TrackIR, the biggest problem I've found is there isn't any "plain english" instructions on how to set them up! Does "Natural Point" thing everyone was on the development team and just "knows" how it all works?
After testing a number of profiles I got from many players here on the boards I built several profiles of my own. Biggest suggestion I can make is if you put one together you like, save it, then copy the "xml" file in the profile folder and save it someplace safe! I mistakenly over wrote a number of my "good" profiles and have made a mess of the settings a number of times. With all the mistakes I've made I think I have a pretty good handle on how things work in the program and what to adjust to get the effect I'm looking for.
I've decided to post this here in the hopes that it helps others understand what does what so that they too can get what they are looking for out of TrackIR with the least amount of trouble. I'm not going to tell you "how" I set mine up, nor am I going to tell you how "I" think you should set it up. The whole idea here is to give you a basic idea of which setting set what so that you can adjust what YOU want adjusted for YOUR profile.
 | This is the "basic setting, and advance settings" screen of TrackIR 5.
In the "basic settings" section at the top we have the area where you select whether you have the "TrackClip" or the "TrackClipPro". To the right of that we have two
adjustments. The top one is speed and the bottom is Smooth. Adjusting the speed will adjust the speed of your head turn/movement in game as it compares with your live head movement. Setting the slider to less than "1" means that the speed of the movement in game is less than the speed of your live head movement, more than "1" is faster than your live head movement. This is where you set how fast you want your in game "head" to move.
Smooth is how smooth the movement is. The lower the number the less samples it takes and the more your in game head will seem to jerk. The higher the number, the smoother the movement. Of course this comes with a drawback. The smoother you set it the more computer power your using to do it. So for low end systems you may be better off going a bit jerky.
Next, the "advanced settings" I will touch on most of these, but not all, just the ones I think are important.
First, there are 3 tabs across the top, "Profiles", "Titles", and "Camera". Camera I left at default, but here you can adjust how your camera views the TrackClip/TrackClip Pro. Adjusting the sensitivity to the light in the room and/or the reflectors/leds. As mine works well in the room I have I haven't messed with them and so don't know much about them. I will say this, if using the Pro clip mount the camera to the top side of the monitor that the Pro clip is attached to. Mount the camera in the center for the regular track clip. The idea is to have a "strait shot" type view so the camera can keep track of your head at all times.
The Titles tab is so that you can make a number of different profiles for different games (like anyone else is going to play ANYTHING other than Aces High!  ). Click on the game you wish to set a profile for and a drop down box will open. Open it and click on the profile you wish to use for that game and save. When you start TrackIR and then Aces it will load the right profile for you.
The Profiles tab is the one that sets all of your movement preferences. First, you have the Profiles drop down box. Use this to select the profile you wish to work with. To the right of that you have 4 symbols/buttons. "Create", "Copy", "Delete", and "save". Pretty self explanatory. Then we have the "Hot Keys" In the drop down, you have 4 selections. The "center" and "Pause" selections are very useful to setup. Set them up by selecting an action and then clicking on the "key" button. This opens a window asking you to select the button you want to use by operating the button on your stick/throttle set up. "Center" is used to calibrate the camera to your clip. You don't always sit in the same spot at your computer so you have to click the "center" button to let the camera/program know "where" you are. "Pause is good for those time you don't want the TrackIR to run.
Next are the "Motion Adjustments". This is where it gets tricky. There are 6 different motions the TrackIR can "see". They are listed across the top as "Yaw","Pitch","Roll","X","Y","Z".
Yaw, is the rotation of your head left to right.
Pitch is the rotation of your head up and down.
Roll is the rotation of tilting your head left and right.
X is moving your body left and right
Y is moving your body up and down.
Z is moving your body forward and back.
Set up for each of these 6 motions are the same. To set up a motion, select it from the drop down and then make the adjustments in the grid below by grabbing a "dot" on the green line and moving it to where you want it. Under the "axis" selection are 3 boxes, "Mirror" which when checked makes the to adjustment lines mirror each other. If you un-check the box you could set the Pitch up rotation as a long stroke to see up and over your head, but could set the down rotation to a short quick move so that you can see your gauges with out looking between your legs. The "Invert" box does just that, it inverts your movements. Left is right and so on. The "Limit" box can set a limit on the travel. Setting the limit on the YAW rotation will stop the rotation at 180 degrees. |
The grid has two scales. The one across the bottom is your head movement in degrees. The second is up and down in the middle and is the number of degrees of motion in the game. The up and down one is called "rotation speed" but I think that is miss leading. Its the number of degrees your in-game head is moving. The higher up the scale, the farther your in-game head moves. The "dots" are the 5 main adjustable points in the curve. By grabbing these with the mouse pointer you can move then to adjust how your in-game movement reacts compared to your live head/body movements.
Dead band. Some people fix the "siting issue" (locking your head in place while aiming/shooting) by creating a dead band, or dead space where your head movement doesn't effect the in-game head movement. To do this, move the first dot in line along the bottom scale line. The farther you move it from center the bigger the dead spot. In the picture above, I have it set at about 5 degrees which means that I have to move my head more than 5 degrees left or right before before my in-game head moves at all. By setting the dead space in each axis it creates a spot that your in game head seems to almost "snaps" to when you look forward.
The best way I've found to make all of these adjustments is to do them one at a time. Un-check all of the axis except one and work on it to get it how you like it. Remember to save it when you finish, and like I said before, make a copy and save it someplace just in case you screw it up you have the starting point to try it again.
Good Luck !
