iPhone Motion Control

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Thefunkymunky
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iPhone Motion Control

Post by Thefunkymunky »

Hi everyone :) ,

This is my first thread here. I have been reading the VR section of the forums for a while and am blown away with the ideas and talent by some people.

So I'm currently waiting for my HMZ-T1 to arrive and have been thinking about using an iPhone 4S mounted to a gun controller to provide 1:1 motion control for fps games.

I tried it out quickly using an app called Mobile Mouse Pro which gives an option to use the iPhone's accelerometer & gyro to emulate a mouse on your PC. I tried using it with BF3 and after tweaking the mouse sensitivity a bit it seemed to work pretty well. The gyro mouse is only active when a button is held on the iPhone screen so you can simply let go and re-center to counter drift. I'm thinking the phone could be mounted on the side of gun grip so I could use my left thumb to toggle this on & off.

I have considered getting a wii gun accessory along with a motion plus controller but I can't really see any advantage over the iPhone as they both use the same tech, the iPhone even has a magnetometer for compass direction which I wonder if could be used somehow.

What do people think? Has anyone here used an iPhone's gyroscopic capability for anything like this?
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cybereality
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Re: iPhone Motion Control

Post by cybereality »

I haven't tried this, but it should be possible. Accuracy should be alright, but I'd be more concerned about dropping the thing in the heat of battle. At least you know the Wiimote can take a hit, and even if it broke you're only out $40 bucks. But it will probably work if you want to try it.

You might want to get this gun attachment:

Image
http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/07/hasb ... eneration/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Thefunkymunky
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Re: iPhone Motion Control

Post by Thefunkymunky »

Thanks Cyber, yeah I looked at an iPhone gun accessory very similar to that but unfortunately the mouse emulator app won't work correctly with the phone in that orientation.

It will work however if the phone is mounted on the side of a gun so I am thinking of buying this and fixing an iPhone mount to the side by the front analogue stick.

Image

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Cabelas- ... BIK-634336

As far as I can tell the gun is just a PS3 controller that uses a USB dongle to connect so I assume it would work with MotioninJoy and I could map the buttons and analogue sticks to keyboard commands.
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Thefunkymunky
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Re: iPhone Motion Control

Post by Thefunkymunky »

Just an update for anyone who is interested.

I managed to find an xbox 360 version of the topshot elite gun controller on ebay and it works perfectly with the microsoft xbox controller dongle for the PC.

It has 7 buttons in total, two analog sticks, a 4 way d-pad and a trigger on both the firing trigger and the pump action reload. It also has an optical sensor and a battery powered sensor bar like a wiimote.

I have strapped my iPhone to the top of the gun and am using an app called air mouse to emulate the mouse using the iPhones gyro and accelerometer.

Just doing some testing with BF3 running in stereoscopic 3D on my HMZ-T1 with this setup and it's working pretty well! After a bit of tweaking with the iPhone sensitivity and mapping all the buttons on the gun I have to say the immersion is amazing. There is a bit of a problem with the mouse emulation drifting out particularly vertically but I have now mapped the front analog stick to the view control so I can correct this when needed.

I may upload a video showing the setup and of it running if anyone is interested
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pierreye
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Re: iPhone Motion Control

Post by pierreye »

The rifle looks good and easy enough to incorporate to FPS if it detect as Xbox Controller. How's the trigger and button quality. Does it feel shaky and loose compare to actual xbox controller or ps3 controller. I would feel that the trigger quality would be an important factor to consider.
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cybereality
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Re: iPhone Motion Control

Post by cybereality »

Looking good.
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Thefunkymunky
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Re: iPhone Motion Control

Post by Thefunkymunky »

@pierreye The quality of the controller is quite good, the trigger has a decent amount of spring (a bit more than an xbox controller trigger) although the analog sticks are a bit loose. Also the adjustable stock is nice, overall it's a handy simple gun controller to use for VR setups.
space123321
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Re: iPhone Motion Control

Post by space123321 »

With the air mouse app - do you have to touch the iphone screen to enable mouse movement, or is there a setting to turn the tracking on without having to touch the screen?
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Thefunkymunky
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Re: iPhone Motion Control

Post by Thefunkymunky »

You can touch and hold the motion button to move the mouse or you can double tap it to activate the tracking so you don't have to touch it again. It's the only app I could find with such a feature after testing a few different ones.
space123321
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Re: iPhone Motion Control

Post by space123321 »

perfect - thanks!
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