Filter Input Device for a Treadmill Controller

[CybershoesVR]

FEATURE REQUEST - FILTER INPUT FOR TREADMILL
In the SteamVR Plugin for Unity, you can select input sources when reading inputs. This way you can, for example, make an input action only be executable on the right controller. This also works with treadmill devices, so you could have an input source that switches between a hand controller and a treadmill to change which device can control the movement. Is there anything similar planned for this plugin? It would be a very convenient feature.

EXAMPLES WHERE THIS IS USEFUL:

• Left handed users: no mismatch when switching hands. Treadmill directly mapped on movement.
• Very often the game logic applies stamina when sprinting and causes the player to move slowly after a minute or so. When using a treadmill this makes no sense as it is the physical stamina that should limit the player.
• In general, treadmills cause less motion sickness. Therefore players using a treadmill can move faster in a game than players without a treadmill.
• Developers handle movement speed with the use of a joystick in mind and very often apply a dead zone or a sprint zone, or a specific curve, and these do not make sense for a treadmill.
• When using a treadmill, players can continue to move while visiting an in-game menu that needs joystick/touchpad interaction.

This is where input sources are defined in the unity plugin. Other relevant scripts should be in the same folder: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steamvr_unity_plugin/blob/beta/Assets/SteamVR/Input/SteamVR_Input_Sources.cs

[1runeberg]

@CybershoesVR - Thinking of a parallel for UE4 atm.. how're your users now currently integrating your hardware to the engine?

[CybershoesVR]

@1runeberg To separate controller input from Cybershoes input: They define a new axis and call it (e.g.) MoveCybershoes_X and MoveCybershoes_Y and bind the Cybershoes input in the controller bindings to the "MoveCybershoes" action.

This means that they need to write more additional logic to switch between controller and treadmill input. With the Unity system, you could simply have a variable for the input source and switch that, while using the same Input Axes and keeping the code clear.

[1runeberg]

Thanks @CybershoesVR. I've aligned with Keith who did the Unity plugin. Will work out a way to expose this in a different manner with the unreal plugin since we had a slightly different approach to grabbing action data from SteamVR as we have to fit this with current UE paradigms/archi.

Might not make it to the next release, but will update this issue of any progress.

[CybershoesVR]

@1runeberg Thank you!