stairstepped diagonals - RESOLVED!

[moatdd]

[size:11pt]The Problem:[/size]

I'm trying to use trackIR to control my mouse but I can't seem to get smooth movement -- when I try to draw round circles, trackIR tries to align the movements horizontally and vertically.

In this example, I used the Mouse Emulator that came on the TrackIR CD to draw a curve in a drawing app. As you can see, it's pretty badly "chopped up".



On the right, I used my mouse to draw that nice round spiral. I'm using a high-performance gaming mouse called a Razer Deathadder, which doesn't try to align the movement.

I'm using a smoothing value of 5 - as low as it will go. When I use higher values, I lose responsiveness and the alignment-forcing gets worse.

I'm tracking a simple reflector on the bridge of my glasses in "Dot Mode". (EDIT: I also tried using the Track clip in "Vector" mode - to no avail) I also checked my Tracking window to see if my marker was getting out of sight - it seems that this "angle-chopping" is by design, but I really want to turn it off.

[size:11pt]Software & Settings[/size]

Using TrackIR 4
Driver Version: 4.1 Build 36
Windows XP SP 3

Tracking: Dot
TrueView: ON
Smoothing: 5
Yaw: Linear (entire curve shifted to 10)
Pitch: Linear (entire curve shifted to 20)

[Birch]

You'd likely have much better success with our SmartNav 4 product. It's specifically designed as a mouse replacement device, where as the TrackIR 4 is meant as a gaming input controller.

In your case, turning True View off might result in output more along the lines you are interested in.

[moatdd]

Thanks for getting back to me so fast!

Well... I'm using TrackIR 4 as an FPS gaming input controller -- I felt that using a drawing app would be the best way to demonstrate the type of movement that TrackIR was generating.

My mouse velocity-to-movement response is completely linear (no acceleration) so that I can turn around very quickly and get the aimpoint on the target's body.

Normally, most people have a button mapped to turn down the mouse sensitivity(and zoom in) to make the adjustment for the headshot, but I'd like to use the TrackIR as a head-mounted, low-sensitivity mouse - so the TrackIR is used to make the final adjustment for the headshot.

[s]I experimented with disabling TrueView, but the angle-chopping still happens.[/s]

[color:#FF0000]***EDIT***[/color]

I think I understand TrackIR's function a little better - in that it's a device meant for being able to intuitively look around and sit up or lean to look past obstacles.

There's movement filtering and "deadzoning" whose purpose is to prevent subtle drift as a person settles into their chair or shifts about -- and these things are very desirable for the purposes of a pilot.

But I'm looking to use TrackIR as an intuitive FPS Aiming device -- and the movement filters greatly hamper the usability of the TrackIR to that end because they interfere with the precise movements that a person has to make.

And wouldn't it be cool if you could play space flight sims and have TrackIR target incoming missiles with point-defense turrets by turning your head to face them while going "puh" into a headset mic?

[moatdd]

Ah haaa!!!!!!

I found I could manually edit the Default_Profile.XML directly and set the Smoothing to 1!!!

Now it's very responsive - even a little jittery - which was to be expected. But it's OK. I was able to "tame it down" and now it's totally fantastic.

All right. I'm off to pop some heads.

[moatdd]

UPDATE:

Okay, it works *BLEEEP*ing GREAT now!!!! I can't possibly play without it anymore, ah... it's so nice when every single bullet hits *just* where it has to.

YES!!!! YESSSSS!!!! YEAAAHHHH!!!!!!

[Seth Steiling]

Hi moatdd,

This sounds really interesting. We've had several people ask about using TrackIR for aiming in FPS, but I haven't heard of anyone dialing it in quite like what it seems you have. If possible, I'd love to see a video of this in action. If that's feasible, you can email it to me directly at seth @ naturalpoint.com.

-Seth