Wiimote as a lightgun

[ideft]

If anyone has tried to use a wiimote as a lightgun on Mame I would like to know to your opinion on using it.  Better yet a comparison on how it holds up to the other choices(mainly act-labs and top gun).  Also a second question:  Would one have to use the Wii sensor bar, or could one make it out of IR leds, like this guy has.

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[ideft]

hope this works

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw[/youtube]

[psychotech]

 

Might be, I actually have to get me a Wii ...as soon as there really are games that look & feel as 3D as in that video..

Like in a week or so ?

[notaburger]

i bought a 15 dollar blue tooth adapter and can use my wiimote as a mouse now

someone just needs to come out with a nicer shell

i hear that all of the current choices are cheaply made

[Games001]

what usb adaptor did you get to allow you to use the Wii as a mouse (which could be kinda gunish with a shell I assume)??

[ideft]

http://www.amazon.com/BLUETOOTH-1-2-2-0-USB-100M/dp/B000BZTKNC/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1200628021&sr=8-1

[Games001]

A standard USB Bluetooth adapter will communicate with a WiiMote and not have any issues working on a PC?

How exactly is that setup?  And would MAME newer versions accept the input?

[ideft]

http://www.funponsel.com/blog/archives/2006/12/06/use-wiimote-to-play-pc-games/

[Games001]

ugh, from that video it is SLLLOOWWWW to respond to the Wii movements.

There must be a better option than this, or putting LCD bars on our PC monitors and standing 8 miles from the cab.

[ideft]

If a game ever used the head tracking thing, it would be hella-cool.  Plus it would force me to buy a wii.

[DaOld Man]

That is a cool video..
I think future games will be 3-d, and it will be like you are actually in the game.

[NickG]

Might be, I actually have to get me a Wii ...as soon as there really are games that look & feel as 3D as in that video..

Like in a week or so ?

More like years ago, but not for Wii.

[Games001]

I will go pickup a WiiMote from my local Walmart or the like.. then using the USB dongle I have on hand I'll see how it handles first on my PC then on the MAME v123 cab I run here.

I will give a review and a video if possible later today.

[JKJudgeX]

I believe what you're seeing in the video is the guy using the gyro functions of the wiimote to control the mouse, NOT the IR.  The IR response is much snappier, so, don't write it off yet...

Observe:
  (this is how you set it up, you only see him use it for like a second, but a very useful video.)



And a completely crazy usage of it:
http://www.dailymotion.com/cluster/tech/tag/Wii/video/x3vsnt_minority-report-interface-by-wiimot_tech

This device is one of the most affordable high-tech gizmos you can get, really, with gyros, IR cam, and expansion port (you can plug USB devices into it if you know how it's done, look it up ... some really neat mousehacks. )

[lettuce]

Ive just bought a wireless Wii sensor, i woundering if i can get this wireless sensor to connect to my PC thus using it as the IR sensor??

[Ginsu Victim]

The sensor doesn't connect to anything. It's just two IR LEDs. The wiimote reads their location. That's all. The communication to the PC is through the bluetooth USB dongle.

[Games001]

This is odd.

I can SYNC the USB from my PC and the WiiMote I just picked up (shows in Bluetooth Manager as a RLV unit - mouse HID), but the WiiMote does not seem to 'turn on' after the sync is done.  Power button does nothing, no sound from the mini speaker.. nothing.

Any clues as to why it would do this?

[rdenis]

You have it recgnized by your BT device software but you need to now establish the BT connection and then use software to control ithe wiimote. 

To connect - hold down buttons 1 and 2 simultaneously (keep holding them down) and make sure the 4 blue lights keep flashing (you may need to try several times).  This will allow the WiiMote to now connect to your dongle.  In your Bluetooth manger software, somewhere will be the option to connect - try right clicking on the RLV Unit.

Once you have a connection established try WiinRemote:  http://onakasuita.org/wii/WiinRemote_v2007.1.13.zip 

WiinRemote allows you to control the pointer via the internal Wii motors or InfraRed.  It also allows you to assign mouseclicks and keypresess to any of the buttons on the wiimote.

BTW - so far in my testing I have found the Wii sensor bar much more effective then  the EMS TopGun sensor bar - this on a 28 inch LCD monitor in my mame cabinet.  Very precise and smooth. 

I am running into issues in Mame not recgnizing my Bluetooth HID joystrick properly - both lauching via command line and out of Mala.  All the wiimote buttons and sensore work in the Mala frontend.  However in Mame, buttons aren't recongized at all while the IR is, so not sure yet what the issue is.

[Games001]

It's odd how I can sync the WiiMote and the Bluetooth, but the connection only lasts for a few seconds.  Then it seems to drop.

[JKJudgeX]

Games001:  I sort of have that difficulty as well, and I think it's related to our BT drivers.  It still works though... you step through the "add new BT device" stuff, and with mine, even though it goes off, if I turn it back on, it completes the add.

Read what rdenis said, it's accurate.  Once you get it connected and going, you'll be able to do a lot of neat stuff with glovepie scripts.

[joebells]

I tried it myself a little while back and while it is very cool and has some promise. I think that its not quite there it just feels, to me, a bit hacked together. Hopefully someone writes a complete and proper driver that shows up in the game controlers control panel item and is adjustable there. As you guys are seeing its the syncing that has issues. I tried different bluetooth stacks and I just couldn't get it to reliably sync every time and thats definately not gonna fly with the wifes/girlfriends/others

[Games001]

"To connect - hold down buttons 1 and 2 simultaneously (keep holding them down) and make sure the 4 blue lights keep flashing (you may need to try several times).  This will allow the WiiMote to now connect to your dongle.  In your Bluetooth manger software, somewhere will be the option to connect - try right clicking on the RLV Unit."

The issue I am facing is simply getting that stable connection.

The sync is there, and the opject shows correctly in the BT Manager.. just no connection, no option to connect, nothing.

[joshlindem]

I'm curious, would this work with DOS\DMAME?  Has anyone tried it?

[ChadTower]

I would be surprised if there are pure DOS bluetooth drivers.

[joshlindem]

well perhaps not bluetooth in DOS (not sure I've seen that either), but I am curious about the USB aspect with DOS.  My PC has USB working on boot, so curious if anyone has attempted this route.

[joebells]

as far as I know you can not use the wiimote over usb.

[Ginsu Victim]

With a USB bluetooth dongle you can.

After adding up the cost of everything needed to do the wiimote as a lightgun, it's easier for me to just get the act-labs setup.

[joebells]

yes using a usb bluetooth dongle but thats not connecting by usb really its connecting over bluetooth but he was talking about, I believe, using it in with a usb cable in dos since bluetooth is probably not supported in dos.

There's not really many other bluetooth connection methods besides usb. Even alot of internal bluetooth hardware uses an internal usb connector.

[TheShanMan]

With a USB bluetooth dongle you can.

After adding up the cost of everything needed to do the wiimote as a lightgun, it's easier for me to just get the act-labs setup.

I'm sure for a lot of us it has very little to do with cost vs. act labs. For me personally (and I'm certainly nowhere close to an expert) it seems like there has been no "holy grail" of light guns - act labs or lcd topgun, and both have their disadvantages. I'm getting the sense, unless I misunderstand what I've been reading here, that the wiimote gun has the potential to be that "holy grail" - losing the downsides of the other 2 alternatives (having to flash the screen or having to put those bars up and stand way back).

If the wiimote works reliably with no major downsides, I'll have to accelerate creation of my lightgun swappable panel because I would LOOOVE to play Area 51 again.

[Ginsu Victim]

I hope the wiimote does turn out to be the best alternative. I'm not jumping onto act-labs with my credit card in hand any time soon.
I like the look of the Nyko Perfect Shot. Combine that with the ability to use the wiimote for other things beside just a light gun, and I like the idea even better.
Just hard to convince my wife to let me spend any more money on the cabinet at this point. Last week I told her, "I'm done spending," then turned around and said, "Oooo, look. A 250 GB hard drive for a good price. I need that too"

[Games001]

There seems to be a general consensus that there is no 'great' light gun for cab, more so with MAME and such setups.

This WiiMote has potential, of that I am sure.  The real question I don't get is why would it have such issues pairing and connecting with a PC if the Wii itself uses a very standard Bluetooth signal.

[TheShanMan]

Just hard to convince my wife to let me spend any more money on the cabinet at this point. Last week I told her, "I'm done spending," then turned around and said, "Oooo, look. A 250 GB hard drive for a good price. I need that too"

Ginsu, I totally get you. I'm in exactly the same boat. I finally bought BYOAC tokens and that was a really hard sell. I've been building my swappable panel, buying ipac4, optipac, buttons, joysticks, looking at tron stick possibilities, etc. The only thing working in my favor is, after having a mame cab for 9 years with a prototype panel that mostly didn't work, she said "why don't you finally get that working and finish the project so the kids can play with it".

Games001, I think I speak for a lot of people when I say THANK YOU for being a pioneer with this device. We're depending on you!

[Games001]

Games001, I think I speak for a lot of people when I say THANK YOU for being a pioneer with this device. We're depending on you!

Heh, don't rely on me.. I don't know the first thing about what this bugger does, should do, how it works, etc.

I am just reading solutions as best I can find them and putting action to the ideas.

[TheShanMan]

I understand, but in terms of MAME (at least from the perspective of this BYOAC community) you seem to be going where no man has gone before.

[joebells]

I've definately read of it being done before, a couple of weeks ago it was suggested to me to possibly use a wimote with mame, I was asking about a better controller than the 360 as far as the d-pad was concerned, and someone suggested the wiimote and said its also good for a gun substitution.

http://www.wiili.org/forum/glovepie-wii-mote-scripts-t360-s280.html guess the mame script on that page is supposed to be pretty decent didn't get that far in my testing.

[ids]

You have it recgnized by your BT device software but you need to now establish the BT connection and then use software to control ithe wiimote.

To connect - hold down buttons 1 and 2 simultaneously (keep holding them down) and make sure the 4 blue lights keep flashing (you may need to try several times).  This will allow the WiiMote to now connect to your dongle.  In your Bluetooth manger software, somewhere will be the option to connect - try right clicking on the RLV Unit.

Once you have a connection established try WiinRemote:  http://onakasuita.org/wii/WiinRemote_v2007.1.13.zip 

WiinRemote allows you to control the pointer via the internal Wii motors or InfraRed.  It also allows you to assign mouseclicks and keypresess to any of the buttons on the wiimote.

BTW - so far in my testing I have found the Wii sensor bar much more effective then  the EMS TopGun sensor bar - this on a 28 inch LCD monitor in my mame cabinet.  Very precise and smooth. 

I am running into issues in Mame not recgnizing my Bluetooth HID joystrick properly - both lauching via command line and out of Mala.  All the wiimote buttons and sensore work in the Mala frontend.  However in Mame, buttons aren't recongized at all while the IR is, so not sure yet what the issue is.

Thanks for the info.  Tried this on an old laptop which has bluetooth built in.  Worked really well.  The WiinRemote software was even showing LED tracking...turns out a table lamp ~12' away was a good enough source, and tracking was really good.  Haven't yet tried in MAME, but the ease with which this all came together was amazing.  Will try MAME soon.  Looks like a good light-gun option so far!