Camera Boost

The Tobii Eye Tracker 5 monitors both your eye and head movements, utilizing these inputs to control your in-game virtual camera movements.

The Problem

Certain types of games require a wide range of head movements. For example, in flight simulators, you might need to check instruments and indicators located above your head in the cockpit, or if you are piloting a fighter plane in a dogfight, you may want to look over your shoulder to track an enemy fighter approaching from behind. How do you replicate these experiences without taking your eyes off the screen in front of you?

The gaming community usually tackles this problem by either cranking up the virtual camera's sensitivity to head movements or using acceleration curves.

Increasing sensitivity means even tiny head movements get amplified in the virtual camera. This helps cover the full range of movements needed in the game, but it can also cause problems. For instance, small, unintentional head movements can lead to big, unwanted camera shifts, messing with your immersion. Plus, you'll need some practice to get used to the new movement range.

Acceleration curves (also known as "mapping" or creating a "transfer function") provide a similar approach. The head movement input is mapped to an acceleration curve, which then adjusts the virtual camera's position and orientation accordingly. As a result, the player's head movements are amplified in the camera, making it easier to look around without moving the head excessively. Setting this up, and choosing the right acceleration curve, can be challenging and the results may initially feel unnatural. It often requires thorough testing and fine-tuning to achieve the desired effect.  

So, is there a better and more seamless way to look around in the game while keeping your eyes on the screen?

The solution

Enter... Camera Boost 🚀!

What is Camera Boost?

Camera Boost creates an additional boost to your head tracking rotation when you rotate your head towards where you are looking on the screen. The boost gets stronger the further from the center of the screen you are looking and the more your head rotation is in the same direction as you are looking.

In Tobii Game Hub you can tweak the maximal boost which can be applied to the head tracking rotation sensitivity by adjusting the In-game Camera Boost setting.

By adjusting the Gaze dead-zone setting you can also choose at what distance from the center of the screen you must look for the boost to start increasing (reaching its maximal boost at the edge of the screen).

The advantage of using Camera Boost is that it combines both gaze and head movement tracking, offering a more intuitive way to look around in the game. As a result, it requires very little practice and adjustments, making the experience more immersive.

🚨This feature requires a Tobii Eye Tracker 4C or Tobii Eye Tracker 5

Supported games:

• Star Citizen
• War Thunder
• DCS World
• Elite Dangerous
• X-Plane 12
• X-Plane 11
• Arma 3
• Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead
• Arma 2
• Take On Helicopters
• Flight Simulator X
• Iron Front Liberation 1944
• Prepar3d v3

This feature is now also available for all Tobii Game Hub Opentrack supported games. Woo hoo!

Check out the article: How to do Opentrack setup for Tobii Game Hub 4.0.  It has all the instruction you need and a full list of supported games.