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OpenFOV – Webcam head tracking for iRacing
- itsthecourier 4mo agowhen your head move, and with it your eyes, you move what's in front of them to your perspective inside the simulation, just as VR works but in this case it is detrimental because the screen is fixed, the natural behavior would be not to move it or at least do very little with it like a parallax the current demo would cause nausea after a moment
- purrcat259 4mo agoWhen I used a head tracker (homemade infrared one), I just got used to shifting my head but keeping my eyes on the screen. Having a wider screen helps.
- quietsegfault 4mo agoI learned how to shift my head only a little bit to move the FOV a lot when using one of those infrared trackers. Still kinda hurt my neck.
- Mashimo 4mo agoHave you tried it or is that your theory? Don't all headtrackers work like this? Also the infrared ones.
- oyagci 4mo agoPeople playing simulators such as DCS are used to have head tracking with OpenTrack. It's very helpful
- Foxhuls 4mo agoThis is a good example of having sound logic but not understanding the actual use case. It's simply a way to add functionality in a way to attempt to mimic what humans are capable of in a game. Not everyone wants to or is capable of using VR for various reasons. This allows you to use a slight physical movement of your head to replace using a mouse to move the camera, primarily in flight and racing simulators. That means you don't have to take your hand off of the racing wheel to move a mouse around, or even need to have a mouse available to you.
- engineer_22 4mo agoIs there a reason eye tracking can't work or doesn't work?
- Computer0 4mo agoIf you use eye tracking to control head movement then the head will move past where the eyes were looking.
- Saris 4mo agoTons of people use head tracking like this via TrackIR and similar setups, it's quite common for space or air sim games.
- PetitPrince 4mo agoAnd even with milsim FPS, as those blog posts from more than 10 years ago shows: https://dslyecxi.com/category/trackir/ https://dslyecxi.com/category/trackir/
- jnewton_dev 4mo ago[flagged]
- jai_ 4mo agoCool to see this, it's a cool in-between step for not having additional wraparound screens or a VR headset. I used to run a similar software[1] for when I was really into playing F1 racing games. However one of the problems I found was the initial disconnect in your head and eye movement that took some getting used to. For example, if you want to look left to see an upcoming turn, naturally your eyes move before your head, and your head follows after. With this software enabled, you have to consciously inverse the process where your head moves a direction, but your eyes still remain looking forward at the screen. It took a some getting used to and resulting in some dizziness afterwards, but was fun. [1]: https://facetracknoir.sourceforge.net/home/default.htm https://facetracknoir.sourceforge.net/home/default.htm
- Freaky 4mo agoopentrack would be the one to beat these days: https://github.com/opentrack/opentrack https://github.com/opentrack/opentrack It's completely replaced my TrackIR 5, since it averts the need to wear headphones and dig out the tracking bracket every time I want to use it, and the accuracy feels about the same. I found head tracking pretty much becomes second-nature after a while - to the point at which it feels weird to play first-person sims without it. Not quite as fancy as VR, but much more comfortable and much more practical.
- itsloopyo 4mo agoHead tracking's great, the reasons it became a niche thing are easy to overcome in 2026. I've been churning out loads of decoupled look+aim head tracking mods for non-sims with this in mind (all OpenTrack compatible) - https://github.com/itsloopyo#the-mods https://github.com/itsloopyo#the-mods
- Freaky 4mo agoOoh, awesome. I was literally just thinking the other day that it was a shame on-foot head tracking games pretty much started and ended with ArmA 3, because it's great both for situational awareness, and for just plain gawping at stuff. Will definitely be trying out some of those :)
- fxwin 4mo agoHmm, from the title i expected a tool to calibrate FOV angle to monitor size/distance
- oyagci 4mo agoWhat are the differences between OpenTrack and this ?
- russdill 4mo agoIt was discovered and completely reimplemented independently without knowledge that Opentrack exists? That's the only thing I can figure. Except they actually mention TrackIR as that's the input method they are using.
- azizam 4mo agoone is generated slop and the other is a mature community project
- cubefox 4mo agoWouldn't it be better to use head tracking to get the position of the head relative to the monitor, so the monitor behaves like a window? Like in Johnny Lee's classic Wii demo [1]. The way it currently works (rotating the view upon head rotation) doesn't really make sense because a monitor is not a head mounted display. 1: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw https://youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw
- Mashimo 4mo ago> The way it currently works doesn't really make sense And yet, sim players are using it. Players want to use small headmovements to simulate large head movements ingame. It seems to work.
- cubefox 4mo agoWouldn't it be much more convenient then to buy a VR headset which actually follows your head movements because it's physically head mounted? Not to mention that it provides a stereoscopic view of the scenery. I guess the price is a hurdle.
- jhomedall 4mo agoI have a VR headset and still prefer head tracking. It's more comfortable, and becomes second nature after an hour or two of use.
- jabroni_salad 4mo agoI tried to play Elite Dangerous in VR. It is a very nice game to do that with but personally I found the heavy HMD got uncomfortable inside of a half hour, and I had difficulty reading text. It's fine for combat missions but if I want to design a trade route I'd rather just use my normal monitor. The other problem is that I have a fancy throttle and stick with lots of extra buttons and switches. I know common functions by touch but if I wanna toggle exterior lights or something I have to look down and find a label. For me choosing a screen + head tracking vs VR is like choosing to use speakers instead of headphones. The headphones sound way nicer and give much more immersive soundscapes but sometimes you want to have some tunes going and not have your ears get sweaty.
- markun 4mo agoWonder if I could use that to swipe through virtual desktops?
- hyperific 4mo agoAlso check out the SmoothTrack mobile app. Same use case but the compute is done on a phone instead of the gaming machine. Head position data can be sent over local network or USB.
- epaga 4mo agoHey! Thanks for recommending this!! That’s my app. :) pushing the tracking work off to the phone is helpful for freeing up resources on the computer.
- simpaticoder 4mo agoIs there specialized face/head tracking hardware on phones like there is on DSLR cameras?
- epaga 4mo agoYes indeed - ARCore on Android, ARKit on iPhone - AR optimizations are crazy good.
- hyperific 4mo agoThanks for making a fantastic tool!
- pridkett 4mo agoJust wanted to say thanks! The first time played Flight Simulator 2020 with SmoothTrack I was blown away. I still am blown away each time too. Great experience that’s been nearly flawless for me and really turned up the realism. I can move my head closer to gauges and see what they’re saying, look around stuff, get a better view out the window. Wonderful.
- kqr 4mo agoThanks for recommending. I can only place my real camera in somewhat awkward spots, so this would give me freedom to adjust its position more freely.
- gchamonlive 4mo agoIt would be nice to know the limits of this tech, like how does it tolerate head gears and garments like headphones or hoodies, beanies and glasses, long hard, different skin colour and facial features or even background contrast.
- numpad0 4mo ago...why would webcam head tracking need a new standalone vibecoded project? I thought there are plenty of those already.
- Saris 4mo agoWhy not? Such as? Sometimes it's just fun to make something, avoiding it just because said thing already exists in some form is silly.
- numpad0 4mo agoI mean, completely ignoring prior researches can be a bit disingenuous.
- Saris 4mo agoWhy? I'm supposed to avoid projects just because someone else did a similar thing unless I want to delve into their research or something? I can do whatever you want with my own projects, if I want to make an app to do X thing I can.
- lomase 4mo ago[dead]
- iamjackg 4mo agoIt would be cool to use something like this or openfov to control OBS to automatically switch between different cameras/scenes when you turn your head. Either multiple cameras, or switching between screenshare/camera if you look directly into the camera.
- fidotron 4mo agoYou can do some related tricks to this in browsers too: https://github.com/atomirex/fishtank-js https://github.com/atomirex/fishtank-js (example https://atomirex.github.io/fishtank-js/dist/index.html https://atomirex.github.io/fishtank-js/dist/index.html ) There is a greatly cleaner version of the same idea in the React Fiber libraries these days as well.
- mertleee 4mo ago[dead]
- atmanactive 4mo agoWhile we're on the subject, there's also TrackyMouse: https://trackymouse.js.org/ https://trackymouse.js.org/
- geocrasher 4mo agoI gave OpenPOV a try with FS 2024, and found it really disorienting. It was not useful at all. I went to a Meta Quest 3 and that actually made me feel like I was inside an aircraft. At on point I tried to lean on a bulkhead. Oops.
- moffkalast 4mo agoThey're called airplanes because they're made out of air in VR!
- Computer0 4mo agoWould be cool to see this become a fully viable TrackIR alternative.
- p0w3n3d 4mo agoBut doesn't it make you look away from the monitor? Unless you have this 45 inch curved monitor really close to your face?
- fowlie 4mo agoIt requires robotics monitor arm
- kqr 4mo agoIt makes you turn your head away from the monitor – your eyes are still pointed at it. You generally configure it to apply some gain on your head rotation as well, so a 15 degree head swivel turns into a 60 degree camera movement or whatever. Maybe think of it less like a pretend-VR solution and more like a camera controller wired to your neck muscles. It sounds weird, it feels weird at first, but it gets quite natural after a brief adjustment period. It's also very cheap to try if you're curious.
- naivehacker 4mo ago[dead]
- fdgdd 4mo agoIt looks like this is just for Microsoft's Windows. I used to use TrackIR when I gamed on that. I missed that functionality when I moved to game on Linux. That is, until LookPilot (https://lookpilot.app/ https://lookpilot.app/, it's on Steam, too) arrived. Webcam tracking is good because you don't need to wear a headset, but not so good in a dark room.