air guitar version of guitar hero on ps3?

[tongue_of_colicab]

Yesterday I was watching discovery channel and they had this program about 2 finnish guys who made a system wich allowed you to play air guitar and make sounds that way. The system worked with a webcam monitoring the moves of your hands (you had to wear orange gloves to make your hands visible) and generating sounds based on the placement of your fingers. The software would automatically adjust the notes you play so that it will always sound good.

Now in the end they mentioned that a big game company showed interrest in the technoligy and Sony came to my mind in a instant. They got eyetoy, they got alot of processing power for the hand movement and they have guitar hero. So could we be seeing a airguitar version of guitar hero, or a other title anytime soon on ps3 or maybe even x360 now they have their own cam? I think that would be awsome and it probably wouldnt be to hard to implement it into the game and you can still have people chose between the air guitar and the plastic guitar as their method of play.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It'd be a great addition to an EyeToy library if Sony want to promote that (or MS their camera). I'm not too sure airguitar can be used for deriving pitch though. There's not much exact in the way people move their hands, and with full-on body movements it'd be hard to track the virtual-orientation of the virtual-guitar.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

It worked my measuring the distance between the 2 hand to deside the tone. So keep your hands close together and you get a high pitched sound and if you keep them wide a low sound. And the measured the position of the fingers to ''gues'' wich fret (do you call it ithat?) you pressed. And they recognized about 10 or so instead of around 60 like on a real guitar. But that would probably still be more than enough for a game especially since most people playing the game probably arnt guitar players.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I was thinking they'd be reading rhythm from the right hand (for right-handed player) which would also change pitch if the left hand stays in position. If they're just measuring distance for pitch, that'd work, and wouldn't need a PS3 to manage. PS2 could do that easily enough with the existing EyeToy and orange gloves.

To really be a huge success, it'd need the player to be able to pull off large 'Bill And Ted' arm swings etc.

 

[Naboomagnoli]

Not sure how well this'd work to be honest. If it is reliable for different shapes and sizes of hand in different lighting, it could be excellent (especially if it could evaluate what two people are doing at the same time to make multiplayer easy). My problems with this would be that

(a) A mini-Gibson SG is far cooler than orange gloves so they'd have to get it working for ordinary hands (much like how Eyetoy was originally supposed to require you to hold a white ball IIRC);

(b) How much cheaper would it be to put so much effort into getting this technology to work and producing orange gloves and Eyetoy HDs, as opposed to making a cheap plastic mini guitar safe in the knowledge that buttons are tried and tested;

[Actually, scratch that. Eyetoys will sell themselves if such a game is even on the horizon, let alone released, the technology would be licensed from these Fins and probably wouldn't require too much more work to integrate than most other Eyetoy games, and if orange gloves were really needed I'm sure they'd be cheap as chips to mass produce.)

(c) Would the gameplay itself be as easy to work in as something like Guitar Hero which gives you a guitar neck to rest your hands on and discrete buttons to press (which are close together), as well as a very clear scrolling HUD to tell you what to press? How would that work on an invisible instrument?


The one thing this tech would excel at, would be to allow you to freestyle. That is one thing you cannot do on Guitar Hero from what I've seen and what I can envisage. It could also theoretically be worked in with an Air Drummer, Air Bassist, and a Singstar mic to allow a proper jamming session - imagine doing that online!


30 minute long jams - Prog Hero ftw..


edit: any luck finding anything on Youtube at all, or finding an official website?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You know, I thought this rang a bell.

EyeToy Play 2 had an air-guitar game.

 

[Naboomagnoli]

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=virtual+air+guitar&search=Search

Sounds like crap, frankly!

http://airguitar.tml.hut.fi/media.html

Still I suppose with a lot of money pumped into it they could get something a lot less fizzy and electronic out of the thing.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

http://airguitar.tml.hut.fi/media.html

Still I suppose with a lot of money pumped into it they could get something a lot less fizzy and electronic out of the thing.

It's the pitch control that needs work. You can't play anything musical on it, from the looks of it, so you're just making noises. That'd tire quickly. If they could link pitch to a known song, and jump you to the right notes as long as you move sort of in the right direction, it might work.

 

[assen]

It's not an air guitar, it's a Theremin

Anyway, why is it that every cool-trick-with-camera story instantly spun as "on PS3"? A few days ago the photography-as-wolf3d-map research paper, now some Finnish guys with an air guitar.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Well its just that sony comes to mind fist because of the eyetoy.

 

[Rys]

Well its just that sony comes to mind fist because of the eyetoy.

Well now that there's Live Vision, maybe it's time Microsoft get considered (and not just 2nd in line, or not at all) in "hey, generic cool stuff with your console's camera!" things too, right?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Well now that there's Live Vision, maybe it's time Microsoft get considered (and not just 2nd in line, or not at all) in "hey, generic cool stuff with your console's camera!" things too, right?

You'd have thought so, but what coverage is there of their camera, including from MS? There's supposedly a guesture game for Live Vision, but I've heard nothing about it. If MS aren't showing a strong interest in novel input schemes, it's likely they wil be playing a definite second fiddle to Sony who have quite an EyeToy collection on their system as well as very strong future-tech showcases with Eye of Judgement, Eyedentify, and numerous demos like E3 '05s pouring water.

Generally these camera ideas should be presented as camera ideas, rather than platform ideas. But I'm not surprised if everyone associates the idea with Sony and not MS, when MS are doing very little in the novel control arena.

 

[Diamond.G]

You'd have thought so, but what coverage is there of their camera, including from MS? There's supposedly a guesture game for Live Vision, but I've heard nothing about it. If MS aren't showing a strong interest in novel input schemes, it's likely they wil be playing a definite second fiddle to Sony who have quite an EyeToy collection on their system as well as very strong future-tech showcases with Eye of Judgement, Eyedentify, and numerous demos like E3 '05s pouring water.

Generally these camera ideas should be presented as camera ideas, rather than platform ideas. But I'm not surprised if everyone associates the idea with Sony and not MS, when MS are doing very little in the novel control arena.

I have Totemball (the gesture game..) and quite frankly it sucks... If you don't have a solid background control is difficult. It mistook my surrounds as my hand making it difficult to manuever. I think it has more to do with the way the game uses contrast as opposed to your actual hand (gee...) I don't know if the camera or the system has to have that kind of tech in it...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I have Totemball (the gesture game..) and quite frankly it sucks... If you don't have a solid background control is difficult. It mistook my surrounds as my hand making it difficult to manuever. I think it has more to do with the way the game uses contrast as opposed to your actual hand (gee...) I don't know if the camera or the system has to have that kind of tech in it...

That's very interesting. You think it's trying to read the scene and guess which bits are your hands, rather than see which bits are changed like EyeToy 1 to detect motion? Can you describe some of the control schemes in Totemball? Maybe that'll explain the choice of control systems.

 

[Diamond.G]

That's very interesting. You think it's trying to read the scene and guess which bits are your hands, rather than see which bits are changed like EyeToy 1 to detect motion? Can you describe some of the control schemes in Totemball? Maybe that'll explain the choice of control systems.

It is looking for motion, but it uses contrast to do so. As in you stick your arms out to your sides and move them up and down (as if you were raising or lowering a bar). The problem is if there is anything behind your hand that contrasts with say the white wall then the game thinks that the object is your hand. This leads to erratic movements as your character is controlled by where your hands are (think tank). It is a great exercise in patience and a great fung shue for your decor....

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I'm confused. The original EyeToy similarly uses contrast. If you have a white wall and pale hand, there's not enough contrast to trigger the detection of motion when a pixel switched from white wall to pale hand and vice versa. This will just count as missed motion though, and there won't be any false positives from scenery. If I give you and example, let's say you have a white wall, dark painting, and pale hand. In ordinary EyeToy, if your hand wasn't being seen against the pale wall, it'd register when it passes across the painting. How is it with Totem? In EyeToy you could fix the problem by wearing something on your hands that contrasts, such as dark gloves or red socks. Does that not work in Totem?

 

[Diamond.G]

I'm confused. The original EyeToy similarly uses contrast. If you have a white wall and pale hand, there's not enough contrast to trigger the detection of motion when a pixel switched from white wall to pale hand and vice versa. This will just count as missed motion though, and there won't be any false positives from scenery. If I give you and example, let's say you have a white wall, dark painting, and pale hand. In ordinary EyeToy, if your hand wasn't being seen against the pale wall, it'd register when it passes across the painting. How is it with Totem? In EyeToy you could fix the problem by wearing something on your hands that contrasts, such as dark gloves or red socks. Does that not work in Totem?

It kind of works... If my 360 wasn't on its way to MS I'd play it again just to make sure... From my experience wearing gloves did help, but it still liked to think that my surround speaker was my hand. I had to play with the camera a lot to get it working somewhat reliably... I also think it may just have been a setting screw up. There is a setting somewhere that ask if you have a black background or white and when I was in Hawaii I had the tv w/camera against the wall. So the couch was kinda floating in the middle of the room. The surrounds were near the couch (duh) and were in the field of view of the camera. Wearing gloves (white ones) helped as the surround itself was black. All in all it was just more annoying than it was worth. Now that I am back in VA I may try again, but I need my system to do so.