Old Discussion Thread for all 3 motion controllers

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Graham said:
Well isn't that interesting. An October release date has already been suggested. Although I imagine it won't be called Natal by then.

What's the bet the release date will be the 26th of October?
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1:1 ?

The price point is very indicative for the kind of casual games that Natal and Arc will excel at. It´s about the same price that I payed for EyePet without camera. But I guess there will be lots of yoga position downloads at peanut price point, just like there are styling packs for EyePet.

Different folks different strokes, the Wii will see some serious competition for the casual crowd this fall.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
Once you've got a lock, it's not so hard to follow a point, as human motions are speed limited to a readily predictable scale. What will prove the power of their skeleton evaluation is how the device copes in more complex scenarios than people waling into frame which is all that's been demo'd so far AFAIK. eg. If two people entered stage right at the same time, would the skeleton tracking find and lock onto them? I expect not. It'd be an incredible piece of software if it did! Instead it'll need participants to be spacially isolated so that it can find the limbs and get a lock. I expect one could confuse it quite readily if one wanted to. But once it has a lock, following the limbs should be accurate. eg. If I start with my left arm full extended out to my side, Natal will lock onto elbow and wrist. If I then bend my arm forwards so the hand ends on my shoulder, Natal will be able to follow that. However, if enter frame with that end positiin, my elbow sticking out but my hand invisible, it should get confused. If it doesn't, that'll be an absolutely stellar piece of software design! Of course the system shouldn't be expected to deal with trouble makers trying to mess it about, aiming instead to lock onto and track normal use, so it wouldn't be wrong for Natal to get bamboozled in such situations. The point of all this waffle of mine is just to highlight that once you have a lock, tracking where a limb is shouldn't be too hard, even when occluded.
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Well according to one article I read that focused on the software behind Natal rather than Natal itself (sorry don't have it anymore, this was months ago and not on a gaming site. :(), that's exactly what they were working on.

It's one of the reasons they scan in millions upon millions of photographs of people in various positions with occluded body parts and doing any number of activities. And then using that room full of servers to do statistical analysis of it all to "learn" (bad word but can't think of one better) where things will be at any given moment due to what it currently is able to see.

Part of the system is obviously just motion prediction. But that is further refined by the statistical probabilities based on body positioning, etc. that it has "learned" in the above exercise.

In more recent Natal impressions there's some mentions being made not only of how it can track occluded body parts, but also how impressed people were at how accurately it tracked occluded body parts.

Now, how well it fares once it's pared down to all fit into the X360 and Natal unit will be interesting.

Either way, it's things like this that I find more fascinating than the camera system. Although that in itself is interesting to watch to see what they do to get it down to a cost effective pricepoint.

Regards,
SB
 
For sure! Then, there could be audio detection mixed with it. Imagine fighting and having the OPTION to call upon "the force" by yelling! ;) That one was for free. The next one will cost ya! :)
 
Lucid_Dreamer said:
That GIF is impressive! It seems like that really drives the point home for some of the possibilities Arc can bring to life.
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I'm not sure its limited to only the ARC . As long as natal can see an object it can make a sword also.


1up had a developeron the podcast talking about all there implementations. Worth a listen to
 
Yes, a camera-based system can detect shapes (e.g., scan a stick) but at a slower pace. Tracking Arc and Wiimote+ movement should be faster because they use internal sensors directly in addition to the camera. The spinning sword example shows the sort of (quick) 1-to-1 true mapping both systems are capable of. We have not heard MS claim the same thing yet.

They don't really need to. Natal is suitable for something else (e.g., imaging the living room, tracking human body).
 
The optical aspect of object placement will work just as well on Natal as Arc. Stick a wagglestick with a big glowing ball on the end and Natal's camera's will see it, with software managing to place it (incidentally, clever idea to obscure the Big Red Blob with a graphic!). What Natal will probably fail out without MEMS in the handheld controller is orientation of the blade. It hasn't the skeletal accuracy to determine hand direction and superimpose the graphic accordingly.

But as Patsu said, this isn't really Natal's target gamestyle.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
The optical aspect of object placement will work just as well on Natal as Arc. Stick a wagglestick with a big glowing ball on the end and Natal's camera's will see it, with software managing to place it (incidentally, clever idea to obscure the Big Red Blob with a graphic!). What Natal will probably fail out without MEMS in the handheld controller is orientation of the blade. It hasn't the skeletal accuracy to determine hand direction and superimpose the graphic accordingly.
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I think it can do it if it wants to more or less, just by extending the skeletal model with a sword. I'm sure that's possible one way or another.

However, it will probably never achieve similar reaction speeds - Arc can be near lag-free thanks to its built in motion detection doing most of the work already on its own. The image feed may well just work independently, only providing correction hints in case orientation or other aspects of the 3D spatial positioning are in question.

For Natal,image detection and recognition is the primary input.
 
Arwin said:
I think it can do it if it wants to more or less, just by extending the skeletal model with a sword. I'm sure that's possible one way or another.
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You could find workarounds, but they'd be pretty grotty. Either the blade would be an extension of the arm or fixed perpendicular to it, but you'd have zero wrist control and would have to fight by waving your arm around, which really wouldn't work as a sword fight. Some sct-fi combat game with laser arms, yes, but not a swashbuckler.
 
A good start for Arc from the sounds of it. GI.biz is reporting Arc support for PS3 in Tiger Woods but not Natal support, citing timing issues. Similar Edge reports EA is offering EA Sports Active 2 on PS3 alongside Wii but not Natal, which is contrary to what one would expect given the title's mechanic. Perhaps this has something to do with peripheral licensing limits from MS? Otherwise I can't see why they'll strap-on motion sensors (actually not Arc related, so maybe this news doesn't belong here! Maybe they're using Sony's Arc libs to port Wii code?) and provide them for Wii and PS3 but not supply them to XB360.
 
Latency. Any way to measure accuracy? Especially Z position. How it copes with partial sphere occlusion, maybe if it can follow to a degree if it's behind your back, to determine how much of the tracking is based on the MEMS rather than optical tracking. And how much drift there is and if the device needs calibrating.

So nothing you haven't already thought of! Chuck in a few speed tests, swinging it as fast as you can (baseball speed) and see if it's a match. I can't really think of anything out of the obvious worth trying though. Impact damage against an HDTV versus Wiimote probably isn't that important to pin down. :p
 
Shifty Geezer said:
Impact damage against an HDTV versus Wiimote probably isn't that important to pin down. :p
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:LOL:

Seriously though, I would be curious to see how they plan to address that after learning from Nintendo's experience with that issue. Re-enforced wrist straps? Surface texture changes?

Oh, and the balance of the "wand" itself (top heavy, evenly weighted, etc).
 
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I have a lot of questions !

I am more interested in the hardware itself. I think the build quality, grip and weight of the controller is extremely important (I don't like the look of the controller). Would be great if you can tell us more about the nunchuck, the big button and trigger T. Are any of the buttons pressure sensitive ? Also how robust is the ball (How much force can it sustain), how bright and how dim it can lit (or is it just an off/on thing) ? Can it change color quickly and still have Arc track it properly (If so, how fast can the light change without losing itself) ? As for the rumble (if present), is it the same as DS3 or something different ? Would also like to know about battery requirements and battery life. Any extra ports ?

In terms of usage, I'd love to know the workable range and area, plus number of supported player and their relative CPU usage. If they can't give specific numbers, have them compare with SIXAXIS. Then does the device need recalibration at all, or is it fully automatic ? What happens if you block out the light with your hands ? How long can the light ball stay hidden before the controller go heywire (or turn itself off). i.e., Can I have a game where the player pretend to block off a gust of wind from his/her candle/stick ? (And have Arc track properly within reasonable bounds).

For claims on true 1-to-1 mapping and absolute positioning, how do they prove them to you ?

It would be great if they have attachments for you to test out the various use cases. e.g., steering wheel, pointing a gun/controller at specific points on the screen and have the game translate it into a location or an object in-game (If available, see if you can line up your eyes with the cross-hair and have everything work naturally, and as expected), writing, whipping, tossing, drag-n-drop (like in RTS), jabbing (sword fighting and boxing). In general, does the device behave as expected/intended for any of these game action ? In these actions, the sensitivity of the controller is important. They have to program it in such a way that it feels natural to the users (Tracking cannot be too shaky/exaggerated or too dull). In addition, the system has to work correctly as they switch to different control schemes/modes. e.g., I heard the Logitech AirMouse can confuse the users when they try to pick up the mouse and use it like a laser pointer for a brief moment. There is some unreliable control scheme switching lag in-between.

I think that's enough. :LOL:


EDIT: Apparently not. Would you kindly drop the controller on concrete floor and see what happens (to the controller) ? ;-)

Does/Will Sony provide basic modules for common tracking actions or is it always implemented in a proprietary manner by each developers ? This will affect the seamlessness of the user experience (from XMB to different games). Also what UI, XMB features and non-games will take advantage of Arc ?

For that matter, why is it called Arc ?


If all the above tests pass, then I'll need 3 for my family. :)
 
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