Kinect technology thread
- Thread starter LightHeaven
- Start date
You're welcome, but it's a technicality that has always come up until now as one of those dropped features. For example, the initial statement that the 360 is an HD console. And then we go into years of endless bickering over scaling, because it's not technically HD.The initial statement this time is that Kinect can track 6 people....
It's only come up as a dropped feature among people that don't have a damn clue.
So if your TV isn't showing HD content all of the time it isn't an HD TV anymore? Interesting perspective. HD console can output SD content, news at 11.
LightHeaven
Regular
Thanks for that. To recap, we know of a game using 4 simultaneous players (was that also reported by eurogamer?), we have reports of object scanning still in beta but coming soon (wired article?), and we have reports of lag not being a universal issue as once thought but solvable through software (Rare, wired article?) and the type of experience. So Kinect is evolving through software (no hardware changes) and reaching the goals of it's initial supposed smoke and mirrors?
So they now need a game with 6 simultaneous players to check off what was implied with the original launch material. I'm sure launch material says Kinect sees 6 people, but the launch games support only 2 simultaneously. I can't imagine a game being much fun with 6 people all flailing about at once though.
I'm pretty sure the reveal trailer and initial PRs all stated 4 active players.
6 people is the number prime sense gave, meaning the amount of different people kinect can see at once, it was never meant to track 6 people properly, just that it is aware of those people and can listen to some basic gestures so they can gain more focus. That was never downgraded, is just under the hood details XD
at comic con they had 4 groups of 2 walk in front of the camera and it saw all of us , they had one person take a step foward and then that person was marked as the active person and it tracked them in a few diffrent ways (vga , infared and some others but i was towards the bakc and people were all crowded towards the tv)
The skeleton tracking system can support up to 2 active players (although it can see 6).
So if a game supports 4 players, it's probably using other types of tracking, or it somehow switches between pair of active players at a time.
Similarly, the voice recognition subsystem supports one human speaker at any one time. But a game can support multiple players if it only requires one to speak at any one time.
The Macy one also has trouble tracking young children. e.g., It didn't register my 5 year old's bowling properly (Took quite a few tries for every ball). Another young girl came along and had the same problem. However, while my son was playing, she could trigger the throw from the sideline even though it's a SP game. The ball ended up on another alley. I expect them to improve at launch. The Macy build should be rather old by now.
The lag, well, we shall see how good developers are at hiding them.
Other fun things we tried: In Kinect Adverture, the avatar kneeled down automatically when tracking my kid (for obvious reason). When my wife got behind him to help out, sometimes the system would combine them into 1 avatar (1 avatar would disappear). The Kinect Adventure game is definitely more fun than the bowling and track & field game.
It's more natural to lean left/right to steer the raft. I saw people doing that instinctively. For some reason, Kinect Adventure requires the players to step left/right instead. They should try to do leaning (say... via head tracking).
So if a game supports 4 players, it's probably using other types of tracking, or it somehow switches between pair of active players at a time.
Similarly, the voice recognition subsystem supports one human speaker at any one time. But a game can support multiple players if it only requires one to speak at any one time.
The Macy one also has trouble tracking young children. e.g., It didn't register my 5 year old's bowling properly (Took quite a few tries for every ball). Another young girl came along and had the same problem. However, while my son was playing, she could trigger the throw from the sideline even though it's a SP game. The ball ended up on another alley. I expect them to improve at launch. The Macy build should be rather old by now.
The lag, well, we shall see how good developers are at hiding them.
Other fun things we tried: In Kinect Adverture, the avatar kneeled down automatically when tracking my kid (for obvious reason). When my wife got behind him to help out, sometimes the system would combine them into 1 avatar (1 avatar would disappear). The Kinect Adventure game is definitely more fun than the bowling and track & field game.
It's more natural to lean left/right to steer the raft. I saw people doing that instinctively. For some reason, Kinect Adventure requires the players to step left/right instead. They should try to do leaning (say... via head tracking).
they didnt exactly make it clear that this equaled to 6 people not being able to play.. Tracking X number of people is open for interpretation since it needs to track a number of people anyways to allow them to play together. As a result since people care about what it can do in real practical situations, which is gaming, they would easily associate it with multiplayer game participation. Until someone comes and shares the specifics. MS should have cleared that up from the beginning. I myself have only found out recently by accident that Kinect can track 2 players while 4 would need to do some compromises. This wasnt made clear long before.
It was always fair to clear to me. Tracking doesn't mean playing, if they meant playing they would have said playing. Some people like to hear what they want, not really microsofts fault.
No. In the case of Kinect tracking doesnt necessarily mean playing, but it can. There is a difference.
TheWretched
Regular
Doubtful... this is nitpicking... MS deliberately chose these words... There's been NO game with 4 people playing simultaneously. Only in videos... and those showed QUITE a bit more than MS will probably be able to deliver.
LightHeaven
Regular
Actually the current official position is:
"Update: PrimeSense has gotten in touch with us to say that it was only the demo software it showed off at E3 that could support only two users, not the hardware itself. Theoretically, with enough processing power, PrimeSense's hardware licensed by Kinect could support any number of players."
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/06/19/kinect-how-it-works-from-the-company-behind-the-tech/
Now, the question is whether 360 has or not enough processing power to allow 4 active players.
(But at least this should be interesting on Pcs)
I'm not sure it could given the viewing angle and problems with players in close proximity. We've seen how when two people get close, their skeletons get mixed. Four people in that play area would have lots and lots of contentions to worry about, unless everyone took a few steps back to separate the skeletons, but then you'd have lower resolution for the skeleton tracking and need a load more space.
It looks to me like the system was designed for 2 players, given FOV and the motor tracking. MS wanted large players. I will be surprised if any proper full-skeleton 4-player games come out that aren't using cut-down workarounds.
It looks to me like the system was designed for 2 players, given FOV and the motor tracking. MS wanted large players. I will be surprised if any proper full-skeleton 4-player games come out that aren't using cut-down workarounds.
The leaked Kinect specs on play.com specifies 2 active players. PrimeSense's design probably doesn't care how many players there are (on paper).
And the Xbox 360 could not do 1080p at launch so.......
upnorthsox
Veteran
11 I believe.
upnorthsox
Veteran
.........and once demonstrated, it was never seen again.
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