VR feedback and suggestions

[Litjan]

Hi everyone,

Patch 1.31 is bringing improved VR compatibility to the IXEG 737-300. We have spent a lot of time on this and think it works pretty well - but things can always be improved, so we would like to hear your feedback, discussion and suggestions related to VR and our aircraft.

I have made a short movie, explaining and showcasing some of the features we added and how they are ment to be used. Let us know what you think!

 

[JC_YYZ]

The video is great and very informative. A huge thank you to the team for their attention to VR. I am fairly new to VR (and to the IXEG) and I thoroughly enjoy both. 

There are some great features coming, but one I didn’t notice is the ability to access the load and configuration windows from within VR. I don’t have much experience with this plane, so it may already be possible - but if not, it would be a welcome feature (similar to the ToLiss and the TBM where you can ‘float’ the window in VR and use it while setting up your flight in the cockpit). 

As always, thanks so much for all of the time and work you and the team put into this. 
 

[mmerelles]

58 minutes ago, JC_YYZ said:

The video is great and very informative. A huge thank you to the team for their attention to VR. I am fairly new to VR (and to the IXEG) and I thoroughly enjoy both. 

There are some great features coming, but one I didn’t notice is the ability to access the load and configuration windows from within VR. I don’t have much experience with this plane, so it may already be possible - but if not, it would be a welcome feature (similar to the ToLiss and the TBM where you can ‘float’ the window in VR and use it while setting up your flight in the cockpit). 

As always, thanks so much for all of the time and work you and the team put into this. 
 

 

At present time you will have to setup weight, fuel, gpu,  and general aircraft preferences over the 2D window as said on the IXEG announcement, but i am quite sure the IXEG menus will also be integrated to VR later.

Anyway, i do use their previous version (1.21) with a mod for VR and you have to only to pull up your VR headset for a minute to use the mouse over the regular monitor to set the aircraft parameters then put your vr heaset back again. You do not need to disable/enable VR or anything like that.

link to the announcement

 

 

[JC_YYZ]

1 minute ago, mmerelles said:

 

At present time you will have to setup weight, fuel, gpu,  and general aircraft preferences over the 2D window as said on the IXEG announcement, but i am quite sure the IXEG menus will also be integrated to VR later.

Anyway, i do use their previous version (1.21) with a mod for VR and you have to only to pull up your VR headset for a minute to use the mouse over the regular monitor to set the aircraft parameters then put your vr heaset back again. You do not need to disable/enable VR or anything like that.

link to the announcement

 

 

For sure! That’s not a problem at all. I dropped the suggestion in response to the initial call/ask for suggestions related to VR and their airplane in the post - perhaps hoping to have it added to the list for future versions. 

In the meantime, happy to mix in a little 2D work as well (I use it for Better Pushback anyway).

 

 

[Litjan]

5 hours ago, JC_YYZ said:

 it would be a welcome feature (similar to the ToLiss and the TBM where you can ‘float’ the window in VR and use it while setting up your flight in the cockpit).

Noticed this myself - I guess people work around this by setting up the flight in 2D and then switching...but I agree, having this in 3D would be great!

[Litjan]

By the way - any posts in this thread that are off-topic will be deleted without further comment .

[lanmancz]

Hello,

I'm watching the video and it's good news! One question - isn't the throttle manipulator for both levers a bit too small? I see this is other planes as well, the manipulator for both levers is too small and hard to find in VR, especially if you're on a approach and need only a small quick adjustment. Since 99% of the time we're going to be using both throttles it would be better I think if the center manipulator for both levers was much bigger covering most of the handle and single engine manipulators were only at the edges of each lever.

Also I don't quite understand the wiggling thing - so the throttle does not move unless we "wiggle" it ? And then it snaps to some last point since AP was activated ? This is a bit odd. Or does it work normally and the wiggle is just something extra ?

Otherwise it looks great.

Thanks.

[Litjan]

2 hours ago, lanmancz said:

Hello,

I'm watching the video and it's good news! One question - isn't the throttle manipulator for both levers a bit too small? I see this is other planes as well, the manipulator for both levers is too small and hard to find in VR, especially if you're on a approach and need only a small quick adjustment. Since 99% of the time we're going to be using both throttles it would be better I think if the center manipulator for both levers was much bigger covering most of the handle and single engine manipulators were only at the edges of each lever.

Also I don't quite understand the wiggling thing - so the throttle does not move unless we "wiggle" it ? And then it snaps to some last point since AP was activated ? This is a bit odd. Or does it work normally and the wiggle is just something extra ?

Otherwise it looks great.

Thanks.

Making the manipulator hotspots bigger in the middle and smaller for each single lever is a good idea. Although I never "accidentially" grabbed the single spot when I tested. It works pretty well, but of course we can improve that in a future version if warranted.

The "wiggle" to break the levers loose is actually a remnant of our regular "align axis via ghost-throttle image" procedure, and is somewhat required in case the user has a joystick throttle attached as well. Because otherwise we would say "ok, autothrottle releases control - user takes back control" - and then the thrust levers would snap back to the user´s joy axis position. This happened during takeoff, for example (when THRUST HOLD) is active...with undesired results. So for now we require user interaction "wiggle levers" to tell the system "I am here and ready to take control of thrust!".

Cheers, Jan

[Stratosfeerick]

Just did a quick test flight in VR with 1.31 there and wow! Looks like I'll be switching over from the Zibo for the majority of my flying now  So far there are just a few things I'd like changed:

1) The manipulator hotspot for grabbing both throttles simultaneously could be a bit bigger. It wasn't positively difficult to grasp the middle spot, but I always had to look where I was grabbing just to be sure. In the Zibo, for example, I can grab the throttles almost without looking. I think something like the middle of each lever inwards should count as "both" levers.

2) The fine-tuning of the radios was a bit fast for my liking, which made it difficult not to overshoot the desired frequency, even when being very careful. The coarse knob was fine - just the fine knob gave me difficulty.

3) This one's more minor because we now have avitab, but I'd like to be able to see the checklist that can be brought up by clicking the hotspot on the dashboard in VR. 

All in all a fantastic update though, and I can't wait to do some more flying in it  

[mmerelles]

47 minutes ago, Stratosfeerick said:

2) The fine-tuning of the radios was a bit fast for my liking, which made it difficult not to overshoot the desired frequency, even when being very careful. The coarse knob was fine - just the fine knob gave me difficulty.

 

Hi @Stratosfeerick

 

All brands/controllers have its own "personality" and the average sensivity setting  may not be optimal, besides the personal preference factor as well

 

tip:

1. textedit the file "vrconfigs.txt" found on your IXEG 737 root folder (make a backup first just, in case you do something wrong)

 

2. search for "radios" you should find a section that looks like below:

 

BEGIN_MANIP drag_xy ixeg/733/radios/radios_nav1_mhz ixeg/733/manip_placebo
ACTION axis_knob -40 40 1 ixeg/733/radios/radios_nav1_mhz
DEG_PER_ACTION 100
WRAP_MANIP
END_MANIP

BEGIN_MANIP drag_xy ixeg/733/radios/radios_nav1_khz ixeg/733/manip_placebo
ACTION axis_knob -40 40 1 ixeg/733/radios/radios_nav1_khz 
DEG_PER_ACTION 100
WRAP_MANIP
END_MANIP

BEGIN_MANIP drag_xy ixeg/733/radios/radios_nav2_mhz ixeg/733/manip_placebo
ACTION axis_knob -40 40 1 ixeg/733/radios/radios_nav2_mhz 
DEG_PER_ACTION 100
WRAP_MANIP
END_MANIP

BEGIN_MANIP drag_xy ixeg/733/radios/radios_nav2_khz ixeg/733/manip_placebo
ACTION axis_knob -40 40 1 ixeg/733/radios/radios_nav2_khz 
DEG_PER_ACTION 100
WRAP_MANIP
END_MANIP

 

3. Change the value 100 to 300 i did highlight here in red for the nav radios Mhz & Khz knobs. You may play higher or lower if desired later

note: you need to reload the aircraft to take effect

 

hope this helps

[Litjan]

Thanks, Manuel!

I mentioned this in my "preview video" as well, found in the first post of this thread.

Did you watch that, Stratosfeerick?

Cheers, Jan

 

[Stratosfeerick]

5 hours ago, mmerelles said:

 

Hi @Stratosfeerick

 

All brands/controllers have its own "personality" and the average sensivity setting  may not be optimal, besides the personal preference factor as well

...

3. Change the value 100 to 300 i did highlight here in red for the nav radios Mhz & Khz knobs. You may play higher or lower if desired later

note: you need to reload the aircraft to take effect

 

hope this helps

That's great, thank you so much! And @Litjan Yes now that you say it, I do remember seeing that on the video you made, I just forgot it. Many thanks.

Emmet

[ayousry]

Hello 

first of all , a big thanks to the team for the amazing VR support, every switch is so natural to manipulate , (based on real life experience)  , i have one suggestion though

is it possible to make the shaking effects work in VR ? That would be the first ac to be introduce this feature to xp in VR ,

also i find rolling the ac is a bit sluggish , any recommended settings for the alpha yoke ?!

[Litjan]

1 hour ago, ayousry said:

Hello 

first of all , a big thanks to the team for the amazing VR support, every switch is so natural to manipulate , (based on real life experience)  , i have one suggestion though

is it possible to make the shaking effects work in VR ? That would be the first ac to be introduce this feature to xp in VR ,

also i find rolling the ac is a bit sluggish , any recommended settings for the alpha yoke ?!

Not sure about the shaking - I think that needs careful consideration in VR - especially with inducing nausea etc.

I recommend setting the response curve for the joystick to "linear" without any intermediate points.

Cheers, Jan

 

[ayousry]

1 hour ago, Litjan said:

Not sure about the shaking - I think that needs careful consideration in VR - especially with inducing nausea etc.

I recommend setting the response curve for the joystick to "linear" without any intermediate points.

Cheers, Jan

 

I do know what you mean and i have been using VR since DK2 , this little shaking during takeoff and rollouts, stalls..etc Wont do anything harmful believe me , its already there on the F14 in dcs and it adds a lot to the immersion in VR , id agree with you if the movement is with large displacements 

[Litjan]

Yep, it is noted and we will see how we can implement it. In the regular 3D cockpit we move the viewpoint (pilots head) slightly - obviously that doesn´t work in VR, so we need to figure out some other method. For now get your wife to shake your chair slightly when rolling down the runway .

Cheers, Jan

 

[ayousry]

human butt kicker

[judeb]

Very happy so far with VR

 

[3rdwatch]

First I want to say a big thank you for doing this update. I wish I could have given some feedback sooner but world events in the last 2 weeks have kept me busy. For some reason when I went to VR mode I lost all of my sound. I am still looking into this and was able to get the FT Sim fmod to work. It's not perfect either but I was able to at least have some sounds.

I hate to compare to the ZIBO but right now I have found nothing easier to fly in VR, I use hard wired controls so VR is more view and switch movement.

I found a few switches a little difficult.

The APU bleed was hard to move from the Capt position. Also some of the buttons for the EHSI data were difficult to turn off for some reason. I do like the bigger green boxes on the switches of the Zibo

Small nitpicking but overall it was amazing.

[Litjan]

Hi 3rdwatch,

thanks for the feedback - exactly the type of stuff we are looking for! And no worries about the Zibo, it is definitely the airplane we get compared to the most, if not only for the close likeness of the aircraft types modeled. I never installed the Zibo myself...just the same as P3D - I guess my idea of making a simulation experience is not trying to mimic or copy something else - but to fashion it after my experience as an airline pilot flying the aircraft. That does not mean that one can´t learn from other implementations and sometimes it is not necessary to reinvent the wheel .

I will look at the buttons and switches you mentioned, sometimes it is as easy as adjusting the length of travel for some manipulators or increasing the "hitbox".

Cheers, Jan

 

[3rdwatch]

Anyone have any ideas why I lose the sounds when I go into VR? I have this problem with the rotate MD-80 also but not the ZIBO.

[Deathbane]

VR completely busted for me with latest version pulled from X-Aviation. Controls only respond some of the time, in regards to the overhead panel. Not sure what im doing wrong - Zibos works fine. Makes the plane unusable for me unfortunately, which is a shame as I prefer the classic despite zibos extensive feature set.

Front panel, centre panel etc seems to work fine but responsiveness of top panel such as yaw dampener switch only works sporadically. This is using the virtual mouse rather than controllers as a fyi.

Edited June 22, 2020 by Deathbane

[3rdwatch]

2 hours ago, Deathbane said:

VR completely busted for me with latest version pulled from X-Aviation. Controls only respond some of the time, in regards to the overhead panel. Not sure what im doing wrong - Zibos works fine. Makes the plane unusable for me unfortunately, which is a shame as I prefer the classic despite zibos extensive feature set.

Front panel, centre panel etc seems to work fine but responsiveness of top panel such as yaw dampener switch only works sporadically. This is using the virtual mouse rather than controllers as a fyi.

I have some issues too. I had to reboot my controller to get switches to work. I started the whole thing in VR instead of 2d and switching over and I had some of the wounds but no warning or call outs. I am like you I prefer the 733 and MD-80 era vs the 738. But they have VR so dialed in on the Zibo. I am not sure why it's so hard for other aircraft.

[Litjan]

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

I don´t know about the sounds - I would think that it is some sort of resource problem - first thing I hear about it and don´t experience it on my computer. But then again I usually set the flight up in 2D and only then switch to VR, maybe that has something to do with it. I will try.

The manipulators in the VR cockpit are tuned for operation with a VR controller, I have to try with the virtual mouse. But the yaw damper switch is a simple "click to toggle", so I can´t see why that wouldn´t work. I will report back!

Cheers, Jan

[Litjan]

I just tested the mouse in VR and for me it works flawlessly on the overhead panel (and everywhere else).

Here is something to keep in mind: Our manipulator clickspots move with the switch. So in case of a "click to toggle" switch like the yaw damper, the clickspot will move away from your mousepointer once you click the switch! You can see that the little "hand" turns into an "arrow" at that time. You will then have to move your mouse again until it touches the switch (and turns into a little hand) again to toggle the switch a second time.

Cheers, Jan