Control of Cockpit Buttons using Motion Controllers

[Lobstrosity]

This software allows for the "physical" use of cockpit controls even when its not baked into the game. The only requirement is that the control can be mapped to a keyboard. Basically you configure virtual panels and place them at the correct orientation around the cockpit. When you "touch" the button it triggers the corresponding keyboard command. The only downside is that each cockpit has to have its own virtual panel orientation. But those can be saved and loaded.

 

Check out the youtube video and the Reddit link with the downloads and documentation.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7keXsamgZw&feature=youtu.be

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/68smtx/play_vr_flight_sims_control_of_cockpit/

 

 

I think this looks fantastic. I will mess around with it later and try to model a simple cockpit (not German). If there is interest we should get a list running and could knock out all the IL2 planes with help from community members.

[=IL2AU=chappyj]

made a very basic profile in the 09 

works quite well however every time i recentered views in game or the app i found my panels would lose some alignment

[=IL2AU=chappyj]

making some progress. 

use the apps recenter head position rather than the ingame one as it will recenter both through the app whereas the ingame one will only recenter your view in the cockpit and the panels will therefore drift. at least thats my perception, 

 

 

also, 

stuck my leapmotion back onto the front of the vive on a hunch..

using this combination of drivers 

 

leap motion SDK orion beta

and 

https://github.com/cbuchner1/driver_leap

 

i am able to use hands instead of controllers to interact with the panels set up by the virtual button box app. 

 

so 3 programs to acheive it, but basically in cockpit hand control of buttons (that are mappable) in IL2

[TP-Blackjack-]

making some progress.

use the apps recenter head position rather than the ingame one as it will recenter both through the app whereas the ingame one will only recenter your view in the cockpit and the panels will therefore drift. at least thats my perception,

 

 

also,

stuck my leapmotion back onto the front of the vive on a hunch..

using this combination of drivers

 

leap motion SDK orion beta

and

https://github.com/cbuchner1/driver_leap

 

i am able to use hands instead of controllers to interact with the panels set up by the virtual button box app.

 

so 3 programs to acheive it, but basically in cockpit hand control of buttons (that are mappable) in IL2

That is very cool, I may have to try this.

Could you put the profile you created up for download?

Edited May 4, 2017 by TP-Blackjack-

[=IL2AU=chappyj]

i can, give me another day to test and refine . but be warned its gonna be very specific to your cockpit setup etc. so for instance i have changed my 09f4 default position to be slightly left of default in order to line up with the gunsight. so i suspect if you havent done this it wont match. having said that if you set this position manually when you play each time then definitely change your default positions before trying to line up panels in 3d space to match

[=IL2AU=chappyj]

tech demo. hands in cockpit control. no vive controllers necessary

 

[Lobstrosity]

tech demo. hands in cockpit control. no vive controllers necessary

 

 That looks awesome. Good call with the Leap Motion and recentering tip. I didn't even think about that but I'm glad the developer did. I will use a Vive controller but maybe a glove or wristband with the Vive tracker would work also.

 

Any performance impact?

[1/SG2_Ganeshka]

tech demo. hands in cockpit control. no vive controllers necessary

 

can you create some profile to test it ? 

[twgin]

I'm not having any luck getting the driver_leap driver to do much...  downloaded alpha release 8, seems to install correctly, but nothing when SteamVR opened (no extra controllers, flashing or otherwise)

 

chappyj, how did you get this to run ?  windows 10 system, leap motion up to date and working with xplane+flyinside, puzzling...

 

 

EDIT:   OK, progress, got the driver_leap driver working...  still seeing vive controllers, need to change them over to a different render model...

 

FURTHER EDIT: can't find the "wireframe" controller shown in your video in SteamVR Rendermodels, where did they come from ?

Edited May 14, 2017 by twgin

[macnkill]

This is really great. I would use the oculus controllers myself, but would love to try this out. I also wish there was a way to use the virtual stick to control the plane like in Ultrawings.

[dburne]

I myself envision someday, joystick hardware not even being required. Haptic feedback where one can actually reach out and grab the joystick and throttle in the virtual cockpit , move it and press it's buttons and get the physical feedback of what one is pressing/moving, etc.

Same with wheels and pedals in racing sims.

 

Imagine how immersive that would feel. Granted that would probably be many years away, doubtful I would even be around to see it, but I can in my imagination picture that day coming at some point...

[Pistol-Pete]

Anyone got a profile to try out? Seems a bit daunting to try to export a cockpit to a Blender 3D, and then configure it with Virtual buttonbox. Thrilled at the prospect, but would find a done profile as an exemple a great help....

[Pistol-Pete]

How did you do this chappyj ?  Is not a 3d model of the cockpit needed for making a profile? I know there is a plugin for importing DCS cockpits to blender... But how to go on about this with Il2? There is only gtp. files right?

[=IL2AU=chappyj]

Hi mate you can configure your profile just while sitting in cockpit in game.

The toolbox allows you to create and size-move the windows on the fly with the hand controllers

[Pistol-Pete]

Ok. Thanks! I will try that...

[dburne]

Ok so a really dumb question on my part I guess, but how you going to control cockpit switches in VR when the sim itself does not even support manual cockpit switches?

[TG-55Panthercules]

Ok so a really dumb question on my part I guess, but how you going to control cockpit switches in VR when the sim itself does not even support manual cockpit switches?

 

I'm not sure I'm following this either, but what I think is happening is that they're overlaying some sort of virtual cockpit (which has touch-clickable "hot spots" that can be assigned to key presses) on top of the game's cockpit, so that (for example) wherever a certain cockpit has the lever/button for the landing gear you could put a virtual hotspot that would pulse out a "G" when pressed with your VR hand/controllers (which the game would interpret as the key to raise/lower the landing gear) - so, the game doesn't directly support (or realize) a clickable cockpit lever but the virtual overlay simulates it by converting hand motions (that the overlay program recognizes) into key presses that the game recognizes.

 

Actually sounds like a really cool workaround if there's some way to sit in your cockpit in game, drag/drop/designate wherever you want some sort of assignable hotspot to be and what key you want assigned to it, and then save such an overlay for each type of plane/cockpit in the game.  Not sure how this would work with axis/lever things, unless the overlay interface lets you tell it what kind of hotspot to place in any given location.  And I don't know how much separation there would have to be between the hotspots in order to avoid accidentally activating the wrong command button/lever etc.  Some of those cockpits are pretty crowded and I'm not sure whether the hand/controllers can make fine distinctions between closely-spaced hotspots - while the Rift hand controllers are pretty cool, some of the games/demos I've tried seem to take several attempts to get pretty basic things done, and I think you'd need a pretty high degree of precision to make a clickable cockpit practical through such a method.  

 

But it'd be great if this sort of thing could be accomplished (like putting a map into the game in VR with OVRdrop) through some sort of third party mechanism that wouldn't require the BoX dev team to spend any of their time on it.

Edited October 4, 2017 by TG-55Panthercules

[Madmatt]

As I understand it, this creates an overlay over the top of the 3D cockpit so when your hand touches a predefined spot, that spot is associated to a set of keyboard commands that are pre-setup. So hover your hand over the landing gear lever and i assume there is some motion, click or way to "activate" on that spot, and the overlay would issue the G command to lower or raise the gear.

 

Madmatt

 

p.s. Whoops, looks like Panther and I had the same thought at the same time!

Edited October 4, 2017 by Madmatt

[dburne]

Ok thanks that makes some sense. Should be interesting to follow anyway.

[Pistol-Pete]

Thank you chappyj for your help. If you would be willing to share a profile it would be of great help as a startingpoint. I'm sure others would be as grateful as me for such a reference....

[BlznSaddles]

I downloaded the software but the profiler crashes as soon as I try to assign a keystroke to a virtual button.  Is there some prerequisite required to run this? .net framework or something like that?

[Pistol-Pete]

Don´t think so BlznSaddles. I haven´t seen any mentioning of anything like that, nor have i had to install anything more than the vr button box.

Just got it running with Gustav. I still have to use a Oculus touch controller (waiting for the leap motion i scored on ebay) which is a bit cumbersome.

But i find that the immersion gained from reaching out and clicking the actual buttons in cockpit really complements a hmd.

It will probably get even better with the leap motion....

Edited October 6, 2017 by Pistol-Pete

[blitze]

Maybe down the track this will be incorporated into the game itself with predefined Leap Motion cockpits for flyable aircraft.  Just need to

"Smell the glove"

 

3rd party options are a good stepping stone but if Leap Motion takes off, it would be great as a update to the series to have it built in with all that is needed on the simmers part it to hock up the required VR/Leap Motion gear and fly.

 

Definitely something to consider down the track.

[Pistol-Pete]

Agree blitze. But forcing someone to smell the glove is sexism ...

BlznSaddles, make sure not to use the profiler while il2 is running, since it often causes profiler to crash when assigning key.

This also happens sometimes when buttonbox is running at the sametime as profiler. Safest is to run profiler alone, and close it before running buttonbox and il2.

Dont know if thats your problem, but may be worth to mention...

Edited October 23, 2017 by Pistol-Pete

[BlznSaddles]

Agree blitze. But forcing someone to smell the glove is sexism ...

BlznSaddles, make sure not to use the profiler while il2 is running, since it often causes profiler to crash when assigning key.

This also happens sometimes when buttonbox is running at the sametime as profiler. Safest is to run profiler alone, and close it before running buttonbox and il2.

Dont know if thats your problem, but may be worth to mention...

 

 

But what's wrong with being sexy??? 

 

I will try your suggestion to make sure but I don't think I had it running at the time.  Maybe I will just try closing all other programs.

[Lensman]

But what's wrong with being sexy???

 

SexIST!

 

(On a separate note, my flap settings go to 11.)

.

 

.

 

.

Edited October 24, 2017 by Lensman

[kelemenlajos]

I would like to use this method to workaround my to few button on my hotas issue.

Anyone still using this, and has some config files?