Controller support for Android?

[Day]

Sorry, one more question for Nik,

what does Cross, centre drain area, map to ? Nudge ? Is this the same as Analog_Right in centre of PF ?
and also what function do Right and Left perform ?

thanks
Day

 

[Nik Barbour]

Morning Nik



many thanks for this, for words of encouragment and for sharing your sixaxis controller touch profile. I'm going to scratch what i have and remodel on yours, because as you say, "It pretty much does everything" big scores ahead



I'm interested and intrigued enough as to how different this will feel to be willing to use L1 and R1 as flippers even when i find holding the sony controller this way a little cramped. I never had a sony PS 1, 2 or 3) and so have never gotten used to this controller. I would always have used Saitek or Thrustmaster on PC,and i bought the Sony just to get some better control in PBA on Nexus 7.

One other thing i noticed yesterday is a setting called analog poll rate ("increasing this value should help improve performance"). Do you know, is this applicable to the flipper buttons of only to the two analog sticks? (sorry if this sounds like an obvious, dumb question). I'm gonna try anyway, push the value from 3 (default) to 10 and see if flippers respond quicker (and if sixaxis battery drains quicker).



I've seen this done in RL years ago- nudging the ball whilst cradling - but i don't do that and cant think what benefit this would bring. Not applicable to me therefore but cheers for the hint anyway.



I'll report back on perceived improvement. empirical measure will of course be evident on the Leaderboards

RBION top 50, here i come
Look Out !

Morning Day - the more you experiment with sixaxis the better you can tune it. I still regularly tweak settings if I think of an improvement.

I believe the poll rate setting affects all controller functions (but I'm not certain) I've been running mine at about 5.
Edit - bad advice - clues in the option name - its how many times per sec the app checks the analogue positions. Therefore it won't affect controller battery use, but will use more device resources the higher its set.

As for which buttons to what controls - just go with what feels natural to you, as the faster you can react without thinking about controls, the better your scores will be.

Also - note on the profile I posted, the right analogue, (which I use for plunging) has to be resized larger, so the on screen action covers the same space as you would pull your finger back on screen.

Post up any tweaks and ideas you have.

Glad to hear from another sixaxis user!

 

[ER777]

I'd agree - I rooted to get round touchscreen controls, but Farsight and Zen should both implement customisable keyboard control options.
But....... it's almost 12 months and neither have, so it's really up to you how much you want physical controller option. Root or don't nobody's gonna force you.

Of course you're right on both points. I would be more inclined to root if gaming was the primary purpose for the device. But since its not I probably won't.

If they did add key-mapping options I would certainly purchase more tables on Android (I've only bought 2 so far - TZ and STTNG, mostly just to show support for the licenses). I'm not sure if there would be enough other people like that to make it worth their while but a few extra sales may result at least.

 

[chemmerling]

Keyboard interaction would be wonderful. My friend has an Transformer tablet with dock/keyboard combo, and he is able to use his keyboard for all sorts of things (gamewise). Adding keyboard layouts would be nice for those of us that want to play using controls, and would eventually help hardware makers to produce Pinball Arcade controllers (such as producing a cabinet with an android device in it).

 

[jaredmorgs]

...I'm not sure if there would be enough other people like that to make it worth their while but a few extra sales may result at least.

Sounds like we need a poll... ;-)

I think if controller support was offered, it would result in many more sales.

 

[Bogeyman]

I also vote for controller support. I tried to use my bluetooth keyboard (on android phone), but sadly there are no keys assigned to game events (flippers). I hope I will be able to play pinball from my couch someday.

 

[jaredmorgs]

I also vote for controller support. I tried to use my bluetooth keyboard (on android phone), but sadly there are no keys assigned to game events (flippers). I hope I will be able to play pinball from my couch someday.

You don't want to go down the path of rooting, right? You can use bluetooth keyboards just fine with USB/BT Joystick Center.

Heads up that the latest beta has default button maps enabled. No option to remap at this stage. Try it out with your keyboard and see how you go. I'm about to do the same.

 

[Rudy]

Figured I might as well post it here but does the current version of TPA work with the sixaxis app? I've managed to pair my device and configured the buttons just like that diagram above, but for some reason, once I start up TPA I can't use any buttons.

Do I have to do something with the profile before starting up the game? because I just pressed save and figured that'd map it.

Edit: yep, totally forgot to select my profile from the main screen once I'd got it sorted.

One more thing though, how do you increase the size of the touch area like your picture? I can't seem to create an area big enough for the plunger to work right.

 

[Baron Rubik]

One more thing though, how do you increase the size of the touch area like your picture? I can't seem to create an area big enough for the plunger to work right.

Go into 'edit touch profile' double tap the screen & load a touch profile to edit.
Press the button you wish to edit once and it should turn red.
Using a pinch zoom type action on the perimeter of the button edge, scale the button.
Touch the grey background to deselect the button.
Press back to exit the profile remembering to save your changes.

 

[Ryan Routon]

Just an update on this guys. I am going to have to wait until after the next table update to tackle that tech doc (Bobby has me working on some cool new tournament features so stay tuned there) to make everything backwards compatible, but thank you for testing what was in there temporarily! Gives me the confidence that we can get this working right in the end (unfortunately people below Honey comb will not be able to use joysticks and such, just no api for it).

However, I was able to get the feature in for next update this Friday that will include the new touch zones feature so that you can choose your touch zones and view them if possible. Gives you front nudge, front left, front right, etc.

 

[Baron Rubik]

However, I was able to get the feature in for next update this Friday that will include the new touch zones feature so that you can choose your touch zones and view them if possible. Gives you front nudge, front left, front right, etc.

- Big Sh1t eating smile on my face now. Cheers Ryan - can't wait!

Did you remember to normalise the diagonal nudges so they only count as one nudge to the tilt bob? I believe they forgot this and it initially counted as 2 nudges each press on ios (up & horizontal combined).

Any chance of leaving the existing (temporary) left/right flipper only controller mapping in place until the full native controller support can be added? or would that not be possible for the production build?

 

[Ryan Routon]

I'd rather wait until it's done right otherwise it will confuse customers, I can enable it for beta builds though if you like.

And yes I normalized the vector to have a magnitude of 1 in the diagonal =)

- Big Sh1t eating smile on my face now. Cheers Ryan - can't wait!

Did you remember to normalise the diagonal nudges so they only count as one nudge to the tilt bob? I believe they forgot this and it initially counted as 2 nudges each press on ios (up & horizontal combined).

Any chance of leaving the existing (temporary) left/right flipper only controller mapping in place until the full native controller support can be added? or would that not be possible for the production build?

 

[Baron Rubik]

I'd rather wait until it's done right otherwise it will confuse customers, I can enable it for beta builds though if you like.

And yes I normalized the vector to have a magnitude of 1 in the diagonal =)

Maybe better to leave it then, till you have some allocated time for it.
Don't want to make extra work for you.

Thanks again Ryan.

 

[Ryan Routon]

I need to see how today goes but I may give you guys a beta build tomorrow or wed. Stay tuned.

 

[netizen]

isn't tomorrow wed.

 

[Ryan Routon]

oops mistype, today or wed

 

[Munky]

Can't wait to have support for my moga pro built in....too much lag with usb joystick center on my Note 2. Sixaxis play with a dualshock 3 works great though. Still would prefer to use the moga.

 

[Mxyzptlk]

I got a Moga Pro today and am loving it. Works very well in HID mode on Zen, so I'm really looking forward to Pinball Arcade supporting it in the future. If you were to go the full optimized-route to allow right-stick support for ball launching and multidirectional nudging, that would be amazing. Love being able to view the full table on my tablet in portrait mode, but I've always wished I could use a controller instead.

 

[jaredmorgs]

I need to see how today goes but I may give you guys a beta build tomorrow or wed. Stay tuned.

It seems like you must have run into some blockers for releasing the Beta Build, @Ryan Routon.

Eagerly anticipating native controller support for the game. Definitely a big wish list item to cross-off.

 

[MontanaFrank]

It seems like you must have run into some blockers for releasing the Beta Build, @Ryan Routon.

Eagerly anticipating native controller support for the game. Definitely a big wish list item to cross-off.

I am eager also and am sure you are a very busy man.