SpaceNavigator for Torque Game Engine

[marklaff]

The Torque Game Engine is a popular tool for building 3D virtual worlds - some for games, some with a more educational slant. The Torque Game Engine has a very low entry cost for experimentation, and reasonable commercial licensing. It includes a scripting engine and a C++ kernel providing both rapid iteration and ability for high-performance features, as well as client/server networking which supports MMORG.

I'm part of an IBM team that developed PowerUp (http:://powerupthegame.org), which includes a set of optional features making the virtual world more accessible to people with disabilities. We are testing with many different organizations for people with disabilities, including United Cerebral Palsy in Suffolk County, NY.

We would like to test either SpaceNavigator or SpaceExplorer as an input device instead of mouse, trackball, joystick, or keyboard-only solutions we've been exploring thus far. On first glance, users who are used to piloting a wheelchair would find it easier to use one of the Space devices in a 3D virtual world.

So, are there people already working on connecting 3DCon devices to the Torque Game Engine? If not, what would be the best way to proceed?


Thanks,


Mark

[jwick]

Hi Mark,

The game engine needs to be modified to support the new HID multiaxis controller standard (or one of several other standards). Is it open source? If not, then the owners of the code need to be convinced to support it. Sometimes the engines supply external hooks that allow aftermarket changes to the view.

Jim
3Dx Software Development

[marklaff]

So, if I understand correctly, on Windows I need to look into the HDI Raw Input API, and receive WM_INPUT messages instead of WM_MOUSEMOVE events, is that right?

I've never worked with anything other than WM_MOUSEMOVE, but there's always a first time!


Mark

[jwick]

Raw Input is one of the standard APIs available on Windows. It is one of the easiest to work with as long as you have access to the dispatch loop. I've posted sample code in the developers topics.

[Alaric]

Any progress on this front? Is there an existing .dll or plugin for the Torque 3D Game engine?
http://www.garagegames.com/

If not I believe my team will be writing and posting up our own here to the forums for the users of TGE/TGEA.

[marklaff]

Scheduling has kept me from working on a driver for Torque. Go for it!

[thevisad]

The Torque Game Engine is a popular tool for building 3D virtual worlds - some for games, some with a more educational slant. The Torque Game Engine has a very low entry cost for experimentation, and reasonable commercial licensing. It includes a scripting engine and a C++ kernel providing both rapid iteration and ability for high-performance features, as well as client/server networking which supports MMORG.

I'm part of an IBM team that developed PowerUp (http:://powerupthegame.org), which includes a set of optional features making the virtual world more accessible to people with disabilities. We are testing with many different organizations for people with disabilities, including United Cerebral Palsy in Suffolk County, NY.

We would like to test either SpaceNavigator or SpaceExplorer as an input device instead of mouse, trackball, joystick, or keyboard-only solutions we've been exploring thus far. On first glance, users who are used to piloting a wheelchair would find it easier to use one of the Space devices in a 3D virtual world.

So, are there people already working on connecting 3DCon devices to the Torque Game Engine? If not, what would be the best way to proceed?


Thanks,


Mark

I hate to revive a dead post, BUT i actually came across this post in my search and I am others are. While there is currently no driver that is supporting the Torque game engine and I was unable to get the RBC9 driver to work on my Windows 7 x 64 machine, I wrote a script for GlovePIE to work. The link to the post and script is http://www.torquepowered.com/community/ ... iew/19677/ It was written specifically for the SpacePilot, but a few changes to the script will make it usable by all.

Visad