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[FlyinJ]

I recently got TrackIR for my PC. My god what an amazing experience it is.

What is TrackIR? Well, it's something that you stick on a baseball cap that tracks your head movements while playing a game. Similar to what that guy did with the Wiimote a while back. The results are just amazing.

Here's some vids:

GRID with TrackIR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=EyfORol13Hc

DIRT with TrackIR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-rNaCiakvo

Flight Sim with TrackIR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKJl6ex6ZYo

HAWX on the PC supports this as well.

The device itself is USB. I would freakin love it if racing/flight console devs supported it for the 360/PS3.

Here's the TrackIR site with all the PC games it supports:

http://www.naturalpoint.com/trackir/03-enhanced-games/enhanced-games-flight.html

 

[firex]

as long as it comes with a microphone you can swear into to fire, I'm all for it.

 

[Mamesj]

$150? really?

 

[androvsky]

Turning your head while keeping your eyes on the monitor seems to be a very unnatural way of doing things. VR helmets or bust. Will settle for stereoscopic 3D in the meantime.

 

[onesvenus]

Turning your head while keeping your eyes on the monitor seems to be a very unnatural way of doing things. VR helmets or bust. Will settle for stereoscopic 3D in the meantime.

That's what I was thinking... another solution is needed.

 

[kodt]

I saw this demoed with ArmA. Somewhat cool idea except why would you turn your head while looking at a monitor? Unless you have a monitor that curves around you 180* it doesn't seem very natural or worth the cost.

 

[Chris Remo]

Turning your head while keeping your eyes on the monitor seems to be a very unnatural way of doing things. VR helmets or bust. Will settle for stereoscopic 3D in the meantime.

It seems like the kind of thing that would intuitively be unnatural, but that you would quickly adjust to once you're actually doing it.

 

[JBuccCP]

nah

 

[FlyinJ]

Turning your head while keeping your eyes on the monitor seems to be a very unnatural way of doing things. VR helmets or bust. Will settle for stereoscopic 3D in the meantime.

One of the first things you notice when using it is that it tracks the actual position of your head relative to the monitor. This means that you can move your head around while facing forward, and it's just like moving your head when sitting in a car. It makes the 3D really pop out. You can lean in to look closer at your dashboard, raise your head up higher to look over your hood, lean your head left to look out a window.

It also maps the act of turning your head to a higher ratio, so looking slightly to the left causes the game to turn 90 degrees left. The end result is extremely intuitive. It's not like you have to look sideways and keep your eyes on the screen.

 

[Chris Remo]

I saw this demoed with ArmA. Somewhat cool idea except why would you turn your head while looking at a monitor? Unless you have a monitor that curves around you 180* it doesn't seem very natural or worth the cost.

If you have a monitor that curves around you 180 degrees that defeats the entire point of this technology. Think about it. The whole reason it's useful is because flat rectangular monitors have a limited field of view.

 

[autobzooty]

Someone explain this to me because I'm very interested in this (especially for flight simulators)...

The game turns the camera when you turn your head to create a "real" first person type thing, yeah? But if you turn your head to the right so you can look right, suddenly you're not looking at the monitor anymore...so how does this work? Do you just keep your eyes on the monitor while turning your head? Is that comfortable? Does it even work?

 

[Dibbz]

It's sensitivity is quite high from what I've seen. You turn your head slightly and it turns the in game camera a lot more.

Watch this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e5KpKyAweE&feature=related

 

[kodt]

If you have a monitor that curves around you 180 degrees that defeats the entire point of this technology. Think about it. The whole reason it's useful is because flat rectangular monitors have a limited field of view.

yeah, your right. Still, it seems more like it is just a device that lets your head movements affect the camera, I think it would be easier to just hook it up to your knee so you know move that back and forth :lol

 

[Shig]

Someone explain this to me because I'm very interested in this (especially for flight simulators)...

The game turns the camera when you turn your head to create a "real" first person type thing, yeah? But if you turn your head to the right so you can look right, suddenly you're not looking at the monitor anymore...so how does this work? Do you just keep your eyes on the monitor while turning your head? Is that comfortable? Does it even work?

It tracks your head in relation to the monitor and adjusts the viewpoint accordingly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw

 

[rohlfinator]

If you have a monitor that curves around you 180 degrees that defeats the entire point of this technology. Think about it. The whole reason it's useful is because flat rectangular monitors have a limited field of view.

Not necessarily... IMO the coolest aspect of the technology is the illusion of 3D due to it adjusting your in-game character's view based on your actual head movements. You'd still get that 3D effect on a big monitor.