[RELEASED] Nice Vibrations : add haptic feedback and vibrations to your game in a single line

I'm happy to present Nice Vibrations, a simple yet powerful solution to add vibrations and haptic feedbacks to your games. Built on top of the native iOS and Android APIs, it offers a universal interface to target both platforms at once, as well as ways to get exactly the right vibration on each platform specifically. It's a proven and battle tested solution that just gets the job done.



Nice Vibrations comes with universal methods (that will target both iOS and Android in one line), or specific ones to get more tailored results on each platform. It's super easy to install (you just need to import the package), and very easy to work with. All methods are one liners, and you don't even need to add anything to your scenes.

• Trigger vibrations on your device in one line of code
• Lots of variations : from simple vibration, to complex, amplitude based patterns, everything's that's allowed by iOS or Android hardware is possible.
• Complete API documentation and tutorials
• Demo Scene with 9 presets to play with on iOS or Android
• iOS and Android interfaces
• Support for iOS Taptic Engine
• Android pre-SDK 26 support
• Android support for the new (post SDK 26) VibrationEffects
• Universal methods that allow support for both targets in one liners
• Fully commented code

You can give it a try by downloading the free demo on Google Play.
I had an iOS demo ready (which also happens to be even better than the Android one due to the better haptic hardware on iPhones), but it got rejected by Apple, who apparently (and understandably) don't want demos on their store. But you can download my latest game, Rugby Bots, for free on the App Store. It uses a few of the available haptics, and you'll get an idea of how it feels.

For more info about Nice Vibrations, check out the dedicated website.

 

Hi, I downloaded the Rugby Bots game on my iPhone 6s (latest iOS version), but I'm not getting any vibrations. I'm assuming it uses a previous version of the plugin that didn't fallback to regular vibrations in the absence of haptics functionality in the device, and it has been fixed in the latest version of the plugin, is that so?

 

@DED-Games > Haptic feedbacks aren't available on iPhone 6S. They were introduced by Apple on the iPhone 7 (and subsequent phones). I could have triggered basic vibrations as a fallback but they just don't feel very nice on "old" phones.

 

I thought it did fall back, since somebody in an Asset Store review talked about the iPhone SE and you mentioned having updated the plugin to solve the issue. I really think allowing normal vibrations when possible (while knowing the limitations) would be useful for the plugin.

 

@DED-Games > Oh but it should fallback with 1.2! That's indeed the major change in the latest update.
I just meant I had prevented that fallback in Rugby Bots because it would have been too much for my taste.
What version of Nice Vibrations are you running? You can check that in the readme file.

 

Ahhh, I see, I thought you were talking about the plugin. I haven't got it yet, I was just testing the demo/game, I'll definitely get it. Thanks!

 

@DED-Games > Alright, don't hesitate to let me know if you run into trouble

 

Hey, have anyone tried it on 6S?

 

@cl0n > It won't work, it only supports devices that have haptic feedback support. On a 6S it'll revert to regular vibrations.

 

hey @reuno i've been using your plugin. how can i stop the vibration in iphone 6s and older phones? i only love to have the haptic feedbacks to the new phones.

 

@mahmud91 > As explained in the documentation, there's a bool HapticsSupported() method you can use to test for that

 

Edit: Nice stuff! Glad to see the HapticsSupported method, edited out my comment as it asked for that method.

 

@EGA > I was about to answer just that, you beat me to it

 

But what about taptic engine in iphone 6S?

 

Apple didn't open the API for that model, in theory only Apple can use it.

 

@yomanx > I would add to what @DED-Games wrote that trying to access it (there are ways to do so) can get you kicked from the app store, so do that at your own risk.

 

As i see a lot of popular games use it in 6s. Latest one "Amaze!" when the ball touches the walls we can feel it.. or maybe it's vibration.. but doesn't look like normal vibrations.

Tested yours Rugby Bots - really funny game)) but i can't feel haptics that's what I need. I saw in game "flip rush" haptic effect when you touch booster on the map and not sure if can i do it with your plugin.

 

@yomanx > As I said, it's doable, just not something I'd recommend doing.

 

Hi, great asset thanks!

A few questions:

Android
Is it possible to check if device has vibrator? According to android docs: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/os/Vibrator

abstract boolean hasVibrator()
Check whether the hardware has a vibrator.

iOS
Shouldn't the function HapticsSupported() check for iPod/iPad? Or is that considered with different phone models?

Example:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. public static bool HapticsSupported()
3. {
4.      bool hapticsSupported = false;
5.      #if UNITY_IOS
6.      DeviceGeneration generation = Device.generation;
7.      if ((generation == DeviceGeneration.iPad2Gen)
8.      || (generation == DeviceGeneration.iPad3Gen)
9.      || (generation == DeviceGeneration.iPadMini3Gen)
10.  

etc.

 

@breban1 > Unfortuntately hasVibrator doesn't tell you if haptic feedbacks are supported, and will return true on pretty much every phone on the market. And HapticsSupported already checks for iPads and iPods
Edit : actually I'm one update in the future, sorry. The HapticsSupported list got greatly improved recently, and that will be included in the next release (coming soon).

 

Thanks for the quick reply! (not expected, especially on weekends AND a holiday no less!)

There are a ton of Android tablets that don't have vibrate, I own a few of them for testing. Is that function available, or does it not work? Any idea?

Sorry, I missed the iPods! But Nice Vibrations v1.5 doesn't include iPad.
Here's the full check I have from the latest release

DeviceGeneration generation = Device.generation;
if ((generation == DeviceGeneration.iPhone3G)
|| (generation == DeviceGeneration.iPhone3GS)
|| (generation == DeviceGeneration.iPodTouch1Gen)
|| (generation == DeviceGeneration.iPodTouch2Gen)
|| (generation == DeviceGeneration.iPodTouch3Gen)
|| (generation == DeviceGeneration.iPodTouch4Gen)
|| (generation == DeviceGeneration.iPhone4)
|| (generation == DeviceGeneration.iPhone4S)
|| (generation == DeviceGeneration.iPhone5)
|| (generation == DeviceGeneration.iPhone5C)
|| (generation == DeviceGeneration.iPhone5S)
|| (generation == DeviceGeneration.iPhone6)
|| (generation == DeviceGeneration.iPhone6Plus)
|| (generation == DeviceGeneration.iPhone6S)
|| (generation == DeviceGeneration.iPhone6SPlus))
{

 

@breban1 > I've just pushed v1.6 of the asset, it'll fix the supported device list, and also improves the way defaulting to regular vibrations works.
In my experience that function is poorly implemented by manufacturers on Android's side, unfortunately.

 

Sounds good! Thanks for the info and the great asset/support!

 

Hi @reuno, I have been implementing Nice Vibrations to try in our game and I have some questions and comments.

1. When setting rumble why do you use intensity for the low-frequency motor and sharpness for the high-frequency motor?

Shouldn't it be something more like this...

Code (csharp):

1. var lowFrequency = intensity * (1f - sharpness);
2. var highFrequency = intensity * sharpness;
3. MMNVRumble.RumbleContinuous(lowFrequency, highFrequency, controllerID);

2. It seems as though iOS doesn't support continuous haptics longer than ~35 seconds. Is this mentions in the Nice Vibrations documentation? I didn't see it and implemented a solution that didn't work because of this limitation.

3. Wow, some of your methods have A LOT of parameters! It would be nice to have some more overloads so that if I only want to deal with one platform or just gamepads I don't have to define several null/default parameters. I could bypass these parameter heavy methods and call the methods they call, but then I would have to reimplement some of their logic, which is not ideal.

4. It would be nice to have methods to generate AHAP files based on an AudioClip or a couple of animation curves. Having to author them using the website you linked in your documentation is very tedious.

Thanks for reading

 

@PandaArcade > Thanks for your feedback, and for still using the forum in 2020, I had forgotten about that thread

1. At this point there's so much difference between a phone motor and a gamepad motor (and so much difference between gamepads) that I see these (in the specific context of that call) as just arbitrary values, used for consistency across universal calls - and to avoid adding two extra parameters, see (3). I'll definitely give these conversion lines of yours a try though, but I have to admit I never considered actually converting intensity and sharpness into low/high frequency, never seen these as something on the same "scale".

2. There's no limit on NV's side. There are hardware limits though, that as far as I know vary from device to device, and Apple recommends way shorter continuous than 35 seconds. Never seen it written in stone, but that'll pop in reviews. 35s is bound to burn phones. And no, NV's documentation doesn't mention that limit, it's on Apple's end, like all their other rules. Unfortunately they don't officially communicate on them, and how they apply them often varies from studio to studio, so I can't really just write in the documentation what gets reported to me, as it's not official or stable in time.

3. The methods with a lot of parameters are the ones that are universal, in that they'll target iOS, Android, gamepads, etc. Can't think of a way to remove parameters from these. The individual methods have as few parameters as possible. If you want to deal with just gamepads, there are already methods for that. I'm open to suggestions though!

4. I've considered the animation curve solution, but it's just not enough to describe AHAP files. There are many other solutions to create AHAP files, feel free to pick the one you prefer! There are also apps, other websites, etc. The ones in the documentation were just suggestions. Most studios I talk to about NV seem to have their own internal pipelines for AHAP production these days.

Edit : forgot to say that Pico Tanks is ❤️

 

Thanks for the reply ❤️

Oh sorry, I didn't see the methods for dealing with just gamepads

I had a look at a AHAP file, I didn't see anything you couldn't describe with two animation curves and a couple of additional parameters.

 

@PandaArcade > You're right, with two animation curves, additional remap parameters, you can get closer to something that'd let you describe an AHAP file. I'm not sure it'd be as easy to use as any of the alternatives out there though

 

Does Nice Vibrations support gamepad rumble when a gamepad is connected to a mobile device? I didn't see anything mentioned in the docs, and so far it hasn't worked for me. Looks like it's supported by Apple - https://developer.apple.com/documentation/corehaptics/playing_haptics_on_game_controllers

 

@PandaArcade > No, not at the moment. As you can see on that page you linked, this is still a beta feature, only available on iOS 14. That API is still likely to change, and undocumented. Once it's out and stable, I'll add it to Nice Vibrations.

 

Awesome! We haven't released our games update with haptic feedback and players are already asking for gamepad rumble

 

MMNViOS.iOSTriggerHaptics also dosen't work on 6s, I'm confused

 

@skyfancy > As I said in the reply you're quoting, there's no haptic engine in an iPhone 6S. So of course haptics don't work on it

 

Looking forward to this too

 

Hey, we're having some issue building our game using Nice Vibrations 3.8.
We need to support iOS, macOS and tvOS.

When building on tvOS, xcode fails with this error:

Code (CSharp):

1. NiceVibrations/Common/Plugins/iOS/Swift/MMNViOSCoreHapticsInterface.swift:3:8: No such module 'UnityFramework_NiceVibrationsPrivate'

Any ideas how to fix?
We don't really require haptics on tvOS, although it would be nice to have.

 

@CDF > It looks like something in your project is messing with your xcode settings. Have you tried creating a new, empty project, importing only NV, and building the demo? What's the outcome of that?
If your issue persists, please use the support form and provide more context info about your project, I'll be happy to help.

 

The build still fails to compile in xcode using the Demo project as well.
We fixed by disabling tvOS in the supported plugin platforms:

 

@CDF > That's strange, I don't reproduce the problem. I'll investigate, thanks for mentioning this!

 

@reuno > I'm also getting this issue building the IOS project. However, we do not support TvOS.
Can we get an official solution for this?

 

@fechy > Have you tried creating a new, empty project, importing only NV, and building the demo? What's the outcome of that? I'd love to offer an "official solution" to that, but I'd need to be able to reproduce the problem. So far only a handful of people seem to have run into the issue, it just works for most people, and I never got any significant info that could help identify the problem. If it persists for you, don't hesitate to send exact context info and repro steps via the support form.

 

I think I have detected the error, it occurs when you move the Feel folder inside another folder, in my case Third Party

 

The documentation shows what to change for iOS to build correctly if you've decided to change the path : https://nice-vibrations-docs.moremo...ml#building-for-ios-after-nice-vibrations-v38

 

I was having the same issue. I fixed it by updating to the last version of the plugin.

 

The problem is still happening @reuno . The hack to solve this problem is to move the plugin folder to inside of another folder and move back to Assets, but I have a build script and It is very annoying. Do you have a proper solution for this problem?

 

@BigRedGames > If you click on the link above your posts, you'll read about the MMNVPathDefinition that lets you update paths to the header and module, hopefully that'll solve your issue.

 

Ok I will try that. Thanks Reuno.

 

@reuno I tried all the recommendations described on the documentation, but it is still showing the same error when I try to build to iOS. The only solution as I said is to move the NiceVibration folder to another folder and back to root and restart the build. If you need more details please ask me.

 

@BigRedGames > Yes, I'd need more info, as I don't reproduce the issue. Don't hesitate to use the support form and provide the info requested right next to it, as well as exact steps to reproduce.

 

We are using a template project in our team and using that asset for 6+ months and suddenly I got same error in a random project that nothing changed in plugins or any other core files. I can't build Xcode Project.

 

@kureysalp > Things rarely break on their own, I'd recommend rolling back to a previous commit if you can, and check if the issue persists. Something must have changed.

 

I downloaded the new version from Lofelt that has documentation saying that they solved this issue. I'm trying this one if this solves the problem I will post here.