My Thoughts on the Controversy Around 'Check-Six' Assistance for VR

[Thorne]

This was originally in reply to a comment on yet another petition for 'check-six' assistance for VR users. Since this issue is important and keeps coming up I think a central place to have this debate on it's own thread is warranted.

 

On 2/5/2022 at 3:26 PM, messsucher said:

Would be a good idea to add those features, but make them part of the difficulty level toggles, like simple engine management. This snap view is owl arcade neck, and have no room in full real servers.

 

The notion that we should alter how easy it is for someone to check their six based upon what hardware they are using runs into a number of problems that are not being properly considered.

 

• Accessibility is one of the major factors driving the design of human interface devices, and has been for the last half century. As a design professional working in the auto industry I can tell you that we include as many adjustments in our products as possible. We know that the vehicle must comfortably accommodate the proportions, and range of motion (particularly relevant to this discussion) of a 6'5", 250 lb, 20 year old man, a 5'1", 105 lb, 74 years old woman, and everyone in between. Since we can't standardize consumers, we must make designs flexible and ensure the vehicle can accommodate our least flexible, tallest, and shortest customers, including, within reason, customers with disabilities in order to remain viable.
  In IL2, the notion that I must to be relegated to bomber duty because my spinal health does not match that of 'a typical fighter pilot', and therefore can barely look behind my wing line in VR runs completely counter to the spirit of sims.
• There is no officially accepted consensus as to exactly how far back combat pilots could or could not look in WW2 amongst the devs or community. In order to enforce such a standard first it would have to be generated, a task that would likely be so mired in disagreement and conjunctor that is would never be completed. Once generated that standard would have to be applied to all interface methods including TrackIR and mouselook, a move that would be highly unpopular. To limit VR users to only being able to check back to 4:30 or so arbitrarily on the basis of realism is an enormous double standard.
• There is no standard that can measure each individual's peripherals and assign the whole package competitive value in IL2. TrackIR has it's advantages, VR has it's advantages, and believe it or not, the simple hat switch also has it's advantages too. That concept extends to various HOTAS configurations like side stick vs extension, rudder pedals vs twist to yaw, and so on creating a fundamentally un-level playing field in the world of flight sims. As a result of this sim devs have never attempted to penalize players with more expensive or numerous peripherals, because to do so would be both counter to the diverse nature of users simpits, and also because the lack of a competitive index makes it completely impossible. The notion that integrating NeckSafer like functionality natively in IL2 is anti-competitive or unfair based upon the fact that not everyone has the luxury of a VR headset attempts to completely contradict this reality.
• If we're arguing against the functionality that 'VRNecksafer' provides on the basis of fairness, we have to ask ourselves whether it gives VR uses a unique competitive ability not shared by the other input methods. Currently TrackIR, facetracking, and the hat-view allow easy and customizable ways to quickly check dead six, so one can assume that pilots they encounter online will have good tally on aircraft behind them regardless of their setup. Given the devs have not disabled the VRNecksafer I think it's fair to say they don't consider the functionality unfair or anti-competitive.
• Finally, a key concept that game and peripheral developers have abided by when adding accessibility caveats that needs to be understood, is that many of these caveats exist for user comfort, as much as realism. Control curves for joystick and rudders are an excellent example of this, they give pilots the ability to tune control response to their liking, not necessarily to what is realistic.

 

A moment of consideration will reveal many examples of IL2 departing a strict definition of realism to accommodate comfort, and also gameplay. Allowing VR players to properly check their six, an ability accomplished with ease in every other control scheme, is well within the bounds of fair play.

 

A basic rule of thumb is if the area of gameplay in question concerns physical attributes that vary from person to person like eyesight quality, spinal dexterity, or hearing ability, the developers should maximize, within reason, accessibility and comfort for all devices.

 

VR is still new and we are learning what is required to accommodate this new interface. We must remember that mature interface devices, like TrackIR and most good HOTAS solutions MUST come with driver level customization that allows people to tune their setup to their liking, in order to be taken seriously. VR flight combat is going to need some kind of check six assistance as standard going forward, even with wider FOV HMDs. Implementing NeckSafer functionality natively within IL2 would be a massive step forward.

 

Edited August 6, 2022 by Thorne

[NattyDreadNought]

Very much in support of this proposal. The only thing I can add to this excellent summary is that having a check six functionality in-game will get around a series of emerging issues:

 

1. VRNecksafer (VRNS) only works with SteamVR

2. not all HMDs that utilise SteamVR can enjoy VRNS

3. SteamVR uses OpenVR and the many benefits of the emerging OpenXR platform means getting the benefit of them will mean foregoing VRNS

 

In other words, implementing an in-game solution is the only way to reasonably quickly permit access to a feature that protects pilot health and establishes some kind of available-to-all parity with TrackIR and POV Hat pilots.

 

[Thorne]

8 hours ago, 453=Jihadi_Daddy said:

2. not all HMDs that utilise SteamVR can enjoy VRNS

3. SteamVR uses OpenVR and the many benefits of the emerging OpenXR platform means getting the benefit of them will mean foregoing VRNS

 

 

Indeed, the fact that many of us find ourselves locked into our G2/Index/whatever as new exciting HMDs are coming out (like the Varjo Aero for example) due to check-six functionality not being supported has made me, for one, acutely aware of the need for some kind of native implementation. While OpenXR has many reputed benefits I won't be able to use it until this is solved, which is a shame - I've heard it's beautiful.

 

On the plus side I've heard the other IL2 is implementing this natively - I haven't tried that one yet but when it's ready I'll give it a shot.

Edited May 21, 2022 by Thorne

[Charlo-VRde]

2 hours ago, Thorne said:

 

Indeed, the fact that many of us find ourselves locked into our G2/Index/whatever as new exciting HMDs are coming out (like the Varjo Aero for example) due to check-six functionality not being supported has made me, for one, acutely aware of the need for some kind of native implementation. While OpenXR has many reputed benefits I won't be able to use it until this is solved, which is a shame - I've heard it's beautiful..

+1 on all posts in this thread so far, though the current situation is saving me $2,000 plus whatever a pair of lighthouse base stations would cost me ?

[Solmyr]

I personally am very much concerned by the 3) with a slightly crushed nerve, and I'm 'only' 39yo. I was in a quite annoying and painful crisis these past weeks so that I never could have air-war-simmed. Yet I'm several years retired anyway now..

[Thorne]

20 minutes ago, Solmyr said:

I personally am very much concerned by the 3) with a slightly crushed nerve, and I'm 'only' 39yo. I was in a quite annoying and painful crisis these past weeks so that I never could have air-war-simmed. Yet I'm several years retired anyway now..

 

I'm sorry to hear that Solomyr, I also have some neck and back stuff I've been wrestling with for some time. I wish you the best of luck in managing your symptoms, and I'm happy you've decided to share your condition as a form of endorsement for more accessibility from the IL2 devs.

[Drum]

The biggest cheat I'm finding is this swivel chair, I can rotate 90^ into my turn and just turn my head forward or back as I turn with complete ease; check the gauges, look back at the bandit, look at the gauges again or forward then back or up etc.  I have chair mounts for the throttle, stick, mouse and keyboard though so don't need to twist any.

 

They can't ban my chair so why would anything else be frowned upon.  ?

 

[Thorne]

The swivel approach seems to work for some people, but it's a very slap-dash solution, and one that isn't suitable for people with pedals/desktop/deskmounted hardware. We need a real solution.

Edited May 23, 2022 by Thorne

[dburne]

[shirazjohn]

Hey maybe we all need one of these bad boys.

 

https://intrepid-design.co.uk/martin-baker-mk-16a-eurofighter-typhoon-ejection-seat-sold/

[Thorne]

3 hours ago, shirazjohn said:

Hey maybe we all need one of these bad boys.

 

https://intrepid-design.co.uk/martin-baker-mk-16a-eurofighter-typhoon-ejection-seat-sold/

 

Ha! No freakin' way, I wonder how much that sold for

[shirazjohn]

15 minutes ago, Thorne said:

 

Ha! No freakin' way, I wonder how much that sold for

I wonder there's no prices on anything but you know what say "if you have to ask" 

[GOA_Karaya_VR]

The VR comunity begs many time ago to the developers a simple key to check our 6, as general 2d players had with snap views, in terms of health is even better for us to have this feature and extend our gameplay to many hours for our neck and spine health.

[Thorne]

1 hour ago, GOA_Karaya_CRI*VR* said:

The VR comunity begs many time ago to the developers a simple key to check our 6

 

It's important not to give up - I think there has been reluctance on the part of devs to implement such a solution because it has not yet become commonly accepted that this is a core seated sim VR feature. Every week someone new realizes that this feature is necessary however, which is good news, provided we keep this conversation alive I think there is hope to have the feature implemented on some level.

[Drum]

NobiWan has already solved this problem for us all with his OpenVR NeckSafer, now he's working on a solution for OpenXR for us.

 

I put my money on NobiWan coming through for us before anyone else does.

[Drano]

I've been using VRNS since it came out but lately I've had trouble with it working at all. Haven't had time to fiddle with it. Even so, I'd be glad to be able to use some hotkeys within the game that would allow me must a few degrees so I don't have to hear a popping sound in my neck just looking anywhere behind the 3-9 line. RiftS doesn't have the greatest FOV but I could function with the slightest bit of help. Give me 45 degrees left and right and that'd be fine by me. Really don't need straight back on a key. I don't see it as any more of a "cheat" than TIR is and that's become the standard view system for any of these games and has been for many years now. Anyone who says different at this point--I just wonder who they're trying to kid. Everybody said the same thing with TIR came out over the hat switches. Just being able to look around isn't a cheat. If you're worried the other guy might see you coming--- maybe just be prepared for that in your approach and fight on. You might still screw it up and "die" but pro tip---you don't actually die. It's all good.

[=IRFC=Gascan]

VR implementation in the game really does need significant improvement. Implementing a native VRNS would be an immediate significant improvement for the vast majority of pilots. The VR implementation in this game can be very disorienting and frustrating beyond the normal experience of learning VR (try flying a Bristol or Halberstadt from the gun seat, something TIR players do with ease). I've got a mental list of all the tweaks and improvements to VR in the game, but native VRNS would be the biggest effect for the most players by far.

 

Last year I hurt my neck playing kickball and the next day I could barely turn my neck to the right and couldn't turn left at all. I was already assigned to be the photo recon plane at the center of a massive 30-plane British formation during the Black September MP campaign. When a flight of Fokkers approached from above, my escorts from 3rd Pursuit Group, 1st Polish Legion, 76Sqdn, RNAS10, and Syndicate all moved to block the attack. One Fokker broke through, and picked my plane out of all the decoys. It was hard enough to look around and stay in formation, let alone look for the plane I heard behind me. Fortunately, he only got one pass and the bullets made holes in the fabric, missing the critical wing spars completely. I've since healed, but it really illustrated the importance of VRNS for allowing all players to enjoy flying in VR.

[Thorne]

4 hours ago, Drum said:

NobiWan has already solved this problem for us all with his OpenVR NeckSafer, now he's working on a solution for OpenXR for us.

 

I put my money on NobiWan coming through for us before anyone else does.

 

NobiOne's efforts have been a game changer for all of us - and a VRNS working with OpenXR might be the next best thing to a native implementation in IL2. The issue is Nobi is just one person, working in his spare time, attempting to keep things functional in a constantly changing landscape of new headsets, frameworks, and patches. The only reliable long term solutions, as I see it, are either the IL2 devs (and other combat flight sim devs, but that's another matter) realizing this is now 'standard kit' for flight sims, like joystick curves and video settings and implementing it, the OpenXR team officially supporting it would be a close second.

 

Alternatively I would be willing to pay for VRNS to make it worth someone's time to keep up to date - as I'm sure many of you would.

Edited May 23, 2022 by Thorne

[Drum]

Yeah, having the ability to accelerate the rotation upwards too would be a real neck saver as well; with a high back seat it's hard to get the noggin turned upwards enough to see straight up.

[Thorne]

18 hours ago, Drum said:

Yeah, having the ability to accelerate the rotation upwards too would be a real neck saver as well; with a high back seat it's hard to get the noggin turned upwards enough to see straight up.

 

Yes that's kind of at the heart of it - different chairs, different necks, different headsets, different eyes. Almost every critique of check-sex (edit: check-six, leaving mistake for funny joke below) assist functionality I've heard makes the basic assumption that everyone's setup and physical abilities are at the same standard; it's an honest mistake but doesn't reflect the reality of the sim-pit/sim-pilot and never has.

 

A simple 'hold one of these two buttons to flip yourself mostly around to the left or right (150 degrees or so)', and then you can move your head as normal would suffice. Of course Nobi's cumulative rotation technique is the Cadillac of check six assist, and as other's have said, it's become so important I will likely stop playing IL2 altogether if functionality disappears. I just don't see myself going back to flat screen, and can't physically check past 4 o' clock without it.

Edited May 24, 2022 by Thorne

[firdimigdi]

5 hours ago, Thorne said:

check-sex assist functionality

 

21st century in a nutshell.

[NattyDreadNought]

Does anyone have a sense of whether this is a technically difficult request for the devs at 1CGS to implement?

[dburne]

23 minutes ago, 453=Jihadi_Daddy said:

Does anyone have a sense of whether this is a technically difficult request for the devs at 1CGS to implement?

 

I would think it would at least be somewhat difficult with all the headsets- probably NobiWan would be the best ( besides 1CGS) to answer that question. Folks have been asking for native support for Oculus as well as more recently Open XR instead of just Steam VR and so far that has not been talked about by them either. I am sure they only have so many resources and have more important fish to fry so to speak. It certainly never hurts to ask.

Edited May 24, 2022 by dburne

[firdimigdi]

6 hours ago, 453=Jihadi_Daddy said:

Does anyone have a sense of whether this is a technically difficult request for the devs at 1CGS to implement?

 

5 hours ago, dburne said:

 

I would think it would at least be somewhat difficult with all the headsets- probably NobiWan would be the best ( besides 1CGS) to answer that question. Folks have been asking for native support for Oculus as well as more recently Open XR instead of just Steam VR and so far that has not been talked about by them either. I am sure they only have so many resources and have more important fish to fry so to speak. It certainly never hurts to ask.

 

It is not related to headsets at all as they could deal with it at the camera/viewport level.

Currently two "cameras" in-game are attached to where the pilot's eyes are and follow the translation/rotation dictated by the VR API much like in TrackIR mode there's one camera reacting to what the TrackIR API sends. It is not terribly hard to interject a multiplier to the positional data or apply pre-determined rotation (a la snapview).

 

In fact the game already does a much more complicated manipulation of this data when the cockpit limits are enforced and the view is kept within cockpit bounds.

 

Edited May 25, 2022 by Firdimigdi

[Drum]

The Aero HMD works now with VRNS V2.09, the post with instructions is in the VRNS thread.

Edited May 25, 2022 by Drum

[J2_NobiWan]

10 hours ago, 453=Jihadi_Daddy said:

Does anyone have a sense of whether this is a technically difficult request for the devs at 1CGS to implement?

My guess is that the VR part would not be so difficult to implement in game. It should be quite similar to the outside view (F2).

The user interface/configuration part is probably the bigger effort. It's a small team working under difficult conditions and they have a lot of other stuff on their plate. So I don't blame them for prioritizing.

Btw.: The experiments with VRNS for OpenXR look quite promising. Give me a few weeks though... ?

[NattyDreadNought]

Glad to hear things progressing with OpenXR. I thought it had been placed wayyyyy down the list? 
Interesting times

[Thorne]

8 hours ago, Firdimigdi said:

 

It is not related to headsets at all as they could deal with it at the camera/viewport level.

 

 

I concur - camera manipulation for VR views is fairly standard stuff. They would simply rotate the interior viewport 180 (or 150 or whatever) of the default view, as long as the button is being pressed. It's easily accomplished. The cumulative rotation would be a bit more difficult.

 

3 hours ago, J2_NobiWan said:

Btw.: The experiments with VRNS for OpenXR look quite promising. Give me a few weeks though... ?

 

Glad to hear it Nobi! Thanks again

[NattyDreadNought]

19 hours ago, Drum said:

The Aero HMD works now with VRNS V2.09, the post with instructions is in the VRNS thread.

Nice one @Drum. @J2_NobiWan , I daresay you’ve seen this good news from Drum. I can confirm it also worked for me, so that’s progress. Any idea what may cause the 1 sec interstitial black screens?

[Drum]

I'm noticing the picture is momentarily upside down for the 1-2 sec pause.  Possibly the pause is from it switching the picture proper side up.

Edited June 1, 2022 by Drum

[SharpeXB]

On 5/20/2022 at 4:47 PM, Thorne said:

There is no officially accepted consensus as to exactly how far back combat pilots could or could not look in WW2

Solved ?

 

[SvAF/F16_Goblin]

The problem with VR (if You don't have the Pimax set for 180 degree) is that IRL the pilot can see out of the corner of the eye and thus, even if not able to rotate as much as in the pic above, still can make out things that is in the rear left/right hemisphere behind him. If the pilot however has goggles like the ones in the pic above on the view is more restricted and starts to be like in VR today (VR is still more obstructed).

Therefore the VRNecksafer is a way to simulate this fact and personally I have it set so I still have to strain to look back to simulate the difficulty somewhat (never mind I can't simulate G strain  ) to have as much realism as possible. Mind You that realism doesn't mean stupidly hard since IRL is often not as difficult as in the sim due to physical factors not felt in the "seat of the pants".

 

Edited June 4, 2022 by SvAF/F16_Goblin

[Thorne]

14 hours ago, SvAF/F16_Goblin said:

I still have to strain to look back to simulate the difficulty somewhat (never mind I can't simulate G strain  ) to have as much realism as possible. Mind You that realism doesn't mean stupidly hard since IRL is often not as difficult as in the sim due to physical factors not felt in the "seat of the pants".

 

Thanks for your contribution Goblin - I'm glad you've been able to use VRNS to overcome the FoV of your HMD while still maintaining realism. I think it's very important to reiterate the critical importance of human factors in this discussion.

 

I work in the auto industry, and when we make a car interior we fill it with as many adjustments as we can, because we know that the vehicle must comfortably accommodate both the proportions and range of motion of a 20 year old 6'5", 250 lb man, a 5'1" 105 lb 75 year old woman. Since we can't standardize consumers, we must make designs flexible and ensure the vehicle can accommodate our least flexible/tallest/shortest customers, that way everybody wins.

 

The same needs to happen here - @J2_NobiWan realizes this, the rest of the industry needs some more encouragement in order to catch on. With VR we're no longer dealing exclusively with 1's and 0's, which is I think where software devs are stumbling - they've never had to seriously consider physiological variables before. The good news is that the solution to this particular problem is well within their wheelhouse, for when they realize it's an important part of the IL2 product. Alternatively they could collaborate with the OpenXR guys and/or Nobi to facilitate the smooth function of check six assist in IL2 - this would be a step in the right direction.

Edited June 4, 2022 by Thorne

[dburne]

1 hour ago, Thorne said:

 

Thanks for your contribution Goblin - I'm glad you've been able to use VRNS to overcome the FoV of your HMD while still maintaining realism. I think it's very important to reiterate the critical importance of human factors in this discussion.

 

I work in the auto industry, and when we make a car interior we fill it with as many adjustments as we can, because we know that the vehicle must comfortably accommodate both the proportions and range of motion of a 20 year old 6'5", 250 lb man, a 5'1" 105 lb 75 year old woman. Since we can't standardize consumers, we must make designs flexible and ensure the vehicle can accommodate our least flexible/tallest/shortest customers, that way everybody wins.

 

The same needs to happen here - @J2_NobiWan realizes this, the rest of the industry needs some more encouragement in order to catch on. With VR we're no longer dealing exclusively with 1's and 0's, which is I think where software devs are stumbling - they've never had to seriously consider physiological variables before. The good news is that the solution to this particular problem is well within their wheelhouse, for when they realize it's an important part of the IL2 product. Alternatively they could collaborate with the OpenXR guys and/or Nobi to facilitate the smooth function of check six assist in IL2 - this would be a step in the right direction.

 

It is in Nobi's hands now. The developer of Open XR Toolkit posted on this today in the Discord:

 

Quote

The developer of VRNeckSafer is already working on it in his own project. We will remove it from our roadmap and it will come as a 2nd add on you will need to install.

 

https://discord.com/channels/933220354401398785/933225091653857330/982713353501827082

 

Edited June 4, 2022 by dburne

[Thorne]

Thanks for the update dburne

[dburne]

Just now, Thorne said:

Thanks for the update dburne

 

Most welcome I am always interested in keeping up with any VR news.

[SvAF/F16_Goblin]

And NobiWan is, if I understood it correctly (cant remember where I read it) he posted that he was getting close to release a OpenXR version ? Happy times if that is the case.

Edited June 5, 2022 by SvAF/F16_Goblin

[Drum]

You saw it eleven posts above yours.  ?  Good times, indeed.

[SvAF/F16_Goblin]

XR NeckSafer is in Beta

https://gitlab.com/NobiWan/vrnecksafer/-/blob/master/VRNeckSafer/Release/XRNeckSaferBeta1.zip

 

https://discord.gg/X59mrxfK

Edited June 5, 2022 by SvAF/F16_Goblin

[Crocogator]

The fact that when I am in vr and I turn my head 90 degrees and I don't see directly behind me whereas if I do the very same thing with trackir and I do see directly behind me illustrates how weak the criticism of necksafer is.

 

Necksafer is directly analogous to trackir.