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/latest/aframe.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-core');
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-model src="player1.obj" gamepad-controls="controller: 0; lookEnabled: false"></a-model>
<a-model src="player2.obj" gamepad-controls="controller: 1; lookEnabled: false"></a-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.
debug	false	When true, shows debugging info in the console.

Keywords

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Package last updated on 12 Feb 2016

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