FACETRACKNOIR is your Inexpensive Track-IR Solution for Gaming!
What is Face Tracking Vs IR Tracking?
FacetracknoIR and TrackIR are some of the most popular tracking apps that allow you to your view your world allowing you to control your views with your head movement. This brings a feeling of realism only surpassed by virtual reality. The apps allow you to look in all direction in a fill 6 DOF (Degrees of Freedom). Yes you can look up, down, left and right as well as side to side and in and out. It makes the whole experience just amazing.
TrackIR Programs Differences.
The difference in the solutions from FacetracknoIR and others like Freetrack and TrackIR are minor other than cost. FacetracknoIR is a few dollars which goes to the developer who use to give it away but fell on hard times and requests a small donation. Freetrack is exactly that, FREE and TrackIR which is an amazing product sells for $189,00 approximately. FacetracknoIR is available for just a few dollars and Freetrack is exactly that Free.
WEBCAM for FREETRACK and FACETRACKNOIR
FacetrackNOIR and FREETRACK both require a webcam to operate. The difference between these two programs is that Facetrack simply uses the image the webcam produces to track your face movement and control your views in game. Freetrack requires you have in addition a LED that the program tracks to give your view control. This attaches to a set of headphones or a hat depending on your choice.
TrackIR TRACKING CLIP LED
The setup for these TrackIR or No IR options is having a webcam or in the case of trackIR an infrared transmitter on the monitor normally. All solutions use this basic setup to track the LED’s/Reflectors on the clip in the case of TrackIR and Freetrack. Note Freetrack use of LED’s requires you make a track or purchase one online. FacetrackNoIR just required the Web Camera on its own to achieve the desired results. This works well as long as the room in moderately lit.
Your TrackIR Options.
TRACKIR 5
TrackIR 5 is without doubt the best of all of these solutions but the price is where the others are appealing. It is precise and easy to use with most YOUTUBER gamers utilizing it above any other platform.
FacetrackNOIR
FacetrackNO IR
FaceTrackNoIRhas been around for over five years and, judging by the positive feedback, you still like it very much. The core program is not free as it one was but regardless its inexpensive and works very well. The download is fast and easy to setup with quite a few profiles included to make the job easy to start playing and enjoying the freedom of looking around your world.
FREETRACK
FreeTrack is a free optical motion tracking application. It tracks head motions with six degrees of freedom (6DOF).
This is done by means of a video capture device, typically a webcam, which is placed in front of the user and tracks a rigid point model headpiece with LED’s.
FacetrackNoIR Menu.
FacetrackNoIR has a simple user interface. One menu allows you to set up your parameters and the second page allows you to finetune your curves allowing you to make your head movement relate with your in game view. The options for a number of different sources which do include options to use LED clips as is done in Freetrack.
The smoothing slider will assist with jitters when moving but the most important factor for great performance is to have a moderately lit room. If your choice is to play in a darkened room then the Facetrack with a LED clip or TrackIR 5 would be better suited to your use I would suggest. In sying this may I say from personal experience if you have just the slightest of light from the front like the monitor you can do OK but a small desk light or your normal room lighting is best.
Your environment can be an issue especially if there is a bright window situated in the room. Overall the program gives great performance as you can see from the seperate getting started tutorial and the F-18C flight in DCS World. This shows you the beginning of what’s possible.
TRACK IR – The most popular Tracking Software.
Setting up of FacetrackNOIR is pretty easy to setup. It is a two download process. One part of the downloads is freeware which contains drivers and some presets for a number of popular games. The primary download requires a small payment which will send you a link to finalize the download and give you a receipt. This link is only active for a period of time so ensure you download the file and do the install as soon as you can. The whole process is very straight forward.
FacetrackNOIR The real Experience !
Once you have Facetrack NOIR installed you will be able to experience the joy of flight and the ability to look around both outside and inside your aircraft or your car as well as hide behind walls and look around corners to fire your weapon in your in a first person shooter.
The Author:
Brendon McAliece is a multi lingual-expat who brings over three decades of flight simulator/PC building experience as well as over two decades of real world jet fighter experience as a weapons/egress technician. He holds a sport pilot certificate giving him real world flying experience. Hi travels have taken him from Europe to the Middle East, Asia and his home of Australia. He has a passion for travel, languages, flight simulation as well as guitaring and coffee. You can read more in his blogs below.
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DreamingGuitar.com – DreamingCoffee.com – LetsFlyVFR.com
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