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Want to try flying AND mouselooking with mouse? Here's how! - Printable Version

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Want to try flying AND mouselooking with mouse? Here's how! - B. Feater - 27.02.2009

Mostly copying the ideas of a Russian IL-2 pilot who calls himself -SCS-UHU, I have developed a method for easily flying AND mouselooking WITH MOUSE & KEYBOARD ONLY. It works so well that it allows even a mere "advanced beginner" like myself to get a lot of enjoyment out of IL-2.

THIS IS NOT A MOD. It does not change game code, it only changes .ini files and uses public-domain 3rd party utilities.

Why would I want to do this? First, I need to be mobile and play IL2 at pc-cafes, friend's places, at work on the sly, etc. and I don't want to have to carry around a joystick all the time. It's impossible for me to play IL2 at home, for reasons which I won't go into. Second, I'm an all-or-nothing guy; it's either the complete Saitek joystick-throttle-rudder pedals combo or nothing. Believe me, I've tried and I appreciate such fine equipment, and rudder pedals are particularly satisfying to use; but it's out of the question for me unfortunately.

Finally, I'm used to using mouse and keyboard to fly the helicopters in Battlefield 2. If any of you have ever tried the helicopters in BF2 you know how difficult they are to fly -- I mean, to fly well enough to be considered even a MINIMALLY useful pilot. After all the BF2 heli training, I found it relatively easy to jump right into IL-2 (as a beginner of course) with my mouse-and-keyboard setup once I'd worked it out. After some practice I am able to take off, fly around, engage in combat, and crash-land, all at Realistic settings. (I did manage to land the IL-2 itself without damage the other day though.)

Check out my YouTube videos showing me using this setup. The first one actually shows my hands on the mouse and keyboard, and the second is in-game with narration:

Joymouse IL 2 Demo - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7msy3qMyPfI
Joymouse - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL3GQOb2X9U

I have uploaded a complete guide to my setup, plus all the public-domain software you'll need, to the Downloads section on http://www.mission4today.com -- so please check it out. The ZIP file is called Mouse_As_Joystick_Files_&_Guide.

-SCS-UHU, the Russian, is a much better pilot than me, and you can see him in action (with mouse) in his own YouTube videos. See his YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/alekslapine
(He uses TrackIR to look around, but flies with the mouse. My setup toggles mouselook with a quick and easy key combo.)

Here is my complete guide from the text file included in Mouse_As_Joystick_Files_&_Guide.zip


********************************

How to use your mouse as a joystick to fly airplanes in IL-2 Sturmovik. This document was written in February 2009.


First of all, I have IL-2 Sturmovik 1946 installed, patched up to 4.09bm1, but this will probably work on previous versions.

I have only been able to get this working on Windows XP 32 bit; I tried it on XP64 and Vista and failed. Most of the people doing this kind of thing seem to be Russians, and as a result you will see a lot of Russian documentation and little English.

***I recommend starting by using all MY configs and control settings until you see how everything works; if you start by using your usual control settings, there will probably be conflicts between the various pieces of software used here. For example, if you have a key mapped to do something in the NewView software and the same key mapped in IL-2 and/or PPMouse to do other things, there will be a problem. All will become clear when you set it up EXACTLY AS EXPLAINED HERE and study it.

So I have created a Pilot named Rat 'Stinkie' Filth. You will see his settings in a folder called 'mousie' in the Users folder I have provided. Copy the folder 'mousie' to your IL-2 Users folder and add this line to the Users/all.ini file: This way you can keep your usual pilot and not change his settings until later.

mousie Rat Stinkie Filth

When you next load IL-2, you should be able to see and select that pilot. See the screen shots of a sample Users/all.ini and Users folder for a typical setup.

You will need the following software -- I've provided it all here for you, but here are the download links:


PPJoy - Parallel Port Joystick driver for Windows 98, Me, 2000 and XP. Download from
http://www.geocities.com/deonvdw/Docs/PPJoyMain.htm and install.


NewView – "This program allows you to control the view settings in IL2." This is Russian software but it has other languages including English. There is very little documentation in English, but the software works very well and is highly configurable.
http://newview.hruks.com/index_en.php

PPMouse – This is rather confusing because the screen shots on -SCS-UHU's Russian-language web page, which was my main source of information, show something called "PPJoystick 0.4beta", but he also mentions and links to PPMouse, which is what I used, and it worked. Download PPMouse.zip from:
http://personne.newmail.ru/PPJoystick/
(incidentally this is another place to get PPJOy, and you can also see some screen shots of PPJoy being installed on a Russian-language XP system)

CursorFX, free version -- for making tiny and easy-to-ignore mouse cursor. Install.
http://www.stardock.com/products/cursorfx/

The Russian from whom I learned to do this (his YouTube nick is aleksalpine and his pilot nick seems to be "-SCS-UHU") also uses a utility called "Il-2 JoyControl" for configuring the joystick; this utility was written by Oleg Maddox himself (the creator of IL-2 Sturmovik). I did not find it necessary to use this, but because Oleg wrote it, you should check it out! It is hosted at mission4today.com, which is the ESSENTIAL resource for anyone playing IL-2.
http://mission4today.com/index.php?name ... ls&id=1021


-SCS-UHU's illustrated Russian-language web page explaining how HE set this up. I can't read Russian, but the page includes a number of screenshots, and I was finally able to get things working, although probably not exactly the same way as he explains:
http://scstipa.borda.ru/?1-1-0-00001074 ... 1214500225

(Just for the sake of completeness, here is his 8 button mouse setup -- I just use an ordinary mouse, myself. So just ignore this mouse setup for now):
1 fire
2 rudder
3 center joystick
4 change view
5 radiator
6 change on screen display
7 autopilot
8 afterburner


PROCEDURE

-- First of all MAKE A BACKUP COPY OF YOUR ENTIRE /UBISOFT FOLDER AND STORE IT IN A SAFE PLACE OR BURN IT TO A DVD. This procedure involves modification of certain important files, and we always want the ability to back out and return to default settings.

-- Second, make backups of IL-2's .ini files and Users folder, because this is where the big changes will be made. Specifically, back up the following right now:
1. conf.ini, and il2setup.ini from the main IL-2 Sturmovik folder
2. the entire Users folder.

(Frankly, I'm not sure that il2setup.ini gets changed, but conf.ini certainly does, as well as settings.ini for whatever your pilot's name is. )


--If you have a joystick, unplug it from your computer. I think NewView would actually allow you to use it in addition to the "joymouse", but that, as the great Peter Cook once said, is entirely a matter for you.

-- Install PPJoy. As I said, I could only get this to work on XP32; follow the instructions. Windows will warn you about installing files which are not Microsoft certified and so on. I have installed this on four or five different XP32 machines and it's worked every time, so I hope you will not have a problem. Basically it creates a virtual joystick which is in fact your mouse.

-- To see if it is working correctly, install PPMouse -- actually it's not an installation, you just unzip it and execute it. I like to put it in a folder called PPJoy in the Ubisoft folder. If PPJoy was installed successfully, PPMouse will not complain; then you can go to the "Test Joystick" tab and see it it's working. You can also test your new "joymouse" by going to the Windows Control Panel and opening the Game Controllers applet -- but PPMouse MUST BE RUNNING. In Game Controllers you should see:

PPJoy Virtual joystick 1 OK

Then click on Properties, and you should see the test cursor moving as you move your mouse.

Set up PPMouse by loading the PPMouse config I've provided -- I call it "aleks_E-disable.pjm", I'll explain about the E-disable later on. I copied much of this from -SCS-UHU's web page, but made a few changes.

(As you can see, -SCS-UHU gives quite a lot of detail on setup: I don't understand Russian and Web-based automatic translators are not great. If anyone can make a complete and accurate translation of the important bits of this page into English it would be very helpful.)

In your Il-2 Sturmovik game folder, find conf.ini. This is one of the files that will be changed, so you should make another backup right now, just this file, and save it somewhere safe or rename it and keep it in the same folder. (You can use mine, but if you want to see and do the changes yourself, here's how.) Open it up with Notepad and scroll down a bit to find [HookView Config]. Set AzimutSpeed and Tangage Speed to 0 like this:
AzimutSpeed=0
TangageSpeed=0

Now scroll down to the section headed [rts]. Find the line mouseUse=2 and change it to
mouseUse=1.

Just under that is the section [rts_mouse]. Set the mouse sensitivity to 0 like this:
SensitivityX=0.0
SensitivityY=0.0

As I mentioned, -SCS-UHU also uses "Il-2 JoyControl 1.4.2a" to get finer control over his virtual joystick, but I did not find this necessary. Perhaps I will use it later if I manage to become a better pilot.

Now comes the hard part -- at least it was hard for me. Next we will use NewView to do the fancy stuff in IL-2.

Here's a web page that explains how to install and set up an older version of NewView, it's pretty much the same with the latest version --
http://war.by-airforce.com/downloads/newview.html

Of course you don't have a hat switch on your mouse, so don't worry about testing it.

Instead of going through the whole song and dance about how I got NewView working the way I wanted to, I'm just going to give you my copy with its .ini files. I think it works by making changes to its own .dll (NPClient.dll) which is then seen by IL2, but I'm not sure. It also makes changes to a file called "Il2-Sturmovik Forgotten Battles_1.INI", which is its Default Profile.

Keep one copy of the whole NewView installation folder as a backup and use mine -- use my whole NewView_37 folder, I mean; to use mine, all you have to do is start up the Config.exe in any NewView folder, and it should automatically initialize the NPClient.dll. (I don't understand what NewView_Registrator does, it doesn't seem to be needed.)

Now a brief summary and examination of my NewView configuration. Run NewView (config.exe) and look at the Joystick tab; if you move your mouse, it should see the mouse movements, but not the Joystick movements -- unless you had already started up PPMouse. If not, then start PPMouse now, and load the aleks_E-disable.pjm config file. Now you should see that NewView thinks you have a working joystick, probably ID DirectX device 0.

Now look at the Buttons tab, then choose Current Button Settings in INI File. You will see a number of button assignments that may look familiar from a typical IL-2 controls setup, but the two important things I have added are the O and W keys. When you play the game with this setup, you hit W once to go into mouse look mode, but all that does is trigger a double tap of the O key. I assigned the O key to "Toggle All View Modes." View Mode is what allows you to "mouselook" with your "joymouse." For some reason a double-tap was necessary to make it work right; otherwise it always seemed to set the view to look at my right arse cheek when I exited View Mode, and that still happens from time to time as you may see. (If it does just tap W again to center view)

It is also wise to DISENGAGE the joystick while looking around, so you don't steer in the direction you're looking. What this means is that while you are mouse-looking with joystick DISENGAGED, you have no joystick steering control over the plane, so look around fast and get back to steering, Mr. Pilot. Disengaging the joystick is handled not by NewView, but by PPMouse -- remember the E-disengage I mentioned? My aleks_E-disable PPMouse config sets E as the joystick-stopper key, when held down.

So here is what happens when all is set correctly and you are sitting in an airplane in IL-2:

1. When the game starts and you find yourself in the cockpit, you will find yourself mouselooking if you move the mouse. But notice that moving the mouse is ALSO doing what the joystick should be doing, which is operating the ailerons and elevator.

2. To steer the plane WITHOUT looking around at the same time, hit the W key once. This disables View Mode. Now the mouse is operating just like a joystick. But remember that your PPMouse config is mostly copied from our Russian friend -SCS-UHU/aleksalpine; he has his "joymouse" set up in a very special way. When you move the mouse to the left or right, the ailerons move as you would expect, but the rudder moves in the same direction. I'm guessing this is some kind of common piloting move (I forgot to mention I'm just a sort of advanced beginner in IL-2). To move the rudder only, move the mouse on its X axis while holding the right mouse button; and to roll and yaw in opposite directions (for example, roll left & rudder right), move mouse on X axis while holding down left SHIFT key. (This is how you do barrel rolls, if I recall correctly from beginner IL-2 Training.)

3. So W toggles view mode, but it does not affect the joymouse's ability to control the steering mechanisms. How do you look around without steering? Easy -- disengage the joystick while looking around. I have found the most efficient way to do this is, starting from control mode (that is, beginning WITHOUT View Mode):

--press and hold down E key
--while keeping E down, press W once. Keep the E down!
--while keeping E down, look around as much as you want with the mouse
--while keeping E down, hit W again to cancel View Mode.
--NOW release the E key. (E key also centers your view.)

It's really easy once you get into the habit. You'll also find it's useful to hold down the E key, open your map, move cursor over map, zoom or navigate in map, etc.

By now, if you are trying all this with actual IL-2 running, you may have noticed the annoying presence of the Windows mouse cursor, typically a little white arrow, moving around as you move your "joymouse." Remember that mouseUse=1 change we made to conf.ini? That is why. To deal with this, I had the idea of changing the mouse cursor to something tiny so I wouldn't notice it. I used a free program called CursorFX, created a 1x1 pixel image file with .png extension, and loaded it with the CursorFX Control Panel. It takes a bit of practice getting used to a mouse cursor that you can't see much of the time, but it solves the problem in IL-2. So install CursorFX if you haven't already.

How to use CursorFX once you've installed it:
First create a 1x1 pixel graphics file, .png format, name it, and save it somewhere -- or use my "TinyCurse.png"

Run CursorFX choose a theme to modify (I used "CursorFX Default", and load it into CursorFX Theme Editor. Maximize the Theme Editor window, notice that the first cursor state "Standard Select" is highlighted, look for the Import Graphics button at lower right, and use it to change the Standard Select cursor to TinyCurse.png or your own 1x1 pixel .png file. Then File/Save and Apply/close the Theme Editor. Now back in the CursorFX Control Panel, double-click on your now modified CursorFX Default theme and watch your cursor turn into a 1x1 pixel dot! It's quite annoying actually to have a barely visible mouse cursor. But by holding down the left mouse button here and there you can navigate well enough to get IL-2 started. To get your normal cursor back, just double-click on Windows Default in CursorFX.

Now close CursorFX and play IL-2. You can actually load and unload this cursor any time before or during the game.

That's pretty much everything. Of course you'll want to change IL-2 controls and possibly NewView controls to reflect your personal setup, but if you study this document and experiment, you should be able to get your own config going. Just try to avoid having the same keys mapped more than once -- SOMETIMES you can get away with it, usually not. Remember always to keep backups!

Limitations: This is far from a perfect solution. For one thing, because the mouse sensitivity is set to 0, you cannot aim guns from gunner's seats; so you are limited to piloting only. I cannot find a way around this, because as far as IL-2 is concerned, only the mouse can aim the guns; and anything SEEN as a mouse has 0 sensitivity! Perhaps there is a trick to solve this with NewView or GLOVEPie or something, but gramma's gettin' tired now. Over to you, boys.

- KG64_Cnopicilin - 27.02.2009

lots of text, lots of it...

- shardana - 27.02.2009

Is there a way to make a mod out of this great job? really i'd love to use the mouse as a joystick but it scares me to start changing all those stuff and lines in the conf.ini folder.
and also...... any chance to make it work on vista?
ciao

- ZeroPilot - 27.02.2009

What is wrong with Tract ir?

- GeneralPsycho - 27.02.2009

shardana Wrote:Is there a way to make a mod out of this great job? really i'd love to use the mouse as a joystick but it scares me to start changing all those stuff and lines in the conf.ini folder.
and also...... any chance to make it work on vista?
ciao

that is why you can make a back up

and chopillin, what is wrong with lots of text? it is written very clearly and understandable :wink:

- KG64_Cnopicilin - 28.02.2009

GeneralPsycho Wrote:and chopillin, what is wrong with lots of text? it is written very clearly and understandable :wink:
Nothing, i was just amazed of amount of text...

- shardana - 01.03.2009

still the problem with vista.........and I can't downgrade my pc! but I really want this stuff!!

- B. Feater - 01.03.2009

As I explained in my original post, I could not make this work with VISTA. The main reason was that I could not install PPJoy -- the virtual joystick -- in Vista. Perhaps someone can find a way to do it.

As for making a mod out of this, it's beyond my abilities; I don't know how to make mods. But you could try this (in XP32, I don't know if it you can get it working in Vista):

(The link is inoperative)

AAA member "sHr" made something called 6DOF ~ Mouse version ~ v0.7; I was able to use it to fly and mouselook with mouse, but I did not do very much experimentation with it before I developed my own non-mod setup. But it DID work, and I'm sure you could improve it by fiddling with PPMouse and NewView.

- B. Feater - 01.03.2009

ZeroPilot Wrote:What is wrong with Tract ir?

Nothing is wrong with TrackIR; I've never tried it, but I think it's probably the VERY best way to look around. But I just wanted to work out a way to get the most ability out of the least equipment, so that I can play IL-2 anywhere without having to purchase or carry extra equipment.

If I continue working on this technique, I think my next step would be to use FreeTrack.

- shardana - 29.03.2009

thanks Feater I'll see what I can do...

- smms_uhu - 05.04.2009

Hi! I'm -SCS-UHU Big Grin read 'Instruction for setting up programs to control aircraft in iL-2 with computer mouse!' http://scstipa.borda.ru/?1-1-0-00001074-000-0-0-1238910845 :roll:

- pistitom - 06.10.2009

hi there, first of all, this is great , until now I used keyboard, it was hell....but it seems I have some key related problems....I can't disable the rudder, even in mouse-view mode....and in mouse-joystick mode the ailerons don't move, only the rudder....could this be possible : holding down the e key You look around without controlling the plane ( If I understood well this is what Feater wrote, but it doesn't disable the rudder ), then , after releasing the E key, the mouse controls the plane ..?does this need the w and e buttons as well ? thx in advance for Your help