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3DS' touch screen is pressure sensitive

Manmedaz

Member
Well, this was already the case of the DS' touch screen, with only a few game known as taking advantage of it (Colors being one of them, do you know about others?). That being said, pressure sensitive gameplay is included in 3DS' Nintendogs + Cats when you play the Synthesizer, and I've made a short video of it showing it (click here to see the video). I think this is pretty big, but no one is really speaking about this feature - I learned about it when I found this in N+C. I hope it will be used a lot more by developers, as it can lead to really cool things !

Where would you want to see it used ?


Edit : Should have put a question mark in that thread title. The pressure recognition might be base only on the gyro/accelerometer's data :
Manmedaz said:
Ok, having tried a bit more using your remarks, I am now unsure that it is the screen that senses the pressure. It might be based on the gyro/accelerometer, if it's as sensitive as you say it is. When I push hard with no hit on the screen (stylus is already almost on the screen before I push), the sound of the piano is weak. That being said, it is quite nicely done and I hope it is made using something that is available to all developers, not only Nintendo.
 
Only in a world of shitty capacitance-based touch screens (fucking phones) would a pressure sensitive touch screen be news to anybody.

And no, I don't see many games making use of it.
 
What? This counts as news? I prefer the precision I get with pressure based touch screens as well as the ability to use my finger if I so desire.

Edit: AH - you mean it reacts to different pressure rather than just the general touch of a stylus? That is news to me. As far as I know - certain DS Phat systems had this in place, but it was removed by DS lite. (The way it worked in ColorsDS was - the harder you pushed - the bigger the brush, I think)
 
Do you know for a fact that's what's happening and it's not the motion stuff that's determining the pressure you're applying the way the iPhone/iPad do?
 
Disguises said:
What? This counts as news? I prefer the precision I get with pressure based touch screens as well as the ability to use my finger if I so desire.

Edit: AH - you mean it reacts to different pressure rather than just the general touch of a stylus? That is news to me. As far as I know - certain DS Phat systems had this in place, but it was removed by DS lite.

Well, no one knew about Nintendogs + Cats implementing it anyway, and I wanted to point that feature out because it was under-used in DS games.
 
Disguises said:
As far as I know - certain DS Phat systems had this in place, but it was removed by DS lite.
My DSL is perfectly pressure sensitive when using Colors, was that really ever taken out?
 
Aren't all resistive touch screens pressure sensitive?

The harder you push down the more of the top sheet touches the bottom. You could probably program some code to detect pressure.
 
Manmedaz said:
Well, no one knew about Nintendogs + Cats implementing it anyway, and I wanted to point that feature out because it was under-used in DS games.
Yeah, I originally assumed you meant you were surprised that it did not use a capacitive touch screen like the iphone. :). I think it wasn't used in DS games much because Nintendo removed it fairly early on (cheaper to manufacture without?). I could see some sort of warioware-based game using the feature.

EDIT:
Datschge said:
My DSL is perfectly pressure sensitive when using Colors, was that really ever taken out?
Oh? I'm sure I remember it not working correctly with my DSlite. :/
 
StuBurns said:
Do you know for a fact that's what's happening and it's not the motion stuff that's determining the pressure you're applying the way the iPhone/iPad do?


Well yes, having the game and having tried multiple times gentle/harder pressures (both with long and short time), I'm 100% positive about it, it only depends about the pressure you put in the stylus, not the speed or anything else. It's especially not about area detection like it is on capacitive based touch screens, that would be impossible with a resistive based touch screen afaik.
 
Agreed with OP, I find it strange that virtually no games took advantage of the feature. Not even Rhythm Heaven used the pressure sensitivity feature of the touch screen. Did Wario Ware? Is it too hard to program or something? Though if colors used it...
 
Apparently the pressure-sensitive touch screen was present in Phat/Lite models, but not DSi or XL models. Sorry for the confusion - I got mixed up :S.
 
Mudkips said:
Only in a world of shitty capacitance-based touch screens (fucking phones) would a pressure sensitive touch screen be news to anybody.

And no, I don't see many games making use of it.
I'm pretty sure the NGP's capacitive touchscreen was mentioned to be pressure-sensitive.

And why exactly is capacitive bad?
 
snoopeasystreet said:
Aren't all resistive touch screens pressure sensitive?

The harder you push down the more of the top sheet touches the bottom. You could probably program some code to detect pressure.
Colors does just that for calibration (used to be a first step, the last publicly available version did it steadily in the background).

Maybe DSL just changed the sensitivity range so games not doing any calibration couldn't rely on it? Need to check the displayed range in an older Colors' calibration screen with my two systems sometime...
 
I was under the impression that Nintendo just didn't allow developers to support the pressure-sensitivity feature. Fear of damaging the screen, perhaps?
 
D-Pad said:
Agreed with OP, I find it strange that virtually no games took advantage of the feature. Not even Rhythm Heaven used the pressure sensitivity feature of the touch screen. Did Wario Ware? Is it too hard to program or something? Though if colors used it...

IIRC it was never exposed in software/APIs. You could hack it to get it (on some models?) but that was it. That was what the Colors dev said anyway, so that's probably why no software used it. Perhaps it is exposed in 3DS.
 
StuBurns said:
Do you know for a fact that's what's happening and it's not the motion stuff that's determining the pressure you're applying the way the iPhone/iPad do?
Huh? How does that work?
 
Manmedaz said:
Well yes, having the game and having tried multiple times gentle/harder pressures (both with long and short time), I'm 100% positive about it, it only depends about the pressure you put in the stylus, not the speed or anything else. It's especially not about area detection like it is on capacitive based touch screens, that would be impossible with a resistive based touch screen afaik.
I don't get it, how are you sure that the system isn't using its motion-detection to feel the vibration of your harder touch to make a louder sound?
 
LiK said:
Love Plus 3DS (it's coming anyways) :)

BU51l.jpg

afir2w.jpg
 
My Lite screen was much more sensitive to pressure than my Phat. It made Colors so much better.
 
Dreamwriter said:
I don't get it, how are you sure that the system isn't using its motion-detection to feel the vibration of your harder touch to make a louder sound?

What? You have to move the system at least a little for motion sensors to work. Pressing hard or light on the screen...not sure if the sensor is sensitive enough to detect such a small difference, especially is the system is sitting on a desk.
 
StuBurns said:
Do you know for a fact that's what's happening and it's not the motion stuff that's determining the pressure you're applying the way the iPhone/iPad do?
I've heard this explanation before and it sounds wrong. I think iPhones/iPods look at the amount of finger surface area being registered to determine pressure. Saying that the gyroscope involved makes no sense. If it was then pressure sensitive apps wouldn't work when the devise is sitting motionless on a table.
 
Mudkips said:
Only in a world of shitty capacitance-based touch screens (fucking phones) would a pressure sensitive touch screen be news to anybody.

And no, I don't see many games making use of it.

Erm... my 3 year old laptop with capacitive touchpad is pressure sensitive using Synaptics...
 
ckohler said:
I've heard this explanation before and it sounds wrong. I think iPhones/iPods look at the amount of finger surface area being registered to determine pressure. Saying that the gyroscope involved makes no sense. If it was then pressure sensitive apps wouldn't work when the devise is sitting motionless on a table.
The way an accelerometer works is it has sensors attached to tiny springs inside the device. If the device was sitting motionless on a table that wouldn't necessarily keep your tap from vibrating the springs. The real question is how sensitive the sensors are.

Note that while some DS models had pressure-sensitive screens, Nintendo didn't allow official developers to use that at all, because it wasn't an official feature and Nintendo wanted to keep themselves open to replacing it with a cheaper screen that wasn't pressure-sensitive.
 
I'm telling you, it's stupid sensitive. Anyone who's downloaded the "seismograph" type apps for iphone could tell you. Thing picks up the bus when it rolls by my window.
 
Ok, having tried a bit more using your remarks, I am now unsure that it is the screen that senses the pressure. It might be based on the gyro/accelerometer, if it's as sensitive as you say it is. When I push hard with no hit on the screen (stylus is already almost on the screen before I push), the sound of the piano is weak. That being said, it is quite nicely done and I hope it is made using something that is available to all developers, not only Nintendo.
 
Manmedaz said:
Ok, having tried a bit more using your remarks, I am now unsure that it is the screen that senses the pressure. It might be based on the gyro/accelerometer, if it's as sensitive as you say it is. When I push hard with no hit on the screen (stylus is already almost on the screen before I push), the sound of the piano is weak. That being said, it is quite nicely done and I hope it is made using something that is available to all developers, not only Nintendo.

Garage Band on iOS does the same thing. It uses the accelerometer data to determine how hard you are striking the surface. I don't think the screen itself is sending any data regarding pressure of the stylus against the surface.
 
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