FaceTrackNoIR

[woweezowee]

Any chance a talented programmer could bring this to xplane and the mac?

http://facetracknoir.sourceforge.net/home/default.htm

[Nicola_M]

Excellent find. It does work on xplane.

Even I managed to get it up and running in half an hour and it works fine. There's no real manual for it, but experimenting with the settings soon works ok. Biggest issue I had was when I turned my head to look right, it then backed up so I was sat in the left seat.

Fine tuning and now it's perfect.

Can't recommend this highly enough. A cheap version of TrackIR for anyone considering TIR, or good enough as it is. I've held of buying TrackIR because I didn't know if the £150 cost was worth it if I got low framerates. This one has no effect on framerates whatsoever.

[woweezowee]

glad to hear! now I'm even more hoping for a Mac version

[Nicola_M]

The ONLY problem I can find with it is that it doesn't do "looking down" very well. In the BK I can't get to some of the switches on the center console because it can't look down that far.  I think it's something to do with the settings, but as it's quite difficult to get the settings correct for looking up and down without it changing your seat position, I don't want to muck up the settings I've got.

I've got no idea what "red.factor" does, and while it's got Yaw, Pitch and Roll settings, I dunno what X, Y and Z do, or what their sensitivity things are for. see pic

If anything, this could really benefit from a user manual.  It's not perfect, but it does make it possible to fly helis around a lot easier.

I wouldn't get too worked up about this not being on mac, I would probably still go out and buy TrackIR, now this has demonstrated my pc can run it without killing fps.

[Ben Russell]

Nicola; did you notice they recommend putting the webcam at the bottom of your screen?

(...no, I'm not looking at the source code, or porting it. Sorry.)

[Nicola_M]

Yes, I did notice that.  It's why I think it's not great on a laptop. It's not sensitive enough to give enough range when it comes to looking down.  This is where a manual would have been beneficial.

[Nicola_M]

However, I've been using this software now for a good few days and can certainly vouch for how effective it is.  True, it's not as good as TrackIR, but for a free program which makes use of nothing more than a webcam it's still pretty good.

With a number of changes made to the settings I can now use it to look down - essential for helis - but even if you keep your head still while down, it's very hard to keep it still, which makes aiming for the switches on the centre console quite difficult when they move out of sight the moment you get the cursor in the right hemisphere.

The only shortcoming seems to be that FaceTrackNoIR cannot do sideways movement. Typical example when landing K&A's T-28 on the Nimitz as mentioned in Chip&Simon's blog, you need to be able to move sideways so you can see along the side of the nose. I haven't found a way to get FaceTrackNoIR to do this. Even though it has a "Roll" axis this is far from easy to get any satisfactory results from, and I've left Roll axis disabled.

The use of a webcam brings another concern - although your webcam may be able to see you perfectly well in low light, FaceTrackNoIR cannot interpret the signal well enough to be useable. This means that if you do your flying in the evening, you need to have a well-lit room. This may not be great if you prefer to fly in a dark room with no distractions apart from your screen.

An alternative may be either a NightVision or IR webcam.

All in all though, for a free bit of software, FaceTrackIR really does help to improve your flying. If nothing else, it's a good way to see if TrackIR suits you.

[x-alberto]

>The only shortcoming seems to be that FaceTrackNoIR cannot do sideways movement. Typical example when landing K&A's T-28 on the Nimitz as mentioned in Chip&Simon's blog, you need to be able to move sideways so you can see along the side of the nose. I haven't found a way to get FaceTrackNoIR to do this. Even though it has a "Roll" axis this is far from easy to get any satisfactory results from, and I've left Roll axis disabled.

I really have to check that again (I am not currently on my gaming pc) but as far as I can remember you get the most out of FTNoIR by simulating the Track IR protocol and coupling it with Sandy's Pilot view.

[Nicola_M]

Thanks Alberto, that would be interesting to learn more about.

[x-alberto]

Thanks Alberto, that would be interesting to learn more about.

I can confirm that.

Within FreeTrackNoIR main window, select "Fake TrackIR" in the Game protocol combo.

Then install Sandy Barbours' Pilot view and enable Track IR support.

You will get a nice and smooth handling of all 6 degrees of freedom for you point of view.

[Nicola_M]

Thanks Alberto, I downloaded it and gave it an hour of fiddling with the settings.

Along with FaceTrack, PilotView was able to get Roll axis working, but this is the one where you tilt your head while banking, so as to still keep ground view level.

I didn't actually find a way to be able to move my head sideways and look along the side of nose of the aircraft.  Maybe that is something specific to TrackIR.

In any event, my system wasn't able to handle running PV and a webcam and FaceTrack and xplane all at once, and gave me some nice surreal graphic effects every few seconds.

Nice to look at, but not while I'm trying to fly.

[Nicola_M]

Tried Pilot View again today, and found it doesn't "find" the FaceTrackNoIR input easily. When it does, it switches off the Engine Vibration effect, and I managed to get about 2 minutes of use before it caused FaceTrack to CTD.

Reloaded everything again and PV still can't find the input from FaceTrack.

It's much easier just to use FaceTrack on its own and consign PV to the bin.

[falloutgamer65]

I am thinking about buying Track IR, but it is pretty costly. So from what you have experienced so far with Facetrack, do you think it would be worth just getting Track IR or is there hope for FTNOIR?

Thanks

[Nicola_M]

FTNOIR's good for what it is. It allows you to move your head left/right and up and down which is the basics you need to be able to fly. It's perfectly manageable.

However, it's impossible to click switches using FTNOIR because it can't keep the picture still long enough, no matter how still you keep your head. So if looking down at a centre console and clicking switches, or looking up at a ceiling switch panel is your thing, then you're probably better buying TrackIR.

hth

[falloutgamer65]

Thanks I will probably get trackIR then. Can' wait for it, im tired of using the hatswitch on my yoke to look around

[Nicola_M]

Best thing to do is try FTNOIR - it's free, and all u need is a webcam - and see how you get on with it before spending money on TrackIR.

Can't do any harm to give it a go.

http://facetracknoir...ome/default.htm

Edited August 27, 2011 by Nicola_M

[cyranosemuse]

FTNOIR's good for what it is. It allows you to move your head left/right and up and down which is the basics you need to be able to fly. It's perfectly manageable.

However, it's impossible to click switches using FTNOIR because it can't keep the picture still long enough, no matter how still you keep your head. So if looking down at a centre console and clicking switches, or looking up at a ceiling switch panel is your thing, then you're probably better buying TrackIR.

hth

Try using the keyboard short cut to toggle "start/stop" using the "stay" and "keep tracking" options.

From the FTNoIR manual:

Keyboard shortcuts

To influence the facetracker while 'in-game', shortkeys can be defined to:

• Center view;
  
• Stop/Start the tracker; From version 1.5 on the Start/stop shortkey has two extra options, which are active when the state is 'stop' :
  
  • View: When 'Zero' is checked, view will be reset to '0'. With 'Stay' selected, view will freeze in the current position.
    
  • Engine Tracker: With 'Stop Engine' checked, the tracker will stop face-tracking in 'stop'. This reduces CPU-load significantly. However, to 'start' again takes time. When 'Keep tracking' is checked the tracker-engine will not stop and 'start' will be much faster.
    

[Nicola_M]

Thanks for the info, but that is actually like "turning off" the link between your webcam and ftoir, which then takes time to reconnect.

If you're in a 3D-only cockpit, it's actually quicker to go into Keys & Equipment in the xplane menu and switch off headtracking briefly to get to any important switches.

Or Ctrl+O to toggle 3D/2D cockpit for 2D and 3D acf.

This probably explains why it's not often I use ftnoir.

Edited August 27, 2011 by Nicola_M

[ShadowIGM]

When will this plugin be ready?!

[Julien Pham]

This is not a plugin, just an external software which emulates trackIR.

 

FacetrackNoIR works fine for me now, with a PS3 eye webcam. It allows any kind of movement, even side moving.

The only thing is that if I move too far I'm going out of the aircraft this way, not very realistic I tried Pilot View plugin, hoping the "limits" will allow to block the movements so I stay in the cockpit, but I still get out of the cockpit. I should try reaching the pilot view dev but I don't know how.

 

About the 3D cockpit and the switches, I have setup the middle mouse button to start/stop facetracknoIR. With the options of "stay" for view (so it keeps the view as when I clicked the button) and the "keep tracking" option, so it just stops moving the view but keeps the tracking, so no delay when you click on the button again to resume tracking.

 

Very satisfied with facetracknoIR, just that I would like to be able to stop the movement so I don't go outside the cockpit... ^^

Edited October 21, 2013 by Julien Pham

[Astrogator]

This is not a plugin, just an external software which emulates trackIR.

 

FacetrackNoIR works fine for me now, with a PS3 eye webcam. It allows any kind of movement, even side moving.

The only thing is that if I move too far I'm going out of the aircraft this way, not very realistic I tried Pilot View plugin, hoping the "limits" will allow to block the movements so I stay in the cockpit, but I still get out of the cockpit. I should try reaching the pilot view dev but I don't know how.

[...]

 

Very satisfied with facetracknoIR, just that I would like to be able to stop the movement so I don't go outside the cockpit... ^^

Bit late in answering, but I had the same problem.

You can limit the movement when you adapt the "curves" within FaceTrackNoIR. But you need then to save a FaceTrackNOR config file for each plane you use.