Change in mouse behavior

[DayGlow]

I was thinking on how to improve cockpit interaction, especially know that the Leap Motion is out.

 

As a TrackIR user my mouse is dedicated to cockpit interaction. Right now the mouse pointer in the cockpit seems to be 'locked' to my relative head position. So if the mouse pointer is in the center of my view when I'm looking forward as I move my head around the mouse pointer stays in the center of my view. This causes the mouse pointer to have two influences on its position, my head movement and my direct input to the mouse.

 

I find this makes it difficult to hit some buttons. I glance down at the CDU and have to either turn off TrackIR or really consintratenat holding my head very still to input values. It works, but it makes a quick glance down and interaction a challenge. From what I understand from early adopters of the Leap this relative motion makes it very hard to be precise.

 

I believe if the mouse pointer was instead 'locked' to its relative position in the 3D cockpit it would be a lot easier to control. This way there would only be a single influence on the mouse pointer input. You wouldn't have to fight your head movement to remain over a button/switch. This would also help the precision issue with the Leap as well.

[Suchacz]

Well my friend, this is definitely an interesting idea. But one thing came on my mind - you shouldn't never forget, where you left your cursor, or you will end in turning your head left and right to search for it.

Cursor, hey cursor! Where are you? Oh here you are, good doggie, err cursor :lol:

 

Imho leaving the cursor as it is now and making it "magnetic", or attachable to the knobs and switches would be better for cockpit clicking, as we can see in Falcon BMS.

Edited July 31, 2013 by Suchacz

[DayGlow]

Well the edge of the screen could be the barrier for it. The BMS magnet curser has it own issues when you want to move it one over to a close button. I find I have to move my mouse hard to break the lock then come in from a different direction to hit the next button.

[Suchacz]

You're right, it is something to think about for the devs and something to try for testers :thumbup:

[DayGlow]

I think the major hurtle is that most likely right now mouse position is reported as and x,y coordinate of your screen so as the viewpoint changes the mouse remains in its position.

 

I'm not sure how to over come this. Maybe a spherical x,y,z position of the mouse within the cockpit so it remains on its point in the sphere relative to the cockpit at all times?

[Bushmanni]

If you can't read the raw data from mouse but have to rely on windows cursor position, you can just hide it and force the windows cursor position to the center of the screen and after a while (like one frame time) read how much it has moved and then re-center it again and display another cursor for the player.

 

In principle I like the idea of cursor position tied to cockpit coordinates instead of screen. There might be a problem when you need to move the cursor large distances in the cockpit as depending on the settings the cursor could be too inaccurate or too slow. If this is a problem it could be made to always stay inside the screen borders so that turning your head will not leave the cursor too far behind. While the position of the cursor is in cockpit coordinates the coordinate system for movement should be oriented to the screen so that moving mouse up still moves the cursor up on the screen.