Control using PS3 SIXAXIS

Hi Blender artists,

I’m new to the forum and relatively new to blender. I have a lot of experience with Maya and I work in the games industry as an animator.

I’m looking in to using blender as a VJ tool to control objects interactively using whatever control input devices suit best. At the moment I am looking in to using a PS3 controller, as the duel joystick offers a lot of intuitive control.

I am testing with a simple floating dynamic cube, getting it to smoothly rotate and translate using forces allowing the cube to then slow to a stop. I have managed to get nice movement with the buttons but I am quickly finding that in order to get the joysticks to create the movement properly I might need to use some python… which i don’t know.

I have done some digging on the forum and on Google which threw up some helpful info but I just wanted to start a thread of my own where I could ask some more experienced blender artists some more specific questions etc. So I guess my first question would be, can anyone help with getting a similar setup as above working with a SIXAXIS PS3 controller? Can I achieve this with logic bricks or is python the more flexible option?

I’m really excited about the possibilities of using blender as a VJ tool and have loads of ideas that I want to explore, but I would say that my skills are more on the artistic than technical side of things so any helping hand you guys could offer would be massively appreciated.

Thanks! :stuck_out_tongue:

If you want to use the values of a jostick you need to access the sensor by Python controller. Here is the BGE API that can help you.

http://www.ps3-hacks.com/download.php?id=12
Download and install the filter driver (libusb-win32-filter-bin-0.1.10.1.exe).
Unpack ps3sixaxis_en.exe
Plug the SIXAXIS into your PC.
Run ps3sixaxis_en.exe once.
Push the PS button on the SIXAXIS once if it doesn’t see it straight away.
check this. it does work, but you have to copy the “ps3sixaxis_en.exe” into system 32, then press windows+R and type “ps3sixaxis_en.exe” and press enter.

Cool, thanks for the info guys. Does anyone have a simple blender file with a basic working setup? It would be realy useful for me to have a look at so that I can try to reverse engineer whats going on.

Here is Blendenzo’s joystick script. It saves the value to a text file (calibration scene) and load it in the game scene. After the first calibration you can start direct in the game scene.
analogJoystick.blend (255 KB)
analogJoystick2_53.blend (384 KB)