Handling user input from any device

Handling user input from any device

• Ljhopkins

  Cool thanks andyfraser, I have looked through the code and its a nice implementation, very flexible.

  
  

• NozFx

  When it comes to input, it's un-clear how flexible you really need to be. Most Xbox games only use a single controller set-up (some let you choose between two or three).
  
  What I do is read the controller input (if connected, else just clear the input struct). Then I read the keyboard, and if a button is down, poke the corresponding value into the gamepad struct. Then I read the mouse (if on Windows), calculate the delta from the last frame, and if the delta is non-zero, poke the delta in X and Y into the right stick value of the gamepad struct. Last, I dispatch this gamepad structure to the simulation system, that forwards it to the actor in charge (a vehicle, weapon or avatar, typically).
  
  This method is fairly ghetto, but it does get the job done, and it's a lot simpler than a custom-configurable system with event delegates mapping to input primitives. It lets me get on to the actual game part with a minimum of fuss :-)
  
  
  
  

• Shokino

  Cool, with the mouse delta, is it worth also knowing a normalized direction the mouse is going I was thinking about doing this as the X,Y coords of the mouse are not that useful, just which way its going is I guess.
  
  I was after something small and lightweight, flexible and used enums, I wrote a small generic class that does the trick, here is that class and the implementation for a camera enum, it only works for keyboard, however I will extend it for mouse, and maybe xbox controller (although I dont own an xbox 360 to test it with).

  public class UserInput<T>
  {
      protected Dictionary<Keys, T> _KeyMappings;
      int currentButtons;

      public UserInput()
      {
          _KeyMappings = new Dictionary<Keys, T>();
      }

      public bool Check(T button)
      {
          if ((currentButtons & Convert.ToInt32(button)) > 0)
              return true;

          return false;
      }

      public void Update(GameTime gameTime)
      {
          KeyboardState state = Keyboard.GetState();
          currentButtons = 0;

          foreach (Keys key in _KeyMappings.Keys)
          {
              if (state.IsKeyDown(key))
              currentButtons |= Convert.ToInt32(_KeyMappings[key]);
          }
      }

      public void Map(Keys key, T button)
      {
          _KeyMappings.Add(key, button);
      }

      public void UnMap(Keys key)
      {
          if (_KeyMappings.ContainsKey(key))
              _KeyMappings.Remove(key);
      }

  }
  
  public class CameraInput : UserInput<CameraButtons>
  {

      public CameraInput()
      {
          Map(Keys.W, CameraButtons.Forward);
          Map(Keys.S, CameraButtons.Back);
          Map(Keys.A, CameraButtons.Left);
          Map(Keys.D, CameraButtons.Right);
          Map(Keys.Up, CameraButtons.Up);
          Map(Keys.Down, CameraButtons.Down);
      }
  }

  public enum CameraButtons
  {
      None = 0x00,
      Up = 0x01,
      Down = 0x02,
      Left = 0x04,
      Right = 0x08,
      Forward = 0x10,
      Back = 0x20,
      ZoomIn = 0x40,
      ZoomOut = 0x80
  }

  
  I guess this can be used in several ways, for a quick test I made my camera just include CameraInput as a member, although it would be best to make only one instance rather than for each camera! also rather than doing the mapping in the constructor I could write a parse it from a config file.
  
  

  if (Input.Check(CameraButtons.Up))
  {
      // do stuff.

  }

  where Input is a type of CameraInput member.

  any feedback on this would be greatly appreciated!

  
  

• Peter De

  Hi,

  I made up a small game component to simplify user input from the keyboard, mouse and XBox gamepad.

  You can find it here : http://www.xgamelibrary.com/Components/XGameInput.aspx

  Full source and instructions are provided. Your comments/suggestions are very welcome.

  Andy

  
  
• Handling user input from any device