Splat Walker · setup guide
Build your own treadmill setup
A used manual treadmill and a spare wired mouse are enough to walk in Splat Walker. Here's how ours is set up.
The whole setup in under two minutes. The steps are written out below.
Use a treadmill with handrails. Start slowly.
- Hold the rail, and walk at an easy pace until you're used to it.
- Keep the mouse cable clear of the belt and your feet.
- In a headset you can't see the treadmill. Stop the belt before you take the headset off.
- Have someone nearby the first few times.
What you need
- A treadmill with handrails. A manual one (you power the belt by walking) works best: the belt only moves when you do, so you set the pace. A motorized one works too; you walk at the speed it is set to. Used ones are fine.
- Any wired mouse with an optical or laser sensor.
- Paper tape or similar, to hold the mouse in place.
- A Windows PC running Splat Walker, close enough for the mouse cable.
Steps
- Find a spot on the belt
Pick a place where the moving belt is exposed and flat, like the end of the deck. On ours it's the back end, just past the frame.
- Set the mouse on the belt, sensor down
The belt moves under the mouse; the mouse itself must not move.
- Tape it to the frame, never to the belt
Run the tape across the mouse to the frame on both sides, so the mouse stays put while the belt slides under it.
- Route the cable
Run it along the frame, away from the belt and the rollers, to your PC.
- Run Treadmill setup in Splat Walker
Move only the belt and the app finds the belt mouse. Your normal mouse keeps turning the view; the belt mouse only walks.
- Calibrate and fine-tune
Stand still, then walk, and the app learns your belt. If walking stutters or starts by itself, the fine-tune screen has a slider for each.
Tip: some shiny belts are hard for a mouse to read. If yours doesn't register, try a different mouse first. We've only tested the setup in the photos and video.
Our test treadmill: the mouse sits on the belt end under paper tape.
Close up. The tape holds the mouse; the belt moves under it.No treadmill?
Splat Walker works without one. Walk with the W key or a gamepad stick, or turn the path assist all the way up and let it walk you along the route while you watch.
Other games
The same taped mouse can walk you in other games. A free, open-source app called VRTreadmill turns the belt mouse into the W key or a gamepad stick. We use it ourselves. Keep it to offline games: it installs an input driver that the anti-cheat in online games can object to. Splat Walker does not need it, because its treadmill reader is built in.