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Valve releases Steam Controller CAD geometry so you can mod it

pcgamer.com

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Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD geometry so you can mod it

#11

Post by Impossible »

jamessteininger wrote: post #6

They did the same for the Steam VR motion controllers. We call them the doughnut sticks for fun at the office, but they are really incredible to use. It was a huge blessing for us that Valve included the exact model for us to modify and reskin, because having 1-1 mapping of what you're seeing in the simulation and what you're actually feeling is huge. We did the same with the PlaystationVR Move controllers, which you…

Do you have a link to the location of the CAD files for the Vive controllers, or are you talking about OpenVR render models that are obj format and, afaik, not suitable for 3D printing custom, real world, hardware.

Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD geometry so you can mod it

#13

Post by ekianjo »

mc42 wrote: post #5

This is actually, a pretty big step forward in my opinion. It makes it feel, for the first time (to me at least), that the company is replying to the feedback of the customers. They know that people want to mod it, and rather than force them to use arcane methods to hack the current controller into their desired one, they can simply alter it digitally. As an aside, I'd love to see a full-metal case for it, only using…

Valve actually said they would open the design right when they disclosed the controller project so it was kind of expected.

Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD geometry so you can mod it

#14

Post by douche »

kibwen wrote: post #8

For those who haven't gotten their hands on a Steam controller yet, I was very impressed. The software is still quite immature (par for Valve), but the haptic feedback in the hardware is immensely cool and the potential configurability is insane. It really is a great middle-ground between mouse+keyboard and traditional gamepads.

It is a pretty excellent controller. It's kind of amazing how many keyboard/mouse only games you can comfortably with a little tweaking of the keybindings.

I haven't tried using it directly with my computer, just for couch gaming with my TV and Steam Link. The Steam Link is also pretty cool, but has some serious issues with crashing Steam on my PC - not sure whether it is the Link itself, or Big Picture mode, but it is super irritating to have to get up and go restart Steam in the other room when it craps out in the middle of a game. The Wake-On-LAN feature has never worked for me...

Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD geometry so you can mod it

#15

Post by jessaustin »

criley2 wrote: post #9
santaclaus wrote: post #2

It would be pretty rad if you could get controller cases custom printed to fit your hands.

Sounds like my dream industry where a fully automated tailoring machine was combined with body scanning. So you could, once a year or whenever, get a scan and have your body in the system, and from there, be able to a) shop online seeing clothes rendered on your body type b) with enough maturity for the system, have the ability to have your favorite styles created in your favorite fabrics on-demand, ready to pick up…

I guess there's a race on, between this vision of clothing tech and that of the film of coordinated nanobots that can instantly reconfigure to form any desired clothing. Gain a little weight? Just pour on a teaspoon more nanobots.

Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD geometry so you can mod it

#16

Post by the8472 »

criley2 wrote: post #9
santaclaus wrote: post #2

It would be pretty rad if you could get controller cases custom printed to fit your hands.

Sounds like my dream industry where a fully automated tailoring machine was combined with body scanning. So you could, once a year or whenever, get a scan and have your body in the system, and from there, be able to a) shop online seeing clothes rendered on your body type b) with enough maturity for the system, have the ability to have your favorite styles created in your favorite fabrics on-demand, ready to pick up…

If you really want to dream, throw 3d-weaving into that process to make things actually fit your form instead of flat, sewn-together patches stretching over you.

Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD geometry so you can mod it

#17

Post by Joof »

douche wrote: post #14
kibwen wrote: post #8

For those who haven't gotten their hands on a Steam controller yet, I was very impressed. The software is still quite immature (par for Valve), but the haptic feedback in the hardware is immensely cool and the potential configurability is insane. It really is a great middle-ground between mouse+keyboard and traditional gamepads.

It is a pretty excellent controller. It's kind of amazing how many keyboard/mouse only games you can comfortably with a little tweaking of the keybindings. I haven't tried using it directly with my computer, just for couch gaming with my TV and Steam Link. The Steam Link is also pretty cool, but has some serious issues with crashing Steam on my PC - not sure whether it is the Link itself, or Big Picture mode, but it…

Its hard to convince people of the utility though. It also has a pretty large ramp-up time.

A friend of mine keeps trying mine out on stuff like cities skylines and determining it's no good. Its somewhat unsurprising, skylines is a very work-table feeling game; replacing a mouse would feel really weird (and take a while to really feel decent).

For me it clicked demoing DOOM mods; it felt great on the controller and I could throw it up on my TV.

Stardew Valley feels pretty good too and while you can play RTS games with it (control groups on the left pad), it won't compare with a mouse anytime soon.

Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD geometry so you can mod it

#18

Post by taurath »

douche wrote: post #14
kibwen wrote: post #8

For those who haven't gotten their hands on a Steam controller yet, I was very impressed. The software is still quite immature (par for Valve), but the haptic feedback in the hardware is immensely cool and the potential configurability is insane. It really is a great middle-ground between mouse+keyboard and traditional gamepads.

It is a pretty excellent controller. It's kind of amazing how many keyboard/mouse only games you can comfortably with a little tweaking of the keybindings. I haven't tried using it directly with my computer, just for couch gaming with my TV and Steam Link. The Steam Link is also pretty cool, but has some serious issues with crashing Steam on my PC - not sure whether it is the Link itself, or Big Picture mode, but it…

I pre-ordered it months before release but have been rather frustrated with being able to use it for anything replacing a right analog stick. It's been barely okay for turn based games like civilization but for something like bioshock infinite it feels woefully inaccurate and difficult to get the feel, even after 2 weeks of solid use (including scores of steam link crashes)

Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD geometry so you can mod it

#19

Post by slantyyz »

kibwen wrote: post #8

For those who haven't gotten their hands on a Steam controller yet, I was very impressed. The software is still quite immature (par for Valve), but the haptic feedback in the hardware is immensely cool and the potential configurability is insane. It really is a great middle-ground between mouse+keyboard and traditional gamepads.

I bought mine on a lark to play with Street Fighter V, and it's surprisingly good for that use case.

None of my fight pads were XInput and I was a little lazy about setting up an XInput wrapper to get them to work.

The left touch d-pad is quite good for quarter and half circle motions, and dragon punches are pretty easy to pull off.

I also experimented with the right pad as buttons. It was pretty good, but where it fell short is that the right pad, unlike the left pad, doesn't offer any tactile cues as to where your fingers are.

Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD geometry so you can mod it

#20

Post by kibwen »

slantyyz wrote: post #19
kibwen wrote: post #8

For those who haven't gotten their hands on a Steam controller yet, I was very impressed. The software is still quite immature (par for Valve), but the haptic feedback in the hardware is immensely cool and the potential configurability is insane. It really is a great middle-ground between mouse+keyboard and traditional gamepads.

I bought mine on a lark to play with Street Fighter V, and it's surprisingly good for that use case. None of my fight pads were XInput and I was a little lazy about setting up an XInput wrapper to get them to work. The left touch d-pad is quite good for quarter and half circle motions, and dragon punches are pretty easy to pull off. I also experimented with the right pad as buttons. It was pretty good, but where it f…

Indeed, I don't think it's going to be a replacement for serious competitive gaming e.g. dedicated arcade sticks for Street Fighter (though I'm very intrigued at the people trying to use a combination of the touchpad and the accelerometer for rapid accurate aiming in FPS games), but for casual gaming it could comfortably work with 95% of the games out there, even in command-heavy games like Civ and XCOM.
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