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This was posted originally in the producer's notes discussion, but I got some positive reactions and further suggestions, so it might deserve a seperate thread. Please share your views on this, it would be great to have it in the sim.

 

Wags, are you using a TrackIR 4 pro? My experience with the 3 pro is that I have trouble keeping my head perfectly still especially when looking down. Maybe the TrackIR 4 is better for that, but anyway I posted an idea to make flipping switches easier:

 

About the clickable cockpit, after watching the start-up developers note video, I got the idea that the mouse cursor position is determined in the screen coordinate axes, i.e. it moves with your head relative to the cockpit.

 

My request is to have an option available to make the mouse cursor direction move relative to the cockpit axes. The effect should be that the mouse stays fixed on a cockpit location while you move your head. For example, press the right mouse button to temporarily switch the coordinate system. This will make it much easier to flip a switch as you can control your cursor with only the mouse instead of both the mouse and the trackIR. Otherwise moving your head will make it much harder to keep the mouse on a certain location in the cockpit. Of course, when the next switch, lever or knob is outside your view, you would release the right mouse button, look at the desired object (while the cursor moves with your view) and then press the right mouse button again to steer your cursor to the exact location.

 

I hope this explanation is clear. I think it would greatly improve the interface as you depend quite heavily on the mouse cursor with so many switches, levers and knobs to be controlled.

 

Do you think it's still possible at this stage of development to put that option in the code? It shouldn't take much more than a reference frame rotation...:smartass:

 

Can't wait to take this Sim for a spin :pilotfly:

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

I have the same problem and that seems like an incredibly smart solution. Nice thinking, Phoenix.

 

I agree about TrackIR. If that's possible, it would be great!

 

I know this problem from MSFS and I have TrackIR 4. I think that solution could solve the problem, otherwise you always would have to zoom in very close.

 

Are you sure it is your TrackIR in general? I had the very same problem in different games. Whenever I looked at my instruments the sight started shaking or rather drifting in different directions.

 

I tested it with the View->Tracking option in TrackIR and noticed that during play my seat position lowers, as I sit more comfortable. I have my TrackIR rotated 180 degrees, so when I do that, my Tracker only recognizes me in the upper 1/3 of it's field of view. The clip is still perfectly visible, but the head starts drifting more and more. I changed the position slightly, so it is rather looking down at me, but it fixed the drifting-problem.

 

Don't know if that will help you, but the symptoms surely sounded 100% the same.

 

try to reduce light filtering down to 150

 

The problem is that a switch can become very small (like 1/4 size of cursor) and then even very few shaking will become a problem particulary when you have to press that switch for some seconds.

 

+1

 

Great idea. :thumbup:

 

As a work around you could use the hotkey to toggle the tracking sensitivity, but I would prefer an ingame solution.

 

I agree, it would be nice if the mouse cursor was fixed relative to the 3d space rather than head position. The momentary right mouse button is a bit of a problem with HOTAS though. You don't want to have to take up a button just to control your thumb mouse.

 

My suggestion would be to make the cursor invisible after x seconds idle. When the mouse is moved (be it mouse or hotas thumb mouse) then the cursor appears in the centre of the screen, fixed to the 3d space of the cockpit. So when you're moving the mouse, your head can move independently whilst the cursor moves inside a sphere centred on your view.

 

This should be a new thread btw, great idea PheonixBvo

 

What might be nice is having it referenced to the cockpit, but influenced to some small extent by changes in the helicopter's yaw, roll & pitch - so that with your head down you have some idea of how the aircraft is moving.

 

Note the minute head movement in LOMAC. It isn't missing in BS.
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Good idea! Thanks for summing up the important points of the discussion. :thumbup:

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In TrackIR 4 pro (don't know how the TIR3 panel looks like, sorry if that's the same) you got something like "smoothing". Generally speaking it waits a little bit longer for input and then does one smoother move. This can reduce shaking but it causes a delay between head movement in RL and in game. I have to use it sometime exactly because the issue you described. And still it doesn't always help.

From my experience switching the engine of C4 in X-Plane in 6DOF cockpit where you have to keep the switch pushed for few secs and the switch is size of a cursor can be a pain.

The idea with cockpit relative cursor is great though it needs to be done well. Switching between those 2 is a must as well as good solution to what happens with the cursor when in cockpit relative mode and I move my head 180degrees to the other side of the cockpit. Whether it stays where it was (outside of the screen, probably not the good idea), moves with the edge or something completely different.

The idea above by burnzoire about hiding cursor after few secs and then putting it in the middle of the screen might be annoying for ministick/mouse like on my X52. Imagine you pushed few buttons on the bottom left of your current point of view but forgot about one and the cursor already cenetered. You don't want point the head on those (couse you're flying low & fast) but need to push that button. You have to move all the way from the center screen to bottom left again. With real mouse it's not a problem. With mini stick that got constant cursor speed it might.

 

Overall I'd really like to see that.


Edited by Havner

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I once used that ministick mouse too, but I doubt you could use it instead of real mouse in BS because there are so many switches and a huge cockpit area.

 

I think you could do it this way:

 

- Mouse cursor is relative to cockpit

- You have on button (or double click) to recenter the mouse (to middle of the screen)

 

I think that would solve all problems.

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There are some problems with the cockpit relative pointer, which needs to be resolved. Like what do you do when the view position changes (e.g. when moving in TrackIR)? E.g. the switch you were hovering may now be blocked by some other piece of cockpit. Do you still let the cursor stay at the now blocked instrument, or do you move it someplace else (onto what is now blocking the cursor?)?

If you move it to the front then it's no longer completely cockpit relative, and moving the head may move the cursor as well, which somewhat defeats the purpose of it (though not completely, having it stabilized in rotation is still useful, even if it won't be in stabilized movement). But you can't put the cursor somewhere and count on it staying there unless you also let the cursor be blocked behind something else.

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Forget all the buttons... just have the cursor "cage" to your view. E.G. You have the cursor pointing directly at your HUD and you're looking straight ahead. You look up at the top row of switches to turn on your Navigation Lights and you still have the HUD in your view at the bottom of the screen where the mouse cursor has stayed. You move the mouse cursor up to the top of your view to click the lights. Now you need to look to the back and behind you for the panel switches by your right shoulder so you move your head/trackIR... and as you move the mouse gets caught by the top left edge of your screen and moves down with your view. You can then take the mouse cursor and aim at your switches after you have your view roughly centered on the back panel.

 

Make sense? I.E. the edge of the screen grabs your cursor and moves it... however as long as you don't let the edge of the screen touch the cursor it will stay fixed on whatever you were pointing at!

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Make sense?

 

Not really. About grabbing it by screen edge then yes, I wrote about that above. But with cursor relative to the cockpit and having 6DOF TIR you can't say about cursor pointing anywhere when you move your head as arneh said. You can only talk about cursor position in 3d cockpit and the position of your head. The place where cursor points is dependant on the 2 above.

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Funny, I have no problems keeping the view 100% still with TrackIR4, even when looking down. At first it was positively nauseating to use because I wasn't used to having to keep my head still. Now, I can do it with no problems. The only thing I run into is when the cockpit view limitations cause weird things to happen, but no shaking.

 

Here's my suggestion (not really mine, this has been brought up before): in addition to keeping the cursor relative to the pit, let it also stick to the center of your view. That way you can just "look" at a button and press it with a mouse button you have mapped to your HOTAS.

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yeah, so you suddenly have to test for the "depth" of the mouse cursor..hmm.tricky.

 

Better to leave it as an absolute grid location and deal with it..

We should all have multi touchscreens like Urze by the time it comes out anyway ;)

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It doesn't have to stay exactly on one spot... just on a 2d grid of your monitor... I guess this is how it already works! lol

 

I see what you are saying now... you want the cursor to stay on top of a switch for example.. that'd be a bit tricky to do in a 3d 6DOF cockpit I'd think!

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Sounds like an awesome idea, and like all paradigm-shifting ideas, will seem obvious once it's been implemented - as for the 6DOF, the cursor doesn't have to 'stick' to a switch - just make it click whatever happens to be 'on top' of whatever else happens to be underneath it. It's up to the user to move his head to unmask a button that he wants to see, just the same as with normal mouse cursor button use.

 

Once again, an awesome idea.

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  • 1 month later...

Seeing that is a great idea (thanks PhoenixBvo), does ED have tried to implement this idea in the BS?

 

I think we should not be discarded, because it is a great solution. And if you can not be implemented in the BS, at least if in the coming releases.

 

Sorry for my english.

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There is already the ability to control the Mouse pointer with TrackIR/Freetrack in game.You have to turn on the precision mode.

...But you will loose the ability to look around in the cockpit. And many switches are covered partly from other switches or devices that it will be very uncomfortable to do it in this way.

 

But all hope isn't lost.

There is a answer for using both - the ability to look around and manipulate the cockpit only by looking at it:

Remote Eye Tracking in combination with a head tracker.

http://www.a-s-l.com/Site/

And yes- I already did some tests with a DIY solution but It has not the needed accuracy with the software and webcam that I used, But it looked very promising.


Edited by urze
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Thanks for the support, Legolasindar. Some potential problems have been posted with regard to the mouse pointer being able to move behind a part of the cockpit in some cases. But it doesn't have to be that complex. You can still keep the pointer on top all the time. Think of it like projecting the pointer onto a sphere centered on the viewport (pilot's head) and having it's angles fixed relative to the cockpit. You can move the mouse on the sphere surface and whatever is underneath will be clicked. No 3D problems. Of course this means translation of the viewport would still cause pointer movement relative to the cockpit, but those effects should be much less than the head rotation. Also, if a switch is behind a part of the cockpit, you could click it by moving your head slightly, without switching the cursor back to the screen.

 

@Urze: Although a nice innovative idea, eye tracking is IMO not a very practical solution (understatement) for a number of reasons:

This wouldn't solve the problem of movement noise with respect to the instrument panel. That's the problem for which I came up with the idea of switching the reference frame. You will often need to point to a switch or knob for several seconds in the case of a multi-position switch or turning knob. I don't see how you would achieve that when you get movement noise from both the trackir and the eye tracker. The effects would add up to make things only worse.

Even if you would temporarily switch off the trackir, the lack of accuracy from the eye tracker in your youtube link would still be far too large to flip small switches efficiently.

And then finally your solution adds even more hardware to the setup, meaning extra costs and computing time.

 

But if you can make it work, there is no problem in using it in conjunction with the mouse pointer reference frame switching. You could simply assign the mouse axes to the eye tracker and then use it like that. There would be the advantage of not having to lift your hands of the HOTAS. Then again, a real pilot would also have to use his hands to flip the switches, so that shouldn't be too much of a problem for flight control.

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I believe the effects of having the pointer projected on the actual cockpit model would make it quite confusing when you move your head around in 6dof (for example, if you have your pointer on the weapons panel and move your head from side to side, the pointer might pop up on the stick and then back on the panel as your head "swings by").

It'd probably be easier to hit the switches when the pointer is projected on the invisable sphere PhoenixBvo describes I thinks, eventhough it would move slightly when you move your head.

 

In any case this idea is great I think!! :thumbup: I've been contemplating the possability of sticking a trackball to the stick, I think it would work well along with a pointer option like this..

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I believe the effects of having the pointer projected on the actual cockpit model would make it quite confusing when you move your head around in 6dof (for example, if you have your pointer on the weapons panel and move your head from side to side, the pointer might pop up on the stick and then back on the panel as your head "swings by").

It'd probably be easier to hit the switches when the pointer is projected on the invisable sphere PhoenixBvo describes I thinks, eventhough it would move slightly when you move your head.

 

In any case this idea is great I think!! :thumbup: I've been contemplating the possability of sticking a trackball to the stick, I think it would work well along with a pointer option like this..

 

Well, the alternative would be that you don't move the mouse or better: The cursor. You highlight the switch you have chosen, then use the mouse or cursor keys to jump to other switches, maybe even with shortcuts to make it hop to the different panels or even better: You can list the panels and choose them with your mousewheel (of course you can modify the list for your personal preferences). No confusion and you can use it with the hotas very precisely and I think the most common switches would also be at hand easily.

Thinking about it, it's similar to Operation Flashpoint or ArmA, just with a menu and the cursor switching to the chosen panel after your selection.

 

Just an idea, though.

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Well, the alternative would be that you don't move the mouse or better: The cursor. You highlight the switch you have chosen, then use the mouse or cursor keys to jump to other switches, maybe even with shortcuts to make it hop to the different panels or even better: You can list the panels and choose them with your mousewheel (of course you can modify the list for your personal preferences). No confusion and you can use it with the hotas very precisely and I think the most common switches would also be at hand easily.

Thinking about it, it's similar to Operation Flashpoint or ArmA, just with a menu and the cursor switching to the chosen panel after your selection.

 

Just an idea, though.

 

Don't you think BS is going to be a bit more complex in terms of the amount of functions compared to ArmA?

Putting everything in a list to be selected using the mousewheel is going to be a pain, I'm afraid. You would do more scrolling than flying:(...

There is always the option to program your HOTAS, but having a clickable cockpit is something few people here are willing to throw away, I think. It gives the sim such a lot of realism.

Plus options like using a touchscreen: see Urze's excellent LLTM video http://www.veoh.com/videos/v6437645aBNbAA7S

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Don't you think BS is going to be a bit more complex in terms of the amount of functions compared to ArmA?

Putting everything in a list to be selected using the mousewheel is going to be a pain, I'm afraid. You would do more scrolling than flying:(...

There is always the option to program your HOTAS, but having a clickable cockpit is something few people here are willing to throw away, I think. It gives the sim such a lot of realism.

Plus options like using a touchscreen: see Urze's excellent LLTM video http://www.veoh.com/videos/v6437645aBNbAA7S

 

I think you didn't get what I actually wrote.

 

I didn't write you can select every switch from a list - that would be a hell of a long list! As an old Falconer, I'm all for a clickable cockpit for a complex simulation. But e.g. in Falcon, you have like 8 so called "consoles" from A to H, each with a bunch of buttons on different panels.

Now imagine you can select the console with the mouse-wheel from a list, the selector jumps to that console and you can hop from switch to switch with the selector, independend from where you are actually looking.

Example: You are using the navigations-panel and want to switch to high-ROF. So you choose the forward middle console from the list, the cursor hops to the upper left switch on the front-panel. You then use keys to move the cursor vertical and horizontal, hopping over the buttons until you selected the ROF-switch. You click another button and actually flip the switch.

 

I think it was Oleg Maddox who once said, that clickable cockpits are only immersive to simmers. In real life, a pilot does not look at every single switch he uses and he surely does not have to concentrate on not moving his head when chosing a button to push. He just knows where the switch is located and uses it, if need, even without leaving the target out of sight.

With my suggestion you could do exactly that, because after a while, you know that for example left forward panel, 2 steps down, 4 steps right toggles the auto-scan speed for the SHKVAL sensors (just as an example). Infact if you have shortcuts for the consoles, you could even program them to a HOTAS. :smilewink:

 

The parallel to ArmA is not the clickability, but the fact that you use a similar system. You chose the basic actions from a list, like swapping to rifle, but you still have to reload, aim, switch firing modes and actuate attachments. Not the best example, I know.

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Ok, excuse me Skipper, now I get what you meant. Yes, that could work. It links the keyboard not to individual functions, but rather geometrically to the cockpit. That might be easier to remember than all the key combinations without any logical reference to the actual function. And it could work side-by-side with a mouse clickable cockpit as well.

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Ok, excuse me Skipper, now I get what you meant. Yes, that could work. It links the keyboard not to individual functions, but rather geometrically to the cockpit. That might be easier to remember than all the key combinations without any logical reference to the actual function. And it could work side-by-side with a mouse clickable cockpit as well.

 

No problem. Arma was not the best example. :doh:

 

 

Exactly. You can mix it with mouse-control and you can use it simply with a few keys or even your HOTAS, it's working independently of where you are looking and it can easily be automated.

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Allthough i find the idea good by itself, i think it might take you way longer to get to a switch than by the current way it's implemented.

 

We could use right-click, or middle-click to switch between two kind of movements, 3D cockpit reference or monitor XY reference axes.

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