So the Wii remote/nunchuk and the sixaxis can't sense horizontal movement?

[chicnstu]

I've noticed after playing the Wii that it can't sense movement like turning the remote around so it's facing you with the buttons still on top. Maybe it and the sixaxis can and I just haven't seen it used? I know the remote can if you use the sensor bar but I mean without it.

The way I'm thinking of how it works is this: Put a ball in a bowl. If you tilt the bowl, the ball moves. But if you spin it, the ball stays in place unless you spin really fast. I know that's not how the remote works, just additional information on what I mean.

[CartCollector]

The Wii controller alone cannot sense yaw, pitch and roll (3 terms for rotating on different axis in a 3D space). The Wii has to figure them out using the sensor bar, the known force of gravity, calibration, and complex math.

The PS3's Sixaxis might not have this problem. I don't know the Sixaxis as well as the Wiimote. But I do know that the Sixaxis has two three-axis sensors, as opposed to the Wii's one. So that means if the one on the left dipped below the one on the right, it would sense what's called roll. More info, and a nice diagram, here. (http://www.wiili.org/index.php/Motion_analysis)

[xfrumx]

is the roll like opening a door?

That is in Elebits and it is how you actually open the door.

[-^Cro§Bow^-]

No..elebits relies on the sensor bar to know when your turning the remote. Ever noticed on the calibration/sensitivity screen for the Wii remote that if shows two pairs of dots? If you turn the remote like you do the door knob on elebits you will see these dots move as you turn it. They will also turn. So the Wii is actually sensing the orientation of the lights on the sensor bar and that is know it knows it has been twisted or not.

In actuallity the Wii remote isn't really that sohpisticated in how it works. The camera inside is able to sense the distance and orientation of the IR LEDS and then sends that data back to the Wii via Bluetooth.

[Andred]

I know that the Sixaxis can definitely sense the horizontal orientation of the controller. In the JP version of Motorstorm, you can rotate the controller horizontally to control your car. I'm not so sure about the Wii remote.

[chicnstu]

Wow, it feels like everyone is saying the PS3 has a better motion sensing controller than the Wii.

[joshnickerson]

I may be wrong, but I think the sixaxis simply uses the same technology found in "Kirby Tilt N' Tumble"...

[chicnstu]

The only information I can find is in Wikipedia and the articles on the remote and on the controller say the same things.


A major feature of the controller is the ability to sense both rotational orientation and translational acceleration along all three dimensional axes, providing a full six degrees of freedom.


The Wii Remote has the ability to sense both rotational orientation and translational acceleration along three dimensional axes, providing six degrees of freedom, through the use of Analog Devices ADXL330 accelerometers in the Wii Remote[4][20] The Wii Remote also features a PixArt optical sensor, allowing it to determine where the Wii Remote is pointing.

[njiska]

X, Y, Z, PITCH, YAW, ROLL. Yep Six axis.

And the wii mote at least detects YAW (i think that's the correct axis, been a while) because it's used for steering in Excite Truck.

[chicnstu]

I did some more searching. YAW is the one I was talking about. I know it can do X, Y, Z, Pitch, and Roll because I've done them in the Monkey Ball mini-games and main game.

According to this, the Wii remote CAN sense Yaw.

http://www.wiili.org/index.php/Motion_analysis

[Poofta!]

X, Y, Z, PITCH, YAW, ROLL. Yep Six axis.

And the wii mote at least detects YAW (i think that's the correct axis, been a while) because it's used for steering in Excite Truck.


I did some more searching. YAW is the one I was talking about. I know it can do X, Y, Z, Pitch, and Roll because I've done them in the Monkey Ball mini-games and main game.

According to this, the Wii remote CAN sense Yaw.

http://www.wiili.org/index.php/Motion_analysis

nope, actually YAW is the only one it CANT detect, it has no idea if youre rotating it or just moving it. as far as i can tell the wii only can estimate what the rotation was, but does not sense it directly. for roll and pitch it either senses it immdiately or has formulas to calculate it.

[njiska]

nope, actually YAW is the only one it CANT detect, it has no idea if youre rotating it or just moving it. as far as i can tell the wii only can estimate what the rotation was, but does not sense it directly. for roll and pitch it either senses it immdiately or has formulas to calculate it.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/19/Flight_dynamics.jpg

Ok Pitch is tilting up and down. Using the fishing rod in Zelda is done alost entirely by Pitch.

Yaw is roatating side to side and I know it can do this because this is how you steer in excite truck.

Roll is also confirmed because Excite Truck uses the Roll of the control to determine the pitch of the truck (Controller is held side ways like a NES so that's why roll instead of pitch translates into pitch in the game) because the controller is held side ways and not pointed at the screen we know for a fact it does this without the sensor bar.

Calculating rotation on ANY axis is no different then calculating it on any other. You'd use the same sensor.

So there you have it. All 3 rotational Axis confirmed. I don't think we need to show evidence that it supports XYZ.

[chicnstu]

Ok Pitch is tilting up and down. Using the fishing rod in Zelda is done alost entirely by Pitch.

Yaw is roatating side to side and I know it can do this because this is how you steer in excite truck.

Roll is also confirmed because Excite Truck uses the Roll of the control to determine the pitch of the truck (Controller is held side ways like a NES so that's why roll instead of pitch translates into pitch in the game) because the controller is held side ways and not pointed at the screen we know for a fact it does this without the sensor bar.

Calculating rotation on ANY axis is no different then calculating it on any other. You'd use the same sensor.

So there you have it. All 3 rotational Axis confirmed. I don't think we need to show evidence that it supports XYZ.

In the pictures and videos I've seen on the Walmart "Susan" videos I've seen people doing Pitch (which is turned into Roll I guess since the remote is held a certain way).

Here is a quote from IGN:

"players hold the Wii Remote like an NES controller to control the truck. The 2 button is the accelerator, the 1 button is the brake, the + Control Pad is the turbo. Tilt the Wii Remote right and left like a steering wheel to steer. Once the truck goes airborne, tilt the Wii Remote every which way to line up perfect landings for turbo boosts."

And a picture:

http://media.wii.ign.com/media/826/826983/img_3863315.html

The picture could just be showing her doing a trick (and a stupid paid face).

I'm hoping that it can do Yaw, I just haven't been convinced that it can.

[njiska]

In the pictures and videos I've seen on the Walmart "Susan" videos I've seen people doing Pitch (which is turned into Roll I guess since the remote is held a certain way).

Here is a quote from IGN:

"players hold the Wii Remote like an NES controller to control the truck. The 2 button is the accelerator, the 1 button is the brake, the + Control Pad is the turbo. Tilt the Wii Remote right and left like a steering wheel to steer. Once the truck goes airborne, tilt the Wii Remote every which way to line up perfect landings for turbo boosts."

And a picture:

http://media.wii.ign.com/media/826/826983/img_3863315.html

The picture could just be showing her doing a trick (and a stupid paid face).

I'm hoping that it can do Yaw, I just haven't been convinced that it can.

Having played with excite truck and thus experiencing control first hand i find it hard to beleive it can't sense yaw. As stated earlier it's the same process to measure all rotational axis so it'd be stupid not to support the key axis for steering.

[petewhitley]

When Sony first announced the Six Axis controllers fanboys all over the 'net said it was a "dumbed down" version of the Wii controller. But if they BOTH can detect all six rotation axis then what's the big advantage of the Wii controller? The crappy speaker?

[robotriot]

When Sony first announced the Six Axis controllers fanboys all over the 'net said it was a "dumbed down" version of the Wii controller. But if they BOTH can detect all six rotation axis then what's the big advantage of the Wii controller? The crappy speaker?

I've never held a PS3 controller in my hands, but I'm guessing the mouse-pointer-feature? And the way it can detect the nunchuck and wiimote movement seperately. Oh, and rumble ;)

[SkiDragon]

Excite truck uses pitch, if the IS sensor of the remote is taken to be the front of the "plane". Roll is used in Excite truck to control your landing. Yaw? I think that it also used. Try swinging your sword in Zelda. That uses either yaw or pitch, I think. What I havent seen is any use of translation along the axes. I wonder if it has this capability. I am also wonder about the same things for the numchuck. If someone knows the accelerometer chips used in the devices they could look up the data sheets for them, but then again, just because the chip has a certain capability does not say for sure whether or not the Wii utilizes it.

[davidbrit2]

The controller can do yaw. In GT Pro Series, you hold the controller upright, d-pad to the left, 1 and 2 to the right, the "right" side facing the ceiling. Then you rotate it left and right as you would a steering wheel. If that's not along the controller's yaw axis, I don't know what is.

[petewhitley]

So from all of this, it seem that taking away the nunchuck/rumble/speaker functionalities, the PS3 controller does the same thing as the Wii controller. Then my question would be: are there ANY Wii games that use some type of movement that WOULDN'T be possible with the Six Axis? If not, well the Six Axis could prove to really put a dent in Nintendo's uniqueness.

[Garry Silljo]

So from all of this, it seem that taking away the nunchuck/rumble/speaker functionalities, the PS3 controller does the same thing as the Wii controller. Then my question would be: are there ANY Wii games that use some type of movement that WOULDN'T be possible with the Six Axis? If not, well the Six Axis could prove to really put a dent in Nintendo's uniqueness.

The six axis is also at a disadvantage of being a two handed controller. Some of the things a Wii-mote does such as aiming a gun, wouldn't really work well with a six axis.

[Hypnotuba]

The six axis is also at a disadvantage of being a two handed controller. Some of the things a Wii-mote does such as aiming a gun, wouldn't really work well with a six axis.


Quite right. Many many Wii-style games would be awkward to play with a SIXAXIS. Considering the SIXAXIS (man, that is a loud controller name) is the shape of a DualShock, imagine playing Wii Sports bowling or something with one. Probably wouldn't be that comfortable.

[robotriot]

As I mentioned, you can't use the PS3 controller as a gun like the Wii remote which detects where it's pointed at on the screen ...

[ubersaurus]

Yeah, the two handed nature of the PS3 controller really makes the motion sensing more awkward for a lot of game types. I don't even want to imagine trying to play Zelda on that thing with the same control scheme.

[njiska]

Yeah, the two handed nature of the PS3 controller really makes the motion sensing more awkward for a lot of game types. I don't even want to imagine trying to play Zelda on that thing with the same control scheme.

Haha, no offense but you wouldn't even need motion controls then. I mean they're good for nothing aside from pointing as it is.

[CartCollector]

Did anyone even read post #2? Because it seems like no one did. So I'll simplify it for you: The Wii can sense yaw, pitch, and roll. The problem is the Wiimote needs to be calibrated more and requires more processing power on the console side than a Sixaxis does. Think about it: a single point in a 3D space cannot rotate, because even if you tried to rotate it, it would be the same point no matter what. But a line (two points) would be at different locations if it rotated. So the Sixaxis has two sensors (like the points in this example), while the Wiimote has only one. So the PS3 can sense yaw/pitch/roll right out of the box with little effort. But the Wii requires other things to act as "points" to help sense yaw/pitch/roll, such as the IR sensor and the pull of gravity, which have to be calibrated.

[chicnstu]

Did anyone even read post #2? Because it seems like no one did. So I'll simplify it for you: The Wii can sense yaw, pitch, and roll. The problem is the Wiimote needs to be calibrated more and requires more processing power on the console side than a Sixaxis does. Think about it: a single point in a 3D space cannot rotate, because even if you tried to rotate it, it would be the same point no matter what. But a line (two points) would be at different locations if it rotated. So the Sixaxis has two sensors (like the points in this example), while the Wiimote has only one. So the PS3 can sense yaw/pitch/roll right out of the box with little effort. But the Wii requires other things to act as "points" to help sense yaw/pitch/roll, such as the IR sensor and the pull of gravity, which have to be calibrated.

I can't find any site saying that the sixaxis has two motion sensors. Here is a link to IGN where they took apart the controller and it has one motion sensor in the center.

http://gear.ign.com/articles/748/748732p2.html

[chicnstu]

Ok, this still hasn't been settled.

It just seems sensing Yaw in something wireless would be a hard thing to do with the way gravity works unless they had something in the PS3 system and another thing in the sixaxis so it could sense yaw based on the sixaxis' position relative to the PS3 system.

[chicnstu]

Bump

Extra black words to allow this short post

[njiska]

The wiimote uses Accelerometers (http://www.analog.com/en/prod/0%2C2877%2CADXL330%2C00.html) and g-force calculations to determin rotation on ALL Axis.

Regardless of whether or not you beleive it both systems detect yaw. thi can be proven by playing Excite truck. Just set the Wiimote on a table, hide the sensor bar and play. It will work fine.