Support for Track IR?

[Werewolf]

Thinking about getting a Track IR setup and while previewing the games with built in support on the naturalpoint.com site I noticed that Steel Beasts Professional was listed. Does that include SB PRO PE as well?

[Ssnake]

I don't remember the specifics, but I cannot imagine that we made special provisions to keep the Personal Edition out.

 

 

That being said, it's not a full 6DOF support, rather similar to the mouse, that you can look around from fixed viewing positions. 6DOF would require that we take back a lot of the triangle optimizations from the vehicle interior models, that we'd define limits of the camera movement, that we'd have to reduce the overall texture resolution to squeeze in texture space for the additional triangles, etc; a lot of effort that we'd have to take away from other development.

[Werewolf]

Thanks for the info, Ssnake.

 

I think it would be most useful for looking around the battle field from the TC's hatch. Up, Down and side to side should work just fine for that.

[stormrider_sp]

18 hours ago, Ssnake said:

I don't remember the specifics, but I cannot imagine that we made special provisions to keep the Personal Edition out.

 

 

That being said, it's not a full 6DOF support, rather similar to the mouse, that you can look around from fixed viewing positions. 6DOF would require that we take back a lot of the triangle optimizations from the vehicle interior models, that we'd define limits of the camera movement, that we'd have to reduce the overall texture resolution to squeeze in texture space for the additional triangles, etc; a lot of effort that we'd have to take away from other development.

What if the texture work was done by modders? How could we help?

[Ssnake]

That wouldn't change the fundamental problem: If there are more triangles to be textured and the texture space is of a fixed size, the number of pxiels per triangle goes down - in other words, the texture resolution must be reduced, things will look slightly more blurred. We're already using a level of detail approach in that we're using medium-to-high-res for text elements and low-low res for white walls etc.; also, painting the triangles is the least amount of work. The full geometry already exists, so 75% of the remaining work lies in the unwrapping of the elements before you can start the triangle mandala. And all that so that a few people with TrackIR can move their head a little bit sideways and not see empty holes where a nondescript cable duct should be. The amount of work is in no way proportionate to the gains.

This is less of an issue with flight sims. Even X-Plane has but a few dozen aircraft, and aircraft cockpits are usually very well organized rather than the rabbit burrows that are the inside of combat vehicles where crew must crawl around to mount and dismount. Just look at that Marder interior, all the hydraulic pipes, valves, levers, switches, exposed gears... our "cockpits" are a sprawling mess, not just a handful of oblique surfaces with rows of dials and switches, and they are many.