What do you think about eye tracking?

[lex]

Found this http://www.tobii.com/xperience/products/
Price seems to be pretty decent, and no wired TrackIR strapped to my wireless headset.

There is also one by steelseries, twice as expensive, and looks like they are same device inside: http://developer.tobii.com/community/forums/topic/sentry-versus-the-eyex/

Here is some vids:
Arma3:

Another Arma3:

Elite: Dangerous

DCS (sadly, eyes not visible):

SC is not supported yet. What do you think, is that viable alternative for TrackIR?

 

[Nyborg]

I think this looks totally rad, and much less obnoxious then having some weird contraption strapped to your regular headset. I think this is something that I will certainly keep my eyes on, and if SC Support is added will likely purchase before launch.

Thanks for the share!

 

[Daak Seed]

Basically, my opinion comes from the fact that I use eye-trackers for academic research.

First of all - it's fun. The rest are "buts"...

• accuracy. you would want precision, at least for pew pew part.
• possible (quite) loss of the gaze in the process. For some people it happens more often, for others - less. Lots of factors to consider during calibration of the device.
• configuration & integration of the SC & eye-tracking software - it is going to be a nice challenge.

My verdict: it's not ready yet. Sorry mate!

 

[lex]

accuracy. you would want precision, at least for pew pew part.
possible (quite) loss of the gaze in the process. For some people it happens more often, for others - less. Lots of factors to consider during calibration of the device.
configuration & integration of the SC & eye-tracking software - it is going to be a nice challenge.

What if i want to use it for some sims, say E:D and Arma, and only for freelook? Since i do not need pinpoint precision, will it do?
And can you please explain "loss of the gaze"?

 

[Myre]

Had a spin on some eye-tracking hardware at the Tokyo Game Show...Accuracy was pretty surprising. I tend to wait for things to reach at least Gen2 before I buy though.

 

[Daak Seed]

What if i want to use it for some sims, say E:D and Arma, and only for freelook? Since i do not need pinpoint precision, will it do?

Sure, that would work ok, but it would feel very unnatural.

Basically, eye-tracker only tracks your "focal" vision (as on the image). So, basically, to see around cockpit - you would need to change your focus on the part of the screen where you have to look. Imagine, you have a mouse cursor (some focus point on the screen) - so moving a mouse cursor from the center of the screen to the left or to the right would move the view proportionally to the left or the right. It would feel unnatural.

Second problem? - imagine you want to look straight forward and so your "view" is centered there. But
suddenly, something appears in your peripheral vision (e.g. upper left corner of the screen) - than you view would instantly center on that part while you are flying some other direction.

I guess headtracking would still feel more natural way of the freelook.

Yeah, sorry about "loss of the gaze" - basically, it is a machine and sometimes it might stop seeing your eyes. Blinks are ok, but imagine you closed your eyes for a sec and moved your head slightly - here you might have a point when eye-tracker would lose it. So, you would need to stop the game (most likely) and do re-calibration of eye-tracker.

 

[Daak Seed]

Had a spin on some eye-tracking hardware at the Tokyo Game Show...Accuracy was pretty surprising. I tend to wait for things to reach at least Gen2 before I buy though.

Indeed, it could be! It would require lots of cooperation between game developers & eye-tracking hardware companies.

There are lots of fun potential from existing biological measures that are used in academia or industry. For example, it's super easy to integrate lots of sensors into HOTAS and simulate situation when a player feels very nervous or has a high heartbeat rate - the redouts /blackouts start etc. :)

 

[lex]

Sure, that would work ok, but it would feel very unnatural.

Basically, eye-tracker only tracks your "focal" vision (as on the image). So, basically, to see around cockpit - you would need to change your focus on the part of the screen where you to look. Imagine, you have a mouse cursor (some focus point on the screen) - so moving the mouse cursor from the center of the screen to the left or to the right would move the view proportionally to the left or the right. It would feel unnatural.

Second problem? - imagine you want to look straight forward and so your "view" is centered there. But
suddenly, something appears in your peripheral vision (e.g. upper left corner of the screen) - than you view would instantly center on that part while you are flying some other direction.

I guess headtracking would still feel more natural way of the freelook.

Yeah, sorry about "loss of the gaze" - basically, it is a machine and sometimes it might stop seeing your eyes. Blinks are ok, but imagine you closed your eyes for a sec and moved your head slightly - here you might have a point when eye-tracker would lose it. So, you would need to stop the game (most likely) and do re-calibration of eye-tracker.

Thanks for such a detailed explanation. Yep, this doesn't feel very natural, but i'm still thinking about trying it.

 

[Fenrig]

I have one. I haven't set it up yet to test it out just because I haven't had the time and desire. Once I do I'll come back and give my thoughts.

 

[lex]

I have one. I haven't set it up yet to test it out just because I haven't had the time and desire. Once I do I'll come back and give my thoughts.

eyex? Will be nice if you do video with webcam, how your eyes are moving and how game responds

 

[Fenrig]

eyex? Will be nice if you do video with webcam, how your eyes are moving and how game responds

Yeah the Tobii eyeX. It showed up about a week ago and I've been busy with work and other things. I have a webcam somewhere but haven't seen it for some time.