Supports one or more gamepads, attached to an A-Frame scene. When used on a mobile device, gamepad-controls can also receive input from a gamepad connected to a host machine, using ProxyControls.js.

This component uses the HTML5 Gamepad API. The underlying API supports Firefox, Chrome, Edge, and Opera (as of 01/2016). Safari and Internet Explorer do not currently support gamepads.

Usage (script)

<html>
  <head>
    <!-- A-Frame Library -->
    <script src="https://aframe.io/releases/0.3.1/aframe.min.js"></script>

    <!-- Component -->
    <script src="dist/aframe-gamepad-controls.js"></script>
  </head>
  <body>
    <a-scene>
      <!-- ... -->
      <a-entity camera gamepad-controls></a-entity>
    </a-scene>
  </body>
</html>

Usage (NPM)

Install NPM module.

$ npm install aframe-gamepad-controls

var AFRAME = require('aframe');
var GamepadControls = require('aframe-gamepad-controls');
AFRAME.registerComponent('gamepad-controls', GamepadControls);

Add markup.

<!-- First-person controls -->
<a-entity camera gamepad-controls></a-entity>

<!-- Third-person controls -->
<a-cube gamepad-controls="lookEnabled: false"></a-cube>

<!-- Two players -->
<a-obj-model src="player1.obj" gamepad-controls="controller: 0; lookEnabled: false"></a-obj-model>
<a-obj-model src="player2.obj" gamepad-controls="controller: 1; lookEnabled: false"></a-obj-model>

Development

To edit the component or play with examples, download the project and run:

npm install
npm run dev

The demo will run at http://localhost:8000/.

Mobile / Cardboard + Gamepad

In Chrome on Android, USB gamepads can be connected with an OTG adapter. For a Nexus 5X, I use this. I'm not aware of a way to connect a gamepad in iOS, but definitely let me know if there's something I'm missing.

The gamepad-controls component can also receive remote events with WebRTC, if a proxy-controls element is attached to the scene. More details about ProxyControls.js.

Example:

<a-scene proxy-controls>
  <a-entity camera
            gamepad-controls>
  </a-entity>
</a-scene>

Button Events

When buttons are pressed on the gamepad, a GamepadButtonEvent is emitted on the element. Components and entities may listen for these events and modify behavior as needed. Example:

el.addEventListener('gamepadbuttondown', function (e) {
  console.log('Button "%d" has been pressed.', e.index);
});

GamepadButtonEvent:

Property	Type	Description
type	string	Either `gamepadbuttondown` or `gamepadbuttonup`.
index	int	Index of the button affected, 0..N.
pressed	boolean	Whether or not the button is currently pressed.
value	float	Distance the button was pressed, if applicable. Value will be 0 or 1 in most cases, but may return a float on the interval [0..1] for trigger-like buttons.

Markup-only Binding:

For convenience, additional events are fired including the button index, providing a way to bind events to specific buttons using only markup. To play pew-pew.wav when Button 7 is pressed (right trigger on an Xbox controller), you might do this:

<a-entity gamepad-controls
          sound="src: pew-pew.wav;
                 on: gamepadbuttondown:7">
</a-entity>

Finally, your code may call the gamepad-controls component directly to request the state of a button, as a GamepadButton instance:

el.components['gamepad-controls'].getButton(index);
// Returns a GamepadButton instance.

Options

Property	Default	Description
controller	0	Which controller (0..3) the object should be attached to.
enabled	true	Enables all events on this controller.
movementEnabled	true	Enables movement via the left thumbstick.
lookEnabled	true	`true`, or `false`. Enables view rotation via the right thumbstick.
flyEnabled	false	Whether or not movement is restricted to the entity’s initial plane.
invertAxisY	false	Invert Y axis of view rotation thumbstick.
debug	false	When true, shows debugging info in the console.

Keywords

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Last updated on 18 Jul 2017

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