Are there step-by-step instructions for using the Wiimote as a Flycam controller under Windows 7?

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

The Web is full of lovely videos of people using the Wiimote (or the classic controller) with Second Life, mostly from 2006-2008. How did they do it? A mystery; I haven't found a link that shows all the steps. There might be very old tutorials that show how it's done, but even using the Wayback Machine to crawl sites that have disappeared years ago, I couldn't find a simple, straightforward tutorial...

So here is how far we've got. The Bluetooth adapter correctly finds the Wiimote; it is correctly labeled as "Nintendo" and as a valid "input device". With the proper tweaking, Windows 7 (64 bits) even recognizes it as a "sensor", although I understand that is not needed for Second Life.

I understand that we have to use GlovePIE to map the Wiimote's keystrokes into "joystick-compatible" commands (at this stage, we would be more than happy to just have the cursor keys being recognized as a joystick). However, the few links to GlovePIE scripts which allegedly do that are broken/not functional.

Very seldom, GlovePIE manages to establish a connection to the Wiimote. When that happens, the 1st and 4th blue led are locked (the 2nd and 3rd are turned off). Then, on the Manual tab, it's possible to change the emulation settings, e.g. from Wiimote to PPJoy (allegedly, SL uses the PPJoy libraries to emulate joysticks). When launching SL, the Advanced button on Movement will show the "Nintendo" as a valid controller, and the checkbox can, indeed, be checked. So, at this stage, we know that SL has identified the Wiimote, GlovePIE seems to be happy, and the Bluetooth adapter shows a lot of traffic being passed from the Wiimote to the laptop.

Unfortunately, "nothing happens". Pressing any buttons and/or moving the Wiimote around will not move anything inside the SL viewer.

After perhaps a minute — sometimes less — GlovePIE will become unresponsive. It doesn't really "crash" or show a spinning hourglass: it just stops responding (menus don't work, you cannot click on anything, etc.). And almost immediately afterwards, Bluetooth drops the connection (since it's an unpaired connection, the timeouts are very short...). One has to start again from scratch: close SL, force-quit GlovePIE, try to pair the Wiimote again (searching for Bluetooth devices), and so forth. This can be repeated ad nauseam with the same results. Sometimes the Wiimote drops the connection before GlovePIE launches; sometimes SL will recognize it, even if GlovePIE stopped being recognized, but nothing will work.

So clearly there is something missing here.

• Do we need a special device driver for the Wiimote? If so, where is it, and why doesn't anybody talk about it?
• What are the precise and exact settings for GlovePIE? Do we really need it? It seems a very archaic piece of software...
• Everybody talks about "joystick scripts" and how easy they are to write but... isn't there a good, working example of a  GlovePIE script that actually works with the Wiimote as Flycam controller? Because the rest is just guesswork: GlovePIE may be working or not, it's impossible to do even the simplest test, or get a feeling of what is wrong.
• Is there a "test application" where we can see that the Wiimote is sending the correct information that SL can understand? This is to put SL out of the equation, and make sure that at least everything else (Wiimote, Bluetooth, Windows Drivers, GlovePIE) are doing what they're supposed to do.

Please, no answers with links to videos! There are trillions of videos saying how cool it is to use the Wiimote with SL; they have been posted since 2006 or so. I have seen most of them, and I'm naturally impressed by what people can do with it, but the videos are worthless if you wish to configure things and have no clue about what you're supposed to be doing.

Also, please do not simply answer with:

• Pair the Wiimote with Windows 7
• Launch GlovePIE
• Add the correct GlovePIE script/use it in emulation mode
• Launch SL

because the few articles covering this subject say that! There is clearly more than that. I need much more detailed instructions, like we have for the Zion Tristan on the Wiki. You can see how you need to do very complex steps until you can get that controller to work. I'm sure that everybody who has used the Wiimote as a Flycam controller knows all those steps by heart and just nod wisely and say "oh, yeah, sure, you have to edit some XML/change the registry/install obscure software, but everybody knows that". I don't know anything :) — except that it's possible, and that people are, for some reason, reluctant to write a step-by-step tutorial about it and post it publicly...

[Rolig Loon]

The simple answer to your question is that there don't seem to be easily accessible instructions for doing what you want to do, but you knew that.  If I were trying to solve the problem, I think I'd turn to the gaming community in SL.  If anyone knows an answer, it's likely to be there.  You might try posting in the Games in Second Life forum or start a laborious quest through in-world grpups. 

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

That's a great suggestion, thanks, Rolig! I'll try that