eye-toy new tricks for PS2-PS3

[dskneo]

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20050819/kane_01.shtml

some quotes:

The most interesting of the demos came from Richard Marks, Manager of Special Projects at Sony Computer Entertainment America, and involved his increasingly popular EyeToy.

The first demo highlighted a “View Trackingâ€￾ system that allows the EyeToy to adjust the in-game camera based on movements of the player's head in space. Marks played a first-person shooter for the audience, and when his character came to a corner, he was able to “duckâ€￾ his head around for a brief peek at his opponent. View Tracking uses about 25% of the CPU power of a PS2, Marks said – but less than 1% of the power of the PS3.

The second demo featured a gestural interface in which the EyeToy tracks and translates a user's hand motions, based on simple color keying. Holding a simple wedge of neon-colored Styrofoam in his hand, Marks was able to select and rotate objects in the game, effectively turning his hand into a spatial mouse. In addition to eliminating the need for gloves or other devices, he noted that this allows the EyeToy to track multiple objects at once, allowing for two-handed gestural control and other gameplay innovations.

now, thats cool. Using eye-toy to simulate your head movements in the game.

There's already hardware that does the same in the PC, its the TRack-IR http://www.naturalpoint.com/trackir/

this is great...

Edit: ok now, After 40 views, I could wrote a lie, say, eye-toy increases PS3 GFLops count by 10%... maybe that would be enough to bring ppl here and discuss it.
But no performance subjects in here!... this is the real deal, this will make games alot, lot more interesting than the fact that cache misses are 0,50% higher in Cell! wowo
bah, this is a technical forum after all... lol

 

[Guden Oden]

I'm all for more eyetoy use in future games. It also seems like an ideal application you could branch off and run independently on a separate SPU in cell. Hopefully, some kind of rifle or such will be made available for shooting games, complete with markers for the eyetoy to track so it knows how it is aimed. After all, lightguns don't work on flatpanel displays.

Thanks for a great thread, neo!

 

[pcostabel]

I love EyeToy, but I'm surprised Sony didn't show the new Eyetoy yet, the one that capture the depth as well. They showed it at the Devcon two years ago and it was supposed to come standard with PS3. I wonder if they're waiting to unveil it or they decided to sell it separately...

 

[seismologist]

sounds neat but I'm a little skeptical of how well it will work (head tracking). At the very least PS3 eye toy should produce higher resolution imaging, and of course cell is very good at image processing. So I'm sure we'll see some advances here.

 

[mckmas8808]

I think the Eyetoy for Sony will be that innovative thing that they will have to compete head on with Nintendo. There should be somethings that Sony should be able to do that the others aren't talking about right now.

I can't help but to think that if Nintendo had something like this people would be talking more about it though.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I love EyeToy, but I'm surprised Sony didn't show the new Eyetoy yet, the one that capture the depth as well. They showed it at the Devcon two years ago and it was supposed to come standard with PS3. I wonder if they're waiting to unveil it or they decided to sell it separately...

The E3 duck demo had overlapping 3D positioning of the two beakers from what I remember. That's the only EyeToy info we've got thus far apart from this new info. I'm think EyeToy could be a big plus for PS3 as if it comes as standard as expected, it'll be there for every game to include and provide unique gaming interfaces. There's nothing stopping guesture based UIs in every game (save people getting in the way of the camera!)

 

[London Geezer]

Ok so if i turn my head, the camera will in-game move too... But... If i turn my head, how will i see what's on the screen?
Or is it just a "peek" feature? Slight movements, not actually "turning" your head...

Sounds cool and all, though a bit impractical. It will be impractical until the display device is attached to our heads so by turning our heads, we still keep full vision of what's going on.

 

[Sis]

Ok so if i turn my head, the camera will in-game move too... But... If i turn my head, how will i see what's on the screen?
Or is it just a "peek" feature? Slight movements, not actually "turning" your head...

Sounds cool and all, though a bit impractical. It will be impractical until the display device is attached to our heads so by turning our heads, we still keep full vision of what's going on.

Well, I think it's "leaning" not turning. Sounds very cool but kinda reminds me of "voice command" in games: a cool feature that I use at first but eventually turn off.

.Sis

 

[dskneo]

Ok so if i turn my head, the camera will in-game move too... But... If i turn my head, how will i see what's on the screen?
Or is it just a "peek" feature? Slight movements, not actually "turning" your head...

Sounds cool and all, though a bit impractical. It will be impractical until the display device is attached to our heads so by turning our heads, we still keep full vision of what's going on.

its like this one... http://www.naturalpoint.com/trackir/
wait for the page to fully load, then press X Y Lean etc etc to see the man move.
it works with subtle movements....

many racing-sim's adepts have that gadget, it works well
Download the video in this page http://www.naturalpoint.com/trackir/03-enhanced-games/game-live-for-speed.html the S2clip.zip

 

[pcostabel]

The E3 duck demo had overlapping 3D positioning of the two beakers from what I remember. That's the only EyeToy info we've got thus far apart from this new info. I'm think EyeToy could be a big plus for PS3 as if it comes as standard as expected, it'll be there for every game to include and provide unique gaming interfaces. There's nothing stopping guesture based UIs in every game (save people getting in the way of the camera!)

The demo I'm talking about was the one were they showed a z-buffer for the video image. Basically, the new EyeToy has an infrared emitter/sensor that allows it to capture depth data from the scene. The duck demo was simply tracking the size of the colored glasses to determine the z distance.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It's AFAIK a guess of positioning, not turning, the camera. The best example is a game where you want to look over a hill, and often players rise up a little unconciously even though that doesn't affect the camera. With EyeToy it will And that'll be very good FPS's for peaking round corners or over walls, adding an instinctive control mechanism which also frees up buttons for other controls.

 

[pc999]

Inst supossed to came a EyyToy (2?) built in PS3, or something like

If so I think we will see a lot of inovative games.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It has been said numerous times EyeToy 2 should come with PS3. Built-in seems stupid as it limits the placement options of the console, plus of the Gigabit ethernet links one has been officially earmarked for EyeToy2, HDIP Camera as its been referred to, suggesting it has its own IP for internet access and can be dialed directly over the internet.

But it should be included in the base package and so should see a lot of use, espcially if generic libraries are provided for different processing functions.

 

[mckmas8808]

It has been said numerous times EyeToy 2 should come with PS3. Built-in seems stupid as it limits the placement options of the console, plus of the Gigabit ethernet links one has been officially earmarked for EyeToy2, HDIP Camera as its been referred to, suggesting it has its own IP for internet access and can be dialed directly over the internet.

But it should be included in the base package and so should see a lot of use, espcially if generic libraries are provided for different processing functions.

I can only imagine what the price of the PS3 would be then.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Enough that you have to work overtime for it But I'd prefer a more expensive base unit + trimmings than EyeToy as an optional extra that doesn't get maximum use.

 

[gokickrocks]

I think the Eyetoy for Sony will be that innovative thing that they will have to compete head on with Nintendo. There should be somethings that Sony should be able to do that the others aren't talking about right now.

I can't help but to think that if Nintendo had something like this people would be talking more about it though.

they had a gameboy camera that didnt take off, not exactly the similar to the eyetoy however, it was more of a camera obviously as the name implies...

but sega had what they called dream eye that does the same as the eyetoy, however that didnt take off either (it was also done before sony)

 

[gokickrocks]

i'd prefer the eyetoy come seperate, i honestly dont like it and dont want the added cost of it on the ps3 when i get the system

 

[rabidrabbit]

they had a gameboy camera that didnt take off

But wasn't it just for taking low res pictures? Not comparable to Eye Toy really.

 

[gokickrocks]

But wasn't it just for taking low res pictures? Not comparable to Eye Toy really.

why couldnt you wait just a few more seconds for your post when i was editting my post

 

[dskneo]

ok guys check this video (about 20mb) http://media.naturalpoint.com/video/gamedemo/CRC_april2005-800x600.wmv

its a pc game working with TRACK-IR (works the same as eye-toy)

now, ain't that fun ?
you can see in the Menu, the real head moving and the Virtual head moving even more, so the eyes stay always turned at the screen.

heres other racing games with it:
http://media.naturalpoint.com/video/gamedemo/TOCArd2-800x600.wmv
http://media.naturalpoint.com/video/gamedemo/GTR-feb2005-v3-800x600.wmv

Edit: wow, this one shows it all... http://media.naturalpoint.com/video/6dof/vector-commercial-640x480-1mbBitRate.wmv
All your doubts are gone now..