Kinect - Inital Impressions

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Grand Master

Spookie

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According to Microsoft, you can play some Kinect games sitting down. It "varies" by experience. However, several developers giving us demos have said the exact opposite. Sometimes the contradiction comes from the same person--one day telling us you have to be standing and then the next saying everything can be done while sitting.

Which is it MS?

Grand Master

carmatic

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Doing some more digging, I'm 99.9% sure this is the technique Kinect uses:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-of-flight_camera

i've found alot of sources saying that its using 'time coding' technology developed by Primesense

have a look at http://www.primesense.com/?p=487

Content_63.5.jpg

this thing has a '2 + 1' arrangement of its optical apertures, something like the Kinect bar

Grand Master

Hedon

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Considering they announced a Yoga game at the Natal Experience which has standing, sitting and lying down in it, that would confirm it does them all, lol.

I am glad Microsoft has confirmed this to be true by multiple MS employees now.

Grand Master

Hedon

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It means what he says, it varies.

on adventures you naturally need to stand, on the dash and when watching movies you can sit or stand, when playing forza you can sit. and so on and so on.

Indeed. Like their Yoga, which has sitting and standing on your mat.....games like Tiger might be standing all the time for that experience. A game that requires hand motions only might be a sitting only game.

Grand Master

carmatic

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If that's the depth I can see why it's having issues. The person on the left almost looks like one with the sofa.

and the people sitting on the sofa look almost indistinguishable from it...

Natal should have a start-up routine where it would track and register all moving objects, when you start Natal it would ask you to stand up, sit down, move around etc

it would probably crash if it saw you move your sofa around...

Grand Master

HawkMan

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http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/15/microsoft-gives-us-a-look-through-project-natals-eyes-video/

Remember though that it uses the RGB camera to enhance the depth cameras as well.

Also more importantly, what "we" see is practically the same color, especially to the computer/kinect could be as different as red and blue are to us. it doesn't see two shades of nearly the same yellow, it's see two binary values, that aren't the same.

Grand Master

Spookie

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Natal should have a start-up routine where it would track and register all moving objects, when you start Natal it would ask you to stand up, sit down, move around etc

it would probably crash if it saw you move your sofa around...

Not ideal but I guess. I'd rather just be able to wave my hands and make a fist if I only want to navigate menus.

Grand Master

Spookie

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Ok so IGN & Edge said you can't use it sitting down. Now Kotaku has expanded upon this and, in summary, said the same thing.

Near the beginning of my trip out here in Los Angeles for E3, I heard the oddest of rumors: Microsoft's controller-free sensor array, Kinect, would only work if you were standing up. No way, right?

For the last several days I've been peppering the conversations I've had with game creators at this massive video game showcase with the "sitting question." Can Kinect really not work when you're sitting? Is that the reason why every Kinect developer makes me stand to play their game? Is the future of voice-controlled, gesture-triggered television viewing a future of watching TV while standing up?

What Microsoft says

Officially, Microsoft says that the sitting question is unfounded. In a mock Q&A that had appeared on the company's press site but has since been removed, they field this question themselves:

Q: Are there any games or experiences I can do while sitting on the couch?

A: Absolutely. The games and experiences are designed to be as fun to watch as they are to play-they're designed to get you off the couch. And when you want to enjoy movies, music, and ESPN on Xbox 360, you can control your entertainment hands free from the comfort of your couch.

Couch potatoes have nothing to worry about, then, right? They shouldn't fear a future that would have them enjoying ESPN and Froza Motorsport on their own two feet?

No. There is some cause for concern.

What Game Creators Say

One developer with whom I spoke and who is familiar with how Microsoft is briefing studios making games for Kinect said the company has specifically advised developers to not make games that would involve the player's sitting down.

None of the games shown for Kinect at a showcase early in the week were set up for sitting. Kinectimals, a cute take on Nintendogs-style games, but with tiger cubs, was presented as a player-stand-here demo. That's logical, because the game involves walking up to the animal and then jumping or running or doing some other action you want the animal to replicate. The game's lead creator, Frontier Design's David Braben shrugged when I asked him if the game could be played sitting down. He guessed some of it might work, but it didn't sound like he'd tried, possibly because it was irrelevant to his game design.

You might have expected a seated Kinect experience from the Forza Motorsport team. Those folks are making Kinect driving games and tech demos. They've got a fun highway driving challenge that involves standing in front of the Kinect and steering by holding your hands in front of your body as if you were turning a real steering wheel. The perspective for this game experiment is inside the car, through the eyes of a driver. Rolling your shoulders in front of Kinect turns the game's camera view slightly, letting you look around inside the car. Your lower body is not used — no foot-forward-to-accelerate as was seen in a similar demonstration last year with racing game Burnout. Nevertheless, you have to play this one standing up if you are playing it at E3.

I asked one of the two members of Forza development studio Turn 10 if I could play their demo sitting down. They said I could not, that it was "optimized for standing."

The thought that prompted me to start asking the "sitting question" to so many Kinect-connected game developers and executives at E3 was that the Kinect's sensor can't clearly read a human skeleton if a person is seated. Some developers with whom I was theorizing about this guessed that the Kinect would become confused by the bent knees of a seated gamer — that it would need a player to always return to a resting position that has all their joints on one flat plane, which is the case when you are standing, not when you are sitting. No Kinect developer could or would get that specific with me, so I'm left to guess.

The second Forza demonstration involves walking up to a virtual car and peering at it from various angles. You control this by standing in front of the Kinect and then turning your body, kneeling or side-stepping to push the camera view around the car or to lower it for close inspection. You can open the driver's door of a virtual Ferrari and sit in the driver's seat. But when you sit in the driver's seat even in this Forza demo, you are standing in real life. That's the kind of thing that makes you wonder.

Throughout this week I have watched or tried fitness games, dancing gaming and several games reminscent of Wii Sports. All are played standing up, and all have good game design reasons to. So maybe there is no tech limitation to Kinect regarding your couch?

I'd be worried less about this sitting thing and I would stop asking the "sitting question" if I had not been made to watch a movie via Kinect while standing up.

On Monday evening I participated in a brief demonstration of how Kinect could be used to control the Xbox 360 dashboard. This demonstration had me standing in front of the Kinect and using both hand-waves and voice commands to flip through menus on a TV and load applications such as movie-watching and video chat. There were chairs at this demo, but they were off to the side. I had to stand up.

The Kinect is superb at recognizing a standing player. It reads the presence of your body, detects 19 or so key joints in your frame and tracks your movement with magical immedicay. I had no more trouble swiping through the Kinect menus than I did steering the car in the Forza demo. Voice commands worked nicely as well, though I lamented that the Kinect couldn't distinguish my commands from anyone else's in the room. What I didn't understand is why I had to stand through all of this.

I liked telling the Xbox 360 to pause a movie. I liked extending my hand and dragging the movie's progress bar left or right, as if I was using the Star Wars Force to fast forward and rewind. But, I asked the Microsoft people running the demo, could I drag a chair over and try this sitting down?

No.

"Sitting is something we're still calibrating for," one of them told me.

Some time during the demo they showed me a video that simulated Kinect-powered video chat. That was going to be calibrated for sitting, right? And movie watching isn't really going to require me to stand, correct?

The Microsoft people pointed out that for entertainment applications like these I would be using a lot of voice commands and those would work just fine from a couch. That backs up that simulated Q&A bit from Microsoft about how, "when you want to enjoy movies, music, and ESPN on Xbox 360, you can control your entertainment hands free from the comfort of your couch." They don't say anything about games. And they don't say anything about relying on voice-command rather than body motion detection.

One of the Microsoft people with whom I was discussing the "sitting question" said the chair stuff is just more complicated. You could be sitting far away, at an angle. True, though I had asked to move a chair in front of the TV before being denied.

A demo reel Microsoft released of families playing Kinect does does show them using hand gestures to manipulate a movie while sitting, but it is not clear if they are really using the tech. At least it is a sign that Microsoft wants Kinect to work like this.

Standing And Delivering

To those doubting Kinect, I can say that, after a week of playing more of its games, it works great. But after a week of noticing a lack of seated play — after a week of not getting a single developer or Microsoft person to clearly state that Kinect can track your body while you sit — I'm left to wonder if this impressive tech has a problem. Controller-free gaming is an axciting future. Couch-free gaming (and maybe movie-watching and video-chatting)? Say it ain't so.

link

Explains why no hardcore games have picked it up then. Appears some people at MS might be full of ****. While it's no doubt being worked on by now, it's not something they should still be having issues with a few months from release. :/

Grand Master

Spookie

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After reading that Kotaku comment, it has taken all of my positive energy from Kinect. I guess my pocketbook can thank me though.

If it makes you feel any better MS are on full damage control finally committing to the statement that you WILL be able to sit down by retail. Their PR should have been straight up in the first place this story has drawn out much longer because of them now because of that more people have seen it. Morons.

Grand Master

George P Global Moderator

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The Kinetic thing doesn't work if you're sitting down? Damn.

It will when it's released in Nov, they're still tweaking it for when you're sitting, it's been said a few times. Regardless most kinect only games require your full body to work so that doesn't really come into play for them.

Grand Master

BoredBozirini

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It will when it's released in Nov, they're still tweaking it for when you're sitting, it's been said a few times. Regardless most kinect only games require your full body to work so that doesn't really come into play for them.

But **** that if I need to be standing up to play Forza. If that is so Kinetic and Microsoft can go **** themselves, its not worth it.

Now, if its fixed, then it'll be worth it.

Grand Master

carmatic

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im 100% sure that they could hack the tech to work with only your upper body and ignore your lower body, but it would involve showing the customers a garish colour-coded picture which looks something like what the Tel Aviv tech demo is showing, and it would involve the customers adjusting their positions to be able to let Natal see them

Grand Master

Ironman273

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Seems like he enjoyed it :D

Xbox 360 Kinect Puts 'Play' Back in 'Gameplay'

I can't remember the last time I jumped so high. Kinect Adventures looked so lame in Microsoft's press conference just two days ago. But now I find myself leaping and lunging like a stuck lamb to win. I'm frolicking.

Hop to go faster. Dodge left to slide by a bumper. A glance to my right to eye my competition who, a few moments before, had shared a raft with me as we negotiated a path down a river, leaning and jumping in tandem?another unexpectedly enjoyable experience.

My heartbeat quickly accelerating, I realized something: The Wiimote rewards gamers' proficiency at exercising the least possible physical exertion?indeed, if you get too frantic the Wiimote can stop registering your motions altogether?while with Kinect, I found myself exaggerating everything.

The experience of Kinect Sports is much the same?I underestimated the title's fun until I actually tried it out. Less like Wii Sports than Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, a track-and-field-style hurdle game requires me to pump my knees high into the air, then jump at appropriate times, then pump my knees some more. While Kinect's lag means I have to make my leaps earlier than expected, the frenetic and earnest competition (a testament to Kinect's accuracy and Kinect Sports' game design) keeps it fun.

There's something very special about using Microsoft's Kinect system, something that separates it from every other combination of software and hardware I've ever used. Kinect adapts and accommodates the user. I'm not learning it; it's learning me.

Maybe I'm tossing around the word "learn" a bit too liberally. Kinect actually works because it's already learned how humans move thanks to Microsoft's (Prime Sense's) research?intelligence is built into the box before I step in front of it.

I've never felt that a computer understood me?a flesh-and-bone human?so well. More than once my fellow humans, designers of the very games I was playing, attempt to explain and clarify how to play.

Nice people, but they're just getting between me and my new friend.

* * *

But another bundled game in Kinect Sports' impresses me in a completely different way: bowling. This game really showcases the platform's flexibility to natural human movement. I reach to my right to pick up my ball, asking, "Can I take a normal 3-step bowling approach?" The designers look at one another nervously. They say that I might want be careful not to extend myself beyond Kinect's radius of sight.

I get the impression that bowling hasn't been tested with this approach in mind. I try it anyway, shortening my steps a bit, but fully pantomiming bowling all the same. The ball rolls down the lane without a hitch.

And while designers admit that, unlike Wii MotionPlus bowling, the game can't track spin based upon a twist of my wrist?instead you exaggerate the motion within the entire scope of your swing?the flexibility keeps me immersed. I granny-roll the ball between my legs. I throw the ball, side-arm style, down the lane. I'm a horrible bowler but Kinect doesn't mind.

After I take more than my fair share of time bowling, I look to Jason and ask if he wants to hop in. The PlayStation Move had forced me to stand in one place with two...err...spheres on my chin to calibrate a single game, but Kinnect lets Jason and I just swap spots instantly. Without any jitters, hang-ups or confusion, Kinect lets Jason pick up where I leave off, mid-frame.

* * *

My shirt is damp. I'm thirsty. Ironically, I haven't even tried Your Shape: Fitnessyet, Ubisoft's exercise game.

Years ago, I'd bought Nike's Kinetic for the PlayStation 2. It never quite worked. My living room lighting combined with Sony's camera technology prevented the game from seeing me correctly. More recently, I bought Wii Fit. With limited realtime feedback in response my own movement, I was mostly just disappointed that Wii Fit wasn't Kinetic.

Your Shape fulfills my admittedly high expectations. When I step in front of the game, it measures not only my height, but the distance from my hand to the floor. It displays a mockup of my internal frame and can pretty accurately isolate various muscle groups.

The gelatinous character aesthetic is a bit odd for certain. But as I run through various modes, like a general fitness class or yoga, I realize that body is my body. While Kinect often lags, I can see whether or not my form is correct almost instantly?before a handy wireframe points out the kinks in my downward dog or a virtual instructor yells for me to pump my arms higher.

I never worry about leaving Kinect's traceable space. I'm never concerned that the camera wasn't registering my poses or exercises correctly. And as I casually study my avatar, I pull my shoulders back and gut in. Much better. Boy, do I have horrible posture.

* * *

"What do you think?" asks Wil Mozell, a Microsoft GM who oversees many of the companies designing Kinect's important launch titles.

"It's great," I say. "But what about the lag? Will you ever fully eliminate it?"

"We can get rid of a lot of it. Keep in mind, these games are 80-to-85% there. There's still lots of optimization left to do."

"But what about the hardcore games? The FPSs, the gameplay that requires 100% accuracy?" I push.

"Kinect isn't going to replace the controllers that have worked for those types of games for the last decade?that's not what we're trying to do. Kinect will work alongside those controllers for hardcore games. For throwing a grenade, for vocal commands, for..."

"For head tracking??"

"Yes, head tracking! Exactly." He gets a big smile. He wants to say more. Bound by Microsoft confidentiality agreements, he can't.

* * *

The last game of the day is the best. It's called Dance Central. It's made by Harmonix, original makers of Guitar Hero and now-makers of Rock Band. And I think Dance Centralwill be the killer app that sells the public on Kinect.

The premise is simple: Music plays; I perform dance moves to the beat. And I don't meanDance Dance Revolution-style glorified line dancing. I mean Harmonix has hired a full-time choreographer who's created 600 moves in the game, from aggressively crossing my arms like a B-Boy, to confidently thrusting a finger in the air like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever.

Unlike other Kinect games, I don't clearly see my 1:1 avatar. Harmonix has gracefully hidden my rough movements behind a pre-animated character. The platform's is versatile. While I don't truly see myself beyond a tiny silhouette hidden on the edge of the screen, I know exactly what I'm doing wrong thanks to the appendages on the lead dancer which occasionally glow red as a blister.

When I try to break down how the game works?that I'm not really the lead dancer that I see?I don't easily grasp why it's so fun and addictive. (This unpleasant cognitive frisson has ruined many Wii games for me.) Maybe that's the brilliance of an invisible interface, a system that tracks my body and understands what it's doing rather than randomly guessing.

Kinect is freeing designers to think harder about gamers. And it's freeing gamers to think harder about, well, nothing at all.

Kinect is wonderful for what it will do for full motion gaming. Kinect is wonderful for what it will do for the home theater and for hardcore gaming and for cultivating more "play" in gameplay.

But Kinect's most clever trick is beyond any of this. Kinect is more than an abstract "human interface device" but something far more subtle: an input device that can look at bunch of waving limbs and understand, "Hey! That's a human!"

Source: Gizmodo

Grand Master

HawkMan

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But **** that if I need to be standing up to play Forza. If that is so Kinetic and Microsoft can go **** themselves, its not worth it.

Now, if its fixed, then it'll be worth it.

Well they have said that controlling the menus at least works while sitting for the Kinect devs (it's kinect, not kinetic). As for Forza, I certainly have no fear for that, head trackign doesn't even need the rest of the body, and they've already shown head tracking working while sitting.

Grand Master

George P Global Moderator

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Seems like he enjoyed it :D

*snip*

Wow, and it's Gizmodo, they're another one of those critical sites that will call out something negative if it is (basically just bash it), the fact people who actually try the games have fun should say something. You can look at them and call them shovelware but if people are open enough to give them a try and end up having fun, that's all that matters. Word of mouth will do the rest I'm sure. MS just has to step up with a good price, that $150 retailers have plastered online isn't helping, they should've said something like "under $100" or w/e so people got a better idea.

Experienced

Omen1393

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"Kinect isn't going to replace the controllers that have worked for those types of games for the last decade?that's not what we're trying to do. Kinect will work alongside those controllers for hardcore games. For throwing a grenade, for vocal commands, for..."

Now that makes more sense.

Grand Master

carmatic

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i think that one of the mistakes of Natal/Kinect is that it always tries to track your full body with the highest precision, i really think that this is the cause of the lag... like maybe if they skipped much of the processing involved in modelling your entire body, they could make things like head tracking and throwing grenades much more responsive... but then you will not have the famous 'following your every move' effect which is being marketed for Natal...

maybe this is related to how Microsoft changed the description of Natal a few months ago, from having a processor onboard the camera, to omitting the processor and using the Xbox360's processing power instead... its so that they could tweak the body tracking for accuracy/response via software rather than be stuck with the fixed hardware processing

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