Help configuring Thrustmaster 3 in 1 joystick as movement device

[chrisbreitling]

I went to the preferences | Movements | Other Devices and enabled the ThrustMaster 3 in 1 device to make movement control more natural (to me).

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=49&Itemid=65&limit=1&limitstart=3

That's the controller I am talking about. When I go into its configuration in the viewer I see that the JoyStick Monitor barely registers anything.

I also noticed that it kind of resets itself. What I mean is that if I move the joystick to the left the avatar moves briefly to the rest and stops. If I keep the joystick to the left it is supposed to keep on moving to the left. Same for moving forward. I wanted to configure this joystick and its buttons to do this:

1. Move forward & backward (Y position, left joystick)

2.. Move left & right (X position, left joystick)

3. Rotate left & right (Slider/Z rotation, right joystick)

And then configure some of the buttons to do this:

a) pop up map

b) pop up radar

c) pop up nearby chat

d) hide all GUI (CTRL+SHIFT+U)

e) Control Walk / Run / Fly

f) Control View Front, View Rear (don't care much for View Side)

 

I know at least the movement part (forward, backward, left, right, rotation) should be possible. But as in any joystick if you keep the joystick on that position of the axis (rather than its resting position) it should keep on moving along that axis.

[Jenni Darkwatch]

You need to disable the "3D Cursor" checkbox. That one really only makes sense for the Space Navigator (or any of a handful of other true 3D "mice").

By default the Joystick Monitor does indeed not display much, but they will increase if you increase the numbers in the control mode columns (to the left of the monitor).

You will probably also want to adjust which joystick channel maps to which axis/rotation. For any axis that you do not want mapped, just set the channel to -1.

Roll mapping is one rotation that's more or less disabled by default. To re-enable it, uncheck "Auto Level".

Personally, I find moving the avi with a joystick cumbersome, but I don't want to live without flycam anymore. Flycam gets activated by pressing button 1 on you joystick. No idea which one that is though, you may need to experiment

[chrisbreitling]

Thank you very much Jenny for the useful response with that I finally got it working fine! The X (button #1) on this joystick seems to map to the Zoom/Walk functionality.

If I press it once (X) I can use the left joystick for moving forward/backward and sideways and if I presss the X button again then those same axis work as Zoom/Pan and Rotate camera left/right. The right joystick is always doing some sort of rotation.

This works absolutely fine for me. Normally I use the arrows to move but it can get pretty awkward. The joystick allows me to do some much more smoother control on zoom/pan & rotate.

Thanks a million!

[chrisbreitling]

Two problems with it though...

1. When you disable the 3D checkbox then one is no longer able to use the viewer's menu (I am using SL 3.3 viewer). One has to exit the application and restart it to get it working.

2. When active the usual Camera Controls dialog is rendered inoperable big drawback

[Jenni Darkwatch]

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chrisbreitling wrote:

Two problems with it though...

1. When you disable the 3D checkbox then one is no longer able to use the viewer's menu (I am using SL 3.3 viewer). One has to exit the application and restart it to get it working.

2. When active the usual Camera Controls dialog is rendered inoperable

big drawback

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1. The 3D checkbox doesn't affect anything other than the way the joystick information is interpreted as. With this box checked, the controls are considered to be relative to a spatial centerpoint. An example would be a 3D mouse, or the Microsoft Kinect sensor. A joystick (or gamepad) generally does not fit that category of controls. It certainly does not affect the mouse and/or menu functions in SL. If it does, you either have really weird hardware or you found a bug.

2. The joystick controls do not affect the normal camera controls, UNLESS you're in flycam mode. In flycam they're indeed inoperable. To get back to normal camera controls you'll have to get out of flycam mode _and_ snap the camera back. The easiest way to snap it back is IMO by just pressing an arrow key.

If you like, you can file a bug on the JIRA about #2. There already is a Jira about the lack of a flycam indicator in the HUD (there used to be a button for flycam): https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-17014

Considering the JIRA entry is about 18 months old, I wouldn't hold my breath on a fix.