Star Citizen Tobii Setup: Head Tracking, Eye Tracking and Camera Boost

Tobii Eye Tracker 5 lets you look around Star Citizen with your head and eyes while keeping your hands on the controls. Select Tobii as the game’s tracking source, enable the situations in which you want it to work, then choose between the original head-and-eye Input Mix and gaze-assisted Camera Boost.

This setup is for playing on a monitor with Tobii’s hardware and software already working on your PC. VR uses a different tracking path: the Tobii SDK is turned off when VR is enabled because the two are incompatible. Tobii’s monitor-based eye tracking does not provide eye tracking inside a VR headset.

Connect Tobii to the in-game camera

1. Enter the Persistent Universe, press Esc and open Options.
2. Choose Comms, FoIP, & Head Tracking, then find Head Tracking – General – Source.
3. Select Tobii. In the same group, set General – Toggle – Enabled to Yes.
4. Set Use Position Offsets in Cockpits to Yes if you want the camera to respond to changes in your head’s position as well as its rotation.

Tobii supports six degrees of freedom, so leaning and turning need not produce the same camera movement. Its Extended View controls appear under Head Tracking – Tobii. Although these settings share a tab with FoIP, the camera setup does not turn Tobii into the webcam-based facial-expression capture system.

Choose where tracking stays active

The controls labelled Disable can be easy to read backwards. Set Disable While Seated to No to use tracking in a seat, and Disable During FPS to No to use it on foot. The same logic applies to Disable During mobiGlas, Disable During ADS and Disable During Interaction Mode: No allows tracking in that state.

You can keep different preferences for each situation. For example, leaving tracking active in the cockpit while disabling it on foot avoids having to change the main source whenever you leave the ship. Enable Roll in Seats and Enable Roll in FPS separately allow head tilt to affect the view. For third-person tracking, enable General – External View Toggle Enabled.

Put recenter and pause within reach

Open Options → Keybindings → Advanced Controls Customization and assign Enable Head Tracking (Toggle) and Re-center Head Tracking Device to convenient inputs. The first lets you temporarily stop tracking; the second restores the camera’s centre when your sitting position has changed.

Head Tracking (Hold) serves a different purpose. It temporarily enables tracking while you hold the input, but only in a gameplay state where tracking is otherwise disabled. If you normally disable tracking on foot, this gives you a way to look around with it briefly. Tobii recommends setting Head Tracking – General – Hold – Use Device Offset to Yes for that binding.

There is also a separate Enable / Disable Head Tracking for 3rd Person Camera (Toggle) binding. Assign it if you want direct control over external-view tracking rather than relying solely on the general settings.

General – Toggle – Auto recalibrate can recenter the camera when you move between gameplay states with different tracking preferences. With tracking disabled on foot and enabled in a seat, keep your head centred as you sit down so the new centre matches where you want to look. This state-change setting is separate from the Tobii Auto Center Enabled option, which adjusts the camera as your position changes.

Choose Input Mix or Camera Boost

Head Tracking – Tobii – Input Gaze Method selects the camera behaviour. The original Input Mix combines head and eye movement; Camera Boost uses your gaze to amplify head rotation. Choose the method first, then tune its controls.

Input Mix: decide how much the head contributes

With Input Mix, 1.0 uses head tracking only and 0.0 uses eye tracking only. A higher value gives head movement more influence. At 0.5, head tracking can contribute up to half of the camera’s maximum angle, with eye tracking providing the rest. This is a share of the camera’s available angle, rather than a promise that each small movement of your eyes and head has equal effect.

If you prefer to glance around the interface without giving your eyes much control over the view, move the mix towards head tracking. A lower value gives gaze a larger role. There is no single required ratio: the choice depends on how you want to look around.

Camera Boost: use gaze to help a head turn

Camera Boost increases head-rotation sensitivity as you turn your head towards where you are looking on the screen. The boost grows as your gaze moves towards the edge and your head turns further in the same direction. It can help the camera turn further while your physical head movement remains smaller. The feature requires a Tobii Eye Tracker; RSI’s support guidance still describes it as beta.

Select Camera Boost under Input Gaze Method to reveal its controls. Camera Boost Value sets the maximum boost to head-rotation sensitivity. Camera Boost Deadzone sets how far from the screen centre you must look before the boost begins increasing, reaching its maximum at the edge. Enlarge that central zone if the boost begins before you want it to; reduce it if you want it to start closer to the centre.

Match sensitivity to the movement that bothers you

Rotation, small movements around the centre and leaning have separate controls. Adjust the setting that corresponds to the unwanted movement instead of changing every slider together.

Keep the distinction between those positional dead zones and Camera Boost Deadzone in mind. The former ignore small physical movements along particular axes; the latter controls where on the screen your gaze starts adding boost.

Select a ship with your gaze

Enable Gaze Based Target Selection to choose a target by looking at it, then press the input assigned to Vehicles – Targeting – Lock Selected Target to lock it. Looking chooses the target; the assigned button performs the lock.

If that button also cycles targets, remove the conflicting assignments. Tobii’s example uses T for Lock Selected Target and removes T from Vehicles – Target Cycling – Cycle Lock – In View – Forward and Cycle Lock – In View – Under Reticle. You can use another input, provided its assignments produce the action you intend.

When tracking stops or feels inconsistent

Works at the desk, but not in one game mode

Check Tobii is still the selected source, the general toggle is enabled and the relevant Disable setting is No. A hold binding will not behave like a toggle in a state where tracking is already enabled. If VR is running, the disabled Tobii SDK is expected behaviour; changing Camera Boost or Input Mix will not make the two tracking paths operate together.

The sensor loses a clear view of you

The tracker cannot be mounted above the monitor. Keep its view of your head unobstructed during calibration and play, including when a joystick, yoke or throttle sits between you and the screen. Clean glasses, less direct sunlight and the absence of large reflective surfaces near your normal sitting position can help the sensor track properly.

The supported eye-tracking screen limits are 27 inches at 16:9 and 30 inches at 21:9. Those limits concern tracking where you look on the display; the same screen-size restrictions do not apply to head tracking.

Settings have become difficult to untangle

The Reset button beside Back in the options screen also resets your keybindings and other settings. Before using it, preserve the controls you need; our guide to saving and restoring peripheral keybindings covers the game’s profile export process. Revisit the specific tracking setting first if only one behaviour is wrong.

For hardware or Tobii software problems that also occur outside Star Citizen, use Tobii support. For an in-game problem, search the Issue Council for an existing report before adding another, and include Tobii in the subject so the issue can be found.