Hey Everyone!
My new asset, InputPlus, has been released in the Asset Store. I wrote it as a bare-bones solution to make using gamepads with a computer a much nicer experience. I was inspired to create InputPlus out of my frustration as a player from trying to play various PC games with a gamepad. My solution lets players teach your game about their controllers, from there it’s easy as developers to let players know how to use their gamepad in your game.
I hope this solution can help your project! I’m looking forward to hearing feedback from users and also providing support for InputPlus.
Take the guesswork out of confusing button numbers and inconsistent controller functionality by letting your players teach your game about their controllers. Aimed at making a better player experience, InputPlus is the groundwork for better communication about gamepad controllers.
Features:
Players teach your game about their controller - easy for them, easy for you
See and manage all gamepads the same way in code
Use controller uniformity to display text or images about specific controller buttons (This is great for tutorials or when players unlock new abilities!)
Get rid of the pesky Axis#3 / trigger buttons issue with the xbox 360 controller!
Display raw data from all controllers for diagnostics
Source code provided
For Windows and OS X
(Linux, and mobile gamepad support is currently untested, but may work.)
My general impression is that others feel similarly once they need to look into things deeper. It’s easy enough to set your game up for your gamepad as a developer, but to have it work as intended across all controllers isn’t as easy of a problem to solve. By Unity’s default, new users are presented with a screen to set up their controls before playing the game. I’m all for being able to customize your controls, but as a player I prefer to first try the default settings as they were designed and as developers I think we have a responsibility to provide players with a well thought out default control scheme. With the inconsistencies in behavior and button numbers between all the various gamepads out there, achieving this is impossible to do with Unity’s default setup. InputPlus is designed so that once a player teaches your game about their controller, you’ll have consistent behavior from that controller.
However, ZJP, InputPlus still has to work within the confines of the Input Manager. But with along with my custom InputManager file, I feel I worked pretty well with what it provides to be able to work around the above mentioned problems. Some of the things the current iteration of the Input Manager (Unity v4.3.4) doesn’t handle consistently, from my tests, is disconnecting and connecting controllers in the stand alone builds among some other things. InputPlus provides an event on disconnect that you can use to handle controller disconnects, so you could, for example, offer a save option when it happens.
Let me know how it works out for you. I’d be happy to help with any questions or whatnot.
Hey everyone, I just wanted to let you know I’ve made InputPlus available for free during August, no strings attached, so grab it before it costs money again! About two weeks left…
Also, for any questions, comments, or feedback feel free to post here or mail me at the address listed for the asset…
