Hacking Wiimote emulation through GameCube controller

[Aurelio]

Hey everyone, I am opening this thread to show you a project I am currently working on.
As the name implies I am working on a way to emulate the Wiimote (+ extensions) with a GameCube controller. The way this works is by replacing the BT module interface in IOSes with a custom one that behaves as a BT module with a wiimote connected. The project is still in the early stages, but I have a couple of videos to show the progress. The project is meant mainly for Wii portables, but I think it might be suitable for home Wiis as well.
The following video was a first test in which the stick emulates the wiimote IR camera to move the cursor in the System Menu (sorry about the crappy video quality).

Lately I made a lot of progress, including extensions support (Nunchuk or Classic controller) and basic gestures (like Wiimote shaking). This video shows the hack working in Super Mario Galaxy.


I am now working on an homebrew to allow making custom configuration for each game, I hope to have something releasable soon.
Also in order to support the development of this and other projects I started a Patreon page (https://patreon.com/aureliomannara), making these works often requires expensive prototypes and tools. If this is not allowed let me know and I will remove the link ASAP.

 

[sigboe]

AMAZING,

is there going to be a public release? Does this disable the use of real wiimotes?

Motion plus?

Config maker with UI for linux going to happen? Or is the settings done via json or xml?

One thing that would be amazing would be support for variables and arrays in the per configuration setting, so that games with menus could be done practically. I saw someone do metroid prime on the steam controller through action sets, but it took forever to make and was tedious to make. I didnt try it but I imagine without variables and arrays it is prone to fail.

 

[Hakaisha]

This is pretty amazing. Very nice work. The ability to use GameCube/Wii-U Pro controllers in standard Wii games has been a highly desired feature for many people.

I can't tell you the amount of times I've ran out of batteries for the Wiimote, and wished the GameCube controller would at least work the Wii's home menu.

 

[KiiWii]

This project is fantastic, can’t wait to try this out someday!

 

[Aurelio]

Thanks everybody for the nice comments

is there going to be a public release? Does this disable the use of real wiimotes?

Yes, I will release it as soon as it will be ready (hopefully I will release a working beta soon-ish). The first release will disable the use of real wiimotes (it patches out the BT module), so only GC controllers will be supported. Actually only one wiimote will be emulated, but I plan on adding support for multiple emulated wiimotes and also allowing both real and emulated wiimotes to be used at the same time (this is a bit more complex, but still doable).

Motion plus?

The motion plus is also emulated, but as you can imagine not many games that use the motion plus are suitable to be played with buttons.

Config maker with UI for linux going to happen? Or is the settings done via json or xml?

The configurator will be an homebrew for the Wii, so it can detects the games on your drive and allow you to make per-game configuration files. Although a PC software is definitely doable (windows, linux, OS X, whatever).

One thing that would be amazing would be support for variables and arrays in the per configuration setting, so that games with menus could be done practically. I saw someone do metroid prime on the steam controller through action sets, but it took forever to make and was tedious to make. I didnt try it but I imagine without variables and arrays it is prone to fail.

This is a bit harder, mostly because it would need multiple configurations per each game (one for the menus, one in game, ...) and automatically detecting which one is needed is not straightforward.

 

[FrenezyFr]

Your project is really great. I can not wait to test a beta version. Thank you for this great project

 

[Rioluwott]

This looks great i cant wait to play mario galaxy with my gamecube controller since my motion sensor isnt working anymore and its a pain to buy batteries
i hope we get a release soon
it would be good to make a thread with configuration for each game here on Gbatemp
Good luck on this project
EDIT: would something like the usb controller emulation on nintendont be possible with this on wii mode?

 

[Aurelio]

This looks great i cant wait to play mario galaxy with my gamecube controller since my motion sensor isnt working anymore and its a pain to buy batteries
i hope we get a release soon
it would be good to make a thread with configuration for each game here on Gbatemp
Good luck on this project
EDIT: would something like the usb controller emulation on nintendont be possible with this on wii mode?

Thanks. When I will have the configurator ready I will make sure to make a thread for people to share their configurations

 

[CORE]

Great Work! Please Keep it up

 

[Aurelio]

I have finished working on a first beta of the configurator homebrew. The video briefly show its features.
I will release the homebrew later today and I my patreon supporters will get access to a beta of the IOS (for now only compatible with neek2o).

 

[FancyNintendoGamer567]

How do you add games to the games list that appears when you boot up the control mapper?

 

[Aurelio]

How do you add games to the games list that appears when you boot up the control mapper?

It scans for all the wbfs games on your drive.

 

[FancyNintendoGamer567]

So this only works for USB loaders?

 

[Aurelio]

So this only works for USB loaders?

For now yes, but I could make it for disc games as well, although you would still require homebrews to make the games configurations (they would have to be saved over your NAND though) and you would need a custom IOS with this module installed (best way imo would be doing it over IOS249 and use priiloader to force discs to run with that).

 

[spielvan]

Congratulations on the great work, some possibility that in the future we have added to the Usb Loade Gx and Wiiflow, I am eager to use it in conjunction with the Kade mini Console +

 

[Zense]

Fantastic work! Can't wait to see how this turns out! Like others have said, we can finally use a controller for navigating the wiimenu and to play wiimote-unnecessary games like New Super Mario Bros Wii with gamecube controller etc.

 

[blopa]

woooooow. That will be AMAZING. Would that also work on Wii U?

 

[Aurelio]

woooooow. That will be AMAZING. Would that also work on Wii U?

Definitely not on the first release, it would require additional work to use the usb adapter. Besides I don't know much about the vWii

 

[blopa]

Oh, true. That would be a lot of work. Glad I have a Wii do you have a estimate to when this will be released?

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Very cool, would it be possible to support other controllers as well, such as USB HID controllers, or even using a classic controller in place of Wiimote or Wiimote+Nunchuck?
Some games annoyed me with their lack of controller support, for example only supporting Wiimote with forced shake controls or similar, when I would much rather use a classic controller. This would be good for those games.