Technical question about the IR5 centering

[Muhad]

You can center the IR5 view by pressing F12. My question is, is this 'center' directly related to the 'aircraft.cfg' file 'eyepoint' values?

[VincentG]

With most applications, yes

[suedfriese]

Hi everybody.

Is it possible to change the center viewpoint independently from what a game is predefining? By adding a user defined motion offset, automatically following every "center" call?

I own a game that is using a different default point of view with TrackIR than without your device attached. I prefer - and I'm very familiar with - that other location.

It's nagging me to death, because I have to recenter often. Changing my head's position every time in advance is not much fun.

Thanks for reading,
Reinhard

[VincentG]

Generally the center point is defined within the gaming application during the implementation of the TrackIR software. There isn't anything within the TrackIR software to adjust the offset.

[suedfriese]

Thanks. But this is very bad news. I did a little research in the meantime, and there were several users in this forum demanding such feature in the past. It has just been ignored, up to now.

You may say that's in the responsibility of the game developers. May be. But right now, my brand new TrackIR 5 is unusable for me, and I'm not very amused to have spend 200 Euros for something I cannot use.

And even if my game (European Truck Simulator) would support a changed POV: a user defined offset for all 6DOF would be very useful for many users which game control does only allow to define a POV, but not a changed angle of view.

It would be so simple. Affects nobody who don't want to use it. And no one would have to bother with sloppy TrackIR integrations, like done with my game, in any present or future games.

[Seth Steiling]

User-defined offsets--outside of the design intentions of a game's developers--open up the possibility of exploiting game design. This is particularly problematic in multi-player games, but in any game/genre, it is not our desire to override the game developer's intended implementation. We deliver 6 DOF data to the games, but it is the game developer's prerogative to determine how best to implement it. We obviously want to enable users to tweak the motion in terms of scaling, smoothing, deadzones, etc. If a game dev wants to enable customizing offsets, we're totally in favor of that. If not, as dev partners that respect the integrity and intent of the game we're supporting, we aren't going to override that.

Your best bet is to take this request directly to the developer in question.

[suedfriese]

Dear Seth, I see your point with multiplayer.

And I even can understand that you don't want to override game design decisions.

But I'm not talking about such. This could be easily circumvented by limiting the offsets to small values.

I'm talking of looseness and sloppiness in game design. In my case, there was no game designers "intent" in abandoning adjustable offset: It was just not done, for whatever reason, and they managed to choose a bad POV. Small budget game, no support on this to expect. I got no answer up to now, and what I saw in the dedicated forums doesn't make me very optimistic.

So, I feel like a man just bought a new car, facing the knob to change the driver seat height is missing. Driving back to the dealer:

Dealer: No, we can't help you, the seat manufacturer designed it that way. Call his support. I represent the car manufacturer.

Me: I've done so. He's not reacting. But when you sold me the car, you assured me the seat can be lifted!

Dealer: Well yes, it can, just no knob.

See my point? Above doesn't match perfectly, because you sold me the "car" only, not the "seat".

But the game, Euro Truck Simulator, is listed on your site as supporting TrackIR, and thats why I bought your device.

There are companies out there who fail to support customers properly. Also drop dead games, like Microsoft Flight Sim. So, advising customers to seek for game developers support will not always do it.

I will stop here, posting is long enough, I guess. But I really want to ask you, as friendly as I could, if it wouldn't be possible to add slightly adjustable offsets, limited to reasonable values.

[AndrewCZ]

I don't think exploiting in MP would be a problem - offsets would only affect the raw data going from TrackIR to the game, any limits the developer imposes on XYZ movement or rotation would still be in effect. In other words, if you could exploit the offsets to look through geometry or something, same thing could be done with the current drivers as well (just raise the curve a bit and move your head).

[Seth Steiling]

[quote=suedfriese]Dear Seth, I see your point with multiplayer.

And I even can understand that you don't want to override game design decisions.

But I'm not talking about such. This could be easily circumvented by limiting the offsets to small values.

I'm talking of looseness and sloppiness in game design. In my case, there was no game designers "intent" in abandoning adjustable offset: It was just not done, for whatever reason, and they managed to choose a bad POV. Small budget game, no support on this to expect. I got no answer up to now, and what I saw in the dedicated forums doesn't make me very optimistic.

So, I feel like a man just bought a new car, facing the knob to change the driver seat height is missing. Driving back to the dealer:

Dealer: No, we can't help you, the seat manufacturer designed it that way. Call his support. I represent the car manufacturer.

Me: I've done so. He's not reacting. But when you sold me the car, you assured me the seat can be lifted!

Dealer: Well yes, it can, just no knob.

See my point? Above doesn't match perfectly, because you sold me the "car" only, not the "seat".

But the game, Euro Truck Simulator, is listed on your site as supporting TrackIR, and thats why I bought your device.

There are companies out there who fail to support customers properly. Also drop dead games, like Microsoft Flight Sim. So, advising customers to seek for game developers support will not always do it.

I will stop here, posting is long enough, I guess. But I really want to ask you, as friendly as I could, if it wouldn't be possible to add slightly adjustable offsets, limited to reasonable values. [/quote]
I don't think the car purchase analogy holds up, as we don't specify the nature or quality of implementation in games. We pass along 6 DOF data. We don't develop games. We inform potential customers that TrackIR is supported in a game, but that's it. To say that a fundamental feature of TrackIR is missing, because you don't like how a fully-autonomous game developer integrated our tech in their own IP, doesn't make sense to me. It's their IP, it's their prerogative to implement how they see fit. For example, I've played some FPS games where I really don't like how the developer programmed mouse support in. I don't expect the mouse manufacturer to overcome that for me, because their role is to pass along data, not to manipulate the data to affect game design.

But, I can completely understand that it's frustrating to discover that the implementation isn't what you were expecting--especially if it's the reason you bought your TrackIR. But, we do offer a 30 day return if you're not satisfied.

You might be able to change the default center view though the game's config file. But, we're not going to override game design, even slightly. What seem like small, reasonable offsets in ETS could, in another game, open up exploits when combined with scaling. Or, perhaps moving the offset would break the cockpit because of rendering limitations. There are numerous possible motivations for a developer to limit the center point. In the end, it's their IP, and it's their call to make.

[quote=AndrewCZ]I don't think exploiting in MP would be a problem - offsets would only affect the raw data going from TrackIR to the game, any limits the developer imposes on XYZ movement or rotation would still be in effect. In other words, if you could exploit the offsets to look through geometry or something, same thing could be done with the current drivers as well (just raise the curve a bit and move your head).[/quote]
Good point, but not necessarily true. Game devs, when implementing with our SDK, assume a fixed center point. The scaling is also fixed to a certain point. It's certainly possible that, instead of implementing view limits, they determined that the default limit we impose was sufficient. Enabling the adjustment of offsets on our end could move beyond that assumed limit.

Additionally, if a dev wanted to limit x movement because of unrendered portions of a cockpit, perhaps they just disabled the x data stream and assumed that would be sufficient protection. If we allow offset manipulation, it could expose these parts of the unrendered model. They could perceive this as devaluing their IP, which is something we definitely want to avoid.

It's also true that our current scaling capabilities could similarly compromise game design. But, this is a necessary risk, as smoothing and scaling are integral parts of optimizing and personalizing head tracking. Additionally, this is a known variable to game developers. They know the limits of our scaling, so they can plan accordingly. Changing a fundamental assumption (static center points) after they've finished the development process is a different thing altogether.

Having said all of that, we'll look into it. I wouldn't hold your collective breath on it though. There are some philosophical concerns on our end, as I've outlined, and when compared with other in-demand dev projects, I don't foresee this being in our software any time soon. But, I'll talk to the dev team nonetheless.

[suedfriese]

Thanks for your detailed answer, I see your point and understand the implications. Though I don't share all of your views, I do respect them.

No, I won't return the TrackIR, I have seen what would be possible with it in the game I'm using now and hope I will get a solution, with or without support of the game developer. And if I have to move the 3D-model. Okay, I'm kidding.

So please do speak to the developers, and please have in mind that my demands encompass only very slight coordinate and angle changes. No problem if these are limited to a small range, and NOT scalable by any means.

And please don't forget to feed the crew, give them fresh water and check if the chains aren't too tight. I've been a developer for many years myself, so they have my sympathy.