No track IR view help?

[Rottweiler]

I don't have a track ir, so right now I just use that bubble thing at the top of my logitech 3D pro to move my head around, but I lose track of planes so fast and was wondering what people were doing before they had track ir? 

 

I don't really play enough or really into the game so much to warrant buying a track ir.

 

Thanks any help!

[RedKestrel]

I used to play with a hat switch on the stick. Head track is much easier for keeping up with enemies but I did ok with panning around with the switch.

 

only tips I have is practice to get good and have a key on your stick to resenter your view to avoid getting disoriented.

[Rottweiler]

That's what I currently do. :/ 

[RedKestrel]

Some people use mouse look. one hand on the mouse, another on the stick. I don't find that works that well personally. The hat switch is the only way I've done it before switching to head tracking.

Really, head tracking has made my playing so much better - the immersion is great once you get used to it, and its much easier to track targets.

Track IR can be pretty expensive but there are cheaper alternatives out there for sure, and free software to manage the tracking. EdTracker, DelanClip and TrackHat come to mind. If cost is your primary concern, I would look at these.

If you just don't want to have to learn how to use something like that for your limited gaming time, then practice is all I can suggest. I would also fiddle with the camera settings until you find a kind of camera movement that works well for the look method you're using. I think that could make a big difference

The one I use is EdTracker Pro. It uses an accelerometer and magnetometer to track your head motion. Its 3DOF (which means it doesn't track your 'lean' or raising/lowering your head) But you can look up, down, left and right, etc. And using it in conjunction with Opentrack you can do some tricks to enable leaning and other things. I am loving using it, its simple to set up, I can use it any time of day or night with no lighting related problems. I had some trouble with mine initially, but the support from EdTracker got me new firmware and gave me some tips and I got it working after a little bit of trial and error. Most people apparently don't have the trouble I did to begin with - its really very much a plug-and-play setup.

EdTracker also has the added bonus of not getting messed up by backlighting (ie a window or a lamp directly behind you - this was a big problem for me).

Here's some sites to check out alternative head tracking (these are the three that come to mind - there are others. There's also an excellent thread on setting up OpenTrack on a DIY headtracking rig stickied on the forum here.

https://www.edtracker.co.uk/

https://www.trackhat.org/

http://www.delanengineering.com/

 

I hope this was helpful.

[Rottweiler]

Yeah I get that track IR is amazing, I just don't play the game enough to warrant buying one. Playing with icons on ruins the immersion a bit for me and playing on expert I can't keep track of planes if I find them.

 

Guess I'll just make do with what I've been doing, thanks for the help though.

[E69_Qpassa_VR]

I used to use before Track Ir a custom webcam without the IR filter and 3 LEDs in a custom headtracking rig using Freetrack. Nowadays this option is deprecated. Use the advised links provided by @RedKestrel

[Wolfram-Harms]

The HAT SWITCH is possibly easier for those, who get dizzy with "mouse view", because the can simply release it

and will be back to forward view. But the mouse view, if practised a bit, is somewhere between HAT SWITCH and TrackIR.

Not bad, if you don't get air sick easily.

 

TrackIR costs ca. 165,- Euro in German AMAZON - a lot of money, but worth a purchase, if you love air combat sims.

[DD_Perfesser]

Before TrackIR there was no point in playing flight sims. You could but it just sucks.

Today you have a other options.

This is an excellent camera, ready to go at 12 pound-  https://www.trackhat.org/product-page/head-tracking-camera

Use free open track software.

 

Now you need something to track with your camera and software.  If using a headset you can use a clip. Someone else might chime in on a cheapest otc option but it's just 3 LED's with a power source.....  I built mine for under $10.

 

If you're poor I suggest you learn to be handy. It's a lot cheaper.

If you aren't poor go VR I guess....

[JonRedcorn]

On 5/16/2018 at 11:48 AM, Rottweiler said:

Yeah I get that track IR is amazing, I just don't play the game enough to warrant buying one. Playing with icons on ruins the immersion a bit for me and playing on expert I can't keep track of planes if I find them.

 

Guess I'll just make do with what I've been doing, thanks for the help though.

That guy told you how to get a headtracking setup for pennies on the dollar. It cost me literally under 10 bucks to make an opentrack setup with 3 ir led's and a ps3 webcam. You don't need to spend 130 bucks for trackir, there are other options.

[SharpeXB]

On 6/3/2018 at 5:31 PM, DD_Perfesser said:

Before TrackIR there was no point in playing flight sims.

Hard to disagree with that. I shelved flight sims until I got the TrackIR

[ZachariasX]

4 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Hard to disagree with that. I shelved flight sims until I got the TrackIR

We could play flight sims and there weren‘t even virtual cockpits...

Edited July 9, 2018 by ZachariasX

[Garven]

For the longest time I used mouse look and hat switch to move head up down and side to side.

[ZachariasX]

2 minutes ago, US103_Furlow said:

For the longest time I used mouse look and hat switch to move head up down and side to side.

Me as well.

 

Problem is with civilian sims, one thends to crank up eyecandy such that fps drop significantly below 60; most even fly with about 30 or even 20 fps. As long as you are looking in one direction constantly, it is not so bad (as long as your fps is maintained steady). But as soon as you pan view / move your head, it is an awful flickerfest below 60 fps. This is why I hardly use TIR for P3D. Nothing to track there anyway, mouse view will do. And to track the field in an approach, hat switch will do as well.

 

But for combat sims, TIR is great indeed. I couldn‘t make good use of it however until I used Requiems settings (THANKS!!) as a starting point. Too many old habits kept me on the „old ways“.

[[Pb]Death-Merchant]

I flew for years using the hat switch for POV, but found that Padlock Enemy was the real key to success. Do you have Padlock Enemy set up?
 

I set up my POV in pan mode, so that I could turn the POV in any direction and it would stay there, which is nice for landing etc. but you'll have to choose which mode works best for you. I also always had a 'center' button that would snap the POV back to center. It's very helpful if you get disoriented.

 

But like I mentioned the Padlock Enemy view was my key to success. With Padlock on, the pilot is always looking at the enemy, regardless of the attitude of the aircraft. Once I got used to it I was able to increase my kill ratio.

 

Good luck.

[=KG76=flyus747]

Rottweiler, 

 

Fear not my friend.  For the past year and a half (and still going) I have been using the hatstick on joysticks.

 

Just recently, my Logitech started dying on me (bless it's soul) so I now have a T16000m.  The T16 has a much better and precise hatstick compared to the Logitech but like I mentioned earlier, it's pretty on par with other methods of viewing (track IR or mouse).  

 

I blame a lot of it partly on mentality. Many of us watch pro's use track IR and immediately assume a defeatist attitude when we don't have any of their"game winning" equipment.  Once you figure that out it just becomes a matter of making that hatstick work perfectly for you.  

 

Go into quick missions and just shoot down bombers then move on to Stukas then to fighters and each time, focus on your ability to look at any point you choose with the hatstick. It's gonna take time and effort of course so you gotta ask yourself, how much do you want it to work because it totally can, just maybe not as quickly or as naturally as you initially thought.

 

It's definitely doable in multiplayer with the hatstick and you'll hear people complain about efficiency and they're not wrong but the margin is really not that big.  

 

To me,  looking around with the hatstick is like second nature to me now.  Like aiming on a console joystick sort of.  I made my viewing a bit more snappy and quick because sometimes dogfights get pretty quick. If you want, here's the camera settings I've been using for these past few months.  It may not work for you but I hope it'll be among the first resources you use to reinstill confidence in your ability to hold your own in a dogfight with the hatstick.

 

If you have any questions feel free to message me.  Flying with the hatstick is dope.

 

 

[LeLv76_Erkki]

I use/used something similar: snap views, fastest speed and no inertia in anything. FOV change needs to be fast enough. It helps (looking around) if you have no throttle and thus have left arm mostly free for mouse. Checking 6 is very with the instant snap view quick as is looking to any other direction, keeping track of a target that moves with high angular velocity is more difficult though.

[JonRedcorn]

Trying to go from VR to headtracking I just can't seem to figure it out. I can look around fine in calm situations but as soon as it gets hectic I am just all over the place. I should probably pick one and stick with it, VR is easy cause it's completely natural but headtracking requires practice. I tried to get used to it for an hour or so, don't think that was enough time. What sucks is that a couple of years ago I would of been so happy with headtracking as I used to use the mouse, but I finally got my trackir working after having VR already. Kind of spoiled it.

Edited August 8, 2018 by 15th_JonRedcorn

[ZachariasX]

1 hour ago, 15th_JonRedcorn said:

Trying to go from VR to headtracking I just can't seem to figure it out. I can look around fine in calm situations but as soon as it gets hectic I am just all over the place. I should probably pick one and stick with it, VR is easy cause it's completely natural but headtracking requires practice. I tried to get used to it for an hour or so, don't think that was enough time. What sucks is that a couple of years ago I would of been so happy with headtracking as I used to use the mouse, but I finally got my trackir working after having VR already. Kind of spoiled it.

 

For me it was important to start off with a suitable preset. I tried TrackIR initially, but I also got confused in hectic situations. Requiems setting for TrackIR really did the trick for me as a first step as it made head controll really controllable. If you haven‘t tuned your curves/settings yet, you might want to try those. Head tracking for me me has nithing to do with VR, as a comfortable head movement does not at all correspond to real workd head movement, as you still are required to comfortably look at your screen even in extreme angles.

[JonRedcorn]

21 hours ago, ZachariasX said:

 

For me it was important to start off with a suitable preset. I tried TrackIR initially, but I also got confused in hectic situations. Requiems setting for TrackIR really did the trick for me as a first step as it made head controll really controllable. If you haven‘t tuned your curves/settings yet, you might want to try those. Head tracking for me me has nithing to do with VR, as a comfortable head movement does not at all correspond to real workd head movement, as you still are required to comfortably look at your screen even in extreme angles.

I am technically using opentrack so I can't just punch in his settings, and all the ones I've tried don't seem to work right. I do have curves setup, it's just really hard for me to stop looking around apparently when I need to stay still. I really just need to practice more but I have kind of just given up and stuck with VR at this point. I enjoy flying far more in VR but I wanted to see if it could help make me more competitive online using my monitor. I was far worse. But being able to check your six and follow aircraft by just slightly moving your head is so much easier physically.

Edited August 9, 2018 by 15th_JonRedcorn