How to Program your Force Feedback Joystick from ToonTalk

How to Program your Force Feedback Joystick

from Inside of ToonTalk

32-bit version only.

For advanced users:

If you have a force feedback joystick (and it is compatible with DirectX 5 or later, e.g. Microsoft's Sidewinder Force Feedback Pro or CH Products Force FX), then you should find a notebook of special remote controls for your joystick near the end of the Sensors notebook. In this notebook, you'll find force effects on odd pages and some controllers on the opposite page. A force effect is turned on and off by pressing the space bar while holding it. As always, robots can be trained to do this.

The three controllers for a force effect are:

Duration. This determines how long the effect will last. It is in milliseconds (thousandths of a second).
Strength. This determines how strong the effect is. 100 is a full 100% strong effect.
Direction. This determines the direction the force will happen. It is in degrees (so it ranges from 0 to 359).

To read the joystick's buttons or movement use the sensors in the regular joystick notebook.

The force effects were created using the IFORCE Studio that is available for free from Immersion Corporation. You can alter any of the existing forces or create new ones. And they'll be in your notebook the next time you start ToonTalk.

Note that ToonTalk by default turns off a feature called Autocenter. It uses the motors to simulate the springs in a standard joystick. Turning it off gives you more control over the device. The TurnOffJoystickAutoCenter flag in your toontalk.ini file can be set to leave Autocenter on.