left hand is not enough - footpedals

[CeeSA]

my motivation for footpedals comes due an lag of key i could reach with my left hand. because i play fps in this way:

left hand - Sidewinder Joystick (motion)
right hand - Mouse (aiming)

so there are less input for the left hand.

this is my first try:
http://www.bilderload.com/bild/59498/firstclosedUH920.jpg
open:
http://www.bilderload.com/bild/59499/firstopen8MGMC.jpg
(sticking the keyfoil to "normal" switchbutton)

i build one for a friend:
http://www.bilderload.com/bild/59501/formyfriend8BX05.jpg
(sticking the keyfoil to "normal" switchbutton and checkerplate)

this is the one i used the last years:
http://www.bilderload.com/bild/59503/aracadebuttonV1WCC.jpg
(arcade buttons with keyboard encoder)

at the moment i build a new one.

nowdays i play fps with left hand on the keyboard
but use still my feed with six buttons.

[Necroleachate]

What are the buttons from your's first and your friend's?
Also curious about what keys you use on the feet.

[wellington1869]

i'm a big believer in putting our feet to use while sitting at the desk.

I bought a cheap usb footpedal off ebay a few months ago. I use it to 'remote trigger' my canon camera while its tethered to my laptop. Pretty nice.

It does have a slight lag tho, i wouldnt game with it. Then again it was only $10.

I'm always surprised that footpedals arent as popular as mice.

[CeeSA]

What are the buttons from your's first and your friend's?
Also curious about what keys you use on the feet.

i dont know the word in english.
that are buttons using in normal staiway to turn on light or something similar

importent is, the button have to go back in position ?oneself? (switch back automatic)

you can buy these button in a hardwarestore and of course at ebay

i did not find some at ebay.com so here is a link to ebay.de
http://cgi.ebay.de/Kopp-Milano-weis-Taster-Neu-/270553845627?pt=Dimmer&hash=item3efe440f7b

hope that helps

i use the buttons for gaming only.
to crouch; weapon switch; melee; show map; show scores etc

[Parak]

Whenever I read about footpedals, aside from wanting one (or six), I keep thinking about organs...

[CeeSA]

*Update*
here is the new one




its for a friend and it should be not so expensive.
so i take a cheap usb joystick for the interface.
he got not much space for the footpedal so the buttons could not be so big because the case is not so wide

[zefrer]

Um, I don't mean to be rude or anything, your mod is nice, very well built, but it seems to me that you created a solution for a problem that doesn't exist.
You cannot switch weapons in FPS games fast enough because you need to move your hand away from the joystick which you use to move to, presumably, a keyboard that you were using to switch weapons with.

So your solution is to create foot pedals? Did it not occur to you that it would be far easier, faster and probably more convenient/efficient when actually playing said FPS game to, I don't know, use the keyboard to move instead of a joystick? A joystick! For moving in FPS games!

Sorry, had to get that out.

[CeeSA]

as i wrote and ripster quote (rhyme)
i did not use a joystick since 2006.

*offtopic*
my favorite fps joystick game was UnrealTournament. i played this game since late 99.
Before that i play around some Quake. In this time i never understood why people use keyboard for moving a character ingame. For me it feels so well, so smooth, so elemental to use my joystick (Sidewinder 3d). For UT i use the Joystick for movement and the cooliehat for dodging (doubletap in one direction), jump and crouch.

Today i play Battlefield BC2. Setup:

1 2 3 4 5 6 buttons for feed
1 - crouch
2 - pistol
3 - map
4 - Scorecard
5 - special (mortar, defi ...)
6 - melee attack

Example:
it's very comfortable  to crouch with the feed, move along with wasd.  

anyway it's nice to have

[JosePepe]

I think having foot buttons is a good idea.  I would actually like them for doing all kinds of things I do constantly.

[Arc'xer]

as i wrote and ripster quote (rhyme)
i did not use a joystick since 2006.

*offtopic*
my favorite fps joystick game was UnrealTournament. i played this game since late 99.
Before that i play around some Quake. In this time i never understood why people use keyboard for moving a character ingame. For me it feels so well, so smooth, so elemental to use my joystick (Sidewinder 3d). For UT i use the Joystick for movement and the cooliehat for dodging (doubletap in one direction), jump and crouch.

Today i play Battlefield BC2. Setup:

1 2 3 4 5 6 buttons for feed
1 - crouch
2 - pistol
3 - map
4 - Scorecard
5 - special (mortar, defi ...)
6 - melee attack

Example:
it's very comfortable  to crouch with the feed, move along with wasd.  

anyway it's nice to have

This is something I wanted to toy with a while back either a Joy-mouse/Joy-ball setup. Seems to have been popular with a small number of people back in the 90s essentially since 90% of FPS games are just planes on the ground with a gun stuck to it, lacking free-vectorized aiming and or free-aim ironsight systems just keeps the tradition going to this day.

Seems to have picked up quite a popularity when the panther XL popped up combining a trackball and a joystick system. Hell I even ran into threads of some using CH product HOTAS pro throttle as a multi-button joystick for movement.

Unreal JS thread
Atomic warrior half-life clan Joy-ball/Joy-mouse clan
FEAR combat post I ran into about his Joy-Mouse setup

Unfortunately any other information is either long gone and archived. Or no one bothered to properly support it with any good information and only a small number of gamers ever really continued the use.

Primarily because of the lack of left-handed joysticks but also because there are things you can't do on the joystick that you can on the keyboard.

You mentioned quake and with the keyboard you can do the different trickjumps much easier on it than the joystick. Like strafejumping(full-beat, half-beat), bunnyhopping and all the other quake engine jumps. I'm sure it could be done with the joystick but it's sure going to be a lot of trouble especially when considering the console versions of the quake engine and they can't strafe jump with the thumbstick. Not sure if you ever ran into someone who practiced so much they automatically use all those different strafe and trick jumps, they'd probably run rings around you in a map.

Plus setting up a joystick profile and calibrating all the joy dvars/cvars for each individual setting takes a long time and maybe even trying to search around for what settings do what.

Yeah it's smooth I'm sure it is but at the same time not as responsive. There's a reason why everyone uses a keyboard. The fingers are a lot more quicker and nimble than rotating/moving the arm/wrist. In the end it's your thing and your probably one of the few in the world who uses such a setup.

[msiegel]

"aikeedo, aikeedo"

[symphonic1985]

I had a hand problem a few years ago that forced me to move away from the keyboard towards a joystick for my WASD movement. I played about 200 hours of TF2 with a Saitek EVO + Mouse combo. There are some things that are really nice about analog control in a shooter, but it true that the setup is a PITA. And so many games have no joystick support at all.

In the end I came back to a WASD setup for compatibility but also because side to side dodging is a little easier. I was testing my accuracy in Quake to see which control scheme gives better results. For me, the rail gun is better with the fine tuning of analog control, but my LG was a bit worse. I can do basic strafe jumping with a joystick, but I don't have enough Quake experience to know all of the trick jumps.

If there existed a short throw analog stick with a very precise center and some hat buttons I'd consider it again. I sawed the handle down on my Saitek and it was still too long.

[EverythingIBM]

The idea for footpedals for gaming is quite nice... if it were possible, in an RTS to hit a combo amount of keys. For example, in warcraft 3, pedal 1 could be "B + A" to set the command to build an altar. This would eliminate the need for moving your hand away from either WASD or arrow keys. I prefer arrow keys; I like my hands being closer together.
You could even make it do other functions too, like for MIDI when your hands are occupied with playing or whatnot. I'm thinking having a pedal for pitch bend would be useful: the longer you hold it down, the more it bends the pitch, and releasing the pedal brings the pitch back to normal. OR, pedal 1 could initiate pitch bend, and pedal 2 could affect how much pitch bending you want to apply.
Crazy stuff.

[keyboardlover]

Left hand is not enough eh?

Sounds like a personal problem.

[RiGS]

Yeah, but obviously if you make it to the competition level in any type of game the tournament hosts wouldn't allow you to use those fancy foot pedals.
Btw scythe offers good quality foot pedals.
http://www.scythe-usa.com/product/input/008/usbfootswitch_detail.html
I always wanted to buy one for gaming, and it would be wonderful as a modifier or function type swich for a small type of keyboard like the new KBC poker.

[ZeriouS]

I believe, it´s a good idea.

I´ve been a WSAD-user for years, but in key moments I wasn´t able to switch fast enough to some other weapon because when moving away the fingers from the movement keys just to switch to a new weapon or using an item, I lost some split seconds of reaction time. This split second is important to me, as I´m still a competitive player. So I remapped most of my ingame-functions that I mostly use one finger for one function, using extensively all mouse buttons, makes gaming more comfortable and more effective.

Now, I´ll try to get my hands on some of those foot pedals, because my feet need some work too

Rather this (Scythe 3 way USB pedal): http://tinyurl.com/5wlxuug
Than this (World Of Warcraft Tap Chat): http://tinyurl.com/5t2e7uf

I was thinking lately aswell to use a joystick for movement, as I used one in Descent for navigating the spaceship around

*edit* I just found a Scythe 3 way USB pedal review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbDwBiZj91o

[krull]

how on earth could you strafe jump in quake with a joystick? pics plz