[mrmicp]

Hi All

I have a 52inch TV and have the sensor bar positioned about 7 centimeters under the screen and stand about 3 meters away. I can't seem to get a proper calibration with the gun on either Ghost Squad or House of the dead: Overkill If I sight it up down the barrel and shoot the calibration targets the cursor is well off and make it impossible to play with. The games are playable without calibration using the on screen sight but I would like to play without the sight on and just aim using the barrel of the gun. I think though the problem may be down to the size of the TV Vs The size of the sensor bar. Does anyone have tips or things I could try? Is it something obvious I'm missing??

[TheBlueFalcon]

I totally agree. I have a 70" screen and the only way you can play any shooting game is to go by the cursor on the screen, which I personally feel takes away the whole point of the game. It really needs some kind of sytem that has a sensor in each corner so that is can be used on any size screen. I've scoured the internet but not found anything that is guaranteed to solve it. I've picked up a few ideas along the way, but just don't have time to try anything at the moment.

[Stinja]

Ditto, and this is only on a 40" at 8-10'.

I found if i calibrate by shooting off to one side, when it's finished i ended up with the gun's sights actually on target (sort of). For me this was the gun's sight lining up to the right of the on-screen crosshairs. Go to calibrate, i aimed so the right hand edge of the gun was in the centre of the on-screen crosshairs (so aiming left) finish calibration (ignore the practice targets) and once its back to the menu it aligned much better.

Bit weird but worked (sort of)

EDIT: standard bar.

[Rich G]

I have a 92" screen and stand about 4m away, I had problems calibrating with Ghost Squad but HoTD: Overkill calibrated fine, although I haven't tried playing with the on-screen cursor off yet.

What sensor bars are people using ? I'm using a Logic3 wireless sensor bar.

Rich.

[Bribrian]

Originally Posted by Rich G

I have a 92" screen and stand about 4m away,

92" screen !!!! that must be heaven.............

[RottenFox]

try setting the tv(not the wii),up for 4:3,standard format,not widescreen.
the gun will calibrate perfectly.
most gun games arent 16:9 in the arcade.

[Rich G]

Originally Posted by Bribrian

92" screen !!!! that must be heaven.............

I can't complain

I think light gun games are well suited to a big screen, it really draws you into the game.

[pw00t]

Hello all, I also had the same problem, but with a smaller screen - about 60 inches widescreen.

Here is my solution, which may not be appropriate for everyone. The Wii remote has excellent horizontal range, but relatively poor vertical range. I use a projector and from my experiments I had to tape the sensor bar about 15 inches up from the bottom of the picture. Then it's perfect! It doesn't distract that much because the colours in Ghost Squad and HOTD are pretty dark.

Nintendo's reasoning is that the larger the screen you have, the further back you should be sitting. Fair enough, if you live in a mansion

[karoloydi]

I ve been reading that the bigger the tv the longer the sensor bar has to be.
Is that true? My tv is 46". Its not huge, but my living room is small, so I have to play really close to the tv.
Is there any conversion chart of inches of tv and how long the sensor bar has to be?
I found this sensor bar on ebay where you can easilly adjust the length of it:
Click Here
This looks like a viable option also for you that have a very large screen and have to put the sensor bar inside the viewing area. You can just attach this to the sides of your screen at the hight you want without being in the middle of the screen.

[pw00t]

Originally Posted by karoloydi

My tv is 46". Its not huge, but my living room is small, so I have to play really close to the tv.

How close is close? Try this web page:

How to Make your wii remote accurately aim and how the wii sensor bar really works - from David Hawley

Do you have the Wii already? If you do, you can go to the settings menu and test the Wiimote's sensitivity - if you see two separate dots that are not flickering then you should be okay.

[karoloydi]

Originally Posted by pw00t

How close is close? Try this web page:

How to Make your wii remote accurately aim and how the wii sensor bar really works - from David Hawley

Do you have the Wii already? If you do, you can go to the settings menu and test the Wiimote's sensitivity - if you see two separate dots that are not flickering then you should be okay.

I used the calculator on the link you gave me, but it doesnt make sence. According to it, the bigger your tv, the smaller the sensor has to be. Which sounds incorrect to me.

The writer of the article has the following logic. The further away you are standing from your tv, the smaller the sensor becomes inrelation to you. So if you make the sensor smaller, you ll make the sensor think that you are sitting further than you actually sit.

This reasoning is incorrect according to my calculations:
If your tv size was too big, the ideal would be to stand further back from the tv AND make your sensor bigger. This way both the angle between you and the left and right edges of the tv and you and the left and right edges of the sensor will be as if you had a smaller size tv (like it is in the 32" tv in the picture).

Lets say for example that your tv is 32" and that the ideal is a 90 degrees angle between you and the left and right edges of the tv. And the ideal is a 10 degrees angle between you and the two edges of the wii sensor when you are sitting at 90 degrees.
Now lets say that your tv is 70" and the angle between you and the left and right edges of the tv is 180 degrees (double) at the same distance.

Then the angle between you and the two edges of the wii sensor will have to double as well. That means that the angle between you and the two edges of the wii sensor will have to become 20 degrees. In order for that to happen the sensor has to become bigger.


About my wii mote. The probelm is not its sensitivity. The problem is that if I point my wiimote to the screen, the cursor is nowhere to be seen. I have to point the wiimote quite lower than the screen to make it the cursor appear.

[pw00t]

Originally Posted by karoloydi

About my wii mote. The probelm is not its sensitivity. The problem is that if I point my wiimote to the screen, the cursor is nowhere to be seen. I have to point the wiimote quite lower than the screen to make it the cursor appear.

Hi, I know your problem is not sensitivity, but you can use that screen to calibrate your screen to observe the range of the Wiimote as you point it.

It sounds like you have an issue with vertical alignment, which is the same problem that I had and fixed by moving the height of the sensor bar (see an earlier post I made). This is necessary because the vertical sensing range of the Wiimote is really poor compared to its horizontal range.

Bear in mind that the Wiimote is not 1:1 so you cannot get very accurate calibration - it's all relative. Calibration is better with games like Ghost Squad or House of the Dead 2 & 3 because they have their own calibration setup.

With regards to the horizontal calibration, distance is determined by how far apart the two LED emitter arrays are separated (the space between the two dots on the sensitivity settings screen). This is a fixed constant because Nintendo assumes that the bigger the screen the further away you sit (which we know is not always the case ). Therefore, since your living room is small and you are closer than what Nintendo assumes, you have to fool the Wiimote into thinking it is further away than it is and pointing at a big screen. Hence, the sensor bar needs to be smaller. If you made the sensor bar bigger, the Wiimote thinks it is closer to the screen, and therefore assumes that the screen is smaller and adjusts accordingly.

Hope this helps and let us know if you still have problems. Oh, and I found sellotaping a laser pointer to the Wiimote helped too.

[karoloydi]

Originally Posted by pw00t

Hi, I know your problem is not sensitivity, but you can use that screen to calibrate your screen to observe the range of the Wiimote as you point it.

It sounds like you have an issue with vertical alignment, which is the same problem that I had and fixed by moving the height of the sensor bar (see an earlier post I made). This is necessary because the vertical sensing range of the Wiimote is really poor compared to its horizontal range.

Bear in mind that the Wiimote is not 1:1 so you cannot get very accurate calibration - it's all relative. Calibration is better with games like Ghost Squad or House of the Dead 2 & 3 because they have their own calibration setup.

With regards to the horizontal calibration, distance is determined by how far apart the two LED emitter arrays are separated (the space between the two dots on the sensitivity settings screen). This is a fixed constant because Nintendo assumes that the bigger the screen the further away you sit (which we know is not always the case ). Therefore, since your living room is small and you are closer than what Nintendo assumes, you have to fool the Wiimote into thinking it is further away than it is and pointing at a big screen. Hence, the sensor bar needs to be smaller. If you made the sensor bar bigger, the Wiimote thinks it is closer to the screen, and therefore assumes that the screen is smaller and adjusts accordingly.

Hope this helps and let us know if you still have problems. Oh, and I found sellotaping a laser pointer to the Wiimote helped too.

That makes sense. I have ordered a sensor that you can adjust the size of. I should receive it tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. I ll do some tests with a laser pointer when I receive it to calibrate. So, adjusting the width wont affect the vertical allignment at all?

[pw00t]

Originally Posted by karoloydi

That makes sense. I have ordered a sensor that you can adjust the size of. I should receive it tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. I ll do some tests with a laser pointer when I receive it to calibrate. So, adjusting the width wont affect the vertical allignment at all?

Yup, the width won't do anything for the vertical alignment.

[karoloydi]

I got the sensor.

It looks like the width of the sensor has little to do with the horizontal alignment of the cursor. At least at the small distance I am trying to use it from.
I think the way wii knows the distance from the tv is from the relative size of the infrared lights in the sensor. If you have noticed when you try to setup the sensors sensitivity, the closer you get, the bigger the two dots become. I think thats how wii knows the distance. There is something like an infrared camera at the front of the wii conntroller. If the dot is like 1mm in diameter the wii knows you are standing 1m from the tv. If the dot is 1.5mm the wii knows you are standong 1.5m from the tv (the numbers are fictional).
So, the only way to make the wii think you are standing further than you are is to either make the infrared light in the sensor smaller of put like a lens in front of the wiimote to make it think the infrared lights are smaller.
But I noticed a 10% improvement with this sensor regardless of its positioning. I think that the infrared light inside it is slightly smaller. So I ll keep it, even if the difference is quite small. I think the improvement would be bigger if I could place it on the top of my tv, cause there is a clear improvement with the original sensor if I place it on the top. But the sensors cable is really small, cause its a travel sensor. So, I ll have to get an extension cable and do some more tests.
And there also is not any difference in vertical alignment as pw00t said. The only difference is how high or low you are placing the sensor.

[pw00t]

Originally Posted by karoloydi

I got the sensor.

It looks like the width of the sensor has little to do with the horizontal alignment of the cursor. At least at the small distance I am trying to use it from.
I think the way wii knows the distance from the tv is from the relative size of the infrared lights in the sensor.

Yes, from the short distance you are using it is unlikely to make any difference. There are many people who are using the Wiimote with a PC, sitting a few feet away from the monitor, so they would definitely need a different size sensor bar.

Sorry to correct you, but the Wiimote-to- screen distance calculations are using the distance between the two IR emitters and not the size of the IR emissions. This is not me speaking but all the research on the internet. It would require some pretty accurate, not to mention expensive, equipment to calculate distance based on IR emmision differences of less than half a millimetre.

[karoloydi]

Originally Posted by pw00t

Yes, from the short distance you are using it is unlikely to make any difference. There are many people who are using the Wiimote with a PC, sitting a few feet away from the monitor, so they would definitely need a different size sensor bar.

Sorry to correct you, but the Wiimote-to- screen distance calculations are using the distance between the two IR emitters and not the size of the IR emissions. This is not me speaking but all the research on the internet. It would require some pretty accurate, not to mention expensive, equipment to calculate distance based on IR emmision differences of less than half a millimetre.

What made me think that is that even if I place the new sensor at exactly the same position as the original wii sensor, the new sensor seems different. But you probably quite right, cause the original wii hasnt got only one ir light, but three.

[Giblets]

I ahve a big screen, but do find that there is a maximum range, beyong which the wii remote seems to not be able to see the sensors correctly, 3-4m. Does anyone else have this issue?

[Nivek TT]

I think its about 3m where Rayman Ravin' Rabbids asks you to move closer. 3m from my 40" is in no way uncomfortable

[qrus]

Originally Posted by RottenFox

try setting the tv(not the wii),up for 4:3,standard format,not widescreen.
the gun will calibrate perfectly.
most gun games arent 16:9 in the arcade.

DOHHH!!

I hadn't though of that! i'm having issues with the projection i'm using! ...i have it full wide mode, never though to try normal.. 4:3

I'm running 100"+ image... when i aim the gun it see's the top left target (overkill) but not the bottom right.. keeps saying aim the remote at the screen.. (goes away when i aim in the middle)

thanks man .....

[jasonf01]

This is one of those things that make the engineer in me go "why...why....WHY!!??"

A lot of it is down to human and wiimote field of view, and the screen sizes we all know and love.

I have a projector onto a 80" 16:9 screen. Gun calibration for me is pretty much impossible. Even with the sensor at the bottom of the screen, theres not enough leeway at approx. 3m to calibrate the gun to the upper corners.

When you look at the image collected by the sensor in the wiimote, it loses one or both IR sources from its view and it needs both to get the direction.

For the regular wiimotes and sensor bar to even come close to working at this stage, the sensor bar would probably have to be right in the middle of my screen...not really an option.

Having 2 IR sources left and right of the screen isnt possible either. As its a widescreen image, you only get the sensor working in the 50cms or so right in the middle of the screen where the wiimote can see both sources. The wiimotes field of view cant take in both sources across the whole screen width, and only in the middle does it "see" both sources and is able to work out its position.

Why oh why didnt they make it vertical. Rotate the whole imaging system 90 degrees to the left or right and you could have the IR sources at the top and bottom of the (wide)screen and much more screen coverage as a result. This would have solved a great deal of these problems as the vertical field of view should be well within the wiimotes capabilities for any normal (to avforum members) screen size and viewing distance.

As it stands at the moment, theres nothing I can really do in my situation on this, but the next screen that goes up might have to be Wii-Enabled somehow, with IR emitters in the middle of the screen vertically and at 25%/75% horizontally to hopefully compensate for the big screen.

How im going to do that without it affecting regular viewing is anyones guess.

Jas.

[qrus]

hiya jason,

I am pasting a message i left on wii chat, myself + girlfriend comblined have sorted the problem!

If you knew me, you'd know i love projects. (not that playing a wii is a project)

Last night my girlfriend helped me crack it..

I centered the image, everything was central.. the wii sensor was in the MIDDLE of the screen/image..

stood back as far as possible.. wallah!!

it was savage, killing 6foot tall zombies!! perfect aim!!

The crack for it is a smaller sensor bar!! as someone mentioned : "if you widen the sensor, in effect your moving closer, if you bring the sensor closer, in effect your further away" ...the only thing that threw me off was the above below set up! the sensor on my 100 odd inch screen had to go in the middle! looked a little silly with props but now i know what i need to do..

as an idea, i was thinking of getting a bike LED, know that ones that come on or flash or do an effect? they are only lets say 10 cm apart.. and modding it to light up IR leds!

maybe bust open a couple of remotes no longer used and take out the IR LEDS ? that'll be the first test.

otherwise my issue is Sorted!

you say you have 80"? i say do something to pop the sensor into the middle of your screen, brush upside down or boxes - doesn't matter, just test it.. 80"...i'd say stand 15' away if possible!

test it ands let me know if you agree it works! don't worry about the sensor being above or below, i was thrown off by this for days! (I only borrowed my mums wii the other day - don't own one)

I'm ment to be the brain in my partnership, the girlfriend sussed the sensor in the middle of the screen!

it was really bugging me ...it worked perfectly on my 41" tv..

now i need to by or mod a closer IR reciever!

[qrus]

see the red back light? something like that but nice and sleek..not to use 3 led's but just the 2.. L + R

whatcha think? mod the leds for IR leds?

[jasonf01]

Originally Posted by qrus

see the red back light? something like that but nice and sleek..not to use 3 led's but just the 2.. L + R

I see what youre getting at, but im not sure having the IR sensors close together on a large screen is doable. If anything, I was considering moving them further apart as the remotes are generally too sensitive to use as mouse pointers at this time. Moving them closer together would surely compound this problem, wouldnt it?

Ive played the wii on a number of displays, 17" monitor (on-screen pointers seemed sluggish), 40" LCD TV (on-screen pointers were a little too sharp), 120" projection (a tiny amount of wiimote movement made for a large onscreen movement) and now 80" (bad, but still not as bad as 120"). I think the wiimote bar width is supposed to be a proportion of a certain screen size, probably the most common at the time it was released (which would be I think about 32-37"). My thoughts are that if we double the screen size from this norm, we should also double the width between the IR senders.

Naturally, if we increase the width of the IR senders, we also increase the minimum distance at which theyre going to work. You mentioned 15 feet, at that distance from the screen Id probably be on my stairs in the hallway or in the garage lol. Also, if we increase the physical distance, we might have to put in a lot more IR output so the wiimotes can still see it over the further distance.

Thats how I feel with general pointer movement, I havent tried a gun for a loooong time now, so maybe thats different.

It still would have been nice for Nintendo to figure the big screen size and viewing distances into the equation when they made the thing, even a mechanical adjustment to the wiimote to allow angling up/down would have worked in my case, as the wiimote would register the screen if the IR bar was in the middle of it. With the IR bar at the bottom of the screen, the top corners cant be "seen" but an area way below the screen can. My idea of having the whole IR sender/sensor rotated 90 degrees wasnt bad either, but that would need Nintendo to step in and see the problem I think.

Ive got to take some time out to make a split sensor bar and experment. What youre saying about narrowing the sensor width seems alien to me, and Ive got to give it a try, it could well be the right way forward.

Jas.

[qrus]

i'll keep this short as i only have a minute left.. lol

further apart, the wii see's you as closer to the screen, i read that before and confirmed it.. i tried a few different ideas. i really think bringing them closer is the way, the projectile is wider in the same distance.??

if 1 is 20 cm wide, you stand 10 foot and it sees 10 feet

then 1 that is 10 cm wide, you stand 10 feet it sees 15 / 20 feet??

i will do you a video or something! show you what i have tried.. any images or your own ideas?

[qrus]

here is something i tried, see this image :

note the camera. see the three IR LEDS? it has 3 each side.

I have this camera, i took it apart, extracted the 6 IR leds, wired them up to a various voltage input, worked best @ 9v, the problem is found was it wasn't seeing the IR's 100% of the time. Do i need to wire something in like a resistor or a regulator??

it was just an idea. but these things are only 5ish cm apart. i stood back, it worked fine, just slighlty flickery. but the wii settings only showed me a single do... (TOO CLOSE TOGETHER?) its on a pre-cut prefboard.

i'm interested in chopping up some old remotes, see what happens..

i'm mad to get this sorted! did i mention before, i tried it on my 41" and it works a dream, all the generic wii stuff.. just the damn large screen!!

[jasonf01]

Had a quick play with the standard sensor bar at the weekend, and yes it will work if its in the centre of the screen. Also tried with the sensor vertical, which gave me more left/right working range, but less up/down working range.

Interestingly, even with just the sensor bar vertical the remote would sense and work as normal apart from if it loses signal from one of the sources. If it lost signal, it wouldnt come back on-screen unless I twisted the wiimote 90 degrees, then I could twist it back and use it as normal again.

Im still convinced that a longer IR bar would be the way to go for a closer 1:1 range with the screen, but having them closer together would get that all-important left-right working range a little bit wider.

Ive ordered some IR LEDs and will see if I can come up with something.

Originally Posted by qrus

it was just an idea. but these things are only 5ish cm apart. i stood back, it worked fine, just slighlty flickery. but the wii settings only showed me a single do... (TOO CLOSE TOGETHER?) its on a pre-cut prefboard.

i'm interested in chopping up some old remotes, see what happens..

i'm mad to get this sorted! did i mention before, i tried it on my 41" and it works a dream, all the generic wii stuff.. just the damn large screen!!

Flickery, you might have to adjust the sensitivity settings, or if theyre at 5 already you might have to increase the output. On the other end of the scale, if a resistor isnt used (or is the wrong value), it could be that the LEDs are overheating and cutting out to avoid destruction (if theyre overcurrent protected).

Having 2 IR sources 5cm apart might give some problems at range; theres only so much detail in the wiimotes sensor, and if theres not enough IR Source separation at playing distance, its likely the wiimote will merge the two sources into one. If youre getting this problem, probably the only solution is to increase the IR sender width. Remember that the official wii sensor bar has 5 IR LEDs per side, yet it only sees each side as a single IR source, that should give you some idea on what kind of definition the wiimote sensor has and what kind of separation it needs to detect 2 IR sources.

Jas.

[qrus]

good to hear the centre of the screen worked. i use a wall you see, painted matt white, so i am limited as to how to "stick" it, my original idea was to maybe use a magnet, stick it behing a screen - but i don't have a screen so i had to scrap it lol, if i find the perfect sensor i'll think more how to fit the sensor.

regarding the 5 leds, i was unaware, not opened mine. but it would make sense of what i was saying about the cluster of IRs i wired up.

they are only a small finger and thum distance apart. both the Left and Right side.

too close = 1 sensor reading? ...It did infact only show up as 1 dot in the sencivity option.

...I got thinking, you said upright, and laying flat, maybe make a + sensor?