Make to buttons from a joystick

Unity Engine
,
1

I want to make a ‘previous’ and a ‘next’ action, two different discrete actions. I have two different control types, one where this is two different physical buttons, and one where I want it to be left and right push on a joystick.

It seems to me that this is not possible? Is it even possible to convert an analog into a button to begin with? I know shoulder triggers on gamepads have a “button version” of itself. But it seems like you cannot interpret a stick into multiple discrete button actions.

Of course this is trivial to do in code, but with this gigantic super abstracted Input system the we find ourselves encouraged to use, I think it should really be possible.

Am I missing something?

Thanks in advance!

2

You can do it the other way around! With 1D Axis, you can convert two physical buttons into an axis:

6681127--765790--upload_2021-1-2_15-18-56.png

Using the ‘cycle’ example in my screenshot, you could use it from code in two ways:

void Awake()
{
    m_Controls = new SimpleControls();

    m_Controls.gameplay.cycle.performed +=
        ctx =>
    {
        var cycle = ctx.ReadValue<float>();
        if (Mathf.Abs(cycle) >= 1f)
        {
            // I think performed is fired each time the value increases, so
            // we only want to respond at the maximum.
            Debug.Log($"From event handler: {cycle}", this);
        }
    };
}

void Update()
{
    var cycle = m_Controls.gameplay.cycle.ReadValue<float>();
    if (Mathf.Abs(cycle) >= 1f)
    {
        // TODO: ignore this input until it's released.
        Debug.Log($"From Update: {cycle}", this);
    }
}

(Additional refinement required, but you get the idea.)