Feedback on the Tobii integration

[Jonas_Tobii]

Made a post about this last week, but deleted it shortly after cause I threw the device in the trash after having bought it the day before, setting it up was that frustrating.
But since I couldn't stand the waste of my hard earned money I took it out again, cleaned it up and to my surprise it was still working, have been fiddling with it since then, it's still not perfect though, don't think I need to elaborate on the hassle it is to set up.

Other than that, there is one thing that i'd like to see in the workings of the system specifically for ets2 and ats,.. depending on which side of the road someone drives,... setting different end points for left and right.
For example, I drive on the right side of the road, I have the end point to just about seeing the whole right side window which is more than enough to see the mirror and oncoming traffic, and not go beyond the mirror and see the inside of the cabin part behind me when I turn my head, but when I look left it's just not enough to see oncoming traffic, so it would be nice if I could keep the same angle one way, but a bit further the other way, hope that makes sense

Not so much game specific, but the other day I had some heating problems in my house, and wore a hoodie to keep warm a bit, the head tracking didn't work very well then.

I've not read all the posts before me, but a few pre-set options to prevent too much fiddling would be nice, personally I don't need to look up and down in the game, so just a preset for horizontal (and smooth) rotation would be nice (with options for end points as mentioned before .

Edit: forgot something, before the eye tracker I used my mouse to look left and right, without warning that was taken over by the eye tracker, which makes sense, but it would be nice if the mouse would keep the same settings it had and over rule the eye tracker when needed, i'd still like to use the mouse for leaning out the window, but at the same time have the eye tracker limited to a point before that, as I mentioned above, with the eye tracker I just want to see mirrors and oncoming traffic, nothing beyond that angle of view.

Thanks for the feedback. You touch on some very interesting points here!

Each cabin is different so it might differ depending on what truck you drive but I definitely see the value of being able to set up endpoints. How would you counter the problem of coming up to a T-intersection and you need to look left and right to not get into an accident as you cross the road?

The eye tracker uses near-infrared lights to track both your eyes and your head. It needs to be able to recognize enough of your face to figure out what is what. A hoodie could block parts and cause some problems with that depending on how you wear it.

Regarding the mouse look I totally understand. With the new functionality we're adding in the up and coming patch, already live for ATS, we have a toggle button where you can turn of the extended view feature while driving. In case you want to look somewhere else but not have the eye tracker follow your head movement. Like if you're a streamer and look are your chat for a bit. I do however still think the mouselook is disabled at that point. But I'll bring this up internally and see what we can do.

If anyone is curious what's currently in the public beta for ETS2 (1.36) or what's already in ATS check this article out.
https://help.tobii.com/hc/en-us/article ... n-released

I received Tobii a few days ago and was really curious how it compares to my TrackIR.

I feel the TrackIR is much preciser and smoother. It allows for better control of your sight with head movement. The downside is that you need to wear a hat (the headset dongle would not fit) which I don't really appreciate.

Having the luxury of not wearing a hat and still being able to direct the screen through head movement is really a nice feature.
I played around with the settings in ETS2 but still not sure I am satisfied. Eye-tracking is minimalistic - even with the response and speed settings up it is just minimum movement.
Head tracking is decent but at times it gets really jittery when you look in one direction and move the other etc
I believe I might have to tweak around the settings a bit further.

Question: I am reading from additional software which should be deactivated - all I have ist the Tobii software installed - am I missing a part?
Negative: It is a flimsy device held with some sticker to your monitor (or whatever solution you come up with) but you have a super heavy USB cable attached (coming out on the right side of the device) which cannot be exchanged. In addition, is not very flexible - i have my USB hub and PC on the left side of my monitor - meaning I need to bend around the USB cable behind the monitor - because the cable is heavy and not flexible it pushes the Tobii off its position. Need to glue the cable along the monitor frame with scotch tape to prevent Tobii getting pushed out of position. Less than optimal solution.

Thanks for the feedback and the comparison!

We have changed the default settings and tweaked the settings menu to be easier to understand. See the link above your quoted reply. It's currently live in ATS but also in the Public Beta for ETS2.
The eye tracking part is right now only to pan the camera a little extra for when you're looking around the corners of the screen. When it comes to the head tracking part we've noticed that it sometimes gets stuck for a bit if you go too high with the sensitivity. That's something we're looking into. On 1.36 I was able to find some nice and responsive settings for my preference by just pumping the head tracking sensitivity. We have a new video coming out soon where we explain our favorite areas where eye tracking really adds to the immersive experience of driving a truck.

That sounds strange. Unless the cable is really sharply turned right around the end of the eye tracker it usually sticks quite hard to the screen. See this review here how it clips on and sticks hard: https://youtu.be/EEz48IiRP9s?t=168
Does yours not do that?


I will update you guys more shortly with our new video and talk more about what we thinks enhances the immersion and what you guys think about that. Thanks again for taking the time to give feedback. It's incredibly helpful to get you guys opinion as we go forward!

[Underscore_101_]

@Jonas_Tobii
Thanks for your reply,

I was thinking of making a short video with settings about it to explain the junction part better, BUT i couldn't find anything in recent recordings
that showed it well enough,...
..then i realised that before the Tobii i used to change the fov to a wider angle making the in-cab camera move backwards (in a way)
I'm guessing i didn't realise it straight away because of all the fiddling and minor adjustments, but not changing the fov
as much as i did seems to have resolved the issue i had, it's weird that i realised that i don't have to put the fov as far back
anymore, but not notice that it solved the issue i had
But to answer your question, i play the game like you would irl in the sense of looking left and right at junctions, in a natural way,
before the Tobii i used to move the mouse to look left and right.

I understand about the hoodie, it was just an observation, it's not really a problem for me as i don't usually wear things on my head,
but others might, or play with headphones on (not tested that).
It also seems to stall sometimes when i'm smoking, or just plain holding my head with a spare hand/fist (on longer straights)
(yes irl i also drive with one hand where possible
I just feel it shouldn't, my face isn't covered that much at those moments, but i don't know enough about the technology
to have a sensible idea of what is possible and what not, in layman's thoughts,..
...if it knows where my eyes and my nose are, it should know where the rest of my head is , i mean what if my hand
(when resting my head) is a really full beard, would it then work/stall the same way?
But maybe i'm overthinking this

With W0nd's post after mine i feel like i need to add something to it concerning the cable and the device sticking to the monitor.
I did some testing, and noticed that the device doesn't have to be attached to the monitor, it works just fine closer to me and possibly may even
work better closer because the distance between the Tobii (and screen) and my head is about 1 metre when playing the game, in that regard, i would have gladly paid a
bit more for a mini tripod or something so it can stand on it's own.
Concerning the cable, and i realise not all monitors are the same (currently using 2 HP 27er monitors), the cable does pull the device at an ever so slight angle,
it doesn't seem to have an effect on performance, but at the same time the cable runs under a few buttons
under the monitor which i regularly need to change the input to another pc.
If i had just one monitor it wouldn't have mattered, i could have then had the cable go to the side instead of under, but there's another monitor
there that i want as close as possible to the main one.

I noticed the newer version in ATS, and normally i would copy the controls from ets2 to ats or visa versa, but my Tobii settings are different in ats because of the
un-ergonomic design of American trucks and placing of mirrors, and also because of it being a different version of the settings for Tobii.

[Lt_Karnage]

Hello,

Not sure if it's already somewhere, but you should advertise it takes sometimes to be used to head/eye controling the camera, my first try was ankward and there is apparently a maximal distance between head and the tobii (1m) most player will be on the range but just for the maximum informaiton, it should be advertise too.

Right now I still try to have a correct setup, it's less heractic than my first try but I try to manage between to slow or to fast or not going far left or right (I hope to manage to look back to when I reverse). The site only give description of each option which we have already in game. By example, what really do the maximal gaze angle ? Does it work only for the eye (in the game the traduction seem to say that) or it's for the maximal angle even when turning the head ?

Hope what you can understand what I mean as english is not my main language (not I'm better in any language in fact )

[Lt_Karnage]

Hello,

I wish I could still use mouse and numpad when the tobii is active as often the camera go weird and the responsiveness is lacking, not be able to see the road is dangerous, and look behind is difficult to setup.

[Jonas_Tobii]

I understand about the hoodie, it was just an observation, it's not really a problem for me as i don't usually wear things on my head,
but others might, or play with headphones on (not tested that).

Hello,

Not sure if it's already somewhere, but you should advertise it takes sometimes to be used to head/eye controling the camera, my first try was ankward and there is apparently a maximal distance between head and the tobii (1m) most player will be on the range but just for the maximum informaiton, it should be advertise too.

Right now I still try to have a correct setup, it's less heractic than my first try but I try to manage between to slow or to fast or not going far left or right (I hope to manage to look back to when I reverse). The site only give description of each option which we have already in game. By example, what really do the maximal gaze angle ? Does it work only for the eye (in the game the traduction seem to say that) or it's for the maximal angle even when turning the head ?

Hope what you can understand what I mean as english is not my main language (not I'm better in any language in fact )

In our help center, we explain a bit more about positioning and what the limitations we have with the eye tracker. It's roughly between 45 — 100cm. If you could adjust your setup a little so you're within those ranges the tracking should significantly improve.
https://help.tobii.com/hc/en-us/article ... ye-tracker

Since 1.36 we have done some improvements to the in-game menu including explanations on hover. More here
Gaze is not related to head tracking. It's a term related to eye tracking and where you're focusing on the screen. So it could also be read as "Maximized the camera movement your eyes can do".
If you increase the responsiveness a bit for the Head tracking it should be better.

Don't worry about your English. It's fine!

Hello,

I wish I could still use mouse and numpad when the tobii is active as often the camera go weird and the responsiveness is lacking, not be able to see the road is dangerous, and look behind is difficult to setup.

I fully understand. Noting your feedback down and bringing it to our devs!

@Jonas_Tobii
Thanks for your reply,

I was thinking of making a short video with settings about it to explain the junction part better, BUT i couldn't find anything in recent recordings
that showed it well enough,...
..then i realised that before the Tobii i used to change the fov to a wider angle making the in-cab camera move backwards (in a way)
I'm guessing i didn't realise it straight away because of all the fiddling and minor adjustments, but not changing the fov
as much as i did seems to have resolved the issue i had, it's weird that i realised that i don't have to put the fov as far back
anymore, but not notice that it solved the issue i had
But to answer your question, i play the game like you would irl in the sense of looking left and right at junctions, in a natural way,
before the Tobii i used to move the mouse to look left and right.

I understand about the hoodie, it was just an observation, it's not really a problem for me as i don't usually wear things on my head,
but others might, or play with headphones on (not tested that).
It also seems to stall sometimes when i'm smoking, or just plain holding my head with a spare hand/fist (on longer straights)
(yes irl i also drive with one hand where possible
I just feel it shouldn't, my face isn't covered that much at those moments, but i don't know enough about the technology
to have a sensible idea of what is possible and what not, in layman's thoughts,..
...if it knows where my eyes and my nose are, it should know where the rest of my head is , i mean what if my hand
(when resting my head) is a really full beard, would it then work/stall the same way?
But maybe i'm overthinking this

With W0nd's post after mine i feel like i need to add something to it concerning the cable and the device sticking to the monitor.
I did some testing, and noticed that the device doesn't have to be attached to the monitor, it works just fine closer to me and possibly may even
work better closer because the distance between the Tobii (and screen) and my head is about 1 metre when playing the game, in that regard, i would have gladly paid a
bit more for a mini tripod or something so it can stand on it's own.
Concerning the cable, and i realise not all monitors are the same (currently using 2 HP 27er monitors), the cable does pull the device at an ever so slight angle,
it doesn't seem to have an effect on performance, but at the same time the cable runs under a few buttons
under the monitor which i regularly need to change the input to another pc.
If i had just one monitor it wouldn't have mattered, i could have then had the cable go to the side instead of under, but there's another monitor
there that i want as close as possible to the main one.

I noticed the newer version in ATS, and normally i would copy the controls from ets2 to ats or visa versa, but my Tobii settings are different in ats because of the
un-ergonomic design of American trucks and placing of mirrors, and also because of it being a different version of the settings for Tobii.

We have just released a new video showing different scenarios of where the eye tracker really makes a difference. Check that out in the new post below

Next week we're going to focus more on people's settings and see what they prefer. Everyone has their own preferences but interesting to see what people seem to prefer.

Headphones are fine, they usually don't cover the face so there's no issue there.
If you turn your head too much so it loses tracking of you it will take a second before it catches it again. However, in the 1.36 patch you can now bind a hotkey to toggle the feature on and off. It's fully bindable at the bottom of the Tobii settings. We realize that some people want to be able to turn it off for various reasons, you might be talking to someone, streamers look at their chats etc. More freedom to you guys to enjoy the game the way you want to play it!

It works to put the eye tracker elsewhere, the head tracking will still work but it's very hard to get accurate eye tracking. So if you only use it for ETS it should be fine. We don't have a tripod for it right now but feel free to test it out and let me know how it works in different scenarios.
The cable should give in a bit after a while. When it's new it can be a bit stubborn. I managed to mine at home quite straight down and below to the floor to reach the PC.

Yes, the 1.36 was released earlier for ATS but the ETS2 1.36 was released on Tuesday this week. So the configs should now be the same again. We did some improvements to the settings and moved stuff around to make it easier to understand.

[Jonas_Tobii]

Earlier this week the 1.36 went live for ETS2. We've listened to you guys in the community, and this thread, and this is the release notes.

• Settings and sliders now show descriptions on hover explaining what each setting does.
• Reset Head now resets both position and rotation, not just position and roll (if Autocenter wasn’t enabled).
• UI improvements with better categorization.
• Added a new feature called Pause Extended View (currently experimental), so players can pause the use of eye and head tracking at any time while playing. This is especially neat for streamers who occasionally check out their chat.
• Updated the default values.
• Sliders now display values.
• Updated copy.

well its nice but i did find it hard to find the right settings to get a smooth behavior like TrackiR so it would be nice when there was a easy guide, because so many options to choose from. but overal i like it because i don't need a cap or headset any more, just sit and drive

Hopefully the new settings are easier to understand and the help that comes up while hovering helps to understand what it actually does. Next week, after people had some time to fiddle around with the new settings we're also going out asking people for their favorite settings. This is how the new settings look with values and the new copy.

[ external image ]


This new feature where you can toggle Extended View on and off we think can really help people if you want to look away or simply temporarily disable the head tracking. You can find the bindable keys for Tobii in the bottom of the eye tracker settings. The settings are located under, Controls > Scroll to the bottom.
Below here you can see our new video where we think the Tobii Eye Tracker 4C can really enhance your gaming experience.

Watch on YouTube

If you want to read more about it check out our game page for ETS2 here


What do you think about the changes?
Let us know!

[Underscore_101_]

@Jonas_Tobii
There are a lot of Jonas' on this forum, but anyways, thanks for your reply again

I've not fiddled with my settings for a while now, so apart from my earlier mentions it's all good, from the start I've realised the distance between tracker and head might be an issue, and (think I've mentioned this) a standalone way to set it up is something I'd prefer as I don't use it for other things than gaming, so for use in windows to track my mouse pointer to know where I'm looking it doesn't matter, it's too late for me now, if only I knew where my mini camera tripod is so I could make something stable for it to stand on
At least for this game it doesn't matter if where you look isn't pin point correct, with shooters like call of duty or gta5 for example (don't know if the Tobii works with those games) it's probably different, it's been ages that I wanted to virtually kill people now it's just irl, but I don't want to go to prison (yet) so I don't.

As a suggestion to new users that may read this, I'd like to add that (from personal experience), when setting the Tobii up, one of the first things to do is set "Pitch" (looking up and down) to 0 ( you can adjust that later), it's just to simplify setting it up.
Another more personal setting depending on how you would naturally use your head and eyes to look left and right, keep eye tracking a bit short and slowish and head tracking fasterish and wide(r), but as I said that's personal.

Haven't checked the ETS2 1.36 game version for the Tobii settings, I play with a lot of map mods, so 1.35 for now for a while, seen (some of) it in ATS and it is easier, unfortunately (personal experience again) can't copy and paste the controls file from ATS to ETS2 because the American trucks are odd with their thin bodies and really wide mirror holding thingies.

Anyways, I'm happy with the Tobii eye tracker.

[Jonas_Tobii]

@Jonas_Tobii
There are a lot of Jonas' on this forum, but anyways, thanks for your reply again

I've not fiddled with my settings for a while now, so apart from my earlier mentions it's all good, from the start I've realised the distance between tracker and head might be an issue, and (think I've mentioned this) a standalone way to set it up is something I'd prefer as I don't use it for other things than gaming, so for use in windows to track my mouse pointer to know where I'm looking it doesn't matter, it's too late for me now, if only I knew where my mini camera tripod is so I could make something stable for it to stand on
At least for this game it doesn't matter if where you look isn't pin point correct, with shooters like call of duty or gta5 for example (don't know if the Tobii works with those games) it's probably different, it's been ages that I wanted to virtually kill people now it's just irl, but I don't want to go to prison (yet) so I don't.

As a suggestion to new users that may read this, I'd like to add that (from personal experience), when setting the Tobii up, one of the first things to do is set "Pitch" (looking up and down) to 0 ( you can adjust that later), it's just to simplify setting it up.
Another more personal setting depending on how you would naturally use your head and eyes to look left and right, keep eye tracking a bit short and slowish and head tracking fasterish and wide(r), but as I said that's personal.

Haven't checked the ETS2 1.36 game version for the Tobii settings, I play with a lot of map mods, so 1.35 for now for a while, seen (some of) it in ATS and it is easier, unfortunately (personal experience again) can't copy and paste the controls file from ATS to ETS2 because the American trucks are odd with their thin bodies and really wide mirror holding thingies.

Anyways, I'm happy with the Tobii eye tracker.

Haha, trying to keep people informed at the same time as I'm answering questions

Yes, you mentioned the tripod before. Anything could work if you test it out. Eye tracking might get very inaccurate but the head tracking should still be good. We don't have any integration into GTA5 or COD but you could use Tobii Ghost as a streamer to give viewers insights to where you're looking. Generally people who play shooters tend to sit much closer to the screen. Please stick to killing people virtually!

Thanks for the feedback with the rest of the settings. It's indeed very personal but I agree, I like it more sensitive and now with the new toggle hotkey in 1.36 I can turn it off when I don't want it to move. A much better experience in my opinion

Glad to hear you're happy with your purchase!

[Underscore_101_]

Not sure if this topic is still alive, but I have something new to feed back

Thanks for the quick menu option in 1.37 (open beta) in ATS, assume it will follow shortly in ets2 (if it hasn't already, not updating the game atm because of the oncoming updates and mods)

Maybe I should wait with this 'till after the updates, but I have a few moments to spare.

Are there plans to make the option configurable where users can set their own key(combo), I find the current combo shift+numlock (which is locked atm) rather an odd choice
and difficult to reach, though that is partly due to my setup when playing the game, but even with my keyboard right in front of me it's easy to press the wrong key(s).
And while i'm writing this i'm thinking..., suppose I could set it up on my simdashboard… and then it's not a problem anymore

Thanks for reading.

[Komat]

That shortcut is actually available in both games since 1.35 with some minor differences (can not be used from desktop ui, just from the driving, can not be used to close the screen), it just was not shown in the UI.

The shortcut is what it is because of combination of several limitations. First problem is that we are running out of unused keys on the keyboard so it is using modifier key. That runs into a second problem where our binding UI currently does not support modifier keys so you can not configure the modifier and when you press the individual keys of the shortcut, other actions bound to the same buttons will trigger as well. So the binding has to use combination where that is unlikely to cause problems. You can modify the binding by editing eyecfg entry inside controls.sii. If that binding is using modifiers and conflicts with something you would not want to trigger, you would need to adjust the conflicting entry to not trigger when the modifier is down.