New TIR Convert

[Bullethead]

My TIR4 and Pro Clip finally arrived today. It definitely lives up to the hype, and I want to thank all those who talked me into buying it. Drinks on me :ernae::ernae::ernae::ernae:

TIR isn't the greatest thing since canned beer, it's the greatest thing since bottled whiskey. OFF is now SO much more enjoyable when you can actually look around conveniently in a furball . In fact, though I still need to fine-tune my skill with TIR, I can tell already I'll never use the numpad views again.

I'm just using the supplied "Combat Flight" profile. It seems to work exactly right for what I want to do. My main issue isn't with TIR, but with my own flightsim habits. Long, long ago, I got into the habit of pantomiming G effects, scrunching down in my seat and grunting during hard pullouts, leaning to the side in slips, etc. Suddenly, these movements are being translated into head movements. While the overall effect is even more realistic than my own silly movements, I need to learn to tone down my fidgetting so I don't change the view so much .

 

[Siggi]

Long, long ago, I got into the habit of pantomiming G effects, scrunching down in my seat and grunting during hard pullouts, leaning to the side in slips, etc.

Oh man, I'd like to watch that. Do you have a wife/GF? Kids? Do you make them all go to bed first?

Good to hear you're enjoying the TiR mate.

 

[Bullethead]

Oh man, I'd like to watch that. Do you have a wife/GF? Kids? Do you make them all go to bed first?

What, you don't do that? Go on, admit it. Nothing to be ashamed about. I'm sure quite a few folks here will own up to flightsim pantomiming .

I've been to several MMO flightsim conventions where there have been entire banquet halls full of online friends and foes all flying and getting drunk as lords. Wandering around the room meeting all these folks I'd known for years only by their online handles, naturally I'd look over their shoulders for a while to see if I could pick up any of their flying habits. But the main habit I saw was that a good 50% of them at least did the same motions I did, whether they realized it or not. And the funny thing was, the guys who sat there like statues looked strange for NOT doing it.

 

[SITTINGDUCK]

tir

bullethead,,,im right up there with you...

Cant shake the old rb3d and nintendo habits,,,if im rolling left,,i lean left,,

Its so bad, that for the most part, my track ir is just gathering dust..

 

[bruce205]

Hey Bullet,

Mine arrives tomorrow !!! Question, do I need to have a headset to wear track clip pro or would a baseball cap work?? Thanks

Bruce

 

[gimpyguy]

NG on the baseball cap, get ahold of a woman's hair ( Holder Backer) Don't know what you call it. Basicaly we're talking a metal Horseshoe about 2" wide, spring steel. It's covered by fabric, mine's Navy Blue.

If it's Pink . . . Paint it

 

[saburo]

I live in the states and work in baseball - which gets me lots of free ballcaps. But I don't usually wear ballcaps or hats for that matter unless it's cold or really sunny. But, at one game they had a visor giveaway (adjustable band with visor) - and the reflector doodad clip (technical term) fit ~perfectly~ on it. Put on the visor, headset fits right over it. Works for me.

-sab

 

[Bullethead]

Mine arrives tomorrow !!! Question, do I need to have a headset to wear track clip pro or would a baseball cap work??

I'd say you have to have a headset. That women's hair band thingy Gimpy suggested I don't think would work well. The Pro Clip attaches with a fairly substantial clamp that goes around whatever sort of band you've got over the top of your head. The part of the clamp on the inside is about 3/8" thick, which would dig right into your skull using the women's hair band. With a headset, OTOH, the band is held some distance away from your skull by the thickness of the earphones, so the Pro Clip clamp can get around it without touching you.

The jaws of this clamp are lined with foam and their hinge has 2 positions like a pair of pliers. Thus, they can clamp around something that's very thin up to about 1/2" thick and up to about 1.5" wide fore-and-aft. IOW, the clamp will go around about any commonly available headset. I'm using a very old Labtec set whose over-the-head band is triangular in cross-section about 3/8" on a side. The Pro Clip has no trouble gripping this.

I've got 1 downer about TIR though. The rumors of motion sickness can be true. Everybody's reaction differs, of course. For me, it's no problem until I have to go for long times without being able to see the horizon. Such as, flying a Roland or Eindecker above about 5000', or anything on a really cloudy day. Moving my head around a lot in such conditions makes me feel a little nauseous after a while, but it's mostly only noticeable after I land and the adrenaline goes away. After a couple minutes, I'm fine again. I hope to build up a tolerance to this eventually .

 

[gimpyguy]

Communication Breakdown . .Track Clip . . Baseball cap or Visor

Track Clip Pro . . meant for headset .. if you don't normally use one ... hair thingy

Bullethead: The Quiseyness disappears after a few weeks, if you didn't lose your lunch the first time, I wouldn't be concerned. But keep a bucket handy . . just in case

F12 aligns the gunsight to your head

 

[Bletchley]

... hair thingy

We call them an "Alice band" here in Blighty (named after Alice in Wonderland, I believe).

Bletchley :wave:

 

[dane48]

Couple questions about Trac IR

Great to read about the Trac Ir but have some questions that I don't think are answered any other place.

How does one turn to look directly behind (your eight) because of course the head or neck cannot turn that far? I am one that does have some neck pain off and on and wondering if perhaps this might be a big problem for me.

Also, I flight Microsoft FSX often (vintage aircraft are my thing) and if I have settings for BHAH, will these work in FSX or will they need to be changed each time I go from one sim to the other?

Are there any frame rate issues or LOSS when using Trac Ir? I can't afford to lose any frame rates. Thanks all

 

[Giant2111]

1. you can set the resolution of your motion. Check it out on TrackIR : head tracking view control immersion for flight racing and action simulator

You just need to move your head a little to see backwards.

2. Switching profile is easy as 123. Just use one of the saved profiles.

3. No loss of FPS recognized.

 

[Gandi]

Track IR accentuates your head movement, so small movements of you actual head result in larger movements of your in-game head. With my setup when my face points at the edge of the monitor my ingame head is looking behind me....trust me you get used to it and can fully customise it to how much YOU want to move....I know there are a couple of guys here that have theirs set up to allow much more physical head movement than I have, but as always it's horses for courses.

As for changing game Track IR can have profiles for a large number of games and it will pick the relevent one for each one as run or you can force it to only use a single default one.....so in your case when you're happy with a flight profile then you can use this as the default and it will work in both FSX and BHaH.

Frame rate loss is minimal, usually only noiticeable on low end systems like mine! I loose possibly 1-3 fps using TrackIR, but I'm using a fairly low end laptop (GeForce 8400M 256Mb with shared memory added if and when by the system).
Ensuring that the TrackIR software runs minimised alleviates this FPS loss though.

HTH

 

[Fortiesboy]

Great to read about the Trac Ir but have some questions that I don't think are answered any other place.

How does one turn to look directly behind (your eight) because of course the head or neck cannot turn that far? I am one that does have some neck pain off and on and wondering if perhaps this might be a big problem for me.

Also, I flight Microsoft FSX often (vintage aircraft are my thing) and if I have settings for BHAH, will these work in FSX or will they need to be changed each time I go from one sim to the other?

Are there any frame rate issues or LOSS when using Trac Ir? I can't afford to lose any frame rates. Thanks all

Dane
This is what i wrote in the Sticky re trackir in the Overflanderfield 2 forum

1. Trackir should not cause any loss of FPS . It never has on my computers.
But you can allow it to. What i mean here is that it depends on how you run things.
When you intend to fly, before starting the sim, you start trackir. A splash scren comes up on the monitor. If you now leave it there and start your sim, there is a chance of loss of FPS. However, if having started trackir you minimize the trackir splash screen, and then start the sim, there should be no loss. In fact, in the settings of trackir, you can programme it always to run minimized. But I do it manually.
2.
A tip on flying it- You may wonder how much to move your head to get a particular amount of movement of trackir? Don't approach it like that. Use your imagination and really think you are in a cockpit. When looking ahead, pick something on the ground to look at ; or pick a direction, e.g 10 oclock , or 3 o'clock. And then, as if you were really in a cockpit, just look at that point or object. You'll find it is so realistic and natural, you won't be worrying about how far your head has moved.
Then gradually make the arc- of- looking,wider - until you can see 5 o'clock and 7 o'clock and even 6 o'clock.
Try all these first attempts in freeflight- (or FSX) - It will soon come naturally and then - ENJOY

HTH

 

[Aussie Pilot]

Another thing to think about when using trackir for the first time.

Do you sit on a swivel seat !!! if you do, any minor movement will set your target of to either side without you realizing it.
Basically you have to have a solid base and just let your head do the moving.

I only mentioned this because a know a few first timers to Trackir got caught out by their chair movement without realizing it (me included).
Good hunting.

 

[Interlocutor]

What, you don't do that? Go on, admit it.

Yes, I do it, too, and not just in flight sims. When watching football on TV, my wife tells me I tuck my shoulder in just as the running back is about to get tackled, or cock my arm back just as the QB is about to throw the pass...

Glad to hear you've taken to TIR. It really makes all the difference. Now when I execute a lag-pursuit roll, I can actually hope to keep the bogey in view throughout the maneuver...

 

[Bullethead]

...In fact, in the settings of trackir, you can programme it always to run minimized. But I do it manually.

A tip on flying it- You may wonder how much to move your head to get a particular amount of movement of trackir? Don't approach it like that. Use your imagination and really think you are in a cockpit...

To elaborate a bit, because I've found the TIR software a bit more opaque than Saitek's.....

When you install the software, be sure to install the included profiles when asked. It comes with 4 profiles, called "Combat Flight", "Flight", "Racing", and "Default". These differ in how your real head motion is scaled to game motion, and whether any axis is reversed. The "Racing" one has very limited up-down movement, for example, and "Default" has all the axes reversed, so reallly blows IMHO.

I've found that "Combat Flight" works intuitively and naturally for me in OFF without any need to change it.

The trick is getting the profile you want to work in OFF. When you start the software, go to the Profiles Tab. The top part of this lists suported games and the TIR profile that's associated with them. You'll see CFS3 listed here, but not OFF, and OFF is apparently different enough from CFS3 now that TIR doesn't recognize it as CFS3. Thus, you'll end up with the sucky "Default" profile in OFF if you do nothing. To get the "Combat Flight" profile to work in OFF, you need to do to the lower part of this screen where the actual profiles are listed. Next to "Combat Flight", check the box for "Exclusive-load". This will force the "Combat Flight" profile to load in every game, including OFF.

If you have the TrackClip Pro, click on the "Combat Flight" profile in the list and hit the EDIT button. Across the top of the main screen, you'll see a box to check for the TrackClip Pro. Hit OK and that's that. But before you do, take a minute to watch the various displays that come up in edit mode to see how your real head motion corresponds to game head motion.

Then go to the Options menu at the top of the screen and click on "Run Minimized". Then minimize the software and start OFF. Now you're set. The only thing to remember from here on is to start the TIR software before you start OFF. When you start it, it will automatically load the "Combat Flight" profile and minimize itself onto your taskbar. Then start OFF and voila! You should also program a stick button for F12 (centers your view in TIR), and reassign any OFF command that uses F12 to a different key to avoid conflicts.

As to using it in OFF, I recommend doing a QC hop starting on the runway and just look around a bit before flying. It's amazing how quickly you get adjusted to it. It's all unconscious feedback from your eyes.

Say you want to look right to see your ailerons move. Before you start moving your head, your eyes automatically go to the right edge of the screen, then you start turning your head. You'll see your wingtip eventually come into view and your eyes lock onto it. Your brain's equipped to measure the angle between your eyes and your head and seeks to minimize it automatically. So what happens is your eyes track the wingtip and your head automatically stops moving when it and your eyes are pointed the same direction. When this happens, on the screen you'll see the wing sticking straight out from you as if you were really looking 90^ to the right, but you're head is only pointed about 10^ to the right in real life.

The really cool thing is the 6 degrees of freedom. You can lean over and look down somewhat past the edge of the cockpit, or lean over to see around the shoulders of your tailgunner. In some planes, you can even sit up straigher and see the entire upper surface of your top wing .

This all feels close enough to just looking around in real life that it's quite intuitive and easy to do without having to think about it. It IS slightly different from normal life, however, so it does take a little exposure to it before you completely quit noticing the difference. But for the most part, you shouldn't have any trouble with it. Just look around like you normally would.

 

[Bullethead]

Do you sit on a swivel seat !!! if you do, any minor movement will set your target of to either side without you realizing it. Basically you have to have a solid base and just let your head do the moving.

Yes, I do it, too, and not just in flight sims. When watching football on TV, my wife tells me I tuck my shoulder in just as the running back is about to get tackled, or cock my arm back just as the QB is about to throw the pass...

I have a swivel chair and I pantomime a lot while flying. This doesn't seem to cause much trouble for TIR, however. Maybe that's because I've got the new model and the Pro clip (especially the latter), which seems to make TIR a lot more forgiving than some older posts would lead you to believe.

What happens sometimes is that I move too far to 1 side or the other. This mostly happens when I'm trying to lean over to look down past the side of the cockpit, which I'm finding less intuitive to do than just looking around. This can cause the Pro clip's LEDs to leave the transceiver's field of view. When that happens, the view stops moving with my head. But when I see this, I just sit back up straight and everything goes back to working fine.

I only rarely have to resort to the F12 recenter. When my chair and my body English have moved my head from where it was to start with, it's easy to tell because I can't see over the instrument panel as well as before, or am off to the side a bit. Then I realize I'm kinda squunched down in my seat, so just sit up straight again and no problem. It even seems natural to do it that way .

 

[Geier]

OK. I've probably convinced myself to get this. One, possibly silly, question:
How do you aim? For instance in the ALb DIII (early) your sights are aligned with top centre of your windshield. If I move my head up or down I imagine that this will change? (Note: My head doesn't understand geometry. It's not my fault!)

 

[Siggi]

OK. I've probably convinced myself to get this. One, possibly silly, question:
How do you aim? For instance in the ALb DIII (early) your sights are aligned with top centre of your windshield. If I move my head up or down I imagine that this will change? (Note: My head doesn't understand geometry. It's not my fault!)

When you move your head and align yourself to the gunsight (or central position) you'll find there's a noticeable little 'clicky' or 'sticky' area. It's not absolutely vital to be there however, I find my bullets go reasonably straight even when I'm slightly out of whack with the sights.

The other 'trick', of course, is to get your head just how you like it, then hit the F12 button. That sets you dead center with the sights. My F12 is mapped to a thumb-button on my stick.