Analog Keyboard in GTA V

[aimpad]

I've been working on a keyboard prototype for a few years that lets you drive smoothly based off how far down you press the keyboard key. I'm looking for some feedback from the GTA PC community to see if this is something you would find useful.

 

This isn't anything you can buy, and my intent is not to try and sell you something (other than the idea/concept). If you could take a few minutes and take a look at this video I made specifically for GTA V and let me know what you think I would appreciate it:

 

 

 

Thanks!

[Fubarbrickdust]

Hey Man.

 

I think this is an awesome concept! - I'm really impressed. Not only that but given the fact that so many games these days are cross platform and have lots of 'analogue' elements I definitely think there's a market for this functionality in a gaming keyboard. And not just for GTAV...there's so many games out there that this would be beneficial for. It's the perfect hybrid between between a KB&M and gamepad setup that offers accessibility to the best of both worlds in one package. I'd buy one, I know that.

 

As it happens, when GTAV hit I actually had a look about to see if there was anything like this on the market, sadly there wasn't. Shame.

 

After that I thought of trying to put together something not entirely dissimilar myself for completely personal use (it would've looked a bit to Frankenstein prototype to market!) - I'm a pretty tech savvy guy with reasonable electronics and fabrication skills - I bastardised a old Logitech N52TE gaming keypad and PS3 controller with a view to replacing the WASD keys with either the analogue triggers or pressure sensitive buttons and then using SCP server to do the configuration/mapping and comms with the PC. It would've been completely bespoke and probably quite ugly, but it would've been just for gaming so i was fine with that.

 

...I nearly got there but in the end it was a fail - the mechanical elements were fine, in the end the thing that got me was that the PS3 controller's circuit 'board' is one of those thin plastic 'membrane' types and turned out to be too difficult to work with or adapt for someone of my skill and knowledge level...i'm a kinda wires, switches n solder guy and that tech was a little bit over my head.

 

So really cool that someone's had the same idea...and more to the point, made an infinitely better attempt. Like I say - I'm really impressed. And what you've done looks really well implemented! Thumbs up from me

 

EDIT: Just checked out your site - awesome stuff. I'll be keeping my ear to the ground in the future.

A few questions if you're open to them?

1. When the time comes, would you be fitting this tech only to 'full length' keyboards, or are there any plans for a gaming keypad version also (a la Razer Orbweaver style). Again, a niche market, but pretty cool none the less, I own one.

 

And 2. This is probably a longshot - Are there any plans to market this tech as a 'conversion kit', aimed at those that don't mind getting their hands dirty and can be applied to their favourite/current kit?

 

EDIT 2: Scratch that last one...Maybe that's me being a little too optimistic, I'd imagine it's not as simple as swapping out a couple of cherry switched and adding some sort of auxiliary control module or something. You'd probably have loads of people ruining their kit...me included!

Edited August 31, 2015 by Fubarbrickdust

[aimpad]

Hey! Thanks for the feedback! It is gratifying to hear from people that appreciate the concept (let alone taking it a step further and actually trying to implement it!

Our first attempts were totally what you described (Frankenstein abominations!). We have gone through MANY MANY reiterations to get to the point where we now feel it has matured enough to be a legitimate feature on mechanical gaming keyboards. I really appreciate feedback from people because although I have a good idea of how most of the technology should be implemented there is always someone who has a different perspective that I don't have and it is much easier to integrate ideas at this stage of development rather than after everything has been completely finalized.

 

To address your questions directly:

 

1) We originally were planning on launching a product similar to the Orbweaver as a stand alone product. We had a kickstarter for it and everything... but it failed. We are really bad at marketing! Most of the feedback we had at the time was that if it were built into a full keyboard more people would be receptive to it, so we went back to the drawing board and focused on that. It doesn't mean we won't go back and revisit it. I think there are a lot of really cool things that can be done as a stand alone device that can't be done with a rigid keyboard layout. But, there are clear advantages to it being a full keyboard so that is where our efforts are.

 

2) A "conversion kit" is a little problematic. Not that it couldn't be done, but I think the drawbacks would outweigh the benefits unfortunately. One idea I have thought of was perhaps selling just the populated PCB. So, it would basically be the circuit board and all the components except for the Cherry switches. So, if you already had a mechanical keyboard you could basically "upgrade" it by replacing the PCB. This would require you to de-solder all the Cherry MX switches, pull out the old PCB and then replace the PCB with ours, which would basically be a conversion kit.

 

Thanks again for the response!

[scalliano]

This is very impressive and a rather elegant solution to the biggest drawback of KBM setups. I'd be all over this.

[CrazyFerret]

Looks very interesting...

 

I cant stand game controllers, never really used them.... well, no I take that back.

 

That last time I used a game "controller"....

 

Was 1984.

 

A joystick, on my Atari 800XL!

 

PLAYING PAC MAN!

 

After that, it was all keyboards and mice for me man; I never had a nintendo or any of those other fancy game machines... cant stand their controllers now. My girlfriend has a playstation, and I'm just all thumbs trying to work her controllers... tried using one via USB on my PC and just couldn't stand the thing.

Edited September 1, 2015 by CrazyFerret

[aimpad]

Heh, yeah I am definitely a keyboard/mouse man myself! I had an Atari 2600 and a NES, but since then have always been a hardcore PC Gamer. The mouse is objectively better for aiming and camera control. Some people may not prefer to use a mouse, but it is objectively a more precise mechanism than using a thumb stick. However, a keyboard is objectively a less precise mechanism than using a thumbstick for movement. My hope is to bridge the two control mechanisms together and take all the benefits of both with none of the drawbacks, but at the same time still be familiar enough to people that have been playing with mouse and keyboards for decades.

[MarshallRawR]

This is some great work for sure, really interesting.
Keep the good work up guys!

[Teletesselator]

More expensive gadgets that don't do much and aren't engineered properly so as to require work-rounds?

 

nah, not interested. A fully analogue KB which is switchable to digital and has a dedicated driver which allows mapping and so on - for like, $100 or so would be nice though. Too bad this isn't it - maybe this will become that in so many years, aye?

 

BTW, something more like After-touch on music keyboards seems like it would be better tech to employ. Aftertouch keybords sell for as little as $45 so it's not expensive to deploy. It seems to me that would be far more intuitive than trying gauge how far down one has pressed a key when the resistance is linear and constant.

Edited September 1, 2015 by Teletesselator

[aimpad]

Hey Teletesselator,

 

Thank you for the feedback. I'm curious on what you feel isn't engineered properly. The work around is only necessary because the game does not allow full remapping of the xbox 360 controls. The only other way to not have a work around like this that I could think of would be to build an API specifically to address the analog keyboard controls and somehow convince Rockstar to implment it. However, if RockStar were willing to take the time (or we were willing to pay them) to implement a specific API then it would just be easier for them to allow remapping of xbox 360 controls anyway.

 

To clarify on your second point, this is a fully analogue KB which is switchable to digital. It doesn't require any special drivers. You plug it in and the operating system sees it as a keyboard and as an xbox 360 controller. The function of switching back and forth between a normal keyboard and analog keyboard is shown in the video. The primary reason why we are using the Xbox 360 controller as our baseline for analog control is simply because there is game support for it today. It is widely adopted by developers, it is something they build anyway for cross platform support. So, rather than building an entirely new gaming device with little to no developer support (a quick way to kill any gaming hardware product), we have support for hundreds of games, right now, requiring nothing special from the gamer at all. If you want to remap controls you can do so with a software layer sitting in between the hardware and the game using open source software from x360ce or for pay software like Pinnacle Game Profiler.

 

I had not heard of After-touch before, so thank you for mentioning that. I did a little digging and it appears that After-touch uses velocity and pressure sensitivity for music piano keyboards. I play the piano so I have a decent understanding of what this might involve. I don't think this would translate well to gaming applications. Velocity sensing would not allow you to finely adjust speed and direction on the fly. Its purpose from a piano perspective is how "loud" the piano sound should be based off how quickly you strike it. Regarding pressure sensitivity, our very first prototypes were focused on using pressure sensors. We quickly realized that pressure sensitivity was a bad mechanism for game control because if you are running around and you want to run as fast as possible you press the key hard, and if you want to run faster you press it even harder, and you have no way of telling that you are already pressing it hard enough for the maximum movement speed. Your fingers get tired and strained and ergonomically gets pretty bad. With the mechanisms we are using there is a very clear and distinct range of motion from when the key is resting at the top of the key press all the way down to the bottom of the key press. Along the same lines as a thumbstick on the Xbox 360 controller. It is very obvious when the stick is resting in the middle and when you move the stick to the outer edge, the same principle applies. Because the key press resistance is linear and constant that is WHY it is intuitive. As you press the key down more and more the resistance of the spring under the key increases more and more. Our fingers are capable of sensing not only where they are located but also how much pressure is being applied to our finger tips. We can then translate this information in our brains into meaningful movement in games. It is hard to fully appreciate how intuitive it is but we had hundreds of people try it out at last year's PAX East and they caught on very quickly.

 

I enjoy a healthy debate, so if you have more criticism I am definitely open to it.

 

Thanks!

Edited September 1, 2015 by aimpad

[DentureDynamite]

I appreciate what you guys are doing. Would be interesting to try; however, my biggest beef with GTA 5 comes not from the keyboard as much as the sheer number of options available that R* insists have to be assigned a key on the keyboard or gamepad. Also, having game options split up into Options (left side of menu bar) Settings (right side of menu bar), the interactive menu, and then the phone can get confusing (for us older guys anyway). :-|

I know this is a bit OT, but IMO the biggest benefit would simply be R* not requiring that every function have a keyboard assigned to it (other than the few critical to navigation and game access). It's kind of like ARMA 3's overwhelming deluge of options for everything under the sun. lol Nice if/when you need them, but otherwise overwhelming and a royal pain when you have to find keyboard assigns for them all.

Edited September 1, 2015 by DentureDynamite

[aimpad]

Hah, it took me a while to figure out the phone part too! It does seem there are a lot functions. Certainly not ARMA 3 level, but it is pretty complex. It is kind of nice that a keyboard does have so many keys available to assign things to, but like you said if you have to figure out the "Pick your nose" button it gets pretty annoying.

[Huskerboy42]

This is the best gaming keyboard I have ever seen, and you mentioned cherry switches in the video? Mechanical keyboard, toggle-able analog keys, sweet led's. I'd buy this keyboard in a heartbeat

[aimpad]

Hey Man! Thank you for the positive feedback!

 

Yup, we are using Cherry MX Red switches in our prototypes. The linear feel is pretty critical to providing smooth analog control, otherwise the clicks and bumps of the other Cherry MX switches can make it awkward to use.

 

One thing we are trying to figure out is how much people like you would expect to pay for a keyboard like this. Looking at Amazon's "Best Selling Keyboard" list: http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Computers-Accessories-PC-Gaming-Keyboards/zgbs/pc/402051011it seems at the low end of Mechanical Keyboards are going for around $80 with no backlighting or macros or anything special. At the higher end, they are priced around $170 if they have fancy RGB backlighting and macros, etc. So, looking at these two ends of the spectrum, how much more do you think just the analog functions are "worth" to you? This information would be extremely helpful in determining if it is financially feasible for us to commercially produce keyboards like this.

 

Thanks again!