VR trackIR Like non 1:1 pointer mouvement

Hey guys,

I fly VR most of the time without the mouse setting enabled, meaning that I get a pointer at the center of my view that remains centered as I move my head and that allows for cockpit interaction.

I find that with a proper Hotas configuration, the ability to point with my head and interract with the cockpit buttons is the most efficient, short of having an actual hardward cockpit with all of the buttons.

However, one thing that drives me nuts is that when trying to reach for buttons with my head, it sometimes get to the point where it is unconfortable far down/left/right, having to cranck my head down to make that centered pointer reach buttons.

A nice solution and honnestly not that hard to implement (being a software engineer myself) is to provide the option for the pointer not to stay centered but rather a trackIR-like configuration capability where downwards head movement gradually make the pointer move off-center down to make it easier to reach cockpit buttons.

Conversely, Upwards movement would gradually move the pointer off-center up to make the radio easier to reach as well.

That would be a nice feature to have and a step closer to a full mouse-less VR experience.

I hope this gets into the product someday.

Cheers,

In VR, this would be a recipe for motion sickness! But if you’ve got the stomach for it...

In VR, this would be a recipe for motion sickness! But if you’ve got the stomach for it...

+1

Anything which starts chipping away at the 'reality' of VR is a backward step in my opinion.

Happy for you to have the option tho'

Good luck :puke:

In VR, this would be a recipe for motion sickness! But if you’ve got the stomach for it...

Only the pointer that allows to interract with the buttons would be impacted. Not the whole view of course :)

I don't think it would introduce any motion sickness.

That's actually a pretty slick idea, best with a custom scaling setting. I don't see how you'd get motion sickness from just a mouse cursor moving. More immersion breaking having to reach for the mouse and supplement the movement to those hard to reach controls.

That's actually a pretty slick idea, best with a custom scaling setting. I don't see how you'd get motion sickness from just a mouse cursor moving. More immersion breaking having to reach for the mouse and supplement the movement to those hard to reach controls.

Exactly, custom scaling to control how far off-center the pointer goes as the head moves would be awesome as well.

Only the pointer that allows to interract with the buttons would be impacted. Not the whole view of course :)

I don't think it would introduce any motion sickness.

Ah right...I see where you are coming from now :thumbup:

I don't think look-click is gonna work in a busy cockpit. Trying to hold your head still enough... Guess you could snap-to but that'll make ya puke. I'd rathe use Oculus controllers until the finger-mouse comes out. Even captoglove is gonna have a hard time beating that.

I don't think look-click is gonna work in a busy cockpit. Trying to hold your head still enough... Guess you could snap-to but that'll make ya puke. I'd rathe use Oculus controllers until the finger-mouse comes out. Even captoglove is gonna have a hard time beating that.

Interesting. I have no issues what so ever holding my head still to look and click, even in cockpit like the Mirage 2000c where switches are quite small. In fact the head is one of the most precise part of the body. It is much much faster than operating a mouse and keeps the immersion intact.

Going forward with eye tracking-enabled VR headset, I imagine just being able to look at a button to click. What I’m proposing is the second best thing.

Say you want to operate a switch near your left thigh, when interacting with an actual cockpit, the natural behavior is to rotate the head in the general direction of the switch to operate. The eye then move down to home in on the precise location.

What I’m proposing is to emulate that behavior where if you look straight ahead, the pointer is centered but as you move your head, it gradually moves off center in the direction the head is moving to simulate the gaze adjustment.

I wish I had A way to script this though LUA, I would have implemented it myself but looking at what’s available, I wasn’t able to find anything.

Have you tried it in vr ??

Obviously not. Because I use that to type in on the UFC, and it is very quick. I wanted to create a copy of the F18 UFC, but I dropped the idea because I realized it is faster to click by moving my head than moving my hand to the UFC ...

I think op solution could be interesting, I wonder, maybe it is possible to implement using open track to take the input from Oculus rift and emulating a mouse ...

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Imagine how quick to click, if or when VR has eye tracking one day.... This would not be need then I guess.

Have you tried it in vr ??

 

Obviously not. Because I use that to type in on the UFC, and it is very quick. I wanted to create a copy of the F18 UFC, but I dropped the idea because I realized it is faster to click by moving my head than moving my hand to the UFC ...

 

I think op solution could be interesting, I wonder, maybe it is possible to implement using open track to take the input from Oculus rift and emulating a mouse ...

 

Sent from my VTR-L09 using Tapatalk

Humm I don't think I'm getting my point accross. I'm saying the same thing. It is faster to point, well look and click than using a mouse or reaching out to touch something physical. Although in my setup, I find that it is better for immersion to reach out to tap a physical button to perform the click action (through UI Layer mappings)

The only problem is that today, the pointer in VR is centered in the field of view, which makes side panels switches hard to reach without being unconfortable.

I'm proposing a solution for this problem by making the center pointer gradually come off-center in the direction of the head mouvement to help reaching side panels without having to crank the head to make the switch at the center of the field of view.

To your point, I guess you could theoretically use the oculus track to emulate a mouse but I don't think that you can have 2 separate processes use the oculus tracking at the same time (DCS and the mouse emulation software). I might actually do some more research on that.

Cheers.

Imagine how quick to click, if or when VR has eye tracking one day.... This would not be need then I guess.

Amen to that but it requires new hardware. What I'm proposing doesn't require any and is the second best solution IMHO.

While I'm not really opposed to people doing this if they want or ED impleneting it if they feel like it would be easy. But from a VR point of view, I think the mouse at this point is probably the most immersive thing. You gotta take your hand off the throttle or stick in the real bird to push buttons. So typing in stuff on the UFC with a mouse means taking your hand off the throttle just like real life.

I think the next best things for VR cockpit interaction will be.

1. Miles finger mouse pointer thingyis (sorry if I got the name wrong)

2. Capto glove or something similar in the longer term.

Both of those systems will still mean taking your hands off the stick, but will be more "natural".

I would think the problem with using your HOTAS buttons for mouse commands is that on any of the modern aircraft they are all used for actual HOTAS functions.

I would think the problem with using your HOTAS buttons for mouse commands is that on any of the modern aircraft they are all used for actual HOTAS functions.

I have tried it out a few times and it's ok to use.

Just use a modifier button + TMS left / right etc (Left / right mouse button)

Humm I don't think I'm getting my point accross. I'm saying the same thing. It is faster to point, well look and click than using a mouse or reaching out to touch something physical. Although in my setup, I find that it is better for immersion to reach out to tap a physical button to perform the click action (through UI Layer mappings)

 

 

 

The only problem is that today, the pointer in VR is centered in the field of view, which makes side panels switches hard to reach without being unconfortable.

 

 

I'm proposing a solution for this problem by making the center pointer gradually come off-center in the direction of the head mouvement to help reaching side panels without having to crank the head to make the switch at the center of the field of view.

 

 

To your point, I guess you could theoretically use the oculus track to emulate a mouse but I don't think that you can have 2 separate processes use the oculus tracking at the same time (DCS and the mouse emulation software). I might actually do some more research on that.

 

 

Cheers.

I was answering to deltaMike.

Sent from my VTR-L09 using Tapatalk

While I'm not really opposed to people doing this if they want or ED impleneting it if they feel like it would be easy. But from a VR point of view, I think the mouse at this point is probably the most immersive thing. You gotta take your hand off the throttle or stick in the real bird to push buttons. So typing in stuff on the UFC with a mouse means taking your hand off the throttle just like real life.

 

I think the next best things for VR cockpit interaction will be.

1. Miles finger mouse pointer thingyis (sorry if I got the name wrong)

2. Capto glove or something similar in the longer term.

 

Both of those systems will still mean taking your hands off the stick, but will be more "natural".

Having to take yours hands off the hotas, I guess yes but there's nothing immersive in moving it around to point to something to interract with IMHO.

I'm a Private Pilot, I'm used to interacting with cockpit switches. First thing I notice is that I know the cockpit through and through, interactions have to be FAST. If we decompose what we humans do to interact with something, it'd look like this

1. Turn head in general direction
   
2. Turn eyes/gaze to specific switch
   
3. Move hand
   
4. Activate control
   

We currently can do #1 in DCS but we can't do #2.

#1 can't be a general direction, it needs to be accurate to point to the right switch which in some cases is really inconvenient.

I'm proposing to simulate #2 to make it more convenient/faster to get to things.

You can add realism by making the button you click with away from your Hotas (#3) or map a hotas function to make it there even quicker :).

Cheers,

Having to take yours hands off the hotas, I guess yes but there's nothing immersive in moving it around to point to something to interract with IMHO.

Simple fix, allow the mouse cursor in VR and now you can use your mouse to position the cursor somewhere else in the view. It will stay in that position relative to your view, instead relative to the cockpit. Of course if you often need to click something below and then something above, the thing is not working unless you use a software that will allow you to bind the mouse cursor to jump on given position.

My answer still is the Oculus Touch Controllers. So far they are still the best and most immersive feature in DCS.

Yes, it takes time to grab the controller from as much as grabbing a mouse, but you are faster and naturel with it in the cockpit (unless your hand collides with the real world controllers).

And that is half the immersion of the VR, because in real life one can't remove hands from HOTAS to make some adjustments middle of the combat, but is required to configure the aircraft for the combat and then really get the HOTAS benefits.

That is something what makes many TrackIR, HOTAS mutibinders and mouse users unrealistic as they can do things that they wouldn't do in real world, what is move hands around the cockpit so often.

Once someone gets the experience to use the touch controllers (or even better, some kind IR gloves / pointers) the immersion is almost complete.

For me the Touch Controllers made one very big and radical change, what was that I only bind in every module the HOTAS buttons and functions as close as possible to real thing. And then everything else in the cockpit I operate with hands.

I did at the start with the mouse cursor ways, but first problem was as here stated, the centered cross is just impossible use for anything really that ain't at front. And then the moving cursor requires here and there to get it up/down.

And then we got the Touch Controllers working in the cockpit (first just the gloves in air, then clicking) and experience became something totally new level. And now they say that one can click around cockpit by pointing with the gloves.... WOW.

The Touch Controllers allow almost same experience as gloves would do, meaning you can move your hand to the position of the button/switch and then just glance to do the final adjustment. As long you keep hand steady, it doesn't move away from the button/switch etc. Only haptic feedback is missing there and that is what the Touch Controller vibration helps somewhat.

Simple fix, allow the mouse cursor in VR and now you can use your mouse to position the cursor somewhere else in the view. It will stay in that position relative to your view, instead relative to the cockpit. Of course if you often need to click something below and then something above, the thing is not working unless you use a software that will allow you to bind the mouse cursor to jump on given position.

True. I tried that to begin with. The issue is that sometimes, the pointer moves around and it doesn't work in menus.

Also, the amount of off-centering needs to be manually adjusted depending on what you want to interact with. It'd still want the pointer to be centered for interacting with UFC for instance.

I need to give the Touch controllers a go. Last time I used it, I found that the hand representation was way way to big in reference to the cockpit. Maybe they fixed that.

Also you still need to grab that controller and put it down to return your hands on the HOTAS which is cumbersome.

Having to take yours hands off the hotas, I guess yes but there's nothing immersive in moving it around to point to something to interract with IMHO.

 

I'm a Private Pilot, I'm used to interacting with cockpit switches. First thing I notice is that I know the cockpit through and through, interactions have to be FAST. If we decompose what we humans do to interact with something, it'd look like this

 

1. Turn head in general direction
   
2. Turn eyes/gaze to specific switch
   
3. Move hand
   
4. Activate control
   

We currently can do #1 in DCS but we can't do #2.

 

 

#1 can't be a general direction, it needs to be accurate to point to the right switch which in some cases is really inconvenient.

 

 

I'm proposing to simulate #2 to make it more convenient/faster to get to things.

You can add realism by making the button you click with away from your Hotas (#3) or map a hotas function to make it there even quicker :).

 

 

Cheers,

I get what you mean, but look-n-click seems less immersive to me. I've done it with the fixed cursor and hotas button and it works, but it feels "less real" to me. I prefer to take my hand off and use a mouse at this point. I tried touch controllers but the extra step of groping around for em was clunky. Plus the "phantom" hand floating in the pit (or outside of it LOL) wasn't what I was looking for. I think that Miles controllers or captogloves are the "next step".

True. I tried that to begin with. The issue is that sometimes, the pointer moves around and it doesn't work in menus.

Also, the amount of off-centering needs to be manually adjusted depending on what you want to interact with. It'd still want the pointer to be centered for interacting with UFC for instance.

 

 

 

I need to give the Touch controllers a go. Last time I used it, I found that the hand representation was way way to big in reference to the cockpit. Maybe they fixed that.

Also you still need to grab that controller and put it down to return your hands on the HOTAS which is cumbersome.

Check this out, might be what you're after.

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=218861