So is this thing going to use controllers after all?
What if you're playing and someone walks in front of you, lol. Is that going to fuck up your gameplay? I mean...how the fuck would you pause?? Making a T with your hands for Time-out? lol
haha, also, from watching that fake advertisement of the family playing, how did it know that it was supposed to track the girls hands instead of the fathers hands (which were 2 inches away from her hands and also moving around).
Face recognition is badass. The tracking is badass. Imagine playing (ahem) Forza3 in the cockpit view, while Natal tracks your head. You can move your head and you'll "look" around in the car. Same goes with FPS games (like you can do with ArmA and TrackIR).
00Zero - TrackIR has a sensitivity calibrator/profile setup for that problem you're talking about. You can make it so 1º of head movement equals 10º in game, or 50º - whatever you want. That way you don't have to look away from the screen, just make small head adjustments. I use TrackIR in ArmA and all my flight sims - it takes a few hours to get used to, but it's near impossible to go back to not having it afterwards.
And if I want to skate on roof tops mirrors edge style?
And if I want to drive 300 mph along some 1 lane winding road through a pack of bicyclist, then off a cliff into a alien overlord mother ship only to parachute out at the last min and pick off the remaining fight cowboy, ninja, space aliens, as I gently float to the ground I guess I should wait for them to invade?
hell Rick beat me to the punch...
(Note to self: read entire thread before posting)
thats not what I was intending to mean. yes all those things you could only do in video games. I just meant that pretending to be on like a skateboard or pretending to be steering just has never felt the same as the real thing. idk maybe its just me but I have never felt like I was ever driving in mario cart wii and sometimes seemed more of a hastle then using a joystick. Maybe its because I have joysticks for thumbs or something.
Obviously Natal is dif and I will have to try it out but I wasnt all to impressed by that super fake cheesy comercial nor the tech demo.
I guess I just like the idea of holding something, feels more real. Like playing rock band without the drums or the guitar I think would be kinda odd. I thought Tony Hawks actual skateboard seemed like a better idea then the imaginary one. Of course the problem with that is you would need a closet full or crazy plastic controlers.
Who knows though, have to wait for those things to get more refined and really get to test them out before any real judgment can ever be made.
Vassago- how far do you sit from your screen? I watch the demos on their website and it looks like the face is only inches away from the monitor. I guess I'd have to try it but from the vid I can say that its not for me. I usually end up moving around a lot when I play games...especially when I'm getting owned online...I'd end up getting dizzy with the screen moving around so much.
lol, wait, so when you want to play some ArmA, you actually put stickers all over your face so you can use TrackIR? hahaha. oh man, i dont think any game ever would be good enough for me to take the time to do that.
I can see it has a lot of potential for some type of games, and possibly some new genres of games that'll be fun to play, but it obviously will not replace gaming with controllers.
lol, wait, so when you want to play some ArmA, you actually put stickers all over your face so you can use TrackIR? hahaha. oh man, i dont think any game ever would be good enough for me to take the time to do that.
Lol no, not quite that lame
Normally when I play, I'm talking on ventrillo or Teamspeak. So I have a headset on. There's a small clip that just attaches to the headphone band and you're good to go. If I'm not on TS I use an old headphone band I cut the wires/speakers from, to use as a base for the clamp. No biggie.
Heh, a friend of mine called me up and was all hyped on the conceptual trailer, with the chick driving the car and the dude skating and all that. I was skeptical but decided to check it out, and I'm even more skeptical after seeing it. Potential's there, yeah, but I don't think any of the games they showed in that would work.
A driving game where you have to physically hold your hands up without being able to rest them on anything for extended periods of time? Brilliant. Especially if you're supposed to keep moving them around in a circle since that's the most natural way to move your hands. Skating? Looks even more impossible than with the TH: Ride controller. It'd be impossible to pull off basically any tricks that aren't just ollies of various kinds. Even a kickflip would be terribly uncomfortable to mimic on flat ground. And let's not forget, how does it know you're turning? It'd be incredibly tricky to work out where someone's center of balance is just by looking at them with a nifty camera. You don't exactly lean back and forth to turn on a skateboard. And then there's the pistop minigame there. That would work a lot better with an actual controller, since you need physical feedback. If there was an actual gameplay element to it, it would involve speed and precision. It's hard to be precise when you can't directly feel, or even see how far you should move your hands, or when you can move on to the next bolt.
So, those demonstrations didn't exactly make me excited... They all seemed to do things we can already do, but worse... The potential for the device is there, of course, but I'm still having a hard time imagining it being anything more than a gimmick for silly EyeToy-like games. Oh yeah, the EyeToy. Couldn't several of these game concepts have been pulled off using that hardware, too?
However, reading some earlier posts, something just hit me. Y'all remember that awesome headtracking Wii hack, right? With the sensor on the monitor and two IR lights stuck to glasses, for actually changing the position of the camera in a first person environment. This thing could pull that off and it could do it well. Now if only we could combine that with another immersive style of controller, say a light gun or... well... a Wii controller. Hm.
the tech is so amazing....with lots of potential. but still....i will never NEVER ever want to compromise my comfort(under blankey w/cat sleepin on my legs)..........EVER.
Movimento sounded interesting when it was first released. never tried it though, as I was skeptical about fidelity from video. However, the motion capture from Natal looks usable. I will have to give Movimento a looksee. Has anyone used Movimento in production fer Mocap?
I wonder if natal mocap/tracking could be ripped? Is there a DX ripper that can do animations?
So once the natal hardware come out, how long will it be till someone hooks it up to a PC and we can use it for home mocap of 3d characters for max\maya\motionbuilder. Woulden't be perfect but you could probably get a good start with it.
Dance Hero. You mean like a mix between DDR and ParaParaParadise, then? Or that terrible Wii game I never heard anything about, probably because I never wanted to look at it again...
Would be so awesome if natal will be hackable for the pc!
Just imagine controlling your created rigged game characters live on screen, and he does directly what you doing in front of your pc! And if it also works with 2 persons you could create some cool fighting action between 2 of your characters!
How many of us have had a laugh at a mime's expense?
I know I have.
Now we all want to become one.
I'll pass judgment until I see it as a product. With what I see right now, I have little interest in it.
And, yeah, a 2 player fighting game running with this would prove to be quite interesting
Am i the only one who likes sitting comfortably in a chair with a simple controller and playing through a game and story designed by professionals? Rather than playing a bunch of endless gimmick games where you hit a ball with your hand for 3 hours.
When i play a game i want to relax, not wave my arms and legs around pretending to do something i could easily do in reality without looking like a complete idiot.
Don't get me wrong, i think this technology is fucking amazing (i actually wonder how it would cope with things or people moving around in the background) but its just something that replaces a *perfectly fine* concept.
It's not for people that are comfortable with controllers - my mom was able to get a hang of Wii bowling in seconds and kick my butt. If I hand her a 360 controller I might of been handing her a dead fish.
I've heard about systems like this being used in clothes retail and stuff, but I don't think it's sophisticated enough to allow you to controll games right now. A bit too early for that infared stuff in my mind.
Didn't bother to read the entire thread, but I think CompanionCube summed up what I was thinking as I watched the conference.
"its such a lie, won't be that good, they even said "product vision , may not represent actual product"
Granted it was a 'commercial' to be used for the conference, but its very obvious that the TV screen was not actually on/working. The whole interface was faked, and naturally so was the motion detection for the actors.
I know its 'possible', but even with the triangulation software/hardware, I don't see how this is feasible for even a semi-affordable entertainment piece. Although they didn't mention how they track the movement, the scene that shows the biped-looking nodes on the girls legs can't be tracked without more sensors. On the sides, behind and in front. I'm sure more of you know quite a bit more about MoCap than I do, but if game/movie studios have to spend bukoo bucks for a MoCap session, I don't see how MS can pull it off 'so easily'
I know its 'possible', but even with the triangulation software/hardware, I don't see how this is feasible for even a semi-affordable entertainment piece. Although they didn't mention how they track the movement, the scene that shows the biped-looking nodes on the girls legs can't be tracked without more sensors. On the sides, behind and in front. I'm sure more of you know quite a bit more about MoCap than I do, but if game/movie studios have to spend bukoo bucks for a MoCap session, I don't see how MS can pull it off 'so easily'
Didn't bother to read the entire thread, but I think CompanionCube summed up what I was thinking as I watched the conference.
"its such a lie, won't be that good, they even said "product vision , may not represent actual product"
Granted it was a 'commercial' to be used for the conference, but its very obvious that the TV screen was not actually on/working. The whole interface was faked, and naturally so was the motion detection for the actors.
You didn't see the on-stage real time demonstration, then? Yeah, the little commercial they had there was terrible. And looked eerily similar to the Wii commercials from back whenever... with the guy jumping up from behind the couch... But the technology does work. People used it, for real. Both for Natal specific games like some weird 3D breakout type thing, but also to play Burnout Paradise using the same control scheme as the driving game in the demonstration video. Apparently it worked without a hitch. As for how it works, I believe it's got two cameras placed side by side, one normal and one IR camera or something weird like that. It also has a built in processor so the handling of the image data doesn't put any more stress on the console itself. As for the cost, it can't be that ridiculous, seeing as how this seems to be Microsoft's way to reach out to the casual crowd.
Right now I remain skeptical. When I see some major developers/publishers picking up the tech and USING it for something comprehensive and not seeing an onslaught of cheap mini-games being thrown out, then I will be interested. Seeing publishers currently not wanting to take risks... I dunno...
THEN the consumers will have to be interested in it.
Microsoft will have to bring it HARD for it to be successful.
Bahahahaha! That article was bullshit, and it is bullshit that that accuracy has anything to do with it's success. Look at the Wii, that thing isn't even close to being accurate. At all.
Not saying it shouldn't be accurate, or it'll be a success either way, just that the accuracy being talked about in that article is absolute bull.
Replies
What if you're playing and someone walks in front of you, lol. Is that going to fuck up your gameplay? I mean...how the fuck would you pause?? Making a T with your hands for Time-out? lol
00Zero - TrackIR has a sensitivity calibrator/profile setup for that problem you're talking about. You can make it so 1º of head movement equals 10º in game, or 50º - whatever you want. That way you don't have to look away from the screen, just make small head adjustments. I use TrackIR in ArmA and all my flight sims - it takes a few hours to get used to, but it's near impossible to go back to not having it afterwards.
thats not what I was intending to mean. yes all those things you could only do in video games. I just meant that pretending to be on like a skateboard or pretending to be steering just has never felt the same as the real thing. idk maybe its just me but I have never felt like I was ever driving in mario cart wii and sometimes seemed more of a hastle then using a joystick. Maybe its because I have joysticks for thumbs or something.
Obviously Natal is dif and I will have to try it out but I wasnt all to impressed by that super fake cheesy comercial nor the tech demo.
I guess I just like the idea of holding something, feels more real. Like playing rock band without the drums or the guitar I think would be kinda odd. I thought Tony Hawks actual skateboard seemed like a better idea then the imaginary one. Of course the problem with that is you would need a closet full or crazy plastic controlers.
Who knows though, have to wait for those things to get more refined and really get to test them out before any real judgment can ever be made.
00Zero - TrackIR is a PC peripheral. But the Natal appears to do similar things without the need to wear tracking dots/clips, which is nice.
Lol no, not quite that lame
Normally when I play, I'm talking on ventrillo or Teamspeak. So I have a headset on. There's a small clip that just attaches to the headphone band and you're good to go. If I'm not on TS I use an old headphone band I cut the wires/speakers from, to use as a base for the clamp. No biggie.
A driving game where you have to physically hold your hands up without being able to rest them on anything for extended periods of time? Brilliant. Especially if you're supposed to keep moving them around in a circle since that's the most natural way to move your hands. Skating? Looks even more impossible than with the TH: Ride controller. It'd be impossible to pull off basically any tricks that aren't just ollies of various kinds. Even a kickflip would be terribly uncomfortable to mimic on flat ground. And let's not forget, how does it know you're turning? It'd be incredibly tricky to work out where someone's center of balance is just by looking at them with a nifty camera. You don't exactly lean back and forth to turn on a skateboard. And then there's the pistop minigame there. That would work a lot better with an actual controller, since you need physical feedback. If there was an actual gameplay element to it, it would involve speed and precision. It's hard to be precise when you can't directly feel, or even see how far you should move your hands, or when you can move on to the next bolt.
So, those demonstrations didn't exactly make me excited... They all seemed to do things we can already do, but worse... The potential for the device is there, of course, but I'm still having a hard time imagining it being anything more than a gimmick for silly EyeToy-like games. Oh yeah, the EyeToy. Couldn't several of these game concepts have been pulled off using that hardware, too?
However, reading some earlier posts, something just hit me. Y'all remember that awesome headtracking Wii hack, right? With the sensor on the monitor and two IR lights stuck to glasses, for actually changing the position of the camera in a first person environment. This thing could pull that off and it could do it well. Now if only we could combine that with another immersive style of controller, say a light gun or... well... a Wii controller. Hm.
[ame]
*proceed to fullscreen of totally, horribly mangled, gibbled character.*
Check it out John
http://www.vimeo.com/4952629
bam. there it is.
I wonder if natal mocap/tracking could be ripped? Is there a DX ripper that can do animations?
"bitch! wheres my money!"
=p
Just imagine controlling your created rigged game characters live on screen, and he does directly what you doing in front of your pc! And if it also works with 2 persons you could create some cool fighting action between 2 of your characters!
It would be awesome if you could get some super-low-budget motion capture out of it though.
I know I have.
Now we all want to become one.
I'll pass judgment until I see it as a product. With what I see right now, I have little interest in it.
And, yeah, a 2 player fighting game running with this would prove to be quite interesting
But i don't like the reality of it..
Am i the only one who likes sitting comfortably in a chair with a simple controller and playing through a game and story designed by professionals? Rather than playing a bunch of endless gimmick games where you hit a ball with your hand for 3 hours.
When i play a game i want to relax, not wave my arms and legs around pretending to do something i could easily do in reality without looking like a complete idiot.
Don't get me wrong, i think this technology is fucking amazing (i actually wonder how it would cope with things or people moving around in the background) but its just something that replaces a *perfectly fine* concept.
Nooo, only pretending beating him up! :P But on the screen the character gets beat up... in realtime... with blood and gibs.
"its such a lie, won't be that good, they even said "product vision , may not represent actual product"
Granted it was a 'commercial' to be used for the conference, but its very obvious that the TV screen was not actually on/working. The whole interface was faked, and naturally so was the motion detection for the actors.
I know its 'possible', but even with the triangulation software/hardware, I don't see how this is feasible for even a semi-affordable entertainment piece. Although they didn't mention how they track the movement, the scene that shows the biped-looking nodes on the girls legs can't be tracked without more sensors. On the sides, behind and in front. I'm sure more of you know quite a bit more about MoCap than I do, but if game/movie studios have to spend bukoo bucks for a MoCap session, I don't see how MS can pull it off 'so easily'
something like dis mebbe?:
http://download.autodesk.com/us/consulting/videos/movimento_overview_video/movimento_overview_video_570x500.html
That was so subtle I almost missed it... spent about 15 seconds thinking "where's the joke?"
My second thought:
Right now I remain skeptical. When I see some major developers/publishers picking up the tech and USING it for something comprehensive and not seeing an onslaught of cheap mini-games being thrown out, then I will be interested. Seeing publishers currently not wanting to take risks... I dunno...
THEN the consumers will have to be interested in it.
http://kotaku.com/5279219/tetris-creator-skeptical-of-project-natal
That accuracy is also key.
Microsoft will have to bring it HARD for it to be successful.
Bahahahaha! That article was bullshit, and it is bullshit that that accuracy has anything to do with it's success. Look at the Wii, that thing isn't even close to being accurate. At all.
Not saying it shouldn't be accurate, or it'll be a success either way, just that the accuracy being talked about in that article is absolute bull.