Steam released the CAD files of the Steam controller, on gitlab, under a creative Commons license !
I was on the edge about wanting to buy a steam controller but now definitely want one. I'll keep an eye open for when they are back in stock.
If I'm understanding correctly, it's a noncommercial variant, so if you use these files to design a custom replacement shell, you can't sell it, right? Seems understandable, but a bit of a shame.
If you are interested in creating a commercial product based on the Materials, please get in touch with Valve.
It's the second line of the license file. So the license does not automatically grant commercial right but they are addressing straight away that they are open to the idea.
I don't know in practice how easy it would be to get the right from Valve to commercialize a product derivated from these files.
IANAL but I believe that license only applies to the files not for products created with those files as those don‘t include the CAD files. But you are not allowed to sell derivative CAD models of those CAD models.
I hate to be a fanboy for a corporation, but this move is rad. I really wish every company would release models of their products.
It took me ages and ages to try to accurately measure the inside curves of a 3M respirator so I could work out a glasses holder mod. I ended up just giving up and fashioning something out of sculpey.
I honestly think it should be mandatory. With online shopping these days, a customer should be able to see the exact dimensions of a product before they purchase it.
I really wish every company would release models of their products.
Every fastener McMaster -Carr sells has a 3D CAD file...which helps them sell more.
I genuinely wish every online retail company was exactly like mcmaster carr in almost every way. The web site is god-teir. When I was a manufacturing engineer, I bought from them more often than grainger just because their web site was better.
If you ever want to try again, you could try with photogrammetry.
If you've never heard of it, it uses multiple pictures of the same subject to produce a 3D model automatically. Here's a link to a video showing off Meshroom. The link jumps a few minutes into the video to show off the point cloud generated from the images.
https://youtu.be/yKbyVDK2Ep8?t=520
I can't speak for the quality of the video overall, but I do like this guy's channel. I have used Meshroom myself to genetate models. Note: it requires an Nvidia GPU. Although, I hear there's an AMD compatible fork called MeshroomCL.
One thing you need to worry about when doing photogrammetry is having a precise scale reference on the object. The software has no idea if you're taking pictures of a tiny elephant or a real elephant. So you need this scale reference on the object so you can precisely scale the object up or down later to have the real size. It can either be some feature on the object itself that you can measure very precisely, or you can tape a little printed ruler on the object (if there's a flat surface), or even just two marks that are a known distance apart. Basically put two tiny pen marks on the objects and then measure the straight line distance between them using digital calipers. The further apart they are, the better.
And then you can use normal 3D modeling software to use this generated object to make Boolean subtractions from some shape you made. This lets you 3D print an object that perfectly mates to the thing you scanned. However, the scanned object is often just an empty shell and you will have to give it some volume before you can use it for Boolean operations. I think I used Mesh Mixer for that.
In your example, you would have a model of the respirator, and you could use that to subtract from some eyeglass holder that you design, and then it would mate perfectly to your respirator. You could use glue or epoxy to attach the printed object to the respirator.
It's not sufficient for precise models. But, I did once use it to reconstruct a broken sculpture and 3D print the sculpture after I fixed it in Meshmixer.
It's not the first time Valve did that. The CAD files for Steam Deck were also released before. Expect to add them more with future hardware under: https://gitlab.steamos.cloud/SteamHardware/
How long until someone adapts it into a sex toy?
It already vibrates so
Anything is a sex toy if you are brave enough
Flared base, body-safe materials...
self cleaning.
"looks like a gun, ATF contacted"
--Bambu labs.
Your Steam Controller is yours, and you have the right to do with it what you want. That said, we highly recommend you leave it to professionals.
Talk about mixed messaging...
Personally I don’t think it’s mixed
As someone who (outside of basic game modding) hates to tinker out of fear of breaking something, that second part is aimed at people like me.
In other words I read this is “Hey FlipFlop, you could make all these changes, but let’s leave that to your buddies who actually know electronics and hardware so you don’t end up with $100 steam brand paperweight “
Edit: check out the page and that’s pretty much what was said right after “Any damage you do will not be covered by your warranty” “You might break your controller”
It's a warning to those who would likely just break their expensive controllers. Some people know stuff about electronics and can make custom parts and other things. It could spawn a cottage industry.
They are addressing a diverse audience with their messaging. Not just you.
Ehhh... Reads like the standard "we're happy with you tweaking it, but don't want to be liable for you breaking it."
If you try to sue them, they can point to this section of their docs and say you didn't follow their recommendations.
Sometimes you want someone else to do it. I added a 2nd SSD to my laptop a few years back. It resulted in a new drive and a few broken plastic tabs.
Standalone driver when? I'm waiting, Valve.
It's hard to say before we can try it out, but it defaults to generic keyboard/mouse controls for desktop. I haven't seen any official confirmation if you can swap it to a generic gamepad like the steam deck controls by holding start/menu.
There's also a 3rd party program for managing the original steam controller, hopefully we'll see it support this one as well.
the desktop layout does indeed switch between mouse + keyboard mode and gamepad mode when you hold that button (don't know which), but I've also heard of people saying that in that time the controller tells the pc that it is a keyboard with gamepad inputs, which means a decent amount of games might not recognize it properly. that might be a firmware issue that's already fixed or will be fixed, but at the moment I don't know how well it works. I've ordered it early on and seem to have gotten into the second wave in germany/europe, so maybe i can share more when i receive it in a week or so (estimated based on what the order page told me)
EDIT: I have the controller now. Gamepad action set of the desktop layout works for me to use in non-steam games without launching them through steam (hold start to switch between mouse/keyboard and gamepad. configuring it can be done in controllers -> advanced). If you want to launch non-steam games (for example from heroic on linux through steam, be sure to rename the games in steam to their steam store id. For example 2097230 for "Turnip Boy Robs a Bank". The name should show up like that in the steam library. That's how you use steam community controller layouts with non-steam games. The id can be found in the store page url, /app/{id}/{title}/.
Just build one yourself if it's so easy... I'm sure you won't run into any problems mapping the gyro, touchpad, or additional buttons to an xinput controller, it's super easy right?
What an absolutely absurd non-argument. How can someone with no access to their codebase extract the bit of steam that makes the controller work? I'm not going to spend $100 on a controller amd then do Valve's work for them.
Valve made the controller and they did add support for their controller inside steam. Just extract the controller compatibility layer and make it standalone. Don't force people to use steam. It's not a wild thing to ask. I also never said they should use xinput.
Stop defending rich corporations, it's lame.
My point was there is no standard input library that the controller would map to without losing functionality.
It's not like valve told everyone who wants to play non steam games to fuck off, they built a way for you to launch non steam games through steam then the controller will work.
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