WiiAction Input Library

Four days after the UK release of the Nintendo Wii, I have completed the first version of the WiiAction C++ Input Library. It has a very clean interface, similar to Microsoft's XInput.

Supported:
- All button presses
- Tilting (using internal "accelerometer")
- Rumble

Yet to be supported:
- IR Triangulation (For the screen pointer)
- Sound
- Expansion ports (nunchuck etc)

No plans to support fully:
- Mii Data. It's there and accessible, but the idea of writing a Mii Editor to actually edit or display the Miis bores me. It is possible to get the Mii name though, and use that on scoreboards and suchlike.

Technical Information:
The library is written in C++ using the Broadcom WIDCOMM DK. Demos compiled using this library require a WIDCOMM-compatible bluetooth dongle to support it. WiiAction is currently untested on other bluetooth stack formats.

Many thanks to LiquidIce for his fantastic Wii development blog, to the various people hosting versions of the WiiLi Wiki, and to everyone at #wiimote and #wiidev!

Also thanks to the lovely Miss Jessica Walker, for the loan of her dongle, and to Mr. Simon Halliday for the loan of his videocamera. Finally, thanks to Mr. Luke Nockles for directing this video and for ensuring there was always a bitesized chunk of biltong already cut off the hunk when I got hungry.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Nintendo
• Wii
• Wiimote
• Homebrew
• WiiDev
• Teesside
• WIDCOMM
• Bluetooth
• Magna
• Karter
• 72HourGDC

[limited06]

What uni are you at? Teatil?

Also what course are you doing? I'm hoping to do a computer games development course yah see

[elfpimpdidi]

Hi, I'm at the University of Teesside, up in Middlesbrough. Just coming to the end of my final year now. It's good, particularly if it's programming you're wanting to do. If you drop me an email / private message I'd happily talk with you some more about it.

What aspect of games development are you interested in? Code/Art/Design/etc...?

[Nemesis7474]

hey, i am considering going to teeside to do computer game programming, but i only have basic experience of C++. Is that a problem? how much programming experience do i need prior to going to do this course?

[wildpeaks]

Well I ended up finding a belkin one, installed the driver, it detected the wiimote, all good so far, except when I want to connect, it asks me for a PIN for the connection (and refuses to connect if I give it a dummy one).

Ideas ?

[wildpeaks]

What, you don't finish it in one day ? Hehe :-p

[elfpimpdidi]

Hehe, yes it is - extra dry, I believe. Scary how much of that bottle was consumed over the four days I worked on WiiAction...

[elfpimpdidi]

Cool... though before you start buying equipment please bear in mind that I chose the Belkin/WIDCOMM solution largely because I liked the API WIDCOMM supply. I don't think it's compatible with other Wii Remote - based projects like GlovePIE (Though I could be wrong, I haven't tested). If you're going to be coding your own Wiimote project, I'd highly recommend WIDCOMM, but if you're wanting to use other people's it might not be the best choice...

[wildpeaks]

Btw is that Martini I see in the background ? Good pick :-)

[wildpeaks]

Aw I feared that: I installed the WIDCOMM stack, but for some reason it doesn't detect the built-in bluetooth hardware of the notebook.

Thanks for the help, I'll check if I can get a belkin dongle, might work better.

[elfpimpdidi]

Hey - I'm afraid I can't help you there; I used the WIDCOMM stack as is native to the Belkin bluetooth dongle I was using.

I did try it quickly with BlueSoleil, to test it, and found similar results - it was detected and picked up, and I could even see some packets were being sent across, but I couldn't get access. My guess is that this is because it's doesn't perfectly meet the HID standard. I didn't spend too long with BlueSoleil, when I had it working with WIDCOMM.