Game Controllers... I like sliders!

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Sherrif of Nottingham

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I was wondering about what would be the best game controller for orbiter...

So I had this though process:

I work with lights in my school's theater alot more than I work with just about anything else, if you know light board controllers you may know that they have millions of sliders that you can control each individual light with a slider. Not that I'm gonna go in TOO deep about what they do. Just check this picture and read on.

board.jpg


Crap thats huge... and very low-res.

Anyway, as you can see it has lots of sliders (not our school's but very similar). I was wondering, that would be awesome if I could control the RCS with this badboy!

Just imagine being able to control only ONE axis at a time! Using two sliders you could slide left and right.

Now, that would be dreamy if I could just plugin a board get some kind of DMX out to USB in, then change it into a readable format that would make the board act like a Joystick, without the stick, but with tons of sliders!

But, I was hoping somebody could point out a game controller which could use 9 sliders (RCS Rot XYZ, RCS Lin XYZ, Engines Main\Retro\Hover) the stick would control the Control Surfaces, gimbal, and other stuff.

Being able to set it all up with FBW.8 would be wonderful!

Even if thats not quite available, any type of HOTAS and\or throttle quadrants you would suggest?
 
Hmmm, an interesting idea. I do a bit of lighting at school, and have wondered about computer interfaces for these boards, but generally getting the computer to control the board, not the other way around.

As you may have seen, many of these desks have a VGA port, and when you plug a monitor into it the monitor will show the levels of each channel amongst other things, thus one would assume it is possible to extract that data and use it as a game controller. I am not sure how you would go about doing it, but I am pretty sure it would be possible.
 
You would have to make a custom input-card/driver with DMX inputs. I don't think the soft(firm)ware in light mixer sends individual sliders through the parallel port.
 
You may want to check out this DMX512 to USB converter. That takes care of the hardware and they also have a software kit (GPL) to allow you to make sense of the serial input. As for interfacing that with Orbiter, you would need to create your own plugin module.
 
You can also try and disassemble an existing joystick and replace the existing pots with linear ones.
 
Sherrif of Nottingham said:
I was wondering about what would be the best game controller for orbiter...

So I had this though process:

I work with lights in my school's theater alot more than I work with just about anything else, if you know light board controllers you may know that they have millions of sliders that you can control each individual light with a slider. Not that I'm gonna go in TOO deep about what they do. Just check this picture and read on.

board.jpg
Click to expand...

You know you have been doing tech too long when you spend more time with the light bord than with your girlfriend.

You know you have been doing tech too long when you leave the theater you say you are going out, and when you get back you say your home.

Another sign is if you pretend you are Mr. Sulu on the bridge of the starship Enterprise. Answer imaginary orders from Captain Kirk and attempt to send the board to warp factor 6.
I got a ton more but cool seeing a techie on here!

May the gaff be with you.
 
I was just messing around with a program called Autohotkey to see if I could work out the buttons for my sidewinder. This is a free program that runs as an executable and takes a script file that you have to create and substitutes keyboard key presses when the appropriate joystick button is pressed. I just started to mess with this last night so I don't have anything to play with or post - so knock your selves out coders. Beat me to the punch. These same people have a GUI creator as well that this script engine can be coupled to. All in all looks pretty easy/neat for free.
 
Thanks for the replies

@unussapiens: Thats was exactly what I was thinking. If it could go out to the monitor, why couldn't I send it to my computer, then have it act like a game controller with 98 axis? + 24 Submasters.

@C3PO: As I said above, I thought you could. But if there was a custom converter to USB that would read DMX into a game controller that would be awesome!.

@mrspacely: That was actually the first thing, I was looking to see how a midi-controller would work. If I could convert it to send data (like a game controller) to the game it would work; probably better. I'm doing a light hang at Rice University in October... Obviously this is what I'm gonna spend my money on. Not expecting a whole lot, but something under $300 since I'm getting payed for student helping. Anyway if you know some cheap MIDI controllers and a way to send the right information I'm game! Anyway I suppose you mean a MIDI controller like this? Rotary isn't really my style.

mawzer-full.jpg


@tblaxland: I've seen those, though they are designed to make DMX controllable from your computer, I may be able to get it to work the way I want.

@yagni01: If worst comes to worst... I'd really rather not do a whole lot of tearing up of my dad's joystick. I was kind of rather hoping I could get a game controller that was designed to use lots of sliders, and just have to get orbiter to listen to it. I'd really rather not do a whole lot of wiring.

@adamb193: I do every single one of those things...

Also if anybody can suggest a good controller for me. I'd like to be able to control all three engines (Main Hover and retro) and yaw enabled. I've seen some throttle quadrants around, crappy looking plastic ones with bright green and purple... If anybody has seen a stylish throttle quadrant with rugged looking controls. I don't really like the red and blue...
Saitek_THQ_400px.jpg


If I go that route then I would like one like this... lolz...
TQ_Cockpitsonic.jpg


@Tachyon: ... thats the most confusing thing when that happens... anyway I've seen autohotkey... That will be nice for the joystick (kill-rot autopilot on the joystick is really nice i must tell you. and so is having speed up and slow time up there)
 
Tis sad that I call the light booth The Bridge, If you have a computer and a projector screen you can have a lot of fun with orbiter on the screen.
 
adamb193 said:
Tis sad that I call the light booth The Bridge, If you have a computer and a projector screen you can have a lot of fun with orbiter on the screen.
Click to expand...

What do you think I spend my time doing during long rehearsals? One of the biggest advantages of having an 8gb USB key is that you can fit multiple Orbiter installations (amongst other things on it).

I'm just waiting for a production where we'll need footage of a spacecraft...
 
unussapiens said:
What do you think I spend my time doing during long rehearsals?
Click to expand...

Actresses, flirt with said actresses, anything female, play games over the walktalkies, throw knifes, build stuff, sneak around the theatre, be a ninja. But yea when your in the theatre/ school from 7:00 am to 12:00 am you get a bit antsy. But you can re-enact missions in real time though, we use our computers though.


-----Posted Added-----


unussapiens said:
I'm just waiting for a production where we'll need footage of a spacecraft...
Click to expand...

I can see it now.
Apollo 13 the musical!
 
Sherrif of Nottingham said:
Also if anybody can suggest a good controller for me. I'd like to be able to control all three engines (Main Hover and retro) and yaw enabled. I've seen some throttle quadrants around, crappy looking plastic ones with bright green and purple... If anybody has seen a stylish throttle quadrant with rugged looking controls. I don't really like the red and blue...
Saitek_THQ_400px.jpg
Click to expand...
At least two of us use this TQ, and what you may not realize is. . . it comes with three of the black knobs. The different shapes are common in aircraft to distinquish controls in a 'lights out' situation or when you can't look down, and they detach so you can paint them any color you want. Worth it until you get to the next ($400) level.
 
Pretty old post, but I thought I'd give mt $0.02 worth.

I own the Philips Retractable Game Controller. It's neat because its laid out just like a PlayStation controller. I have two analog joyticks, one both control the shuttle in Orbiter, then I also have the other buttons, which can be assigned to mimic keyboard keys. I can do a total of probably 20 commands just by the controller.

I was going to buy a Joystick, but they were $20 at Walmart. I got my controller for $14.88!

I love the thing...
 
Sherrif of Nottingham said:
Anyway if you know some cheap MIDI controllers and a way to send the right information I'm game! Anyway I suppose you mean a MIDI controller like this?
Click to expand...

Yes I do know a MIDI fader controller, that is *very* inexpensive and even has motorized faders:

The Behringer BCF2000.

I'm not having shares in Behringer, trying to sell, or anything like that, but in my opinion this still is one of the most inexpensive fader MIDI controlers with high fader resolution you can get!

I wrote some code to write/read the data from this fader panel. Usualy, MIDI faders only have a resolution of 127 steps (7 bit). For music production this often is enough, maybe in your case for games too, but for our purpose we needed more.
The advantage of the BCF2000 is that you can send messages to setup each fader's resolution, up to 14 bit (16383 steps)....
Also you can set the BCF to output a message each time a fader position is changed.

regards,
mcduck
 
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