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Nice thread but I think it has the wrong title.

Aiming for Half Life 2 or Doom 3 is of course the biggest scalp naturalpoint can get however I think you are aiming to high really.

For several reasons.

Doom 3 and Half Life 2 is two of the fps games that will benefit the least of TrackIR support. It will do nothing to very little to increase the satisfaction of playing these games IMHO.

Also it�s the wrong target group. How do you convince the average HL 2 player who perhaps only have played CS or HL in it�s entire life to invest 150$ on a head tracking device?

Look at how hard it is to convince people on these vr glasses benefits. ATI still doesn�t support them for example and everyone said for what 10 years ago that VR would be the future.

I have them and love them despite the lack of support for them in many games.

I would rather think that you should try to get it on games that people who use flight simulators play to start with. Easier to convince game developers to implement them.

I made an example of Raven Shield before. It�s an old game yet people still play it. Very easy to find servers on-line. Even 5 year old SWAT 3 still has it�s fan base. Now these are the type of games where TrackIR would really feel at home.

Slower paced tactical shooters where you always have to maintain stealth, keep a low profile, look around for threats, covering your teammates and lean around corners.

You talked about progressive leaning? Raven shield support that though if you use it you can�t fire at the same time. You press a button and then use your mouse to lean. You can also open the door step by step using your scroll wheel.

Really it�s more these type of fps games that would really benefit from it. Though I wonder how you would solve the issue with your head moving around and thus make your aim less accurate?

But then since all games need multiplayer these days comes the question about cheating. I guess many will see TrackIR as a cheat if it indead makes it easier to control your character and spot targets.

But really I think TrackIR sadly will have just as hard if not harder time as VR to break through in the broader spectrum. It would be to hope that somebody in their garage can make their own TrackIR enabled game that becomes the next Counterstrike (sucky game by todays standards but it just won�t die).

Game developers don�t really care about making their games compatible for stereo3d gaming why would they care about TrackIR? People will buy them with or without anyway and they won�t get any extra money for spending precious time supporting it.

Oh I forgot to mention that Doom 3 was repetitive and booring and Half Life 2 is way over hyped .

Play Riddick: EFBB or Far Cry if you want some real fps titles and don�t fall for the hype

I prefere Riddick to Doom3 and HL2. Here in the UK there waa little hype for it, so when it came out what a refreshing supprise it was. Yes it would benifit TIR+Vector because of the amount of looking for places to hide ect.

The one game that for me is crying out for Vector is Splinter Cell. SC is basically a game that is made around TIR but doesnot use it.
Maybe in the future

orbtechsims, We are discussing a "technology demo" trackir mod for HL2 internally right now, and will soon discuss it further with our beta testers. It is too soon to say if or when this will be released to the public.

ovqvist, I appreciate your comments, and think you have a very well thought out position.
let me attempt to explain our position:
-We're exploring HL2 specifically because some of our programmers love the game and are willing to work on a TrackIR mod for it in their spare time.

-TrackIR is already in WorldWarIIOnline's FPS segment, and will be in some other upcoming games that i can't talk about yet. Rest assured that we are already actively persuing games that feature both flight simulation and FPS (that said, I do hope you all will continue tell us what games you want TrackIR built into!)

-Entering the mod community for HL2 (and hopefully DOOM3 next!) has been very illuminating. Hopefully explaining how we implemented TrackIR to the mod community will encourage people to build TrackIR into so many mods that the big boys will take note. Plus it may encourage those die-hard fans keeping old games alive to work with us to retrofit them for TrackIR.

-What are your ideas for overcoming the notion that TrackIR (or any other exciting new peripheral) is a "cheat"? In my opinion, this is like saying joysticks are a cheat for flight sims, because they make it more realistic and easier to control.

-I'd bet that VR glasses continue to fail in the marketplace because they struggle to chase the flawed concept of strapping monitors to each eyeball. VR could be the future, if only tons of people would stop having serious vision problems after wearing VR goggles for more than a couple hours at a time (Vestibular Ocular Reflex problems). TrackIR's "fishtank VR" approach is a proven solution to the VR goggle's many problems.

- I think developers hesitate to support a lot of new peripherals because there's no simple standard to adhere to. We're setting that standard, and paving the way for all future view controllers. With the proliferation of eye toy, and xbox 360's recently announced built-in camera, i think we'll see motion tracking seep into all sorts of games that nobody thought was possible.

it is an exciting time for changing the game!

[ April 22, 2005, 03:28 AM: Message edited by: NaturalPoint-Warren ]

Yeah of course I want TrackIR in every single game out there

As for cheats well for some people CS is their life. Also TrackIR isn�t cheap and it�s most real young people who play CS and HL who simple can�t afford buying it. However I guess it would be quite simple to just disable TrackIR support on servers and have it enabled in others so it shouldn�t be that much of a problem.

As for stereo3d well the problem is nothing have happened on that front. It�s still the same old technology. Every time I mention these people tell me about how heavy and flickering and everything they where. Because they bought like the first generation glasses that was available in the Geforce/Geforce 2 era. I had those two and they wheren�t at all comfortable.

Now if I start a stereo3d gaming thread outside the stereo3d dedicated forums 9/10 come and complain about their experience with the stereo3d glasses they had back then even though Edimensionals there is now in games that have the correct separation and convergence and such I can use for hours without fatigue.

But ATI doesn�t care about it, game developers don�t care about it, not many end users as a result uses it so it�s locked in like a status quo.

But may TrackIR will make a better name for itself and the technology for TrackIR seem much more mature than for the stereo3d glasses which really hasn�t happened much with the last years.

True there is 3D monitors but they are quite expensive and small size still. Also those you would loose the stereo effect with trackIR because you have to keep in the middle.

Hello:

I am enjoying this thread. I think there are a lot of good points by many users.

Basically, I think that if we just keep making a great product that actually does fulfill some need, like view control, and keep our customers happy and on our side then over time TrackIR Enhanced will proliferate to new games / genres. Look at how we now have racing titles coming out, soon some good FPS titles. The marketplace will dictate if we are viable in these new genres, based on price and offered functionality in each game. It will be a fun thing to participate in.

If the ncan implement this technique on a engine like hl1 or hl2 then you can convince a big guy like ubisoft/EA to use this in there games as a standard.

Its not where it woudl come to its use, you obviously dindt research deeply enough. For Half-Life 1 there is a mod called: Hostile Intent, or short HI. This is a mod that works wiht ironsights and teamplay/tactics, and not a cs everyone go's its own way.

Now there developing this for hl2, i think this mod would be evne better wiht TIR, imagine peaking around a wall to see the badguy standing instead of the leaning feature you see in todays games.

@warren, a few of these spirit guys are pretty dedicated wiht improving hl, and there pushing the edge to todays video cards.

But Half Life engine is really to old to play with. I can understand modders like to work with it due to the increased complexities with the new Unreal 3 engine and everything. Think it was like Bethesda which had to double it�s staff for Oblivion which is based on the Unreal 3 engine.

Also I have a hard time seeing how game mods for Half Life can come even close to games like Raven shield and SWAT 3/4 which have such a technically advantage.

But the Source engine is not at all as advanced as the Doom 3 engine and Crytek engine etc so it�s maybe not to hard to develope for either?

Those 3 games, hl2, d3 and fc both haver there own advantages/disadvantages.

D3, great lightning but horrible to run on older computers.

fc, i love the water! but the levels are boring and repetetive.

hl2, Great story! got sucked into it,but doesnt have lightining or water that is as good in fc and d3, though the maps look very well.

And you dont believe it?
http://www.hostileintent.org/site/news/

I think that the best way to get TIR implementated in a game would be at the very start of the project. That way the coding might not take that long to implement, but the level design would be the make or break of TIR use in the game.

So I do not think it is so much of the game engine being used, but how it is used. You can have the best game engine in the world but if you do not have the rest you end up with a brown smelling mess (Dai Katana anyone?).