Modding, Mission Design, and Coding > Test Builds
Joystick response curves
CountBuggula:
Would this need gui support before it could be merged in trunk? If not, is there any instability issue that would preclude merging?
Achillion:
I've been using it quite a bit and there are no instabilities (that I've seen). I can't really claim that I've tested all curves exhaustively. I can't say whether a GUI would be needed before adding it - I'll let the devs answer that.
The only reason for not merging is that it's hard to make clear what the flag does (which curve is which) without reading some documentation. Perhaps I could add a wiki entry for it (the descriptions are already written, anyway).
In a perfect world, it would be great to have a curve editor, where people can adjust their own curves however they want. That's where this idea started, but ended up getting simplified to a few common curves that can be switched. I don't expect something like that (a curve editor) to happen soon (at least, I don't think I'll be making it), so a few alternatives to switch between is the next best thing, in my opinion. The only thing I'm worried about is whether there are specific curves that are more appropriate for specific types of controllers (gamepads, different joystick types/brands, etc). It would be cool to be able to recommend to people what curve would give the best response given the controller they are using, but that would require testing each option for a while with each different controller type.
jr2:
Perhaps have one of the curve options be to read a customizable curve from a file? e.g., define your own custom curve if you know what you are doing. Dunno if that would be hard to code or not but at least it would make it possible to swap good curves with other users of same / similar controllers. I dunno, just an idea.
CountBuggula:
--- Quote from: Achillion on September 23, 2014, 03:23:59 pm ---I've been using it quite a bit and there are no instabilities (that I've seen). I can't really claim that I've tested all curves exhaustively. I can't say whether a GUI would be needed before adding it - I'll let the devs answer that.
The only reason for not merging is that it's hard to make clear what the flag does (which curve is which) without reading some documentation. Perhaps I could add a wiki entry for it (the descriptions are already written, anyway).
In a perfect world, it would be great to have a curve editor, where people can adjust their own curves however they want. That's where this idea started, but ended up getting simplified to a few common curves that can be switched. I don't expect something like that (a curve editor) to happen soon (at least, I don't think I'll be making it), so a few alternatives to switch between is the next best thing, in my opinion. The only thing I'm worried about is whether there are specific curves that are more appropriate for specific types of controllers (gamepads, different joystick types/brands, etc). It would be cool to be able to recommend to people what curve would give the best response given the controller they are using, but that would require testing each option for a while with each different controller type.
--- End quote ---
How about a dropdown in the settings gui with icons showing the curve, so even if you don't know exactly what each one might be ideal for different controllers, you at least get a visual representation and make make a semi-informed decision from that? I'm pretty sure I've seen similar functionality in other games/sims using joysticks.
Achillion:
--- Quote from: CountBuggula on September 24, 2014, 10:35:38 am ---How about a dropdown in the settings gui with icons showing the curve, so even if you don't know exactly what each one might be ideal for different controllers, you at least get a visual representation and make make a semi-informed decision from that? I'm pretty sure I've seen similar functionality in other games/sims using joysticks.
--- End quote ---
That would be pretty cool, actually. Solves the issue of having to look up what each option represents and also makes the availability of different curves obvious to a player who hadn't considered it.
I've been thinking a bit about what jr2 said about custom curves. I'm too busy these days to implement user-defined response curves. The current curves are purely functional (response = f(input), where f is the curve function), but I've seen games which let you define the response sensitivity based on input bands/ranges. IL-2 comes to mind, which basically lets you draw your own curve using a series of sliders (see here).
First thing that comes to mind for implementing this is just shoving a sequence of numbers at the command line, or through a file and then populating a lookup table so that response = lotable[input_int]*input, where lotable would just be an array that holds the user-defined response values and input_int is some integer representation of the input percent (e.g., input_int = (int)(length(lotable)*input) --- I'm sure there's a better way to do this).
EDIT: Might give it a shot next month, when things are quieter work-wise.
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