FFR: Foot Pedals to drive SL "like a car" and more

FFR is my acronym for Future Feature Request. Emphasis on "Future", that this is merely wishful thinking in the present, but I hope it will entertain, and more importantly, get you thinking about additive improvements to SL down the timeline.

I will explain this simply, yo: I am not alone in finding it hard to navigate and talk at the same time. It looks awkward to me, in a variety of situations, to have to stop to talk instead of talking-on-the-go as is commonly done IRL. The reason behind this, of course, is humans tend to have two hands -- which are alternatively used for typing OR navigating. In most instances, it's difficult to do both in a simultaneous and smooooth fashion.

I am assuming (correct me if I am wrong) that most people use SL when seated at a desk or table or similar structure. Your feet go under the structure, and for the most part, unless you're a thumper-tapper like me, stay idle and relatively calm.

So... Wouldn't it be cool to have Foot Pedal controls for SL? Not unlike the game Dance Dance Revolution, it could be an inconspicuous pad on the floor that you use to walk forward and backward and even fly. And of course, you can use it with your vehicles in game ("game" used loosely, as to not displease Cat Omega). It would be more advanced, oh -- with graduated pressure like a car's gas pedal, so you don't have to Ctrl-R to run or accelerate. Just a footboard device, likely USB or whatever future technology is available, and while your hands are typing, YOU CAN WALK/RUN/FLY/ETC. AT THE SAME TIME, WITHOUT STOPPING. WHEEE!!!

I was thinking about this while thinking of the sustain pedals on a piano. You can put your feet to good use, and it'd increase immersion in that motion would be more intuitive.

Please do post if this excites you.

Nice idea

probably wouldnt make any profit for the lindens

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=foot+pedals+keyboard&btnG=Google+Search

who knows what you'll find

Torley, the Mousebutton API linked in my sig would allow that functionality.

The API defines 32 virtual mousebuttons, 1-3 being the normal ones, and any other input device with press-release functionality could map to any of the other 29 virtuals, most commonly via a config file.

It's called "Mousebutton" API only because the mouse is the default input device, and because pointer movement is normally implied. The latter is not essential though --- eg. for foot pedals or a steering column, the returned target would probably be the av position, or no position at all, or a normalized mapping of the input device ADCs into the position coordinate fields.

Input device positional changes don't yet have an event setup selector in the API, but it's trivial to add: eg.

MOUSE_POSITION_ABS   0x00000004  -- Bit 2 = 1: enable event callback on positional changes

Briefly, the API would let you set up input-activated events which are catchable by an LSL event handler within any attachment worn by the originator of the action (or in an object ridden by the originator), and also in the remote target that the pointer has touched. [I'm considering withdrawing the latter part though.] Needless to say, you could then do anything you like with the input information.

In case it's not clear, this isn't direct client-side functionality. LL's client would have to support the devices first (as it does the mouse), and the API merely manages the setup and handling of the resulting events.

If we had a fully XML'ified UI then this could be turned around completely and local devices could trigger actions specified in XML panels directly, which would be far far superior. However, we're not there yet, and there's little sign of full XML'ization any time soon.

Oddly enough, I recently wondered (for whatever reason), if it was possible to put a touch-pad mouse on the floor and mouse with my big toe. I didn't get as far as trying it.

You can actually typechat and move at the same time. You just have to be a good left-handed hunt-n-pecker..... ha! that's sounds funny. But, then you can use the arrows to move/turn/drive while still typing.

You could also buy one of those USB numpad attachments designed for laptops. Turn off the NUMLOCK, set it to the left of your keyboard and use your left hand to move, right hand to type.

You could go the complex route and buy a NASCAR steering wheel pedals, or those really expensive pedal sets for flight sims. They have configuration setups that could be modified for SL. Map the ARROW UP key to the GO pedal, and either DOWN ARROW or a turn key to the BRAKE pedal. If you get the setup with three pedals (a clutch) then you could map the left/rights to the pedals as needed.

You could also go the voice route... if you live alone of course. While you're typing, you can say "GO" and move forward until you say "STOP" or any other command. The voice software converts the command to a keystroke/combo and you're good to go. Would make for easier gesturing too...

touchpads are hard to operate with toes.


Considering the simplicity of a keyboard, it actually wouldn't be too hard to build this item.

Your standard keyboard has about 28 (give or take 5) different wires coming off the encoding chip. Connecting different wires produces different key strokes. At a good computer store you can buy a cheap keyboard for about 2$->5$ US. Most keyboards are held together with screws, get one that is held together with screws (as breaking glued keyboards is a bother). If you have an old keyboard lying around (as most of us do) you can just pull it apart. Make sure your keyboard works first.

This is the fun part. There are generally only 4 designs for keyboard.
1. Lots of little switches, only on very old keyboards.
2. traced circuit board or plastic film, where key bubble closes the circuit between two electrodes that are on the same piece of film.
3. the key bubble closes the circuit between two traced plastic films, the films are separated by a third film that has holes cutout of it to allow for closing the circuit.
4. Optical (you will know if you got one of these, they are expensive).

1, 2, or 3 are easy to work with. You just follow the tracings back to where they connect to the chip.

Then all you need to do is fabricate and solder everything together.

It appears that those nice folks at AT&T have already come up with a foot keyboard, called the "ShortStep".

From the little information presented, it appears to be a chording keyboard, where combinations of pedels are pressed to create keystrokes. But even a simple version that just handled the movement keys would free your hands for typing.

Just my L$5 worth...

Vote for it here

There's also some related discussion at this thread and possibly elsewhere. I picked this thread to bump because it was the oldest I could find on the topic, and because I hoped Torley would then vote for the proposal.

neko

Hehehe thanks Neko, I will be keeping my eyes on this. Wow I started this thread awhile back, didn't I? I'm in favor of alternative input methods... makes for more possibilities.

Many many years ago, a friend and I gave some Atari 400s to Stanford Children's Hospital. We also gave a "BioFeedback HeadBand" that had an included Atari Game that would use biofeedback from the headband plugged into the Atari's joystick port, to move a balloon on the screen up and down to avoid getting popped by things scrolling by...

I remember watching doctors, nurses and parents of a child that had never before in his life been able to effect anything outside of his body, burst into tears of shear joy as we watched this child realize that he was actually controlling the game, and doing so with obvious and increasing skill.

Yes to multiple input device support.

-Easy Wheeling

As some of my friends can attest, I've recently been experimenting with using a joystick on the floor to emulate my mouse. I've had mixed but generaly positive results, unless I'm doing something like art.

I am one of those active-feet type though.

Thank you, Easy. That's a great story.

These things are still happening. Here are a couple of good articles:

Games to take your breath away

Brain waves control video game

These are the kinds of things the InnerLife team would like to be able to work on in SL. We've got basic interfaces working through XML-RPC, but the latency in that system is far from ideal. Direct client support would be a huge improvement.

Meanwhile, if anyone knows of someone trapped in their physical body and wants to help them with a commercially available package, I recommend The Journey to Wild Divine. An assistant may need to help in navigating around the landscape, but the main activities are all controlled via biofeedback, and would be terrific for this purpose.

neko

This proposal has 182 votes. We need 500 to require acknowledgement from LL (though the HUD proposal passed with less than 200 votes).

Folks, if you had points saved up on the Pony option or Havok2 or some other now "approved" proposal, please consider shifting some votes to this proposal. There are a lot of great things we could do with this -- MIDI controlled instruments in SL, better driving games, joystick-controlled airplanes, dance pads to control animations -- the list goes on. We need a channel to get the data in, though. XML-RPC is just too slow (latency of at least 4 seconds).

Thanks,

neko

Holy watermelons, I remember this! Okeydoke, Neko, thanx for reviving... gonna show my support because I really want this for the future, it has many general and specific uses. It's been almost a year and I still am frustrated at not being able to multiple things more seamlessly.

BTW, one thing, how do you know "We need 500 to require acknowledgement from LL"?

To emphasize, for anyone who wants to vote, this is Prop 203!

See the comments on this proposal: Prop 477

I know they've also responded to several proposals with far fewer than 500 votes, but this looks like a commitment we can hold them to.

neko

A very simple to implement feature you see in other games is autorun/walk toggles. If you are in mouselook and have an automove feature (as in you automatically move forwards, regardless of any input) you can adjust your direction with the mouse occasionally during typing, and leave the keyboard entirely available for typing.

It's not perfect, but it's easy to implement and better than nothing, and once you get the hang of it you can be pretty good at the mouse/keyboard/typing multitasking thing.