Game Controller Support

dbox | 2007-04-18 15:47

Blurb Play sauerbraten console-style with your game controller of choice...

Screenshot Game Controller Support

Detailed description

Just for kicks I thought I would see if I could set up game controller support for Sauerbraten. I know most serious PC gamers would never dream of giving up the mouse. Personally, I sometimes get tired of being hunched over the computer and find it relaxing to sit back on the couch and play console-style. So if you've got a pc game controller with at least one stick (preferably analog) on it you might give this a shot.

UPDATE: 04/23/2007 - Changed the joystick configuration menus to use some of sauer's new gui features (e.g. sliders, checkboxes, etc.). This makes the configuration screen a little more intuitive and reduced the number of sub-menus I needed.

Setup
The following steps will install the game controller support. The files are installed along side the existing sauerbraten files and will not affect the ability to play the unmodified original game.

STEP 1: Backup the data/keymap.cfg file if you want to keep the original
(the changes are additive and will not affect the original game)
STEP 2: Extract this archive into your Sauerbraten directory.
STEP 3: Execute the sauerjoy.bat file.
STEP 4: Configure your controller by typing "/joymenu" in-game (without quotes)

Menu Configuration
Users can now configure game controllers using the intuitive menu-driven interface. Simply type /joymenu in-game to see the following menu:

Show Menu

From this menu you can configure all of the joystick settings. I recommend that you first set show events to yes before setting the other properties. This will cause the joystick events to be displayed in the console as buttons are pressed or axes are moved. This should help when deciding which button, pad or axis to use with each setting or action.

For any who might have been familiar with previous versions of this mod, Sauerbraten's new 3d menus have allowed me to implement some new features. There is a now a new setting, "emulate mouse", which will map a joystick button to mouse clicks. This is useful for using the game controller to select menu options, so you don't have to keep switching between mouse and game controller while you're playing.

How it works:
This section is here for those who might be interested in doing custom scripting, or interested in how the code works. If you aren't interested in this, you might just want to skip down to the Disclaimer section.
Basically, I took the approach that I would intercept joystick events and translate them into sauerbraten keypress events. This allows joystick events to be "bound" to actions like you would any other keyboard or mouse event.

Config File Settings
The following new variables have been defined to configure the joystick. Once set, they will be automatically placed in the autoexec.cfg. The joystick can be completely configured using the dynamic menus.

joyfovxaxis / joyfovyaxis
This setting specifies which stick should control the field of view (what the mouse does for you now). Each stick has a horizontal and a vertical axis. Each axis is numbered starting with 1. So, for example, on my controller, which is very similar to the one pictured above, if I wanted the use the left stick the settings would be:
joyfovxaxis 1 joyfovyaxis 2
or
joyfovxaxis 2 joyfovyaxis 1
depending on how your controller numbers the axes.

If you wanted to use the right one (recommended) the settings would be:
joyfovxaxis 3 joyfovyaxis 4
or
joyfovxaxis 3 joyfovyaxis 4

joyfovinvert
Specifies how the stick controls your field of view. If set to 0 you will look in the direction you press on the stick. If set to 1 (inverted) the control works like a flight simulator: pull back on the stick to nose up, push forward to nose down. This is the default.

joyaxisminmove
This property sets up the minimum amount of movement that is required to trigger an event when binding axis movements to actions. The range for this setting is 1-30. If set to 1 you basically just have to breath hard on the stick and it will trigger the event. If set to 30 you'll have to push it practically to the edge. The default is 8.

joysensitivity
This is the property you'll probably end up tweaking the most. On certain maps where you're getting really low fps you might need to bump this up a bit. The range for this setting is 1-10 where 1 is the least sensitive and 10 is the most. Remember, these values can be set from within the game. Just type /joysensitivity n at the console to bump the sensitivity up or down, or better yet, create an alias and map this to a couple of your joystick buttons. (See the response below titled "Joystick Sensitivity Script" for an example of how to do this.)

joyshowevents
This property is meant to be used when configuring your game controller. When joyshowevents is set to 1, all joystick events will be displayed in the console. This will help you determine which button to use when binding actions to the joystick, as well as which axis to use for movement and field of view control.

For example, if you want to use a certain button to fire your gun, press that button and you will see something like this displayed in the console:
JOYBUTTON7: DOWN JOYBUTTON7: UP
You can then bind that button from within the game by typing:
/bind JOYBUTTON7 [attack]
(Binding joystick events is discussed further in the next section.)

This is also useful for configuring the field of view axis. In this case you just move the axis to the left and right and then up and down. This will display which axes are being moved which you can use to set the joyfovxaxis and joyfovyaxis values.

Binding Joystick Events
There are currently three types of joystick events you can bind to actions:

Binding Buttons
I've left space for up to 20 joystick buttons that can be bound to the action of your choice. For example, I wanted to map "attack/shoot" to my right trigger finger button, and "jump" to the trigger finger on the left. On my controller the right trigger button is button 8 and the left trigger button is button 7, so I added the following lines to my autoexec.cfg file:
bind "JOYBUTTON8" [attack] bind "JOYBUTTON7" [jump]

Binding Stick Movements
I've left space for up to 5 sticks (10 total axes) that can be bound to actions. I wanted to use the left stick to control my movement: push forward on the stick to move forward, back to move backward, right and left to strafe. So, I added the following lines:
bind "JOYAXIS1MIN" [left] bind "JOYAXIS1MAX" [right] bind "JOYAXIS2MIN" [forward] bind "JOYAXIS2MAX" [backward]

Binding Pad Movements
Some controllers, like the one in the picture above, have those little up/down/left/right "pad" or "hat" controls. In the picture above I have up mapped to zoom-in and down mapped to zoom-out. The binding for that would look like this:
bind "JOYHAT1NORTH" [fov 15; crosshairsize 50] bind "JOYHAT1SOUTH" [fov 110; crosshairsize 22]
You could also use that pad for controlling your movement. That would look like this:
bind "JOYHAT1NORTH" [forward] bind "JOYHAT1NE" [forward; right] bind "JOYHAT1EAST" [right] bind "JOYHAT1SE" [backward; right] bind "JOYHAT1SOUTH" [backward] bind "JOYHAT1SW" [backward; left] bind "JOYHAT1WEST" [left] bind "JOYHAT1NW" [forward; left]

Disclaimers:

This is built from the 2007-04-13 spring edition of Sauerbraten.
This works for all(2) of my controllers. I do not know if it will work for you. (Please try it out and let me know.)
If your game controller does not have at least one stick, this will not work.
This supports only one game controller. If you have more than one connected, I'm just going to take the first one I find.
If no game controller is recognized, or the game controller cannot be initialized for whatever reason there will be no notification, sauerbraten will just load as normal.
I have not tried this on linux yet.
Note to Cube Players: I have discontinued including updates for the Cube code and executables. You can still get it here. If there was enough interest in the Cube/ActionCube community, I would consider continuing Cube support.

Let me know what you think. I would appreciate any and all feedback.

- dbox

Mod file sauerjoy.zip (264.16 KB)

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Comments

marvin2k | 2007-04-18 18:52

very interesant mod!!!
congratulations!

rcdraco | 2007-04-27 14:12

This will make Single player, and multiplayer a little better for people who own these devices, $12 at Walmart, but the only flaw that I could see is Coopedit mode, where you need the mouse contol style.

dbox | 2007-04-27 14:38

Thanks, there actually is a feature I put into the latest release that allows you to select a joystick/gamepad button that will simulate mouse clicks. The main motivation was to interact with the sauerbraten menus. However, I did notice that in edit mode this also allows you make cube selections.

If there is enough interest I could definitely add in full support for edit mode. One of the main things that would be needed to do this is to simulate the scroll wheel events. That won't even require a coding change. You would just need to add the following lines to the data\joystick.cfg file:


joyaction "scroll wheel up"   "universaldelta 1"
joyaction "scroll wheel down" "universaldelta -1"

Then you can use the menus to map the scroll wheel actions to your game controller's axis, pad, or buttons of choice.

With just a little more research I could probably make sure we can support the different editing modes as well. Currently this is done by holding T, G, Q, etc. depending on what editing action you're trying to do.

Quin | 2007-05-14 07:38

Hi, I was wondering if you would mind if I integrated SauerJoy with SauerMod (with a certain level of modification to bring it in line with Sauerbraten coding standards). I have enough on my plate with SauerMod (for the bigger part), as well as Eisenstern, and Sauerbraten Documentation, and don't have the time to invest in making my own, although joypad support is sorely needed for the Side Scrolling Platformer and the upcoming Kart Racer.

It may benefit SauerJoy (and definately SauerMod) as I keep it up to date with the current Sauerbraten CVS tree at all times (not to mention that I try to work closely with the entire development community). If you're interested in continuing SauerJoy as an extension of SauerMod (as it may ease your update process to have someone else do it), you're more than welcome to join the project and maintain your little part, otherwise I would just need your permission to go ahead with the integration, and I'll maintain it myself. I will also be looking at doing Nintendo Wiimote support in the near future too.

dbox | 2007-05-17 22:26

You're more than welcome to integrate SauerJoy into SauerMod. I'm happy to see some interest. I'm curious to know what you would propose regarding bringing the code in line with Sauerbraten coding standards. I did make an effort to follow the guidelines in the docs when I initially wrote the first versions. However, it's been a while since then and I don't at all doubt that I'm out of compliance.

I'd be happy to contribute to the SauerMod project. I actually have another update that I've been meaning to post that enables the user to specify alternate button mappings when in edit mode. The changes will allow a gamepad/joystick user to map editing features to gamepad/joystick events so they can actually use the joystick to edit maps.

In addition, I think there is more that can be done to fine tune the level of control. But I was waiting to do that based on any feedback I received. I have a fairly demanding job, so my availability varies, but I welcome the opportunity to participate in your project. If you would like to contact me directly, you can do so here: davidwbox AT netscape.net

Homicidal | 2007-05-22 17:06

hello ive been useing your joy mod 4 some time now and i love allmost eveything about

things i dont like
is that the tuning seems to be jerkey not smooove like the mouse ;) also the menus are kind of complex & technical (joyaxisminmove=WTF)

things id like 2 see
auto binding would also be good Ie(press the button on the joypad that u want as the fire button) 3 axis sidewinder joystick support ;)

all i all a great mod keep up the dev on it has great potencial :P)

dbox | 2007-05-23 04:02

I'm glad to know it's getting some use out there. I appreciate the suggestions regarding the configuration menu. They could definitely stand to be a little more intuitive. The auto binding could be a good approach to achieve this.

I also would definitely like to improve the overall performance and level of control. Can you tell me a little more about your experience with it? You mentioned that the movement seems jerky. Do you notice this at more times than others? For example, does it seem worse on maps where you get lower fps?

Also, I'd be curious to know what type of controller(s) you've tried with it (aside from the sidewinder... which by the way, I think should work). Have you tried using the sidewinder, or was that part a joke?

Homicidal | 2007-05-25 04:47

so far ive tested a sidwinder pro and gge908 game pad a ps2 controler and a madcatz 12 button 4axis game pad

the movemet is jerky and tends 2 chug a lot like a rusy bike chain :)
espceially when turning and aiming, when the cam is bound 2 your movemt anyway
that seem's 2 be the cause of a lot of the jerky turning

is works good if u leave the the look unboud (ie bind the look controls 2 a diff stick :( )

the side winder did work alltho 3rd axis got suck looking up and i had 2 reboot sauer

bind the left/right Look 2 the left/right turning but leve the lookup/lookdown axis free

like quake1.quake2

kevinfish | 2007-06-25 23:44

Hi, I've tried to get the above gamepad to work under with Sauerbraten via your instructions. It doesn't seem to even recognize it because /joymenu doesn't work and there is no mention of joysticks on any of the options menus. The joystick works with other linux games though. I thought I saw mention that it worked with non-analog (e.g. usb) joysticks. Do you have any ideas what I might be able to do?

Thanks,
-Kevin

freariose | 2010-03-20 17:06

how did you compile this? im on a windows, but i can't seem to figure out how to get code::blocks to work with me, it says that it can't compule cube 2 because it has a wrong type or something

MeatROme | 2010-03-20 19:59

The last post on this thread is almost three (3) years old - I haven't seen dbox for almost as long - don't expect any support on this!
Getting Code::Blocks to work is probably something you should ask in the Code::Blocks community, although there have been discussions on the cubeforum, AFAIK the MingW shipping with CB is broken (or at least was at some point).