - this seems simply to be made for the HMZ-T1. As immersion fan I just have to test it out. Also your level of customer feedback and contact is excellent - just ordered the full TrackIR 5 via your German retailer 2connect .

Excellent! Hope you enjoy your new TrackIR. We'll be getting an HMZ-T1 in to play around with as soon as we can. Those suckers are hard to come by!

[quote=NaturalPoint - Seth]
I think Mike was expressing interest not because we weren't expecting to see mouse emulation as a possible pathway, but rather because he was curious if the WOW API was being accessed to control the game's camera directly--something that we would be interested in exploring if someone in the community discovered the right API hook for that.
[/quote]

This is absolutely correct

Here's some great response from Xhonzi who did some modding of Oblivion for head tracking (ie independend move of arms from view) that I post on his behalf:

There was a "free look" mod for Oblivion that I wanted to adapt to use with a headtracker. The way the original mod worked- you pressed a button the decoupled the camera from the body and you could then move the view independent of the arms. Unfortunately, you could no loger move the body in this mode- and since it used "the mouse" to move the view, even if you could move the body forward and laterally, you wouldn't be able to turn. I tried to see if I could adapt it to use a 2nd analogue input (another mouse, a joystick, whatever) so that my headtracker could emulate that and I could get free look and full motion all of the time. Due to my own limitations and I think the limitations of the regular Oblivion engine, I was never able to make much progress. But perhaps someone at Natural Point would have the skills or Skyrim has the flexibility to make this happen. Of course, we'll need to wait until the SDK comes out- but perhaps the Free Look mod from Oblivion is still not a bad starting point.

It might have been this one: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9499 There might be another one.

His original post can be found here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthre ... 46&page=19

We'll be getting an HMZ-T1 in to play around with as soon as we can. Those suckers are hard to come by!

Indeed they are! Absolutely worth the money and effort - beware though that the first "attune to your head and find that quarter inch of perfect focus procedure" is a strenous one (on day one of attunement I was on the verge of returning this overpriced and overweight swim goggle blurring device... oh, how that changed...). Once done, it 's just incredible (best use in dark/dim lit room or block out rest light with some extra cloth over your head). Actually I can't really "play" Skyrim right now, cause I stop at every got damn detail in teh landsacpe: rocks in rivers (oh, the rivers and the clouds!), butterflies, mundane buushes, roadsign, benches, hell even a ditch in the road. Everything is interesting suddenly. Cannot help it. It's vivid beyond belief and no ghosting in stereo 3d is such a relief...

Edit: Ah, best use with 3dTV Play from Nvidia and hack the screen size down a little (I use virtual 50 inches right now), more details here: http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?show ... 5785&st=20

Also wishing support for Skyrim.
Here is a picture link for a trackir receiver installation when using a screen/projector. I made a telescope mounting for receiver behind the sofa with reverse settings.

Pulled up: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcinen/6322653762/
Down: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcinen/6322078683/