Facetracknoir Installed, It Works, But...

Calius Batu · May 22, 2015

I was able to get Facetracknoir installed and working with E

. Thanks to https://youtu.be/ymcKMLouwmc. But, the head look with the face tracking makes me sick. First person shooters always make me sick. It was a day of celebration when I made it to 40 minutes in Team Fortress 2. But, flight simulators have never made me sea sick. Without head tracking, I can fly combat as long as I want (often hours at a stretch).

Any thoughts on how I can mitigate the motion sickness?

Obtuse · May 22, 2015

Just keep at it and your brain will eventually get used to it, which will be difficult, or you can try taking a Dramamine

DevilDogWill · May 22, 2015

Dramamine, as suggested by Obtuse, is a good idea. Take it about 20 minutes before you intend to play. Only a few games give me motion sickness, and Dramamine works every time. I would also suggest setting up a large enough center dead zone in your curves mapping so that you can make small head movements without the tracking kicking in. While setting up curves, play around with them a little to smooth out the movement. Ideally, you want a natural ratio between how much you move your head and where you are actually looking, if that makes sense. Depending on your screen size, you may want to increase or decrease the tracking speed so that you are not turning your head so far that you have to move your eyes around too much. This gets old and is a bit uncomfortable. Good luck.

[HJ]-RedRaven · May 22, 2015

Would recommend seeing your GP/family doctor before taking anything, especially if you're on other medications and the 'give it some time' option doesn't work.

I didn't get motion-sick (and I'm a little delicate on planes and boats especially)... Here in Australia 'Kwells' are highly regarded which is Hyoscine hydrobromide. Works a treat for me in real life, never had to take any in-game though. However I've not used a Rift etc.

Track NoIR worked okay for me, but the "you get what you pay for" (i.e. free) axiom bit hard.

My Logitech webcam locked on to my face fine but seemed to have difficulty keeping its scanning FPS up (down to 3-4 fps due to low light in my study in the evenings), so it was really jerky and needed frequent re-centring (every minute or so, a pita...)

During the day it seemed to work better (10-15 scanning fps with daylight coming in and everything illuminated better, but I hardly play during the day).

ElectricZ · May 22, 2015

How close do you sit to your monitor? You might sit back a foot or so and see if that makes a difference. Having a stable frame of reference around a narrower field of view might help convince your brain that it's really not moving.

B0xCutter · May 22, 2015

I recommend you try Opentrack here https://github.com/opentrack/opentrack/releases It has a much more reliable and smoother way of tracking faces.

Whether you use OpenTrack or FacetrackNoIR, You'll need to play with the curves and get them to a comfortable speed and most importantly adjust the Accella filter. The accella filter settings are critical to achieving a smooth but natural feel.

Most webcams drop to 5-15 FPS in low light conditions, make sure you have light on your face and not in the background. If possible, I suggest going into your webcam's settings and turning down the exposure until you see the frame rate increase.

The curves are what makes or breaks the experience, you'll just have to take some time to play with them, luckily you can edit them while the game and tracker is running. Here is an example of my personalized curves in FTNIR, you'll see that they are fairly flat at the beginning, then curve up into a straight line for linear movement and taper off at the end when you're getting close to the limits in ED (120deg yaw, 90deg pitch up, 60deg pitch down, anything higher and you'll get some clipping in ED)

DevilDogWill · May 22, 2015

It may have been irresponsible of me to recommend you take Dramamine earlier. It works for me, but talking to your doctor may be the best course of action.

I use Opentrack and a home made Delanclip, which is just three infrared LEDs that are USB powered. On the camera (PS3 cam), I attached an infrared filter. You can buy a filter, take it out of an old digital camera, or just use some red/blue 3D glasses folded over so that the lenses are together as a single lens. I use 3d glasses as my filter and it works really well. This allows you to play in pitch black or with background lighting, though instead of using face tracking you will be using a point tracker (comes with Opentrack). The accuracy of the tracking is also much better and more reliable. Using this method, my camera maintains a steady 60fps at 640 x 480, which makes tracking very smooth. It's a bit more work, but makes all the difference. You can find all the instructions you need in the Opentrack forums or by searching for DIY Delanclip. The guy who makes the clip sells entire kits with a PS3 camera with the IR filter removed and the clip. You can also buy each part separately from him if you like. His prices seem very reasonable too. I made my own for the fun of it.

SirAdelaide · May 22, 2015

I use it, and it works pretty well in good light. I've reduced all the lag settings as low as possible (about 0.2 sec noticeable now), and played with the curves and deadzone so the view stays steady until I want it to move. I also still use hotkeys to access panels, so they stay steady while I use them.

But if you get motion sickness from fps, there's probably no good solution for you. Sorry. Thankfully I'm not a doctor, so I may be wrong.

B0xCutter · May 22, 2015

There are many factors to motion sickness, it might be due to; fluctuating game FPS, Field Of View is too high/low, light conditions causing a drop in camera FPS, incorrect filter settings or curves are too sensitive/unatural. I highly recommend you try Opentrack as its face tracking settings are pretty spot on right out of the box but ONLY after you are sure your camera is not going into low-light mode causing its tracking FPS to dip below 30.

[HJ]-RedRaven · May 22, 2015

Interesting, thanks B0xcutter and DevilDogWill, I'll have a look at OpenTrack too. But my main problem is low light, as I play in the evenings, with only a desk lamp for background lighting.

Sorry OP, not maening to jijack your thread

- I hope you find a solution to the motion sickness (its a major thing many real-life astronauts struggle with too!).
As others have said, spending more time/acclimatising to the sensation helps, as do better frame rates, plus better fps on the head-tracking all will help.

Calius Batu · May 22, 2015

Thanks, all, for the suggestions. It sounds like I'll have to play with Opentrack and take time to configure the curves. Currently, the Facetracknoir movement does jerk as I move my head; so smoothing that out will make a difference. I'm really intrigued with the DIY LED solution, too. As for recommendation to take Dramamime, no worries about the advice to consult a doctor, first. I made that assumption when I read the original tip.

In the meantime, I guess the hat switch will work for now.

Antmax · May 22, 2015

Some guy on the reddit channel started selling track hats and 3d printed clips with LED's and USB cable at reasonable prices.

http://www.trackhat.org/

Or you can just use ED Tracker which only has 3DOF but is what I currently use. I originally made my own IR clip and have a PS3 eye camera. But for me at least, 3DOF is all that's needed for this game. Lateral movement is almost non existent without a oculus rift. The EDTracker is smoother, more reliable and uses fewer resources than a camera/video based solution and doesn't rely on light at all. If your handy you can make your own really cheaply.

https://edtracker.org.uk/

Ancipital · May 22, 2015

Head tracking is different from static screen or VR use in one fundamental way- when using head tracking, in order to see the screen in a stable manner, you often have to move your eyes in the opposite direction to the one in which you move your head.. this is a particularly unnatural motion, and can be uncomfortable, or even induce headaches/motion sickness. I am not surprised that you find it strange, OP- because it is!

There's not really anything definite to do, I certainly won't make stupid suggestions like taking drugs to play. However, the standard advice is give it time, try to adjust. Play for short periods only, and stop the very second that you feel uncomfortable, This allows you to build up tolerance. It's vital not to try to "push through" the discomfort, or you will set up bad associations through conditioning- making you automatically associate feeling unwell with using the head tracking, which is the opposite of what you want.

So.. to recap.. try sticking with it. Play for short bursts. If you feel strange, STOP. Get up, move away from the computer, maybe look out of the window/go for a walk. See if it gets better after building up a tolerance. Good luck.

Antmax · May 22, 2015

To add to ancipitals comment. Try to adjust it so you don't have to move your head much. In ED you shouldn't really need to move your head more than about 15 degrees for most things since your actual view outside the cockpit is typically quite restrictive. You rarely have a reason to try and look past 90 degrees and often less than 45 in any direction.