My controller hardware consists of Thrustmaster Warthog stick & throttle as well as MFG Crosswind rudder paddles, and I wanted to use all three of them for triggering rig movements.
After searching the Internet a little bit, I found the Universal Control Remapper (UCR), which can be downloaded as a zip file from here: https://github.com/snoothy/ucr/releases
This tool is already briefly mentioned in some threads of this forum, but in my opinion it deserves a bit more attention because it is very easy to use and fulfilled my requirements completely.
UCR allows you to define multiple controllers as input devices and map them onto a single output controller, which is exactly what you need for the Joystick Plugin. And this can be done in a very easy way via a graphical UI. (UCR also provides some sophisticated configuration options like creating new "providers", but these were not needed in my case.)
Here are the steps I performed:
- Download and unzip UCR (https://github.com/snoothy/ucr/releases)
- Download and install a controller plugin that serves as virtual output device. I took 'ViGEm', which emulates an XBox 360 controller. This plugin is available here: https://github.com/Snoothy/UCR/wiki/Core-Providers
- Run "UCR.exe". (No installation is required.)
- Click on "Add Profile"
- Select the input and output controllers.
- For configuring the stick, I used the "Axes to Axes" mapping: Click on the + button and configure the mapping of the input axes (in my case the X and Y axes of the Warthog stick) to the corresponding output axes (in my case the RX and RY axes of the emulated XBox controller).
- Proceed with mapping the other axes. Below you see that also my MFG Crosswind paddles could be mapped without any problems.
- You can even map buttons of your input devices to corresponding buttons of the output device, if needed.
- Save your config.
- Activate your profile via the "Play" button.
As soon as you do this, your Windows Device Manager will show the emulated output controller, in my case an XBox 360 controller.
- Start your previously installed Joystick Plugin, find the correct controller, and select it.
- Make sure that the Game Engine's Tuning Center shows the expected values when you are using your input devices.