Head Tracking with Cliffs of Dover

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by Novotny

Edit whilst posting:: I just noted Madblaster's response, and as such should read Blackdog's post, even though it's bound to take me into bloody March.

Edit:: Hi Blackdog! ignore the above

Surprised, are we?

Originally Posted by Wolf_Rider

NP doesn't seem to want their software used in such fashion though

That's the thing we will agree to disagree on then. If i alter my registry to make my PC think that "blackdog's awesome headtracking software" is naturalpoint's dll file, that doesn't change the fact that what i'm using is in truth NOT naturalpoint software, with no software of NP being used in any way or form. What's used is windows registry editor. If sometime in the future ms sidewinder sticks got blacklisted by the flightsim developers i'd do something similar and tell my PC that my joystick is in fact a generic model to keep it working.

The workaround is a cause of the restriction, not the other way around. Plus as long as the workaround doesn't use copyrighted bits, apart from the game IDs i mentioned before which according to law should not be copyrightable in the first place, it's perfectly legal.
I don't get what the fuss is all about.

Originally Posted by Wolf_Rider

You know full well that unless NP software is installed on the machine, Freetrack can't use NP anything to access what it wants. The clear example of this is FSX. It has its Simmconnect, yet users pan that in favour of using the FT through NP route... this has been mentioned before.

Actually i don't know it, that's what i said in my previous post. Unless someone opens the files in a programming tool and goes through the code comparing bit by bit to tell me how it's done, i can't pass judgment either way. Maybe FT's dll is a hacked knock off of NP's dll, maybe it's not, but i won't pass judgment when i have no proof whatsoever either way.

Maybe i wasn't clear and you misunderstood how it works? In this case let me rephrase it. The game doesn't need to use any kind of NP software for headtracking to work. What it needs is to think it's using NP's dll because there's no alternative standard in the industry yet, but the actual file can be substituted by any suitable software.

It's like we're 20 years in the past and the only one making PC joysticks is quickshot. You buy a stick from a brand new company named CH products but the games you play only recognize quickshot, because they were made when nobody else made joysticks. What do you do? You make your game think that you're using a quickshot stick, but you are very much indeed using a CH products stick in reality. Are you infringing on anyone's copyrights? Not really. What you are doing is making up for obsolete games not supporting your alternate hardware, that's all. Of course this scenario never happened because people back then didn't hold copyrights on which stick works with gameports.

Illustrating this distinction (between actually using someone else's copyrighted software as opposed to making your hardware think that you are when you're not) is why i keep mentioning my buddy and how he coded his own headtracker. The guy did everything from scratch, he just "told" his PC "this is the file you want, work with that". At no point is any kind of NP software getting used.

And before someone says "but the registry key is filed under a naturalpoint title", well, if we were to pay royalties every time we type down the company's name then every single one of us posting in this thread would be in big trouble already
It's not naturalpoint at all, he just tells his PC that it is but it's not.

If the games would work with a generic interface he would tell his PC that it's a generic headtracker, or maybe a trackIR user who wanted to use another piece of software could make his PC "think" that his trackIR camera is not tracIR but a wiimote working under freetrack, etc etc.

As long as the code is not copied and distributed verbatim and the hardware items have been bought and paid in cold hard cash, it's no business whatsoever of the guy making it how the end user customizes them. That's my attitude in general about consumer rights. You have my money, i have your receipt, i'm respecting your copyrights/trademarks/patents, so it's none of your business what i do with it from now on.
If i buy a car and i want to make modifications, the most the car company can do is void my warranty. However, if the modifications are done properly the car won't refuse to start.




EDIT:

Originally Posted by sigur_ros

Naturalpoint themselves admit it is clean in this edit to Freetrack wikipedia page:

" In the new FreeTrack releases the copyrighted material has generally been removed from the binaries"

From horses mouth.

Interesting, so they used some of NP's code almost verbatim but now they don't anymore? That's just superb then, should be no reason whatsoever for FT not to work with CoD.

Where have you been the past 40 pages man? You could have saved all of us a ton of typing