X360 Live Vision Camera Preview @ Gamasutra

[expletive]

Nice preview of the Xbox 360 vision camera. I was particularly surprised at the accuracy of the gesture technology demo on page 3 (granted waving your outstretched arms in front of the thing OUGHT to work ). The video filters for privacy were also pretty interesting and a good idea, i thought. They also note that Rainbow 6 will utilize the digimask face mapping tech, cool.

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060818/cifaldi_01.shtml

 

[Acert93]

The Digimask is cool as well. I hope we see more of this sort of technology.

 

[pc999]

Very nice features, too bad it isnt a standard, how much is it supossed to cost?

 

[Bad_Boy]

Heres a better(imo) demonstration of the new Vison Camera.
http://www.gamespot.com/pages/profile/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-24661718&user=Jeff
I'm really interested in this kind of stuff, i.e. cameras on consoles with more uses than eyetoy like games. Video chat is a real cool feature. I've always wanted something like that. I do wonder if it's possible to video chat with more than 1 person at a time.

The other features are kinda cool (though the vibrating controller thing is kinda weird lol). I'll be looking forward to where microsoft and sony go with their cameras.

 

[AzBat]

Very nice features, too bad it isnt a standard, how much is it supossed to cost?

It's been rumored at $30, but after some looking at Froogle I've seen range from $30-$40. It'll include a gesture game called Totem Ball. Uno and some other Live Arcade games will support it out of the box.

Tommy McClain

 

[Titanio]

The Digimask is cool as well. I hope we see more of this sort of technology.

Adoption of this tech was very low on PS2, even amongst eyetoy games (!). I'd be curious to see if and how it has improved, though.

 

[Acert93]

Adoption of this tech was very low on PS2, even amongst eyetoy games (!). I'd be curious to see if and how it has improved, though.

Call me crazy, but if Halo 3 allowed gamers to use the device to add them and their friends to MP I think it would be a smashing success. Even if only limited to peeps on your friends list and people on your team. Of course they could just do a cross com deal as well and that could be equally effective, esp with a commander oriented team game.

Sometimes it takes a wildly popular game to get word of mouth and exposure to such features.

 

[Titanio]

I agree, although the specific example probably isn't likely to materialise. There are lots of political sensitivities associated with mapping your or others' faces into a FPS (the original PD was meant to have this feature, but it was scrapped for this reason).

Maybe something else, though. It made its way into mostly sports games on PS2, but that didn't really drive it as a standard even in sports games there.

 

[expletive]

I agree, although the specific example probably isn't likely to materialise. There are lots of political sensitivities associated with mapping your or others' faces into a FPS (the original PD was meant to have this feature, but it was scrapped for this reason).

Maybe something else, though. It made its way into mostly sports games on PS2, but that didn't really drive it as a standard even in sports games there.

Good point but that may be why he suggested limiting it to either friends list or team members only. This way your teammates have faces while the enemies you run through with a chainsaw remain nameless, faceless, fodder...

 

[CouldntResist]

Yeah, I think the ability to show the middle finger to other players alone has tha potential to be "Wee Killer".

But seriously, this device could be used for certification purposes. If the software could recognize gender (for full clarity, I mean face recognition only) and estimate age of the player, this would result in benefits, such as:

No more fake females in MMORPGs
Option to filter/mute 13 year olds on the server

 

[Guden Oden]

But seriously, this device could be used for certification purposes.

It could, yes, in our dreams.

Not a chance it'd be able to do that accurately with all the variations in the human face regarding bone structure, weight, skin tone, hairstyles, etc. Even stuff like acne scars would trip a program like that up.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

But seriously, this device could be used for certification purposes. If the software could recognize gender (for full clarity, I mean face recognition only) and estimate age of the player, this would result in benefits, such as

Not possible. There's no defining criteria in outward appearance that can be used to determine age, and that's why a machine as advanced as the human brain can't guess with much degree of accuracy. You can have 14 year olds looking like 18 year olds especially when caked in make-up, and thirty something year olds looking like twenty somethings, and boy's faces looking like girls and vice versa especially when taken in isolation. Our perception of gender is influenced by multiple factors and that can affect our interpretation of the face too, so a face looks like man's face only when associated with a man's body and dress. That same face in drag can look very feminine. Excepting of course archetypal faces like rough and hairy truckers phizzogs Though to be fair I saw a beardedlady waling around Guildford a few months back which any computer system would mark as a man incorrectly, so even facial hair is no guarentee!

You could give a genetic swap and have a computer analyze it for presence of Y chromosomes, although how would it know it was a swab from you? And besides, if such a system could actually tell your age and broadcast it to the world, how many women would use it?