Fun with Glovepie

[Howard_Casto]

Glovepie, for uninitiated, is a program with a scripting language that allows you to use various exotic controllers on your pc, including the Wiimote and PS3 pad.  Unfortuantely, the scripting language is barely documented and a little odd in nature, so most scripts out there don't take full advantage of what glovepie can do.  So I thought I would put up some mini tutorials of advanced usage up here to help people.  Hopefully this will lead to better scripts for use with mame.

I'll do each tutorial in a seperate post below.

[Le Chuck]

subscribe!

[Howard_Casto]

Tutorial #1:  Using linear code/Faking Constant Variables

What a lot of people don't understand is that glovepie is NOT a linear scripting language.  It's a looping one.  That means that the script is ran over and over in a looping fashion.  This leads to some confusion.  Take the very simple example script below:

---------------------------
cursor1.colour=(1,0,0)
cursor1.visible=1
---------------------------

Now in any normal language this would set the color to red, turn on the cursor and then sit there doing nothing.  In glovepie, however the script is repeated infinately so the cursor is constantly turned red and turned on.  What's the big deal?  Well anytime the windows cursor is manipulated, it refreshes itself ie it "blinks"  So with this code your cursor is going to flicker like mad.  How do we fix this?  Well we make a "If" statement that can only be entered once, essentially making a startup routine that you would find on a more traditional language.  Like so:

----------------------------
if var.init=0 then
     var.init=1
     cursor1.colour=(1,0,0)
     cursor1.visible=1
end if
----------------------------
Var.init is just a variable we made up.  It'll never actually be used anywhere in the code.  Anytime you query a varaible that doesn't exist in glovepie it returns a value of 0 so when the script is first started the value will be zero and we'll enter the if statement.  As soon as the if statement is entered it sets init to 1, thus making it impossible for the functions inside the if statement to ever be ran again (unless you explicitly set var.init back to 0 somewhere in your code).  So we've in a round-about way, made linear code for glovepie. 

This is also quite useful if you have a selection of variables that need set upon startup.  In a normal language you would just set the values at the top of the code and then you can manipulate them freely.  In glovepie all of your manipulations are going to be reset as soon as the script loops, so again, make a init routine like so:


-------------------------
if var.init=0 then
     var.init=1
     var.xmin=0
     var.xmax=1
end if
-------------------------

And just like that you can set the initial bounds, for say, a calibration routine without having to worry about them getting reset if you tweak them later on in the code.


With linear scripting you can write a more traditional "program" for glovepie, allowing you to do more advanced things like writing a setup wizard or what have you.  Linear code... necessary for advanced usage.

[Howard_Casto]

Tutorial #2:  Restarting Glovepie/Loading another script


Glovepie has various command line options, which is good for us as we can launch it from our frontend of choice, but it allows multiple instances of itself to exist and there isn't anyway to close glovepie from the command line.  Many programmers are thinking "Yeah but we can kill the process via another program"  and that is true.... but try terminating glovepie while it's using a bluetooth dongle.... best case it'll screw up your wiimote/ps3 communication.  Worst case it'll restart your pc!  So it's better to load new scripts and restart/exit pie internally.

The function is a simple one... the function "ExitPie" will immediately shut down glovepie, but that isn't necessarily useful.  Let's say your wiimote communication froze (as unfortunately it sometimes does) and you need to restart glovepie.  Well you can define a "panic key" on your control panel to do that for you.  Here is an example script that restarts the script called "restart.pie" when the spacebar is pressed.

----------------------------------------------------------------
if SPACE then
   say "Restarting"
   wait 250ms
   execute ("piefree.exe", "-Restart.pie /run /tray")
   exitpie
end if
----------------------------------------------------------------

We are making use of the Execute command to launch an external program (more on that in a later tutorial) but we are actually loading another instance of glovepie.  Once it's loaded, we use the exitpie command to close the old script, essentially "restarting" glovepie. 

As for the "say" command, that just makes your default sapi voice talk.  I find this useful in mame as there isn't any easy way to give visual feedback as to what a script is doing.  The wait command just keeps glovepie from exiting before the word "restarting" is spoken. 

Note that glovepie doesn't wait until a program exits before continuing, which is why I can call the "exitpie" command without worries.

Now since I called the same script again I was restarting the program, but the same method can easily be used to load different scripts.

Lets say you are using a wiimote in mame but you use it for different devices.  (Let's say a lightgun and a steering wheel)  Well you could put in code for both methods in one big script, or you could part it out into two scripts.  As for switching, well that's easy. 

In your WIILIGHTGUN script add the following code:

--------------------------------------------------------
if wiimote1.LEFT or Wiimote1.RIGHT then
   say "Loading Wheel Script"
   wait 250ms
   execute ("piefree.exe", "-WiiWheel.pie /run /tray")
   exitpie
end if
---------------------------------------------------------

So now if your press left or right on the Dpad on your wiimote, it'll load the WiiWheel script and tell you it's doing so!   But once you are in the wheel script you are stuck right?  Well not if you add similar code to the WIIWHEEL script like so:

--------------------------------------------------------
if wiimote1.LEFT or Wiimote1.RIGHT then
   say "Loading Lightgun Script"
   wait 250ms
   execute ("piefree.exe", "-WiiGun.pie /run /tray")
   exitpie
end if
---------------------------------------------------------

So now you can switch fairly easily.  Now I don't reccomend this in instances where you will be switching back and forth a lot, there is a delay for the wiimote to re-connect afterall, but it's useful none-the-less.

You can use similar techniques, in conjunction with other functions to make a glovepie script automatically exit, but I'll cover that in a later tutorial.

[Howard_Casto]

TUTORIAL #3:  Making a script that Automatically exits.

Again, the fact that glovepie doesn't allow you to kill it from the command line is really annoying.  Fortunately, for the purposes of mame, it's quite easy to detect when mame is open and close when it's not.  Glovepie allows you to get various details about the window you are currently in.  One such detail is the class name of the window.  Why is this helpful?  Well pretty much every version of mame, since it's creation has had the class name of "MAME".  So it's really easy to tell if mame is running and act accordingly. 

Here is a script for you to try out:

---------------------------------------
if Window.class <> "MAME" then

              say "Exiting Script"
   wait 1s
   exitpie
end if
-----------------------------------------

If you tried it you'll note that it's quite useless.  The script exits before you get a chance to load MAME!  This is also an issue within our frontends as scripts are generally launched first and it takes a few seconds for mame to load.  The solution?  Well we have two options.  We can put a wait command of several seconds inside the if statement and check again to delay the exit procedure, or we can use some of what we learned in tutorial #1 and #2 to assume that mame will eventually be started and not check to exit until it's first found.

So let's add some code that sets a variable when mame is first found and make the above if statment run only if mame has already been found once.  Like so:

------------------------------------------
if var.MAME=0 then
   if window.class="MAME" then var.MAME=1
end if




if var.MAME=1 then
   if window.class<>"MAME" then
      say "Exiting Script"
      wait 1s
      exitpie
   end if
end if
-------------------------------------------------

Note that we don't want to check things unless necessary and thus the script takes glovepie's looping nature into account.  The first check (to initially find mame) only runs if the variable mame=0 so once MAME is found, the check won't occur anymore.  The second check only runs if mame HAS been found, thus ensuring the script doesn't exit before mame even has a chance to load.

Run this one and it will behave as you expect it to.

And there you have it, a script that exits when mame does!  Create your scripts like this!  Do NOT rely on external programs like autohotkey to kill the process as it reeks havoc on bluetooth communication.

You can also use a similar technique to have a script automatically close when your devices (wiimotes ect) are turned off, and check for multiple instances of glovepie, but more on that later.

[Howard_Casto]

Tutorial #4:  Making a script that closes when your devices are turned off. 

You may wish to keep your script running all the time and have it controlled by your devices.  The concept is almost exactly the same as the last tutorial, we just use different functions. 

So without rambling on, second verse, same as the first:

-------------------------------------------------
if var.wiimotes=0 then
   if wiimote1.exists or wiimote2.exists or wiimote3.exists or wiimote4.exists then var.wiimotes=1
end if




if var.wiimotes=1 then
   if wiimote1.exists = 0 and wiimote2.exists=0 and wiimote3.exists=0 and wiimote4.exists=0 then
          say "Exiting Script"
          wait 1s
          exitpie
   end if
end if
-------------------------------------------------

Instead of checking the mame window, we are instead checking to see if wiimotes are available via the wiimote#.exists function.  Again, just like before, we assume that eventually wiimotes will be connected and don't start running the exit code until at least one is.  You can turn wiimotes off at any time by holding down the power button, so it's useful to check if any are actually on. 

There are similar ".exists" functions for most of your devices.  So keep this in mind.   You don't want to start manipulating the joystick and mouse based on the values of a device that isn't even present!

[Howard_Casto]

Tutorial #5:  Using PPJOY  a.k.a.  Yes, you CAN use Glovepie with MAME!

I'll bet you've tried to make a glovepie script for mame right?  I'll bet you tried it, it didn't respond and you instantly dismissed the program as useless for mame.  Oh how wrong you were.  MAME and glovepie get along great, as long as you send it virtual joystick commands and not virtual keystrokes and virtual mouse commands. 

You see not too long ago MAME adopted low-level mouse and keyboard reading.  The purpose of this was to be able to read individual mice and keyboards so things like spinners and lightguns could be read individually.  The only problem is windows HATES it when you do this.  Reading, sure enough is easy, but writing (which is what we want glovepie to do), is pretty much impossible in windows xp and beyond.

The solution is PPJOY, which is a dll that creates a virtual (read fake) joystick that glovepie can manipulate.  Now PPJOY is a pain in the butt to install on vista/win7 and I won't get into that here, but rest assured it DOES install on those OSes and you only have to install it once.  A better solution is irrelevant for our purposes anyway because glovepie only supports ppjoy. 

So first you have to download ppjoy and install it.  I'll post a good link once I can find one (the official homepage kind of died) but the latest version is 8.4.6(5).  On vista/7 you'll have to do crazy things like put your machine into test mode to install it.  It's akward, but you only have to do it once and it is well worth the effort.  I'll post a link to an install guide later. 

Your anit-virus program might complain about one of the files having a virus (the mouse one I think).  It's a false positive, but if you don't trust it you can allow your anti-virus to delete the file in question as we won't be using it. 

Hold up though... your installation is NOT complete.  You've just installed the dll suite, you haven't created any virtual joysticks yet!  In your start menu, in the ppjoy folder click on "configure joysticks".    A little wizard will pop up.  Use the "add" button to add a joystick for each player  the default settings are fine for now. 

One more thing.  Open your mame.ini and in the "core input options" section set the joystick deadzone to 0 and the saturation to 1.  Why are we doing this?  Well these settings are there to compensate for the slop in a real joystick, aka the deadzone.  Our ppjoy joysticks are virtual, so there isn't any slop.  If we don't at least set the deadzone to zero, mame will have a tendacy to "snap" the crosshairs to the center in a lightgun game.  Since the most common use for glovepie is to use a wiimote for a lightgun, we don't want that. 

Of course instead of altering your mame.ini you could add the command line options when launching mame, or write specific inis for different games but this isn't a tutorial of advanced mame usage. 

Boy that was a lot of work wasn't it?   Well the good news is it's a one time deal... you'll never have to do that again!   So yeah a bit of setup is involved but it seems like a bit of setup is involved for ANYTHING revolving around mame, so what else is new? 


Ok so now that all the setup is done what can you do with ppjoy?  Well anything really.  Mame supports joysticks, ppjoy is a joystick.  Mame supports both analog and digital controls and joysticks have both.  So as long as you understand that within mame you'll be binding things to the joystick and not the keyboard/mouse you are good to go!  Enough chatter how about an example script. 

Here is a script for turning a wiimote into a lightgun.  Note that the script is quite rough, but it's just for the purposes of a working example:

-------------------------------
ppjoy1.Analog0=maprange(wiimote1.pointerx,0,1,-1,1)
ppjoy1.analog1=maprange(wiimote1.pointery,0,1,-1,1)
ppjoy1.Digital0=wiimote1.b
ppjoy1.digital1=wiimote1.a
------------------------------

Really?  That's it?   Well yes, now that we have a joystick to play with we can simply bind some of the wiimote's functions to the joystick. 

The ".analog0" and ".digital1" stuff might confuse you.  Because the ppjoy is virtual, you can change the characteristics of the joystick.  "analog#" refers to that number analog input and "digital#" refers to that number digital input.  These can be changed/looked up via ppjoy's "configure joysticks" icon in your start menu, but by default :

analog0-analog2=X-Axis thru Z-Axis
analog3-analog5=RX thru RZ

digital0-digital15=joystick buttons 1-16
digital16-digital19=pov hat Up, Down, Left and Right (aka the dpad)

So yeah, we are just binding the wiimote's values to the virtual joystick, which works quite well in mame.

Some things to note though are the min and max values of the joystick axis and the wiimote pointer.

First off in many wiimote mouse/lightgun scripts you'll see references to stuff like "dot1.posx"  and crazy math and all of that.  Those are OLD wiimote scripts!  The glovepie author wrote a built in function for the wiimote pointer that works just as well as any of those older methods, namely .pointerx and .pointery.  These will return a value not of the screen resolution (which is akward) but of 0 to 1 (which isn't) 0 is the leftmost/topmost postion, 1 is the rightmost/bottommost and anything between is, well anything between.

Joystick axis are a little different.  Traditionally they are a value of -255 to 255, with 0 being dead center, but the glovepie author has converted this to the values of -1 to 1.  Again, this just makes things easier to work with. 

So if left on a wiimote is 0 and on our joystick it's -1 how do we deal with this?  Well you could use your math skills, but it's cleaner to just use one of glovepie's built in math functions. 

MapRange takes a value that you specify and converts it from it's range (that you specify) to a new range (again that you specify) In our case we want to convert the value of a pointer position, that ranges from 0 to 1, to a joystick, that ranges from -1 to 1... so it looks like this:

maprange(wiimote1.pointerx,0,1,-1,1)

Not too hard is it?

The functions discussed above also have the benefit of greatly simplifying glovepie scripts.  Most of the scripts on the net are old, created before these handy functions were added to glovepie.  The 4 lines of code we wrote makes a perfectly functioning wiimote joystick/lightgun and has the same functionality as a 2 PAGE script you'll typically find on the net. 

So in the case of glovepie, the way to learn the language is NOT to look at other people's code, because most people are still doing it the hard way. 

[headkaze]

The solution is PPJOY, which is a dll that creates a virtual (read fake) joystick that glovepie can manipulate.  Now PPJOY is a pain in the butt to install on vista/win7 and I won't get into that here, but rest assured it DOES install on those OSes and you only have to install it once.  A better solution is irrelevant for our purposes anyway because glovepie only supports ppjoy.

I've been meaning to get a hold of the GlovePie author to tell him about VJoy. My drivers are signed so there is no problem on Windows 7. If you get a hold of him tell him to contact me and I'll give him a free license.

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah Vjoy sure would be a lot easier.  I wouldn't know how to get ahold of him though. 

The only reason I'm able to figure out glovepie is interface aside, it's functions are very similar to mamehooker's and it uses vb6 syntax.  I was born to write tutorials for the thing.

So I haven't had any interaction with him.  If I do though I'll be sure to let him know!

[Vigo]

So we got Wiimote light guns yet or what?  Got a dusty Crossfire waiting for some magic.

I thought Wiimotes worked as lightguns, but Mame could not differentiate them if multiple were used.

[Howard_Casto]

So we got Wiimote light guns yet or what?  Got a dusty Crossfire waiting for some magic.

I thought Wiimotes worked as lightguns, but Mame could not differentiate them if multiple were used.

Not if you use PPJOY and set them up as joysticks.  People obsess over making the wiimote work as a mouse because traditionally pc lightguns show up as a mouse, but to mame there is little difference between a mouse and a joystick. 

Yeah I've got lightguns working.  I'm just playing around with some calibration code so that the aim is a little better.

[Vigo]

Very Nice. I will have to check this out now.....I would love to put my 5th and 6th wiimotes to good use. Thanks for all this, Howard! I will be bookmarking. (If I can figure out how to do it on this theme)

 

[tony.silveira]

Very Nice. I will have to check this out now.....I would love to put my 5th and 6th wiimotes to good use. Thanks for all this, Howard! I will be bookmarking. (If I can figure out how to do it on this theme)

 

i would love to bookmark this also.  glad to see it isn't just me that kind find the bookmarking button.  and i don't mean ctl-d to add a bookmark to my browser, as was suggested in another thread i started

[Howard_Casto]

Very Nice. I will have to check this out now.....I would love to put my 5th and 6th wiimotes to good use. Thanks for all this, Howard! I will be bookmarking. (If I can figure out how to do it on this theme)

 

i would love to bookmark this also.  glad to see it isn't just me that kind find the bookmarking button.  and i don't mean ctl-d to add a bookmark to my browser, as was suggested in another thread i started

Huh.....  Now I'm wondering where it is too.  Mind you I rarely used it on the old forum (google is your friend) but it was nice to know it was there. 

[Howard_Casto]

Ok a status update.  I made a pretty good script for using wiimotes as lightguns and I'll release it soon.  The problem is I can't just post it here, it's a whole kit, with the latest ppjoy, some icons (for desktop calibration) ect...as well as an app I wrote that saves settings you set from within the script.  It isn't quite ready yet... I had it hang on me once when it was supposed to exit itself so I want to look into finding a way to prevent that.  Other than that, it works really well.

I'm currently doing some ....umm... beta testing with operation wolf so I'll fix the bug tomorrow. 

In the mean time, how about another tutorial?

[Howard_Casto]

Tutorial #6:  Syncing your wiimote via Glovepie aka, let's hold down some buttons!

Eventually the Glovepie author is supposed to release a version that uses wii-style (press any button to sync) syncing like the real wii does, but until then syncing is a tad akward so a lot of people think that glovepie doesn't work or their wiimotes won't sync, ect...

There are three methods to get a wiimote to sync in windows:

1.  Clicking on your bluetooth icon, pressing 1+2 and using the "add device" wizard in windows.  Obviously this method isn't useable for us.

2.  Installing either a Microsoft or Bluesoli stack and letting Glovepie do most of the work.  This is the preferred method.

3.  Using a third party syncing app in conjunction with Glovepie. 


Method #2, Syncing with Glovepie:

Ok like I said, you need to use either the Microsoft or Bluesoli stacks.  The microsoft one works best for me.  Some dongles don't work with some stacks, so before you buy yours make sure it is compatable. 

Glovepie does a pretty good job of sycing wiimotes as of .45.  It is still glitchy, but far less glitchy than other methods, and the "glitches" you'll run into is having to re-sync the wiimote sometimes, which only happens when you first run the script. 

GP has some "rules" as to when it will check for wiimotes.  It checks when you are clicking on the GP menu (not applicable for us), it checks when a script first starts, and it checks when your script is asking for data for a wiimote that isn't connected.  Since all of our scripts will poll the wiimote, we should be able to sync and unsync a wiimote at any time. 

To sync you hold down 1+2 on your wiimote.  You don't simply press them, rather you hold them down as it could take longer than the broadcast period for the wiimote to be detected.  Once glovepie detects the wiimote, the left and right leds will light and then the player led will light.  It could take a while but you don't have to be in glovepie or click on anything, so it is best suited for cab use.

Sometimes, glovepie will desync a wiimote a second or two after it connected.  This is usually due to glovepie and the windows stack "fighting each other".  Nothing can be done unfortunately.  The lights will go off to let you know, so just hold down 1+2 again.  Thankfully, this time it will sync almost instantly.  It's a pain in the butt, but again you can do it while in any program and you don't have to click on anything, so this is still acceptable for cab use.

When you exit glovepie it will NOT always turn off your wiimotes!  The leds will go off, but they are still connected.  Press any button on the wiimote.... if it's desynced then the leds will flash.  Otherwise you can power it down by holding the power button on the wiimote.

 If you are playing multiple games, you may wish to leave them on as it will alleviate all the syncing problems.  You can, afterall sync and desync at any time using the glovepie method.


Method #3, Syncing Via External Programs:

I'm not going into detail about syncing programs as I haven't tested them, but they are out there and some people prefer them.  There are some "rules" for external programs as well. 

1.  Go to troubleshooter, no bluetooth autoconnect in glovepie to turn off it's auto sync.  You'll get crashes and feezes if you don't.

2.  Sync programs cannot be ran after glovepie is launched.  Again, you'll get freezes.

3.  You can't turn on and off your wiimotes once glovepie is running.  Again.. potential freezes might await you. 

It should be apparent at this point why I prefer method #2, but again I haven't really tested the external programs so if you find a good one let me know!



Tips:

On your cab disable checking windows update for drivers.  It will dramatically improve the sync speed. 

If you are having crazy problems with your wiimote unplug your bluetooth dongle and plug it back in.  It's a sure fire way to reset everything.

Wiimotes with certain serial numbers give you issues.  If you have a lot of nulls in your wiimote's bluetooth address, you might want to consider a different one.  Most of these issues have been resolved at this point though.

[Howard_Casto]

Tutorial #7:  Making all wiimotes turn off when a script exits.

First off, this one is a tad experimental, so bear with me.

Glovepie can sometimes have issues when a wiimote is already connected prior to launching a script and you may wish to turn off your wiimotes automatically upon the exit of a script.  In either case, "bluetooth command line tools" are your friend. 

Download them here:  http://www.softpedia.com/developer/bluetoothinstaller-com-62663.html

Be sure to run the installer as admin and allow the installer to set the path for the exes (so you can call them from anywhere).

Anyway remember our exit script?  Let's modify it slighly to turn wiimotes off when it exits.


------------------------------------------
if var.MAME=0 then
   if window.class="MAME" then var.MAME=1
end if




if var.MAME=1 then
   if window.class<>"MAME" then
      say "Exiting Script"
      wait 1s
      execute("btpair.exe"," -u")
      exitpie
   end if
end if
-------------------------------------------------

See the little execute line added?  That's all there is to it.  launching btpair.exe with the "-u" flag turns off and unpairs all bluetooth devices.  It does take a few seconds though.
You'll also notice that the exitpie command is IMMEDIATELY after the btpair command.  GP won't wait to exit and this is a good thing because if the wiimote desyncs while it is running, it could freeze gp. 

You can also remove specific devices with the -b command like:

execute("btpair.exe"," -b00:19:1d:63:33:fa -u")

Which would only disconnect the wiimote with the address given.  Before you ask, you can find the address by right clicking the properties of the wiimote in your bluetooth control panel, it's in the "bluetooth" tab.

[Howard_Casto]

Tutorial #8:  Launching Glovepie with another program.  aka UGH!

Ok, this is pretty much the last piece of the puzzle in terms of successfully writing a script useable in mame, so this will probably be the last tutorial barring something interesting I figure out. 

Glovepie is an annoying little thing, it seems to fight us every step of the way, and this is no exception.

When you launch glovepie it takes focus for a second.  No big deal right?  Well it isn't unless you are trying to launch a script and a game at the same time.  What will happen is the game will launch, but you'll be sitting staring at either the desktop or your glovepie window instead of the game!

The easiest and best solution is to put in a delay.  Many front ends allow you to launch a exe alongside a game when you launch it, and they should be able to do a delay.

Mamehooker is also a viable option, it can be used to launch the right script for the right game and add a delay via code.  You'll probably want to be using it anyway considering I've hooked up most of the recoils in mame and it supports the wiimote for force-feedback. 

But if you don't have either of those options, it's good old batch files to the rescue. 

Here is a sample batch file for terminator 2 I've been using for testing.  You see a command prompt at a few points, but it works great!

-------------------------------------------------------
@echo off
start piefree.exe "wiimotescripts\mamewiigun.pie" /run /tray
PING 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 6000
cd\
cd mame
mame64.exe term2 -nohlsl
--------------------------------------------------------

Batch files don't have  a wait/sleep command, so I use PING to search for an impossible ip address and timeout in 6 seconds (6000ms). 

This batch file is in the glovepie dir... if it isn't you'd have to change to that path prior to the start command.

I think that about does it.  I'm writing two helper apps for GP and I'll post them as well as usage when they are done. 

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah sleep would work well for this, but it's yet another thing people would have to install.

For anybody that has that installed, the command would be:

sleep.exe 6

When I said you see the command prompt I meant that you see it in the delay between when glovepie launches and when mame launches.  Most front-ends should deal with this issue I'm hoping.... atm I'm testing via the command prompt to rule out fe-specific issues when I debug.

[Howard_Casto]

Still working on the lightgun script. 

It works just great, but instead of making a skeleton script that many people would have to modify I'm going to do it right. 

I'm adding a nunchuck mode in case anybody wants to use the wii zapper. You'll be able to reload by pressing Z or shaking the nunchuck in addition to the wiimote mappings with it turned on.  It might also be helpful for games like time crisis.... you could hack a nunchuck into a foot pedal, or use as-is... both options are better than holding A on the top of the wimote. 

I'm also adding a calibration correction mode for those of use on flat screens.  Now the script is aspect independant, so you can ignore this if you want, but I thought it would be useful.  You see if you calibrate your gun within mame, the only visual indicator I can give you as to where to shoot is the mame crosshairs (I move them via the joystick).  On a 4:3 monitor, this is fine, but on a 16:9 or 16:10 monitor, this isn't actually the edge of the screen and thus if you aim there the calibration is off. 

Now you can remember to always shoot the edge of the monitor, not the game screen and ignore this function completely, or you can set the proper monitor mode prior to calibration and actually shoot at the targets it gives you... your choice.


I also need to expand the script to support 4 wiimotes.  I originally was only going to deal with 2, but I thought about it and revolution X has three guns.  I think there are one or two pos gun games that actually use 4, so better safe than sorry. 

[nipsmg]

You are the man.  Seriously.

How does this compare to Aimtrak guns accuracy wise, and does it work with OSR (Off Screen Reload) games?

[yaksplat]

very interesting stuff!

[drventure]

Thought I'd throw this out there. I was just looking around for Wii pairing stuff, and came across this

http://www.instructables.com/id/Wireless-Bluetooth-Voltage-Meter-using-Wiimote-P/?ALLSTEPS

the author includes a link to a Wii_adc.zip file that includes an app called Wii_pair.

I'm on win7 using the MS bluetooth stack.

Before, when I went through the pairing process, it was always temporary. When I turned the wiimote off or unplugged the bluetooth radio, I'd have to repair.

But when I ran wii-pair and performed the ezpair process, it appears that the remote is now permanently paired. I powered the wiimote off, removed batteries, put em back in and powered it up. It blinked for a few seconds, and presto, the wiimote was connected and I could see data coming back from it, no pairing required.

I'm going to continue playing with it, but this looks promising.

[Slippyblade]

Apparently the Glovepie.org site has been hacked.  There's a splash page for some Czech hacker there at the moment.  Ah well.

[felix pontifex]

Hey I had some questions about GlovePIE you might be able to answer:

Can GlovePie detect all of the Wii remote functions? (accelerometer, tilt, etc) or is it just the pointer?

Can GlovePie make use of the wii motion plus attachment?

Does it work with the "TR" remotes? (the ones with the motion plus built in)

Does it max out at 4 wii remotes, or can the program handle more?

How much kinect compatibility is there?

[Howard_Casto]

You are the man.  Seriously.

How does this compare to Aimtrak guns accuracy wise, and does it work with OSR (Off Screen Reload) games?

I don't have an aimtrak, so I couldn't tell you. 

Unless you stand really far back, I doubt you'll be able to shoot "blind" like you can with a lightgun, but with proper calibration, the cursor is pretty much where you point the gun.  The biggest issue is human error.  A wiimote, even in a good shell, is a giant square hunk of plastic... it's hard to aim with it.  Now these dedicated wii guns that are floating around, they would probably do much better. 

OSR games work, but there are conditions.  I've wrote the script to stop the crosshairs wherever they last were when the sensor bar is out of sight.  Obviously if you are shooting off screen, the last place they would be is the edge and thus it will reload.  The only problem is the way ir guns work. 

If you pointing offscreen aims the wiimote at a lamp, for example... it's going to register as an IR dot to the wiimote and the cursor will starting moving.  Typically this isn't a problem, but you might need to find a "sweet spot" to reload.  For my test rig, pointing the gun upwards works well... pointing it to either side does not.  But I've got a lot of framed posters in this room and the ceiling light is reflecting off of the plexi everywhere... thus my issue. 

[Howard_Casto]

Dr. Venture:  Looks promising, I'll check it out!

As I mentioned in one of the tutorials, glovepie sometimes pitches fits when other programs have done the pairing, so I'll have to test it to make sure glovepie will behave with it.

Felix:  I like helping you along, but 50% of what you are asking can be found out just by reading the doc file that comes with glvoepie. 

As for the other 50%:

The TR remotes require a special exe due to their oddball serial numbers.  It can be found at CarlKenner's (the glovepie author's) blog. 

Again, check Carl's blog in reference to Kinect.  The reason glovepie's name was changed from glovepie to "piefree" is due to strange liscensing issues with kinect.  He added support, but he doesn't seem to be a fan. 

[Howard_Casto]

Apparently the Glovepie.org site has been hacked.  There's a splash page for some Czech hacker there at the moment.  Ah well.

Just use this URL for now, it'll bypass the hack:  http://glovepie.org/glovepie.php

[Howard_Casto]

Well I tried the BT Pair app.

I didn't have much success at all... if anything it worked much worse than glovepie's sync program. 

It did indeed sync my wiimote to the computer.  The problem was, the computer never detected it.  When unsynced I would press any key on the wiimote and all the lights would flash, just like on a wii, but the computer never latched on but once in like 50 tries.  Even when it did, glovepie couldn't recognize the synced wiimote. 

So it's a bust for me at least.  Syncing wiimotes is a touchy business though, so your mileage will vary.

[Howard_Casto]

Despite my best efforts, glovepie still occasionally hangs during exit.  I wrote a little launcher called "cleanpie" to compensate. 

You can launch glovepie with cleanpie and prior to launching gp, it will check for any previous instances and kill them.  You can also launch cleanpie without any commands and it'll just terminate glovepie. 

Actually the way I wrote it, a person could use it on any problem app.

[Howard_Casto]

Man, getting this subtle little nuances working takes forever. 

I thought about nips question some more and looked into how the "offscreen reload" flag works in mame.  It turns out it DOESN'T work for any device it doesn't deem a lightgun. 

First off, that's dumb and it needs to be fixed.  How are you supposed to test gun games with a keyboard and joystick if you can't reload?  You would think that the mame devs would have realized this by now, unless they all have lightguns hooked up when they are writing the drivers. 

Secondly, even though the current code works pretty well in terms of reload, I thought I would improve it.   I basically swiped the function from mame and put it in the script.  The script itself now has an offscreen reload option and when it is on, the cursor will move to 0,0 and fire off a shot when any the actions binded to button 2 have occured. So you can OSR the traditional way, which works most of the time, or have a dedicated button, or just shake the wiimote. 

Shaking the wiimote is my personal favorite.  It was introduced in a lot of wii lightgun games (because the wii has a hard time telling when you are shooting offscreen as well) and I really liked it.  Because you don't have to move the gun completely off screen, you can quickly re-aim at your target.   

[Howard_Casto]

Decided to ditch the calibration offsets. 

I found it personally confusing, so I can't imagine how akward it would be for users.  You'll just have to re-calibrate for browser games or windowed games if running a 16:9/16:10 monitor.  Thinking about it logically I realized that the last pc game with lightgun support was released around 2005, so unless it's homebrew there are ZERO widescreen lightgun games. 

Got the offscreen reload working and it works amazingly well.  You can toggle it in game via the left button on the dpad. 

I added options to turn off the "shake" code, because some of you more erratic players will find yourself constantly reloading if you just fling the wiimote around.  I'm thinking of having the shake to reload options automatically turn off when OSR is disabled.  The only time one would disable OSR is when playing pos gun games like term2 and since the second button is used for alternate fire, shake to reload would be useless. 

I'm getting things ironed out for player 1 atm..... then I'll just wipe the p2 stuff I already have clean and clone p1 for players 2-4.   

[Howard_Casto]

Taking a slight break from this... I'm seeing blinking blue leds in my sleep.  I'll resume this weekend.

[nipsmg]

You're doing awesome work on this man, thanks for the effort!

[Howard_Casto]

Thanks for the support. 


Anyway....

Tutorial #9:  Implementing motion controls (not as hard as you think!)

A lot of people gave up on glovepie around .29, when it first got wiimote support.  This is because they were all excited about the possibilities of using motion controls only to find out that it's really hard to code scripts for them and thus deemed it useless.  Glovepie has changed since then though.  The author went to great lengths to add built in motion control functions making it much easier for the average joe to map simple motion guestures.

How about a sample?

------------------------------------

A=wiimote1.shake
B=nunchuck1.shake
---------------------------------------

That's the most basic motion guestre.  When you shake the wiimote, the A key on your keyboard will be pressed, when you shake the nunchuck, the B key will be pressed.  Of course you can map the motion to any input device supported by glovepie.  There are around 40 or so motion guestures programmed into glovepie... check it's documentation for a full list, but Here's how you can do something a bit more advanced.   Ever wanted to play SFIV with motion guestures?  Here is a very much hypothetical example:

-----------------------------------------
'fireball
  if wiimote1.curvedownrightup then
     key.down =1
     wait 1ms
     key.Right=1
     wait 1ms
     key.Down=0
     wait 1ms
     key.leftcontrol =1
     wait 1ms
     key.Right=0
     key.leftcontrol=0
  end if

  'hurricane kick
  if wiimote1.curvedownleftup then
     key.down =1
     wait 1ms
     key.left=1
     wait 1ms
     key.Down=0
     wait 1ms
     key.leftshift =1
     wait 1ms
     key.left=0
     key.leftshift=0
  end if
---------------------------------------

The keys used and wait times are theoritcal but the code logic is sound.  Basically whenver you swing the wiimote a quarter circle forward, it simulates the keys pressed when you do a fireball.  When you swing it backwards it does a hurricane kick. 

Note the logic behind the statements..... you hold the first key for a bit, then the first and the second, then you let off the first key, then you press the third and then you start letting off the keys. 


But you don't have to get that complex.  Those two motion guestures coudl have just as easily been mapped to buttons on a gamepad, so you can do grand guestures to simulate button presses.

Oh and btw, motion guestures are also programmed in for the nunchuck and if you have wii motion plus plugged in, it automatically uses it to make recognition more accurate.   


So there you go, motion controls... not terribly hard to implement!

[Howard_Casto]

It looks like people aren't terribly interested in my scripts based on the number of downloads on the other post so I doubt I'll do anymore. 

The Lightgun script is done, but I noticed that in a few of the analog gun games you don't get a crosshair option so I need to rethink things.  Mame has a "hide_cursor" option in the ini and with it turned off I can show the system mouse.  I can also move the mouse around so I can move it to the corners of the screen.  The only problem is apparently I can't change the icon, so you are going to get a pointer instead of a target.  I'll look into trying to fix this before I release it. 

[RamjetR]

Actually Howard, I'm very interested and been following your updates. As mentioned in other threads however, I've been recovering from surgery and playing alot of Transformers Fall of Cybertron lately. But very interested in your development especially given that I'm reasonably close to getting dual lightguns working in Model 2.

Please keep up the development of a standard Wii model script for Mame and other emulators and especially loving the fun with glovepie tutorials.

Thanks

Ramjet

[nipsmg]

Howard,

I'm way into it, but have been travelling for business and haven't been home to test it.  I will definitely be testing this out this weekend.  I plan on grabbing some wiimote zapper housings tomorrow and definitely testing this weekend. 

I'd love it if you'd keep it going. 

[MacGyver]

Super interested too, just don't need the scripts yet.   All information is good information.  Thanks for the tutorials.

[Howard_Casto]

I updated my complete wiimote script in the other thread. 

The lightgun script will be released later this weekend barring any bugs I run into.

[Howard_Casto]

The wiimote lightgun script is out in the wild on the other thread.  Enjoy!

[headkaze]

Yeah Vjoy sure would be a lot easier.  I wouldn't know how to get ahold of him though. 

The only reason I'm able to figure out glovepie is interface aside, it's functions are very similar to mamehooker's and it uses vb6 syntax.  I was born to write tutorials for the thing.

So I haven't had any interaction with him.  If I do though I'll be sure to let him know!

I finally got around to contacting the author of GlovePie and he says he will add support for VJoy soon.