Old Discussion Thread for all 3 motion controllers

1:1 is never going to work for the casuals. Even with realtime control you are going to have to tweak the animation to follow the "appropriate" path, so you actually hit him.

 

I played a similar boxing game in the arcade years ago. It's tracked by two gloves and some poles. In that game, the lag was more noticeable but the game was tuned for it. You have ample time to defend yourself and jab the opponents. The tougher opponents were faster, more powerful but the player could move around the screen and time the attack.

If the game is designed for the appropriate response time, it should be playable. I got a good workout out of it.

The thing about Move is if Wii has done it before and people liked the experience, it should be possible to match that experience. The bad thing is *if* this is all Sony does, then people will simply stick to Wii.

EDIT:

What if you don't tweak the animation or only tweak it based on the last position ?

 

If you use something like we have seen from the puppetry demo, but with a more advanced model, it could work for the actual throwing of the punch, the problem here would the point of collision if you punch passed it. It could work if the game penalises you for not pulling the punch back at the correct point so it becomes sort of like shadow boxing, also the colission animation could help here by moving with the punch so the full motion you are making can still be captured to a point unless punching through an object by a considerable ammount. Boxing something like a punchbag that doesnt hit back could work well.

The big issue that is hard to solve is hit-stun, how do you stop a person from punching back while they are being hit themselves. May just be a matter of game mechanics so simply encouraging blocking by making counter attacks much more powerful than random swinging could partly negate this issue.

 

http://www.edge-online.com/news/sony-move-targeted-equally-at-core-and-casual

50/50 means the resources are spread, and Sony is neither focusing on casual nor core gamers. If Sony takes this broad-stroke approach, then the idea/draw behind PS Move and its messaging becomes ever more critical.

Based on what they have said so far, they seem to be naturally inclined towards core gamers -- at least from my perspective.


The following comment is interesting nonetheless. It's reassuring to hear for those who are curious about the precision, response time, etc:

 

To me it looks like they are focusing on both instead of not focusing on either which is also what MS wants to do. Core and casuals have always been Sony's and MS's aim to win over, and I think thats the best option. A message that is targeted only to core gamers or only to casuals would narrow the appeal, go against the current image of the brand or lose a potential market.

Sony unlike Nintendo didnt start fresh. They already have an existing market and an existing image of the product and have to adapt Move accordingly.

Sony always had studios developing projects for core gamers and others for casuals. thats why we got Buzz, Singstar, EyePet etc. The differentiator is the addition of move to their projects to expand the experience.

 

EA manages to cater to both Wiimote and Motion Plus users in a single game, with Tiger Woods and Grand Slam Tennis.

I don't think it would hurt to establish a difficulty rating system with novice, advanced and expert badges. If your game scales up for all 3 levels, you get all 3 badges.

 

The end result will be very different from what Wii is today though. I think we will be able to see the difference by the end of this year.

For individual titles, they will do the necessary to attract their own audiences (Just like how EyePet and SingStar target the casuals). For PS Move as a whole, the perceived image, pricing, value, etc. may be something else.

Let's see. If Sony stays on its current course, we should be able to tell the difference rather clearly by end of the year.

 

But of course it is going to be different. Thats the point.

 

It will be obviously different because Move offers camera + precise motion controller (interaction with real-time video) and that is an extra "appeal" for impressionable audience, mainly (but also something good for the traditional gamers, of course).

This way, Sony can avoid the audience to feel deceived(link) with a Wiimote rip-off, because the audience will perceive Move as a different product. That is a possibility, though.

 

True

And at the same time unlike Wii it can appeal more to both the core and the casuals alike including gamers of older ages if executed well. Wii is still the platform that mostly sells on casual and party experiences

 

Exactly, to many current non-gamers the Wii is a total turn off because its still seen as a kids toy. They want to keep up the broad appeal, by going 100% for the casual audience they could potentially be narrowing their appeal. While being a jack of all trades is often looked at as a negative thing in a family environment it is actually a huge positive.

 

Ha ha, I meant "different" as in different from the level of success Wii achieved. Specifically, the response may be luke warm to the consumers at large.

The camera differences are "technical", and if only EyePet use it... very few consumers will get exposed to PS Eye (Their attention will be on the motion controller). In fact, I am not entirely sure if Sony developed more cool stuff for PS Eye, or use/refine the existing controller-free technologies for more apps/games.

 

Sorry if old, but I read this and something keeps intriguing me, still:
http://kotaku.com/5316484/playstation-camera-to-support-facial-recognition

Kish Hirani, Sony Europe's Head of Developer Services, spoke about facial recognition through the PlayStation Eye. Ok, I think that we all know this at this point but the article also noted that "In addition to facial recognition, Hirani says the PS3 will soon also be able to support other similar advances, such as "skeleton tracking"".

We also know that the key point in NATAL, besides the IR sensor, is the software developed by Microsoft (well explained in Digital Foundry's article, Prime Sense: Beyond Natal).

Then:
1. NATAL uses depth information, obtained through the IR sensor.
2. PlayStation Eye applications, such as head tracking (including the augmented reality tech demo that overlapped a 3d head model over the image of a true head) seem to detect depth in a standard image through software... somehow.
3. Kish Hirani speaks about "skeleton tracking" through the PlayStation Eye.

So:
Is it possible for Sony to develop a similar result, skeleton tracking? I'm not speaking in a legal sense, about patents and all that stuff, though, but technically (software). We already saw tech demos were the Move helped to track the position of the arms and hands, in combination with head tracking (the ragdoll tech demo), but I mean without the Move, only with the PlayStation Eye.

May we consider EyeToy: AntiGrav a rudimentary example?

 

It is not easy to mimic Wii's level of success is it? Going strictly Nintendo's route doesn't sound like a good idea to me for Sony unless they want to alienate the PS3 from its current market and image. No matter how the consumers might receive Move investing on casual and core experiences simultaneous sounds like the best available option

I mentioned the EyePet as an example that shows that Sony was investing on casual experiences regardless of, not as an example to show the usefulness or the technical differences. But even with the technical differences, it is hard to ignore that Move has potential to work with core titles and refine the experience where Wii lacked.

 

Has this been posted yet?

http://www.nextgn.com/2010/04/15/this-is-how-project-natal-camera-sees-the-player-shaky-cam-video/

 

As you've provided no explanation of what it is you're linking to, that's kinda hard to determine.

The better post would have been :
"Here's a video from MS Israeli RnD showing Natal's sensing."

Don't worry about posting stuff that's been posted before. That's far less annoying than random links!

On topic - Good video! The time to recognise the fella was very quick, and lag was pretty minimal. There was only one oddity towards the end as the data points changed colour from vibrant to very faded, as if it suddenly lost depth resolution or something. There was also a strange bit of noise on the girl's detection, with hot spots on her left hand. I think that's a ring and bracelet, with a buckle showing up on the waist, suggesting reflective materials are affecting the depth perception somehow. Curious...

 

That doesn't seem so curious - infra-red is still light, right? So anything reflective is going to cause trouble, and it may well be that the application is going to work better with some clothing than others. Makes me wonder if there is really an issue with dark-skin, as some dark skin can be very reflective (and insulating - which is the whole point - protection against sunlight). Probably not, but who knows?

(still have to watch the vid)

 

yeah the response was pretty fast in this one.

Just wondering though, is lag affected by the resolution settings of the camera and the complexity of the game?

This one was a very simple demo, and the screen showed only the detected silhouette so I was wondering if there would be any change with more complex applications and higher resolution detection

 

I can't see why that'd affect time-of-flight though. Reflective materials don't increase the speed of light! this points somewhat towards the detective pattern approach rather than TOF.

The girl only appeard to be the point cloud, but the guy showed the skeleton appear very quickly and get tracked. Irrespective of the game, the skeleton tracking should be the factor determining lag, so this bodes well.

 

It doesnt actually use time of flight, its been confirmed.