Custom GC controller with Arduino

[tidalwave41]

First of all I'd like to say I apologize for my lack of experience and understanding in this subject, this is the first time I'm undertaking a project like this and I appreciate anyone and everyone who takes a minute to help me out here.
I'm building a custom GameCube Controller using similar parts to the actual controller (2 axis potentiometers, buttons, etc) which is the fairly straightforward part. The thing I'm having the most trouble understanding mostly from my lack of knowledge is how to get the components from the Arduino to communicate with my machine and, more importantly, how to get Dolphin to receive the values and read them correctly as controller inputs. I'm not trying for a super professional level of finish on this project, I just had the idea one day and thought I'd like to investigate more into the coding aspect of building a controller to run on an emulator. Again, thanks to anyone ahead of time for helping out.

[ExtremeDude2]

Are you trying to get it recognized as an actual GC controller or a generic one?

[tidalwave41]

Are you trying to get it recognized as an actual GC controller or a generic one?

Probably just a generic one. My plan now is to simulate keyboard presses with the controller because I figured that would be a little more easy programming wise than making the Arduino appear like a legit GC controller. Does that sound like a possible way to do this project?

[tecfreak]

It's possible, but how do you want to handle the analog sticks when the arduino acts as a generic keyboard?

https://github.com/MHeironimus/ArduinoJoystickLibrary

[tidalwave41]

It's possible, but how do you want to handle the analog sticks when the arduino acts as a generic keyboard?

https://github.com/MHeironimus/ArduinoJoystickLibrary

Is there any way to enable the left joystick (not C-stick) to press the corresponding Up, Down, Left, and Right keys on the keyboard? Or are those not included on a generic keyboard? I know that won't be the most accurate application but its just an idea to get working. Also just to make sure, does the keyboard.press() command work on the Arduino UNO? I read somewhere that it doesn't and I wanted to make sure before I switch to a Leonardo for this project.

[tecfreak]

Is there any way to enable the left joystick (not C-stick) to press the corresponding Up, Down, Left, and Right keys on the keyboard?

As you probably will use ADCs for the analog sticks, all you have to do is to specify a threshold at which a keypress should be triggerd.