Hooky: Input Injection (Joysticks and other things) in Second Life

http://www.nonpolynomial.com/content/2005/09/hooky_input_inj.php

Second Life comes with 2 control mechanisms; keyboard and mouse. There's very little problem getting around in the world with these two methods. However, at Nonpolynomial Labs we believe that input can be as much part of the world as the client itself. Out of that idea grew Hooky, an input injector for Second Life.

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So yeah, you can now use joysticks, foot pedals, kitcnen sinks, or whatever else in your house that supports DirectInput to play Second Life. I'm not sure if you could do this before, but if you could, I wasn't aware of it. It's a very, very crude implementation at the moment, but this release is purely proof of concept, to give other developers an idea of how this should work so they can start their own projects.

Even though I talk about analog control in the article, it's not currently in the client. There's also very little commenting in the code at the moment. All of this will change over the next few days, so keep an eye on my page, and I'll make another post when appropriate.

You and your brilliant experiments are a great boon to our society!

Thinking about methods of input gets me thinking back to the days when I made techno music and suggested to some laptop studio friends that they get synth controllers with keys, knobs, and sliders instead of entering in data with keyboard and mouse. I was surprised how skeptical they were until they actually gave these things a whirl.

When I first came to SL, I wanted actual foot pedals to stomp on so I could walk and talk more fluidly. Certain scripted attachments like ones by Timeless Prototype and Rickard Roentgen have helped in this regard (aside from the jerky motion which doesn't look like it can be helped much at this stage), but I still hope and dream for the day all my limbs will be put to good use controlling SL... closer to my dream of a "liquid interface".

Ever see that movie Kung-Fu Hustle, with the two "harpist" dudes who use a musical instrument in a rather unconventional way? Heck, if I could interface to SL like that with a ribbon controller to scroll through my inventory and manipulate objects, plucking and rezzing them out like beads on a superstring.

Can ya tell I dig automation?

Oh yeah, forgot to mention, in world version of the article is at Nonpolynomial Labs, Deneb (206, 19

Another cool project. Very neat work!

I'd like a like... a full body suite, that I could wear and stand inside a thingy and my movements would go to my avatar. That'd be cool.

I have hooked up a stationary bicycle and a laser mouse to SL. When I spin the tires it sends little mouse movements to a program which sends keyboard clicks to the client.

I use this to power a bicycle inworld with wings so I can fly around SL, explore and get exercise at the same time. Depending on how energetic I am feeling, I set it so I have to pedal a certain amount or my flying cycle starts to fall.

I think there are a lot of things like this which would work great for SL.

Wow, that's awsome. Yeah I'd love to see more hardware with SL. LL was originaly going to make their own, but had to make software for it first, so went down that road. Would be awsome if finaly the hardware caught up with it.

Iron, that's the same project I'm working on! I'm hauling my exercise bike up to the lab this weekend so I can fly through the world using the EyeSore system. Do you have any pictures?

Oh yeah, and since I seem to enjoy not putting all of my replies in just one message...

Torley, just curious, what attachments are you talking about?

And... If anyone has any ideas they'd like to see implemented, but they don't have time or programming experience, please feel free to contact me. I'll be more than happy to make customized versions of Hooky for anyone that needs them.

So can I grab things with my P5 glove now?

Timeless Prototype makes the Walk and Talk, as used in the SL Relay For Life.

Rickard Roentgen has an auto-walker which I think works similarly, conceptually, but I haven't talked to him about it recently.

Both are scripted, commands will keep walking your avatar forth and you nav with arrow keys while balancing that with your typed output.

gives sexballs a whole new possuibility, doesn't it?

Haha, I remember back in the late 90s, something called the FUFME, patterned after the old CUCME thing. It was actual devices you could buy to attach to yourself and have a two-way cybersex thing. Kind of scary, really, in the way of Japanese uber-advanced toilets with all the buttons, IMHO...

I'd look it up, but am at work.

Pym

There is also a thing out there called a "televibe" where someone can control a vibrator while they are on the phone or by computer.

Isn't that just force feedback on our uh, well, joysticks?
We do that all the time to eachother in games then. You shoot me I get a jolt. They shoot you, you get a jolt. I blow myself up then I get a, uh
Yeeaah, not my kinda thing.

qDot, was that you that made the exercise bike controller usable in SL?

qDot, in a world full of geeks, you are our emperor. I love reading about your SL tinkering. Keep it up!

and I'm writing some neural network software to do pattern rec on 32 channels of EEG to attempt and learn associations between EEG patterns and various keystrokes...you can see where that's going....


I'm not totally flying blind on this. My PhD thesis did this with abnormal patterns in the EEG.

Gimme about 2 years to get this right...

Oh, cool. I remember playing a game like that at a video arcade in Seattle in 2000, and it was both hard work and wonderful fun!