Trackhat v2 Face Tracking - Tips on Getting Started.

[Snacko]

I received my Face Tracking Trackhat v2 a few days ago and right off the bat I had problems getting it to work.  Mainly due to a lack of a decent manual.  So, I'm sharing things as I learn them here.  And if anyone else has any Tips or Tricks to get it working, and fine tuning it, please, please post here too..

My first problem was getting it to simply track my face..  It says it works with glasses, but I saw no videos or posts that showed it working for them. The camera preview was almost black, and later turned light, then black again... And the tracking was all jittery and shaky, as you can see here. 

 

CAMERA SETTINGS & LIGHTING:

First, follow the very limited instructions on the website and paper that comes with the V2. Placing it so it can see your face as close to straight on as you can get it will help a lot. If it is shaky, and has a very black background, go to the Options/Tracker tab and set the 'Exposure Preset' near the bottom to 'Custom'. There should be a 'Camera Settings' button below that now. If not, try restarting the app. If it shows up, you then have settings to adjust the camera. I didn't know about this in the beginning, and my camera was glitching from very black for 20 minutes, then, with me moving it around on the monitor, and it finally going to a good bright background that should work. Arg! then very black again. I may have a loose wire?? I don't know... So, I was glad that I found the Camera Settings. I didn't change any settings.. Just clicking on the 'Camera' tab in that window I think fixed it?   I think that also getting the camera lighting correct, helps a lot with the jittery/shaky stuff..  You don't need to worry about back lighting in your room.  You can adjust the settings to work in most types of lighting I think.

 

MAPPING THE 6DOF:

Next I setup the curve Mappings. I 'Disabled' all axis except the one I was working on. You do this in the Options/Output tab. Change the 'Source' to Disabled. You can adjust the graph 'Scales' to more zoomed in or out using the drop downs at the top. Check out a pic here!

Then you can set the Motion Smoothing on the Options/Filter tab to your liking.

This all of the info that could have saved me hours and hours in the beginning... If it's all documented somewhere, please let me know. Hope it helps!!

I still need a lot of tweaking, but I think the basic bugs are out of it. You can see a same here.

 

SMOOTHING SLIDERS:

I'll just add an extra note about this smoothing of the OpenTrack(FreeTrack) drivers. Here is what the link says:

 

Quote

 

Accela smoothing in opentrack 2.3 no longer contains many overly complicated settings.  

There are 2 Smoothing Sliders, for rotation and position each. They're expressed in different units.  Smoothing makes small movements take effect slower. This is useful to prevent natural head shaking resulting in the view swimming all over the virtual cockpit. As well as natural tracker inaccuracy causing jumping around each frame, since very slightly different pose is returned each time.

Deadzone ignores minor movement completely. It can be useful for extremely noisy input. Try not to use it excessively to avoid losing precision. For camera-based trackers, rotation deadzone of 0.1 degrees is already pretty high.

 

 

 

FREETRACK PROTOCOL SETTINGS:

When you click on the button to the right of the 'Output' (freetrack) drop down, on the main window will pop up called Freetrack Protocol Settings.  Of course I messed with this when I was trying to get things working.  The 'Select Interface' drop down let's you pick the protocols.  I had selected 'Use Freetrack, Disable TrackIR'.  Then I spent hours the next day trying to figure out why it would not work at all in DCS!!  After I later changed it back to 'Use Both', it started working again.  And before, there was no TrackIR device in the DCS Settings.  But now there was.  So, apparently Trackhat v2 - FreeTrack  needs the TrackIR protocol to work in DCS, and probably other games.  So, lesson learned.. If a game uses TrackIR now, then you probably need Trackhat to use that Protocol.  I wish there was a manual for this thing.. I'm getting the feeling that all along I should have been looking for a 'Freetrack' manual?  That would have helped on some of the bits..

 

Again, if you have any tips or tricks, I would love to hear them.

 

 

 

Edited May 14, 2023 by Snacko

[jackd]

i had some issues due backlight disturbance ..

[Snacko]

I gave up on TrackHat 2.0.  TrackIR is just much smoother, especially around the edges when you head is turned further..

[jackd]

You need Trackhat Opentrack v.3.2 drivers for the backlighting and shakyness fixes.  Got it working with othet games by manually putting the npclient and freetrackclient dll drivers in system32 and the 64 versions in sysWOW64 ....

It works OK, but why Black Shark instead of DCS?

Edited December 6, 2023 by jackd

[Snacko]

Glad to hear...  Maybe I'll try it again someday..

It said Black Shark in the nVidia Control Panel for a long time as well.    It was recently change to Digital Combat Simulator: Black Shark.

[Recon Stewart]

I just received my Track Hat V2 yesterday.  I've got it set up about five feet away from the TV and about 18 inches above my head.  I have the camera angled down and it appears to be centered very well.  My issue is that I am continually having shakes and jitters and can't seem to get them to go away.  I've tried maxing the smoothness, adjusting the exposure, changing the camera distance and I can't seem to get rid of the jitters.  I'm running 3.2.   Does anyone have any ideas?

[Snacko]

Do you have any light sources behind you?  Other than that, IDK..  

[Recon Stewart]

No, I'm in a completely dark room.  Only light sources are from the TV in front of me and to the side.

[Snacko]

Have you tested it closer to the sensor?  IDK, but 5 feet seems like it might be too far?

[Recon Stewart]

I moved it down below the TV about two to three feet away from me but I'm still getting the shaky stuttering.

[jackd]

I just gave it another shot, now with IL2 Great Battles. That shakymess is still is there, seems less in a darkened room.

Looked on the trackhat v2 site for news, nada, i'm gonna ask James for help once again.

ADDED: I found this info on the IL2 forum; behavior seems slightly better with less shaking when started without the game, made an RTF:  Veteran's test.rtf

Edited 9 hours ago by jackd