I found a cool toy to play with today, check this out..

[Peter Johnson]

I was not even looking for it either. Its called facetracknoir, similar to trackir I think its called but for a fraction of the price. Actually $0 if you have a decent webcam hooked up to your computer. I thought it was going to be a hassle to install and configure. I just installed it, left everything at default, pressed the start button then started AC and suddenly I have head tracking. I didn't even have to change anything in AC, it just works! Its pretty cool, seems to work quite well actually. And if you want to get fancy and tweek, theres apparently dozens of filters and option and stuff. Works with most games too! Cool find for zero dollars. I will definitely be donating, some folks put a lot of work into this it seems.

Peter

 

[Jamie Barclay]

i also stumbled across this last week, works really well, changed the way i drive quite a bit, only thing i had to change was the up and down was backwards, kind of makes me want the oculus rift even more so when i move my head i can keep looking forward

 

[Peter Johnson]

I think this will tie me over until I get triples.....someday...

 

[Aaron Wilson]

I have Trackir and could not play without it, hoping my DK2 comes soon so maybe you can have my triples

 

[Rupe Wilson]

Here is some more info on this stuff.
http://www.racedepartment.com/threads/trackir-freetrack-and-face-track.15777/#post-617571

 

[Phil Davies]

Excellent informative thread,Nice one guys very useful,Thanks .

 

[Aris Teidis]

I wonder if my Logitech cameras (c270 or the Pro9000) would do the job...
I guess I just have to try
@Peter Johnson is the transition to (look) left or right smooth or is the same as pushing the left/right button?

 

[Peter Johnson]

A c270 or pro 9000 should be fine. Its a little wavy at first until you get used to it. Kind of like swimming around the cockpit...lol You've got to keep your head pretty still, and use robotic motions to the left and right if want the exact button press response....lol I think it works great. I want to loose at least one of the axis's. I don't know which one it is though, its the one where your head movement would be the same as moving your head like a steering wheel to the left and then to the right a little. That movement make me a little sea sick...lol I think its the roll axis
P.S. Ok, so for sim car racing, I've turned ROLL, X, Y, Z off. This give me only left and right and up and down looking.

 

[David Brock]

I'll be picking up a web cam today.... Can't wait to try this when I get back from my trip.

 

[Ian Cameron]

Have looked into this myself and it would seem by lots of people that the PS3 Eye camera is one of the best to use. Just ordered one off ebay for £7

 

[Adria Perez]

Have looked into this myself and it would seem by lots of people that the PS3 Eye camera is one of the best to use. Just ordered one off ebay for £7

It definitely is one of the best cams out there for that prize range, but you might have to pay 2$ extra for drivers for windows 8 (oh Microsoft...)

https://codelaboratories.com/downloads

The driver works quite well though.

 

[Adria Perez]

BTW. I tried it. Didn't like it, stopped it and now I don't seem to be able to adjust the pitch any more and I am stuck to pitch 0 when adjusting the on board viewpoint

 

[Aris Teidis]

BTW. I tried it. Didn't like it, stopped it and now I don't seem to be able to adjust the pitch any more and I am stuck to pitch 0 when adjusting the on board viewpoint

I have the same problem!

 

[Adria Perez]

I have the same problem!

I fixed it by uninstalling the face tracker and rebooting

As it says in the manual of any computer scientist

 

[Aris Teidis]

First of all thanks to @Peter Johnson who informed us about this cool application.

So, yesterday I tried my Logitech camera (c270) with facetracknoir and I have to say that really works (at 30 fps) as said, easy and really smooth!

Although the experience (it reminded me of some videos I recently watched on youtube about oculus rift) its quite interesting as mimics the inside cockpit view giving the possibility to watch in all directions - I don't think it can be useful for racing purposes, at least not before a driver can be fully adopted to this new kind of view...

I tried yesterday to play with settings in order to customize better the all experience to my likes but no great success achieved. So here are some aspects I consider that need improvement in order to facetracknoir become a great sim racing tool (for me):
When turning left/right my head, the software tries to represent on screen the view I should have from that point of view.
This is wrong - because when I turn my head for example to 45°(deg) to the right, I practically can't see what my screen is showing simply because my eyes are struggling to look 45° back (to the left) and they can't physically do this.
That would be easier if a turn of my head to (let's say) 20° could represent a 45° turn on the screen (and even better if the software could just track the eyes movement - that would be ideally).
Also a minus is the fact that plenty of light is needed in order to proper function (I like racing in dark) and even this can't guarantee that face tracking won't be lost suddenly (happened many times to me).
A minor minus (that I can get used to it) is a noticeable delay to response time.
A good thing also would be if was an option to switch of the up/down movement and not loose the possibility to adjust the pitch.
(I hope I was understood, sorry about my poor English)

 

[Pascal Chapon]

Could you guys that have a PS3 Eye test it with the 64bit version of rF2? (cause i've read its drivers are 32bit only)?

 

[Adria Perez]

First of all thanks to @Peter Johnson who informed us about this cool application.

So, yesterday I tried my Logitech camera (c270) with facetracknoir and I have to say that really works (at 30 fps) as said, easy and really smooth!

It works at even higher fps depending on your camera, I got nearly 60fps on my PS3Eye with 15-20% core occupancy. (That is quite impressive)

Although the experience (it reminded me of some videos I recently watched on youtube about oculus rift) its quite interesting as mimics the inside cockpit view giving the possibility to watch in all directions - I don't think it can be useful for racing purposes, at least not before a driver can be fully adopted to this new kind of view...

I tried yesterday to play with settings in order to customize better the all experience to my likes but no great success achieved. So here are some aspects I consider that need improvement in order to facetracknoir become a great sim racing tool (for me):

When turning left/right my head, the software tries to represent on screen the view I should have from that point of view.
This is wrong - because when I turn my head for example to 45°(deg) to the right, I practically can't see what my screen is showing simply because my eyes are struggling to look 45° back (to the left) and they can't physically do this.
That would be easier if a turn of my head to (let's say) 20° could represent a 45° turn on the screen (and even better if the software could just track the eyes movement - that would be ideally).

You can adjust that using the "curves" settings. I have to confess that I have not tried it, but here you can find more info:

http://facetracknoir.sourceforge.net/manual/manual_v170.htm#Curve_settings

Also a minus is the fact that plenty of light is needed in order to proper function (I like racing in dark) and even this can't guarantee that face tracking won't be lost suddenly (happened many times to me).

I don't think that is (always) true. Depending on the camera you can have a relatively dim environment and it will work without much problems (the Ps3Eye for instance works quite well in dim environments). However, you will need to have "constant" light, meaning that the algorithm will struggle if your face is lit with natural light, as that varies way more than we usually perceive.

A minor minus (that I can get used to it) is a noticeable delay to response time.

For me, that, plus the lack of accuracy are the reasons I unistalled it. I have trouble enough hitting these apexes when I see them, so adding the wobbling and jumping related to the tracker doesn't help me. Maybe for a flight simulator when you don't have to be so precise is a much better game for it.

A good thing also would be if was an option to switch of the up/down movement and not loose the possibility to adjust the pitch.

You can easily do that on settings. I was racing with only ptich and yaw without tracking position.

(I hope I was understood, sorry about my poor English)

I am not native, but that is quite decent English

 

[Adria Perez]

Could you guys that have a PS3 Eye test it with the 64bit version of rF2? (cause i've read its drivers are 32bit only)?

The drivers I linked before work out-of-the-box on AC on a windows 8 64 bits machine.

 

[Aris Teidis]

@Adria Perez thanks for the info, I'll check all this!

I have trouble enough hitting these apexes when I see them, so adding the wobbling and jumping related to the tracker doesn't help me. Maybe for a flight simulator when you don't have to be so precise is a much better game for it.

This was definitely a serious problem, for me too. Maybe after practicing someone can get used to...

 

[Dimitris Garmpis]

I have one question. which is better solution for smooth gameplay, Real Head Motion's solution or Tracking Head's?