controllers.md

Controllers

One of the huge advantages of the OUYA console is that gamers get to use a real controller! The OUYA controller has:

• four digital buttons (O, U, Y, and A)
• a four direction digital pad (D-Pad)
• two analog joysticks (LS, RS)
• two digital buttons that activate when the joysticks are pushed straight down (L3, R3)
• two digital bumper buttons (L1, R1)
• two analog triggers (L2, R2)
• a touchpad, configured to behave as a mouse input (Touchpad)

Note: The analog triggers also act as digital buttons, with a threshold of 0.5 for the analog value.

Since controller interfaces are so crucial, we've done some work to make your life easier.

Constants

The OuyaController class contains OUYA-specific constants for buttons and axes. A small selection are shown below.

public static final int BUTTON_O;
public static final int BUTTON_U;
public static final int BUTTON_Y;
public static final int BUTTON_A;

With these constants in hand, it's totally acceptable to handle input via the standard onKeyDown, onKeyUp, or onGenericMotionEvent methods. If handling input in this way, the controller ID can be queried through OuyaController.getPlayerNumByDeviceId() as shown below.

@Override
public boolean onKeyDown(final int keyCode, KeyEvent event){
    //Get the player #
    int player = OuyaController.getPlayerNumByDeviceId(event.getDeviceId());       
    boolean handled = false;

    //Handle the input
    switch(keyCode){
        case OuyaController.BUTTON_O:
            //You now have the key pressed and the player # that pressed it
            //doSomethingWithKey();
            handled = true;
            break;
    }
    return handled || super.onKeyDown(keyCode, event);
}

@Override
public boolean onGenericMotionEvent(final MotionEvent event) {
    //Get the player #
    int player = OuyaController.getPlayerNumByDeviceId(event.getDeviceId());    

    //Get all the axis for the event
    float LS_X = event.getAxisValue(OuyaController.AXIS_LS_X);
    float LS_Y = event.getAxisValue(OuyaController.AXIS_LS_Y);
    float RS_X = event.getAxisValue(OuyaController.AXIS_RS_X);
    float RS_Y = event.getAxisValue(OuyaController.AXIS_RS_Y);
    float L2 = event.getAxisValue(OuyaController.AXIS_L2);
    float R2 = event.getAxisValue(OuyaController.AXIS_R2);

    //Do something with the input
    //updatePlayerInput(player, LS_X, LS_Y, RS_X, RS_Y, L2, R2);

    return true;
}

Distinguishing between Analog Joystick and Touchpad

Both the analog joystick and the touchpad states are read using onGenericMotionEvent. To distinguish between them you can query the MotionEvent action where:

• Analog Joystick == MotionEvent.ACTION_MOVE
• Touchpad == MotionEvent.ACTION_HOVER_MOVE

Example:

@Override
public boolean onGenericMotionEvent(final MotionEvent event) {
    //Get the player #
    int player = OuyaController.getPlayerNumByDeviceId(event.getDeviceId());    

    switch(event.getActionMasked()){
        //Joystick
        case MotionEvent.ACTION_MOVE:
            float LS_X = event.getAxisValue(OuyaController.AXIS_LS_X);            
            //do other things with joystick
            break;

        //Touchpad
        case MotionEvent.ACTION_HOVER_MOVE:
            //Print the pixel coordinates of the cursor
            Log.i("Touchpad", "Cursor X: " + event.getX() + "Cursor Y: " + event.getY());
            break;
    }

    return true;
}

Anytime State Querying

If you want the extra flexibility of querying the controller state at any time, you can use the rest of the OuyaController class. First off, this means your activity should forward the onKeyDown, onKeyUp, or onGenericMotionEvent calls to OuyaController:

@Override
public boolean onKeyDown(int keyCode, KeyEvent event) {
    boolean handled = OuyaController.onKeyDown(keyCode, event);
    return handled || super.onKeyDown(keyCode, event);
}

@Override
public boolean onKeyUp(int keyCode, KeyEvent event) {
    boolean handled = OuyaController.onKeyUp(keyCode, event);
    return handled || super.onKeyUp(keyCode, event);
}

@Override
public boolean onGenericMotionEvent(MotionEvent event) {
    boolean handled = OuyaController.onGenericMotionEvent(event);
    return handled || super.onGenericMotionEvent(event);
}

Once OuyaController is getting the events, you can then get an instance of the class in one of two ways: device id, or player number:

OuyaController c = OuyaController.getControllerByDeviceId(deviceId);
OuyaController c = OuyaController.getControllerByPlayer(playerNum);

Now it's simple to query the button or axis values:

float axisX = c.getAxisValue(OuyaController.AXIS_LS_X);
float axisY = c.getAxisValue(OuyaController.AXIS_LS_Y);
boolean buttonPressed = c.getButton(OuyaController.BUTTON_O);

With this, you can focus on making a great game instead of on input handling.