Joystick Emulation
Hi all,
I'm sorry if this topic has been brought up before. I did a quick search, and didn't see it.
Anyhow. I understand that out of the box, the Omni will emulate a keyboard, so that no existing games will have to have Omni support explicitly added. If I understand correctly, this means that you'll be limited to moving in 8 directions, and only at one speed (barring walk/run modifiers). It seems to me that adding an option to also emulate a joystick might be worthwhile. The joystick would allow you to move in any direction, not just 8, and at a wide range of speeds without needing to make walk/sprint scripts. Additionally, none of the existing Rift-enabled games that I've played would need re-coding. HL2, Quake2, and variants all allow movement to be controlled by a joystick without interfering with Rift look or mouse aiming.
Either way, I'll be buying an Omni, but it seems like adding the option to emulate a joystick would be the difference between a good experience and a great experience.
Thoughts?
I'm sorry if this topic has been brought up before. I did a quick search, and didn't see it.
Anyhow. I understand that out of the box, the Omni will emulate a keyboard, so that no existing games will have to have Omni support explicitly added. If I understand correctly, this means that you'll be limited to moving in 8 directions, and only at one speed (barring walk/run modifiers). It seems to me that adding an option to also emulate a joystick might be worthwhile. The joystick would allow you to move in any direction, not just 8, and at a wide range of speeds without needing to make walk/sprint scripts. Additionally, none of the existing Rift-enabled games that I've played would need re-coding. HL2, Quake2, and variants all allow movement to be controlled by a joystick without interfering with Rift look or mouse aiming.
Either way, I'll be buying an Omni, but it seems like adding the option to emulate a joystick would be the difference between a good experience and a great experience.
Thoughts?
Comments
Props go to Plixity for the sig.
It has been briefly discussed before http://forum.virtuix.com/discussion/245/drivers-for-other-software. Basically the Omni SDK has to support output as a human interface device to emulate analogue joystick controls.
Unfortunately Virtuix has not been able to comment on it yet.
The tracking will also recognize your walking speed and transfer it as analog signal. This analog signal will be processed according to the game (Integrated omni analog or not).
If the game doesn´t have Omni integrated it will only recognize walking/running or maybe slow walk for games like ARMA.
If the game will have Omni tracking it will know how fast you are moving on omni and do 1:1 translation into game to prevent motion sickness and stuff like that everyone is blablling about... you know the drill.
Raoul: Thanks for the link. It's good to hear that the Omni is capable of "analog" output. Up to this point, I've only heard of it emulating keystrokes. Even if it's only an HID keyboard with no HID joystick, that would at least give basic functionality. If the good folks at GlovePIE or FreePIE get ahold of the SDK and integrate it there, we're off to the races.
Chairman: I'd not heard of the Omni using capacitive tracking until you mentioned it. That's exciting news. I came up with 8 directions because everything official that I read stated that the Omni would emulate keystrokes, and you only get 8 directions with keystrokes.
Emulating a keyboard works, but is clunky. Emulating a mouse interferes with aiming. Emulating a joystick (either out of the box, or via GlovePIE/FreePIE) or direct game integration, in my opinion, will offer the best game experience.