Gamepad Input

Read stick, trigger, D-pad, and button state from a game controller or joystick.

What it does

Gamepad Input reads a connected game controller live and streams its sticks, triggers, d-pad and buttons out as numbers. Both analogue sticks come out as a single 2D value each, the two triggers come out together as one pair, and every button comes out as a plain 0 or 1, so a face button drives an opacity, a trigger drives a blend amount, and a stick drives a position with no conversion in between.

Gamepad picks which controller to read, or "any" for whatever is plugged in. Deadzone trims the small drift analogue sticks report at rest, so a controller sitting on a table reads as a clean zero.

When to use it

• A live performance or installation controlled from a game controller rather than a mouse or MIDI device

• A stick's position driving movement, panning or a 2D parameter directly

• A trigger's pull amount driving an intensity, a blend or a fade

• Button presses gating an effect, or "any button" as a generic trigger or wake input

Gotchas

• Deadzone only affects the analogue sticks. A trigger or d-pad reading a small nonzero value at rest is reporting what the controller sends; lowering Deadzone does not change it.

• Buttons output as a plain number (0.0 up, 1.0 pressed), not a true on/off switch. Wire the output into a comparison or threshold for a clean gate.

• Leave Gamepad on "any" with a single controller connected. Switch to a specific device once more than one is connected, so inputs do not jump between them.

Worked example

1. Add a Gamepad Input node. Leave Gamepad on "any" if you only have one controller plugged in.

2. Wire Left Stick into a position or pan parameter to steer something around the canvas.

3. Wire a face button, like Button South, through a threshold into a layer's visibility to toggle it on a button press.

4. Raise Deadzone slightly if the stick reads a faint value while resting untouched.

See also

MIDI Input · OSC Input · Keyboard · Numbers, signals & audio