Hi cmdrs
I've owned a Tobii eye tracker 4C for a while now and I've never really liked it. I've spent many hours tweaking the settings in GameHub, followed Obsidian Ant's instructions from youtube, but never got it working well enough for me.
I gave up completely on the head tracking aspect as looking up never worked reliably. The eye tracking worked okay, but I just couldn't get it to work the way I wanted, especially for combat. It was either too sensitive, too sluggish or just plain hopeless. I'm not criticising the Tobii GameHub software/hardware at all, it's just my personal experience.
I recently found out that it's possible to get the eye tracking to work with VJoy (joystick emulation software). The Tobii GameHub software actually uses this for some games anyway. This gave me hope as I thought I could maybe find another solution. I also found out it's possible to modify the tracking data from VJoy using another bit of free software called FreePIE.
What I've ended up with now is a solution that I'm happy with. The eye tracking is acting as a regular joystick but using a FreePIE script I've managed to manipulate the X,Y values to make it work comfortably for me:
Now I know lot of people are happy with their Tobii eye trackers, but I thought if there was even just one other person who has been having similar issues to myself then this might help them too?
To set this up you need to:
Once the script is running in FreePIE you will see some values in the Watch window. As you move your eyes you should see the jx and jy values change, if so then it's working!
The eye tracking is enabled by default. You can toggle it on/off by pressing F11.
The only other thing to do is to bind the VJoy device in Elite. One important thing to note is that GameHub seems to interfere with the headlook in Elite if it's running. I would advise that you always have GameHub closed if you want to use this.
My headlook settings in ED look like this:
Although this works with my 4C, it might also work with the Tobii eye tracker X too?
Enjoy!
I've owned a Tobii eye tracker 4C for a while now and I've never really liked it. I've spent many hours tweaking the settings in GameHub, followed Obsidian Ant's instructions from youtube, but never got it working well enough for me.
I gave up completely on the head tracking aspect as looking up never worked reliably. The eye tracking worked okay, but I just couldn't get it to work the way I wanted, especially for combat. It was either too sensitive, too sluggish or just plain hopeless. I'm not criticising the Tobii GameHub software/hardware at all, it's just my personal experience.
I recently found out that it's possible to get the eye tracking to work with VJoy (joystick emulation software). The Tobii GameHub software actually uses this for some games anyway. This gave me hope as I thought I could maybe find another solution. I also found out it's possible to modify the tracking data from VJoy using another bit of free software called FreePIE.
What I've ended up with now is a solution that I'm happy with. The eye tracking is acting as a regular joystick but using a FreePIE script I've managed to manipulate the X,Y values to make it work comfortably for me:
- Looking around the centre of the screen causes very little movement.
- Looking down is disabled in the lower half of the screen - so if I look at my scanner the camera doesn't pan down at all (although it will reset to the central position).
- Looking towards the edges of the screen moves the camera quite quickly allowing me to keep enemy ships in view in a way that feels quite natural to me.
- If I move away from the eye tracker so that it no longer sees me then the view is automatically centred.
- An unintended benefit is that the same solution works with other games that aren't even supported by Tobii, e.g. House of the dying sun and Evochron Legacy are two that I've tried and they work fine. Actually it should work with any game that will allow bindings from multiple joysticks.
Now I know lot of people are happy with their Tobii eye trackers, but I thought if there was even just one other person who has been having similar issues to myself then this might help them too?
To set this up you need to:
- Download and install VJoy from here http://vjoystick.sourceforge.net
- Run the Configure VJoy application
- By default VJoy has device 1 set up, you need to remove it by clicking the Reset All button
- Select the tab for device 2 and set it up as follows (you need to click Add device once you have selected device 2)
- Download and install FreePIE from here http://andersmalmgren.github.io/FreePIE/
- Use the script from the attachment (it is a txt file, but you'll need to change the filename to a .py file so that FreePIE can read it, or just copy/paste it in).
- Run the script (from the Script menu).
Once the script is running in FreePIE you will see some values in the Watch window. As you move your eyes you should see the jx and jy values change, if so then it's working!
The eye tracking is enabled by default. You can toggle it on/off by pressing F11.
The only other thing to do is to bind the VJoy device in Elite. One important thing to note is that GameHub seems to interfere with the headlook in Elite if it's running. I would advise that you always have GameHub closed if you want to use this.
My headlook settings in ED look like this:
Although this works with my 4C, it might also work with the Tobii eye tracker X too?
Enjoy!
