Headtracking and the HUD

Essobie · Post by **Essobie** » Mon Jul 12, 2010 5:20 pm

I tried Evochron Legend's demo a while back when I first got my TrackIR 5.0, and while I liked a number of things about the game one thing I just couldn't deal with was the fact that the HUD popped up only when I was looking straight ahead. It put me off the title enough that I didn't bother with learning the ins and outs of the game.

I saw the announcement for Mercenary today on Rock, Paper, Scissors this morning and gleefully watched the teaser for it on Youtube. I was disappointed to see that the same HUD behavior is in this new title.

Is there any way you guys can make the HUD something that actually is reflected off of the windshield or mounted in a HUD display (something like DCS Blackshark has, for instance) or perhaps alter the HUD to be something that is helmet mounted so that it actually shows no matter which way you are looking (more like the Comanche in Enemy Engaged: Comanche vs Havoc, which would give information to the pilot based both on which way he/she was looking as well as common things like velocity, targetting, etc.)?

I prefer the latter since it is actually nice to know if there's an incoming missile even if you happen to be looking to your right.

Edit: for clarity.

[Edited on 7-12-2010 by Essobie]

Maarschalk · Post by **Maarschalk** » Mon Jul 12, 2010 5:51 pm

That would be annoying and confusing to me to have the HUD move with your head movement and would be unrealistic. Your HUD is projected on your windshield and has the targeting info of what is in front of you. Track IR is used to look around and give you situational awareness so that when neccesary you can turn your ship towards a target coming from your sides and use the HUD. And if you want to track a target you still have the padlock option......

Post by **Vice** » Mon Jul 12, 2010 6:27 pm

Is there any way you guys can make the HUD something that actually is reflected off of the windshield or mounted in a HUD display (something like DCS Blackshark has, for instance) or perhaps alter the HUD to be something that is helmet mounted so that it actually shows no matter which way you are looking (more like the Comanche in Enemy Engaged: Comanche vs Havoc, which would give information to the pilot based both on which way he/she was looking as well as common things like velocity, targetting, etc.)?

It's a bummer that it's such a deal breaker for you, but there are currently no plans to change how it functions. Technically, the HUD is projected ahead of you suspended in a Xenon mist... er, wrong spacecraft.

Technically, the HUD is projected onto your helmet's visor and is rendered as a unique 3D object structure. But when the limit of its reliability and visual relevance is reached, it's hidden from view. For up/down angles, the HUD stays visible all the time. For left/right the range is still very wide, only disappearing from view when the gunsight nears the edge of the screen.

49rTbird · Post by **49rTbird** » Mon Jul 12, 2010 6:32 pm

Hello Essobie, Welcome to the forum and hopefully the Sim. Getting used to how a game operates can take some time but these are worth the time and effort.

Essobie · Post by **Essobie** » Mon Jul 12, 2010 7:20 pm

I appreciate the quick responses. I understand how a HUD can work (I'm very familiar with a number of other flight sims that utilize headtracking hardware). In the case of a helmet mounted HUD, it is entirely possible to display important information at all times within the pilot's field of view regardless of what direction you are facing. Of particular importance would be targeting boxes highlighting targets that are not seen through your windshield (I'm not sure if your other games have done this at all, but it is something that the Comanche does with its HUD.

However, I must apologize for my quick posting. I think I should give your demos another try, as when I went through the trailer again to find examples of what I had wrong with the previous versions of the Evochron series and what I found was that it seems you've at least partially addressed my issue.

I want to say the demo that I tried (I thought it was Legends?) the HUD would be completely invisible unless I was looking straight down the front axis of the ship. Any deviation from that made all the information disappear. To get around it I had to adjust my TrackIR software so that there were obvious deadzones in the center of all axes so that I could at least see the info in the HUD SOMEtimes. But now I'm looking at a number of Youtube videos of both Legends and Renegade and I don't see that behavior at all. I see the HUD pops into view in a much wider cone around the center of the front view instead of the wierd popping and camera snapping I recall from my first play test.

I will say that from the looks of it, Mercenary's center cone for displaying the HUD is much wider than in Renegade.

Maybe I was playing an outdated version of the demo with rudimentary head tracking support?

Regardless, from the looks of it, I'll be downloading the Legends demo again this week and giving it another go. My sincere hope is that I'll want to pick up Legends and follow it up with Mercenary when it finally comes out.

Sorry again, and thanks for reading!

Post by **Vice** » Mon Jul 12, 2010 8:50 pm

Yeah, that could be it. Initial TrackIR support probably had a sharp center for the HUD display. Legends has a pretty wide field of view and Mercenary should be just as wide or wider (on a 16:9 1080 display, I have to turn Left/Right until the gunsight almost touches the edge of the screen before it disappears, Up/Down movement won't result in the gunsight disappearing at all).

Targeting indicators should be visible at just about any head angle (except where there might be a little z-clipping at the edges), they don't toggle off.

Maarschalk · Post by **Maarschalk** » Tue Jul 13, 2010 4:28 pm

Oh yes, Hi Essobie, Welcome to the forum and hopefully Evochron......

MaceUK · Post by **MaceUK** » Fri Jul 16, 2010 10:07 pm

Whilst it isn't as important to have the centre of the HUD picture perfectly centred in say a helo sim such as EECH because the gun can be set to track head movement and even if not it is not that precise with it's gun. With EL the guns shoot straight ahead to the central point of the HUD so if the cross hair moved when you turn your head only a tiny bit you would not shoot at the centre. If you have played Rise of Flight and used the 6DOF in the cockpit you will know how hard it is to line up a central shot when you move your head.

It is not necessary anyway in EL as the guns don't track they shoot straight ahead.