Sony's New Motion Controller

[patsu]

Actually for a horror game that you play with the lights off...

You can use the controller as a candle stick, the scene will light up according to how and where you hold the stick. And it gets dimmer and dimmer. Flickering and never reliable (Goes out occasionally when you're caught in a gust of wind, or breathe of laughters).

For online horror game, I wouldn't mind shining the color light (again in a dark room) up my face to be one of the ghouls chasing people around. ^_^

 

[Iron Tiger]

Yup, he's not explained the PSmote's advantage very accurately at all. Ironic really.

Interesting some of the examples given in the interview of uses for the light. They mention using it as muzzle flare; that kind of implies some on/off lighting doesn't it? Besides the epilepsy risk there, isn't the point that the ball is the chief source of the precision attained? Maybe he meant some sort of colour change, rather than on/off - starting from a dark colour.

It's not something I'd really thought about though, despite it actually being the first thing they showed the controller doing. I can imagine things like the ball glowing red when your weapon overheats (matron) or flashing when you need to reload, or a pulsing colour change speeding up when an unseen enemy approaches, or even just changing colour when you're pointing at something you can interact with.

Sounds like amBX in your hand. With enough variation in levels, it never has to go completely off to simulate something like a muzzle flash.

 

[Arwin]

Sounds like amBX in your hand. With enough variation in levels, it never has to go completely off to simulate something like a muzzle flash.

I was thinking the exact same thing. And I don't know if you remember, but amBX support is actually in the PS3s SDK somewhere, if I remember correctly. But of course, noone supports it. Will be interesting if this feature in the PSMC will change that at some point.

Also, under normal lighting conditions I reckon the PMSC will be picked up even without active lighting from within the bulb.

 

[patsu]

Sounds like amBX in your hand. With enough variation in levels, it never has to go completely off to simulate something like a muzzle flash.

Neat ! I forgot totally about amBX.

I am also wondering if the LED ball will help the camera see slightly better under poor lighting condition (e.g., for expression recognition). Compared to regular webcams, the PS Eye is pretty good at seeing in the dark. But additional light may be helpful.

EDIT: Basically, the question is: Would the PS3 be able to adjust/optimize the ambient lighting condition now that it has control of 1-2 light source(s) ?

 

[MfA]

Does the Eyetoy go down to near IR? If so they could just put a constant IR led in there.

 

[deathkiller]

His point is incorrect though. There's nothing bad about a mouse's accuracy - just ask all the PC FPSers who hate console controllers! The problem with the mouse is not old moving abll technology (and who uses that these days?) but learning new motor skills. Those same skills were learned to handled a pen and write your name, but a long time ago and at school and people have forgotten how much effort it took. Thus PS3 motion is no more accurate than a mouse (in fact it's far less accurate, as the mouse is accurate to many hundreds of points per inch, tiny movements). It's just easier to use for most people.

I think that the main thing that makes writing with a mouse hard is that is not used 1:1 (slow movements become smaller and fast bigger), witch is great for FPS where you have to change the thing that you are pointing fast and accurate but is bad for writing with precision (the same hand movement have different results depending of the timing).

The problem is not related with the hardware itself but with how is used in PCs.

 

[MfA]

You can use your mouse without acceleration (I generally do).

 

[patsu]

Does the Eyetoy go down to near IR? If so they could just put a constant IR led in there.

That's right ! archie4oz mentioned that PS Eye can see IR. The PS3 Desktop VR youtube video pretty much confirmed it.

Great idea (constant IR LED in new controller). ^_^

EDIT:
I suspect in some situations, you'd want to set down the controller for the lighting benefits. It may be difficult to adjust/normalize to the lighting condition if the players keep waving the controller around. Heck, if I strategically position such a controller beside the PS Eye, would it be able to judge distance using the same IR Z-depth algo ?

The IR-based Desktop VR video:

 

[Naboomagnoli]

The end of that always reminds me of George Michael's Star Wars tape in Arrested Development. Cringeworthy.

It needed a film filter there. I wonder if that would still be necessary (in which case you'd expect it to come with the camera/the wand. Still, a couple of LEDs on a pair of glasses is a bit cheaper than what Sony will probably release!

Still, if they managed to get the wand to work using IR, I'd be very happy indeed (though TV remotes might have something to say about that). They could then really mess about with the lights. I like the horror idea above. Maybe if it was a torch, the 'batteries' could lose their connection and you have to bash the wand and shout "work, dammit!" before the light comes back on and you illuminate a huge mouldy face.

The fact that it could be used as part, if not all, of a HUD (health indicator based on colour, flashing red to tell you to reload etc) makes me wonder about the next generation. Will more and more information be fed to us, rather than from us, by future controllers? Obviously MS are going the other way, and there's a lot to be said for HUDs being in your peripheral vision, but if you want to stop people from thinking something is a game, you get rid of all that screen clutter and inform the user by other means. Obviously cost would be a factor there, especially for those looking for four player gaming fun...

 

[Iron Tiger]

The end of that always reminds me of George Michael's Star Wars tape in Arrested Development. Cringeworthy.

It needed a film filter there. I wonder if that would still be necessary (in which case you'd expect it to come with the camera/the wand. Still, a couple of LEDs on a pair of glasses is a bit cheaper than what Sony will probably release!

It didn't really need a filter there, though. Without a filter, it would probably see the IR source as white, and it would blend with other truly white objects in the visible spectrum and confuse the application. The filter masks out visible light to simplify the image that the software has to track.

 

[MfA]

The G/B color filters almost certainly filter out IR, so it would see it as red.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It didn't really need a filter there, though. Without a filter, it would probably see the IR source as white...

Yes. Anyone can test this with a webcam. I remember seeing it first a decade or more ago on video cameras when filming a TV remote. The IR source lights up white. I tried it with PSEye and again, the bulb in a remote lights up white (or slightly off white) on the RGB image. The idea of an IR source on the PSMote is a good one. They could even use a pattern of three IR LEDs to make a more obvious target that may be less distractable from visible light flashes. It wouldn't be a perfect solution, but then none are. eg. Having an IR only camera like Wiimote, it can still get confused with other IR sources. It's just that they are less frequent in our environment than visible-light noise.

 

[MfA]

Hmm, never knew normal color filters let through so much IR.

A single diffuse IR led to light up the sphere should be enough though. Just put a low frequency modulation on top and you can lock onto it in no time, after that you'd need a pretty freaky light source to confuse the locking ... you can't move the wand that much in 1/30th of a second, so the confusing light source would have to be very close from the camera's point of view and of similar size and intensity.

 

[Quaz51]

PSeye have a IR-filter. you can easily open the cam and remove the IR-filter. i think all guys use PSeye for IR experimention have removed this filter (and add a visible filter)

 

[Iron Tiger]

I recorded this last night. My PS Eye isn't modified, but it sees IR just the same as every other digital camera or webcam I have.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5_DJz9ZNz0

 

[Shifty Geezer]

What exactly is this IR filter supposed to be doing then? I have just now fired up EyeCreate and it picks up white flashes from the end of my Sammy remote.

 

[Quaz51]

some "Build Your Own Multitouch Surface Computer" use PSeye cam and explain how remove the IR-filter

photo of the PSeye's IR-filter

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/maximum_pc_builds_a_multitouch_surface_computer?page=0,2

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Like I say, what exactly does it do then? It certainly doesn't remove IR flashes, as Iron Tiger's clip shows if anyone can get it to work! And my PSEye works the same way.

 

[Iron Tiger]

Like I say, what exactly does it do then? It certainly doesn't remove IR flashes, as Iron Tiger's clip shows if anyone can get it to work! And my PSEye works the same way.

It could be that the camera is very sensitive to IR, and the filter blocks out low intensity sources. My Wii Remote can see the heat from a light bulb, so maybe the PSEye's filter blocks out stuff like that.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Well, in the context of the discussion that doesn't really amount to much The idea to use the PSEye to see an IR dot on the controller is still valid, with or without said IR filter.