Track IR ISSUES. Does this make sense?

[cptmrcalm]

 

Does this make sense to you guys?

Anyone experience this and find it a hindrance?

 

Is there any workarounds? Or is it just the limitation of track ir?
 

 

 

 

[rob10]

Give it a few flights and (unless you're an actual combat pilot doing it regularly IRL) you will by instinct lean the correct way to see around the seat.  I don't see this an a particular issue.  Not knowing exactly how far you've turned your head is a limitation since you don't have peripheral vision in TIR and flatscreen.  Experience helps mitigate that.

[Mayhem McAwesome]

Your first limitation of Track IR seems to me like something that's both automatically corrected by DCS and also by a TIR option called TrueView:

By DCS:  If you move your head around over your shoulder, DCS will automatically slide it towards that direction even if you don't move at all.  Try just turning your head in place. At least for me, all planes in DCS will start sliding the PoV towards the shoulder on the side you're looking at on their own.  (note the alignment of the Hornet HUD camera against the fins ahead of the canopy as you look away from center)

By TrackIR:  There's an option marked TrueView which covers the exact scenario you seem to be talking about.  In short, when enabled, it'll add your head movements in only "after" all rotations have been factored. (not that simple mathematically, but that's generally what the effect feels like) - So for instance, when you're looking behind over your left shoulder, any movements towards YOUR right will add an offset to the PLANE's left (aka: Portside, for all observers).  

I personally find the combination of these two factors a great help and really makes it super intuitive to use.   If you don't have TrueView enabled, I suggest giving it a try.

 

As for your second problem of "getting lost" - seems like you could be panning around with the zoom closed in a bit too much.  I always make sure to have zoom control as one of the handiest buttons on the HOTAS (or even more than just that, for ease of access redundancy) - You should avoid making large motions while "telescoped in", as that easily causes what you're looking at to become meaningless in terms of situational awareness.   

In short, keep the zoom as wide as practical whenever you're "viewfinding" - Once you got something you wanna look at specifically, try to coordinate zooming in with acquiring the target using your head. Hold the zoom whenever you don't have the target mostly centered on screen. 

Go wide again if you lose the target or wanna look at something else.  Having a nice default zoom to return to is most important (you can save your preferred view center position in DCS, look it up)

With some practice and lots of curve tweaking on the Yaw and Pitch axes, this becomes so much second nature that you'll find yourself instinctively moving your head to look around while watching videos (which always feels a bit silly).   

 

And also, make sure you got that TrackIR CENTER button mapped just as comfortably to your HOTAS as your zoom controls.

 

Extra free tip:   Give yourself another easy-reach button to PAUSE your TIR; I typically have mine paused during prolonged cruises or long heads-down time, like pre-flight startups and such.   Basically, if you don't need to go quickly scanning around the aircraft (as you'd do in dogfights or landing approach), don't have your neck get sore over it.   Eventually you'll find in what scenarios you're better served by either TrackIR or Mouse control. 

Don't be tempted to "get your money's worth" out of the thing by having it track at all times.  I think we all make that mistake at first, but eventually, you realize that having it PAUSE is just as a big a feature of this device as anything else it does.

 

Edited January 13 by Mayhem McAwesome

[Delta_Nerd]

On 1/13/2025 at 1:47 PM, Mayhem McAwesome said:

Your first limitation of Track IR seems to me like something that's both automatically corrected by DCS and also by a TIR option called TrueView:

By DCS:  If you move your head around over your shoulder, DCS will automatically slide it towards that direction even if you don't move at all.  Try just turning your head in place. At least for me, all planes in DCS will start sliding the PoV towards the shoulder on the side you're looking at on their own.  (note the alignment of the Hornet HUD camera against the fins ahead of the canopy as you look away from center)

By TrackIR:  There's an option marked TrueView which covers the exact scenario you seem to be talking about.  In short, when enabled, it'll add your head movements in only "after" all rotations have been factored. (not that simple mathematically, but that's generally what the effect feels like) - So for instance, when you're looking behind over your left shoulder, any movements towards YOUR right will add an offset to the PLANE's left (aka: Portside, for all observers).  

I personally find the combination of these two factors a great help and really makes it super intuitive to use.   If you don't have TrueView enabled, I suggest giving it a try.

 

As for your second problem of "getting lost" - seems like you could be panning around with the zoom closed in a bit too much.  I always make sure to have zoom control as one of the handiest buttons on the HOTAS (or even more than just that, for ease of access redundancy) - You should avoid making large motions while "telescoped in", as that easily causes what you're looking at to become meaningless in terms of situational awareness.   

In short, keep the zoom as wide as practical whenever you're "viewfinding" - Once you got something you wanna look at specifically, try to coordinate zooming in with acquiring the target using your head. Hold the zoom whenever you don't have the target mostly centered on screen. 

Go wide again if you lose the target or wanna look at something else.  Having a nice default zoom to return to is most important (you can save your preferred view center position in DCS, look it up)

With some practice and lots of curve tweaking on the Yaw and Pitch axes, this becomes so much second nature that you'll find yourself instinctively moving your head to look around while watching videos (which always feels a bit silly).   

 

And also, make sure you got that TrackIR CENTER button mapped just as comfortably to your HOTAS as your zoom controls.

 

Extra free tip:   Give yourself another easy-reach button to PAUSE your TIR; I typically have mine paused during prolonged cruises or long heads-down time, like pre-flight startups and such.   Basically, if you don't need to go quickly scanning around the aircraft (as you'd do in dogfights or landing approach), don't have your neck get sore over it.   Eventually you'll find in what scenarios you're better served by either TrackIR or Mouse control. 

Don't be tempted to "get your money's worth" out of the thing by having it track at all times.  I think we all make that mistake at first, but eventually, you realize that having it PAUSE is just as a big a feature of this device as anything else it does.

 

Excellent analysis.  Thank you for sharing this.  This helps out a lot.  I'm finding that experience coupled with tweaking the TIR settings is seeming to help but your comments are very helpful in understanding how this all works.