VACCiNE 2 - an improved universal gamepad and debugger engine

Quote from ragem

[MENTION=15682]Volnaiskra[/MENTION] Hey do you happen to have an avenue where I can PM you about VACCiNE? Think you might know what I'll ask.:pacman:

Sigh. If this is about wanting me to do my famous yodel-only Boney M medley routine, then ok, but it's the last time!!

Sent you a PM

Sorry, not really. That is, a Mac version of Spryke is certainly not out of the question, so it's possible I may end up doing sort of port of VACCiNE for Mac when the time comes. But (a) that'll be a long time from now, and (b) I'm at the mercy of the extensions that are available (VACCiNE is just a layer on top that consolidates and enhances various things - it relies on the Joystick 2 extension to actually read the controller). If Joystick 2 doesn't work in Mac, then I'm in the same boat as you.

Have you tried the new(ish) SDL Joystick object to see if it works in Mac? If it doesn't, maybe you can ask Phi to implement Mac support for it - perhaps as part of his Patreon-related work.

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There's a demo in the first frame of the MFA that demonstrates all the main features and extensive comments in the events outlining how everything works, what to change, what to ignore, etc. The rest is up to you.

Quote from Fashion

Volnaiskra does Vaccine work with a game using the platform movement object? I realized the controller may not be immediately working because of my game not using the 'Player Controls' per se

I haven't really used the PMO, though I don't see why it would be a problem. Though it won't work 'out of the box' the way the keyboard probably does. For example, I imagine the arrow keys, spacebar, etc. work automatically with PMO without you needing to do anything. Getting the gamepad to work will require a bit more work than that.

Basically, VACCiNE uses the Joystick 2 object, which for many years was the most reliable and full-featured way to get gamepads to work in Fusion. Joystick 2 is independent of any in-built controls that are in Fusion or PMO, so basically it works with everything......and in a sense with nothing: it does nothing out of the box except provide access to a gamepad's outputs - you need to create your own events to actually make your game respond to that output. The problem was always that Joystick 2 was a real pain to work with because it was very unintuitive and inconsistent, and missing certain key data (eg. how hard an analog joystick is being pushed). So VACCiNE provides a 'wrapper' that greatly simplifies the process, and automatically ties it in with keyboard input as well.

Joystick 2 also had certain performance issues and caused some compatibility issues with Steam for some users. Nowadays there's a newer joystick extension called SDL Joystick being made by Phi, which addresses those issues. You might want to try that first. I haven't tried SDL yet so can't say much about it, though I expect it's probably the way to go, if only to avoid Steam compatibility issues. I believe it's still in progress, so may still have teething issues. And as I understand it, SDL's purpose is similar to Joystick 2 in that it just provides access to the hardware rather than focusing on the front-end user experience, which may mean that it presents some of the same difficulties with things like getting Xbox and Playstation gamepads to work the same way, for example. So I suspect it might still benefit from some VACCiNE-style front-end optimisations to simplify and consolidate various controls, to manage feathering, consistent deadzones, keyboard mirroring and stuff like that.

When my own game Spryke is closer to release, I will use whatever the best extension exists at that time (either SDL or - fingers crossed - a native Clickteam gamepad solution) and will probably adapt some of VACCiNE's code to it so I can make use of some of VACCiNE's benefits with the newer extension. But that's a while off still.

Quote from Windybeard

Not sure if there is still any support for this product however I have a few issue that I cannot seem to resolve.

1 - For some reason, on occasion, when pressing up arrow/W on the keyboard the VACinput registers this correctly (showing a 1) however it also makes the "InputJump" a 1 and keeps it as 1 until space bar is pressed.
This is causing all manner of issues and makes Vaccine 2 fairly unusable. Is it something i am doing? I am not setting the alt values of the VACinput to anything, purely leaving it to do its thing.
Any advice?

I can't see how the problem could be in the code. There are only 2 events that set inputJump to something other than 0:

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So I guess the problem must occur at one of those two spots. The first thing to do then would be to find which of them is firing. There are many ways to do that (eg. setting counters, adding "output to debugger" actions). A bug-testing technique I like to use for this sort of thing is to add a different sound to each event. For example, I would play a klaxon sound on one of them and a ding sound on the other. Then you run the game and you can hear if/when one or both sounds are triggering:

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If the keyboard event is triggering

As you can see, the keyboard event (#618 in the screenshots) only fires if the ControlX object detects a spacebar (keycode 32). So if this happens when you press W or up arrow, that's definitely unusual. I would check the following:

-make sure you only have a single instance of the ControlX object in any frame - check this first. Fingers crossed it's this, as having more than one instance may be causing both your problems, and obviously would be easy to fix
-check whether you're using any other extensions that might simulate a spacebar. For example, the Platform Movement Object, or maybe an Active Object with the native Clickteam Platform Movement attached to it. I don't know if either of these could simulate a spacebar, but no harm checking.
-Try changing the condition to the string-based one, so that instead of ControlX looking for keycode 32, it looks for "space".
-Try replacing the ControlX condition with Clickteam's native condition (repeat while "Space bar" is pressed)
-check whether spacebar gets stuck only if you you press lots of keys at once (try the same key combinations in something like notepad and see if spacebar gets stuck there too). Some cheaper keyboards use shared circuitry for various keys and will start to glitch if you press certain key combinations simultaneously (I think this is called "ghosting")

If the gamepad event is triggering

If the gamepad event is triggering (#581 in the screenshots), then it means that southButton is being set to 1 somewhere. That, in turn, must mean that the Joystick 2 object is detecting a button press. I would check the following:

-unplug any gamepads in case one is sending wrong signals to the PC
-ensure you don't have any software running (eg. key2joy) that might be simulating button presses.
-ensure there's just one instance of Joystick 2 in the frame

Quote

2 - When using a button press via the Vacinput to change frames, on occasion the Vacinput holds onto the value on screen transition. this is causing some major issues across my entire project. I have tried making the Vac objects Local rather than Global, I have also tried setting all Vacinput vars to 0 on frame end. Neither have resolved the issue.
Any advice?

The following event is supposed to prevent these sorts of problems:

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Try the following:

-ensure that this event is intact. Especially the Activate group "VACCiNE clear inputs" action (actions like this can disappear if you cut/delete their target group at any stage)
-ensure only one ControlX instance is present in any frame.
-try replacing "run this event once" with "start of frame"
-try triggering this clear input routine more than once - for example, run it again a few ticks after your new frame has loaded, or perhaps a fraction of a second after the frame has loaded (pictured below)
-try triggering this clear input routine at the end of the old frame (just as you tried with setting altVals to 0, but this will also forcibly simulate key up presses in ControlX )
-try replacing the relevant button press conditions from ControlX ones to native Fusion ones.

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Somebody requested an alternate way to purchase VACCiNE 2 a couple of weeks ago, since the Clickstore is down. I can't remember who it was, and the thread they posted on seems to have been since closed (I can find it on Google but get access denied when I click it).

Anyway, hopefully they see this post. I've uploaded VACCiNE 2 on Itchio, so you can now buy it here: Please login to see this link.