Support NeoGAF

[Alx]

There's no such thing as "no lag" and "absolute preciseness"

 

[Wollan]

There's no such thing as "no lag" and "absolute preciseness"

The Sonymote is the only device displayed here that does so to a degree where the human eye is not able to witness the difference.

 

[Raistlin]

Hahaha, no, not at all. Just with Pristine's defense of Sony, it seems a bit backward to me. How on earth can you even say that Sony deserves all the credit, when Sony tried so very hard to distance themselves from what the Wii "is"?

Me personally, the credit I was giving Sony is that they didn't 'copy' the tech from the Wii. Also, regardless of what their PR has said about Wii, they were obviously moving in this direction and have been for quite some time.

However, I don't think it would have been pushed to the forefront (specifically the 1:1 wand stuff, the imaging tech has been at retail since before anyone ever heard of waggle) without Nintendo having paved the way by having the balls to design a console around motion control. Nintendo's decision certainly has forced Sony and MS to expedite their efforts (or at least make them a bigger part of their campaigns). And I'm glad it is happening.

 

[Raistlin]

Well, read again.

I think maybe you should reread your post that started this shit, before trying to state you're anti-fanboy.

 

[Guled]

This would have been awesome at the start of this gen, its useless now

 

[Raistlin]

The whole copying argue depends on what "object" you are referring to. Copy the technology? NO. Copy the strategy? Yes, in a certain sense.

If you're going to say that, then one could argue Nintendo copied Sony's original PS2 camera.

 

[bottles]

I think maybe you should reread your post that started this shit, before trying to state you're anti-fanboy.

What exactly are you accusing me of?

 

[Raistlin]

This would have been awesome at the start of this gen, its useless now

Not really. This will get the devices into peoples' minds, and give plenty of time to 'perfect' them.

That way, there is much greater potential for Sony and MS to take the risk of making them standard next gen.

 

[AnimeTheme]

The guys got a PHD in Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie and has demonstrated novel uses of the Wii remote. Clearly he is excited by the technology and he seems to think the technology rivals or surpasses (in some areas) technology costing tens of thousands of dollars.

Folks that have used the demo equipment don't seem to think that accuracy is an issue even at this early technology demo stage.

I'm sure the final product will be pretty amazing and be more then accurate enough.

Anyhoo. All this is getting off topic...

If he says something like "they are the same in accuracy within an acceptable range under an arbitrary condition", then it actually means something. For now, "similar" doesn't mean much. And the heart of the whole Natal system, the human body tracking algorithm from a mesh of "random" points of the captured scene... while it may really be a break-through when compared with the existing technologies, such algorithm is practically still some kind of "estimation" (just better in accuracy) instead of something physically accurate like the case of PS3mote to detect the position of a single definite point. All the live demos we have seen so far don't require that much accuracy at all.

 

[ShinNL]

*sees thread title*

*is interested in posting*

*reads posts*

*is scared to post*

*especially scared of Pristine_Condition*

 

[filopilo]

There's no such thing as "no lag" and "absolute preciseness"

of course :

human touch impulse travels at 100 m /s

PSeye is 120hz
SOund travels at 350 m/s

now ,we have to add software processing and tv lag.But this is really good.

 

[deadatom]

The thread is basically about people who enjoy playing games and people who hate other people that enjoy playing games. I will be back in a week cuz the trolling 12 year olds are just too much for me. If i have any questions about the new tech i will lurk at beyond3d where there aren't as many 12 year old trolls shit posting every god damn thread.

FUCK THE SYSTEM WARS AND FUCK THOSE WHO HATE NEW GAMES! see ya in a week neogaf.

 

[Gwanatu T]

no

Why?

Nintendo should get credit for making it a standard, no doubt.

But you are wrong about Nintendo bringing motion-sensing to market "full force" first.

Sony did market the EyeToy "full force." They put a serious marketing campaign out there. Otherwise EyeToy certainly would have failed as widely predicted, (just like almost every other peripheral in the history of gaming had failed at that point,) rather than selling the more than 10 million units it ended up selling. Until the Guitar Hero guitar hit, the EyeToy was the best-selling console peripheral (besides straight-up "second controller" purchases) of the generation, and one of, if not the, best-selling console peripherals of all-time.

What I'm specifically talking about when I saw "full force" is that the peripheral was included from the launch of the system, and every owner of the system has said peripheral. Without this kind of market penetration nothing is successful, even something like the EyeToy which could have been called the most successful peripheral of all time at one point. If it were included with the PS3 it would be a different story, because there would be all kinds of use for it in every type of game imaginable.

Depends on what you call success. I'm sure Nintendo thinks WiiFit has been a success. They sure do love talking about it. I'm sure the whole industry thinks Guitar Hero and Rock Band have been successful. Of course Microsoft and Sony could do bundles too in the future or with next-gen.

Or is your idea of success defined by a universal acceptance of the interface? If that's the case, the fact that so many Wii games play better on Classic controllers or Wavebirds or Wiimotes in the horizontal position without motion controls kinda speaks to the limits to the Wii so far.

Corporate success is definied as making the company money above any R&D, advertising and whatever extra costs are involved. In this definition I'm sure there have been a decent amount of these add-on devices that have been successful. Rumble packs, memory expansions, special controllers, cameras, etc. are all great examples of this. My definition of success here is the ability for any developer to be able to use the system to it's fullest potential without having to worry about standard interfaces.

I would say the biggest mistake this gen was Microsoft not making the HDD standard on the 360, and if MS and Sony are serious about motion control than it may even trump the HDD issue on the 360. When the user base is fractured only the gamer is hurt, because things don't get developed to their full potential.

1. People will read your stuff more often if it isn't a giant block.

2. It sounds like the majority of your complaint is with people who proclaim that the Ps3/360 versions of mo-cap is going to be more successful than the Wii - who are these people?

3. Everyone can agree - if they make good games for it, it will be a good thing.

4. Unless they put in Motion Plus with every Wii from now on, 1:1 motion is anyone's game, but the Wii does have a substantial advantage (will be out first, developers already have a 'motion' mindset for the Wii, and will probably make more 1:1 games on it than on other consoles).

5. It makes me sad this thread was supposed to be about what we thought about the tech, there are like 3 other threads arguing about all three mo-cap technologies and which ones suck and rock.

1. Alright, I just felt like it was one big thought so it should go in one big paragraph.

2. It's not really that, I'm just trying to say that it doesn't matter who researched it "first", it matters who got to the market and did it right first.

4. This is true, but thanks to Nintendo's strategy here MotionPlus will never have as much market penetration as the Wiimote has had because the Wiimote should have done this from the get-go.

5. We've definitely moved off topic here, but it's still a good discussion regardless.

 

[Kinitari]

I could copy my last post since you’re missing the point over and over again, but AnimeTheme is spot on.

How is Sony copying Nintendo? Because they’re releasing a product that is similar – in ability, not technology – to Nintendo’s Wii Motion Plus (although the PSEye being Sony’s sensor bar is still a good analogy) in a clear reaction to Nintendo’s success. Nobody cares who did the R&D first. Nintendo was the first to bring this kind of stuff to market (like I said before, EyeToy is not the same thing) and in that sense is being copied by Sony.

And on the topic of accelerometers: Did I mention that I played Diddy Kong Pilot (later released as Banjo-Pilot, but without the digital accelerometers in the cartridge) at Nintendo’s pre-ECTS event back in 2001?

So in your head, being beaten to the punch is the same as copying? Cool. You really need to lay off this copying ish. Everyone who is even slightly reasonable realize that it's a ridiculous and childish argument to bring up.

 

[gofreak]

So from Sony's high def vid of the conference, this was the best look I could get of the top of the controller and the buttons and stuff there.

The top circular area is just empty at the moment, a shallow circular impression. I guess they could move things there or put something else there if they wanted, but right now, it's empty.

Then a bit down you have a big..something..in the middle (button? nub? it's hard to say IMO..it seems to be reasonably flat but it's also quite pronounced and defined), and then around it you have 3-4 smaller satellite buttons (know for sure they're buttons cos you can see him pressing alternate ones at different stages).

And then there's the analog trigger underneath. The 4 led indicators seem to be on the bottom.

So..totally subject to change, totally unconfirmed, but that's what the prototype seems to sport. There's other stuff further down the controller too, but practically impossible to make anything out from the vid.

 

[Pristine_Condition]

Hahaha, no, not at all. Just with Pristine's defense of Sony, it seems a bit backward to me. How on earth can you even say that Sony deserves all the credit...

I'm doing what now?

I don't think you understand what I'm talking about at all. Personally, I think all three motion-sensing technologies are intriguing, and I don't care who does what, if they can make this stuff work and make it fun to play with.

I'm just saying Dr. Marks and Sony deserve the credit for what they has done in both R&D and in the marketplace. I'm saying Dr. Marks and Sony deserve credit for things we can prove they deserve credit for, nothing more.

This is in contrast to a few naysayers who have stunk up this thread with their faith-based, (not fact-based,) notions that Sony had no intention of doing any of this without the Wii's influence. This ridiculous belief exists despite Sony's proven and historical track record of R&D spending and tech innovation, tons of high-profile tech demos and juicy quotes from the brains behind the tech, and actual retail products that at least showed them working toward that goal consistently over this decade, starting even before the Wii made one red cent in the marketplace.

This 1:1 tech really bothers them for a strange reason. Personally, I don't think the concept and goal of better, more accurate controls is so unique that only one company would have ever come up with the idea, and the others are all rushing to copy that one. And the evidence seems to be on my side, not theirs.

...when Sony tried so very hard to distance themselves from what the Wii "is"?

So which is it now? Is Sony distancing themselves, or copying everything Nintendo does to be like them? I thought the SIXAXIS was "slapped on" to mimic Nintendo, ect, ect, ad infinitum.

 

[dollartaco]

I keep going to reply to things, but Gwanatu T beats me every time.

 

[cakefoo]

of course :

human touch impulse travels at 100 m /s

PSeye is 120hz
SOund travels at 350 m/s

now ,we have to add software processing and tv lag.But this is really good.

I wonder how much of the positioning is actually dependent on the eye. The eye, for 3D positioning, may only be for a backup to correct for signal droppage.

And some people are forgetting an import piece of the 1:1 puzzle with Natal- the gyros and other orientation sensors. MS could come out with an empty remote with a ball on it, but that would be no more useful than using your empty hand; you'd still only be tracking the position in 3D space. You still need the rotational orientation if you want to put spin on a ball, etc.

 

[Wollan]

Then a bit down you have a big..something..in the middle (button? nub? it's hard to say IMO..it seems to be reasonably flat but it's also quite pronounced and defined)

Looks like a X360 stick actually or track ball. It's concave.

 

[Pristine_Condition]

I keep going to reply to things, but Gwanatu T beats me every time.

From his last responses here, I do think he's reasonable and thoughtful, even if we don't agree on everything exactly. I wish everyone here was the same...I don't care if we agree, just be reasonable and thoughtful.

 

[Kinitari]

So from Sony's high def vid of the conference, this was the best look I could get of the top of the controller and the buttons and stuff there.

The top circular area is just empty at the moment, a shallow circular impression. I guess they could move things there or put something else there if they wanted, but right now, it's empty.

Then a bit down you have a big..something..in the middle (button? nub? it's hard to say IMO..it seems to be reasonably flat but it's also quite pronounced and defined), and then around it you have 3-4 smaller satellite buttons (know for sure they're buttons cos you can see him pressing alternate ones at different stages).

And then there's the analog trigger underneath. The 4 led indicators seem to be on the bottom.

So..totally subject to change, totally unconfirmed, but that's what the prototype seems to sport. There's other stuff further down the controller too, but practically impossible to make anything out from the vid.

That definitely looks like an analog nub, hopefully a holding place for a full on analog stick.

I don't think that button configuration is going to be anywhere near a final design, doesn't have the simplicity (well comparative simplicity) of the current controllers, which is essential. I don't think many people want this to be the Logitech Gaming Mouse G54345xPro of console controllers. My guess (hope?) is that we'll see an analog stick in the middle, with four buttons below or above it, and two triggers behind it. I think the buttons could probably get away with being below or above an analog stick and still work.

Here's hoping.

 

[deadatom]

to disreguard all the whiners who bitch and complain about every single thing that sony does. Most of these people are fanboys to the extreme and trolls. "How dare sony try to give gamers more options and new ips to gamers!!" they say. Then they turn around and remain mum on nintendo having a shat online multiplayer and jizz thier pants when what would otherwise be DLC on the other two systems, is now pushed as a $50 sequal.

I have a wii and you know what. How many people complained about vc store that sold them the same games they already owned and where super excited? But when the pspgo was announced, people even without a single umd started bitching about the lack of umd drives and bitching about how DD is bad when the same people said that "bluray is the suck/DD is the future" a year ago.

Bunch of fucking losers if i saw any other group. More like spoiled brat fan boys who nitpick shit to death to make thier own purchases seem justified. Hell i remember when ff13 was announced as going multiplat and all the fucking stupid that ensued with fucking idiotic ms fanboys having a gloat parade. Now ff14 gets announced its "oh its the suck haha online... online sucks haha cuz ya gotta pay money every month.. brb i gotta pay for my gold subscription".

Now that i addressed most of this thread and several others its speculation time. I believe Sony will introduce this around the time when the ps3 slim debuts. It will prob be packed in with two wands, a ds3, and a ps eye. Games for the wands will be specifically built around the controller and sony will have a few of thier dev teams working exclusively on it. Also, some genres will have the option to use either ds3 or waggle control setup. I also predict that the controllers will include bluetooth (of course) and i bet it will lack rumble (the dumbest gaming feature ever whined about which would ruin 1:1 if the shit is shaking).

I also think that there will be mad bundling with third party games. Also a game disc full of mini games ala wii sports will be bundled with the ps3slim launch. The game disc will not be sold seperately in retail but offered as dlc or dlc codes bundled with the wands . Hardcore games will require duo wands while casual games like buzz, whatever sorta jenga game comes out, i dunno i don't do much casual except buzz.

Needless to say, the possibility for hardcore games with such a controller are fascinating. Such as horror games where one hand controls a flashlight and the other holds a gun with full motion of aiming with both. This might cause many non ambidextrous gamers fits at first. But i think the more casual games released before the high budget titles will have us accustomed to the controls. Not to mention some games could already have in implemented at launch and laying in wait for a firmware to allow it to use the new motion controls.


I also believe that the controller will be backwards compatible with previous games to an extent. Most of the "waggle" will be limited to ds3 functionality for older games and it would prob be harder to play older games but just like the frag-fx is purposely built by splitfish for fps gaming, you can still use it to play street fighter 4. Then again, the frag-fx has an awesome button layout.

If the new controller looks like it does in the patent picture, it won't perform as well. The analog is too far away from the main face buttons imo and the shoulder buttons need to be more like the ztrigger. I also feel that the x,o,triangle, square buttons should be able to swap out with the d-pad and vice versa. Just as not to confuse casuals when one wand has a dpad and they manual states "x" and they furrow thier brows in utter frustration as they look at a dpad.

If sony does the smart thing, they will make this cheap and bundle this whereever they can. If they want to make it cost a premium price like the pspgo. Then they might as well not bother. I know they want to provide a good service and i understand they are losing billions in the process of doing that. But the big bucks aren't in hardware. Hardware is as much a middle man in this day and age as publishers are. The real money is in microtransactions throught DD. I suspect if it catches on it will be mostly from minigames and casual gamers through a low price point. If Sony does another go price announcement and doesnt do massive bundling and hardware at a loss so they can have a higher consumer base, well then, they deserve to fail. Nintendo gets it even though they have terrible internet infrastructure. Microsoft gets it with custom themes and other useless bullshit. The old guard at sony look at how much they lost and seem to be to scared to get it.

Thats my lil bit of speculating and what and my dumbass ranting on the first part.

BAH!

What i said.. should be end of thread. now cya

 

[Sol..]

It always bothers me when people take offense to options. They iz like IT MUST BE STANDARD and I iz like I DONT WANT THAT MUTHA FUCKIN THANG.


And the beautiful part is we are both right... *heavenly chanting*

or maybe not... I DONT WANNA PLAY WIT DAT MUTHA FUCKIN MOTION SHIT.

 

[Pristine_Condition]

What i said.. should be end of thread. now cya

...except we are hoping to get this thread back on topic, and actually discuss the tech and the wand prototype.

This thread needs to stay open. We just got sidetracked.

 

[TTP]

Looks like a X360 stick actually or track ball. It's concave.

It might just be a huge "A" button. If u get the reference.

 

[gofreak]

That definitely looks like an analog nub, hopefully a holding place for a full on analog stick.

I don't think that button configuration is going to be anywhere near a final design, doesn't have the simplicity (well comparative simplicity) of the current controllers, which is essential. I don't think many people want this to be the Logitech Gaming Mouse G54345xPro of console controllers. My guess (hope?) is that we'll see an analog stick in the middle, with four buttons below or above it, and two triggers behind it. I think the buttons could probably get away with being below or above an analog stick and still work.

Here's hoping.

At the moment if that is an aanalog nub, it is very 'low', flat, as far as I can see. At least it doesn't seem to have an sillohette from side views, though admittedly the camera is too far away to really see.

It does indeed look concave though, and like there's a surrounding 'moat'. But can't say for sure. He doesn't ever use it as a button in the demo as far as I can tell, he always use the smaller surrounding ones.

Its relative flatness does make access to the surrounding buttons easier though, whatever that middle thing is.

 

[Wollan]

If that is a trackball or stick it would be *perfect* in setup.

The Wiimote's greatest original flaw (- not being 1:1 originally) is that it lacks a second analog. If they had added a second analog it wouldn't have any compatibility problems with current game standards.

If this is a stick or trackball, it's low enough to not be in the way of the satellite buttons.
Two Sonyremotes would perfectly replace a Sonymote and nunchack.

 

[Pristine_Condition]

So from Sony's high def vid of the conference, this was the best look I could get of the top of the controller and the buttons and stuff there.

The top circular area is just empty at the moment, a shallow circular impression. I guess they could move things there or put something else there if they wanted, but right now, it's empty.

Then a bit down you have a big..something..in the middle (button? nub? it's hard to say IMO..it seems to be reasonably flat but it's also quite pronounced and defined), and then around it you have 3-4 smaller satellite buttons (know for sure they're buttons cos you can see him pressing alternate ones at different stages).

And then there's the analog trigger underneath. The 4 led indicators seem to be on the bottom.

So..totally subject to change, totally unconfirmed, but that's what the prototype seems to sport. There's other stuff further down the controller too, but practically impossible to make anything out from the vid.

My guesses:

Top area could sport a d-pad. Maybe the four "symbol" buttons surround the nub. Nub could be a new-style analog stick. Start, select, and PS buttons below that, further down the device, probably recessed, to avoid hitting them with your palm while gripping the device. I'd imagine there are two triggers under there.

The device has to be completely symmetrical for use in the left or right hand, of course.

 

[gofreak]

Another pic:

It does sort of look like it's sunk into the controller a bit with a 'moat' around it.

 

[Wollan]

Looks more like a stick in that image.

 

[Kinitari]

Yeah, it looks like there will most likely be an analog nub of some sorts, alleviating many of my fears.

But I don't know how I feel about those tiny buttons around it, they wouldn't do Circle X Triangle and Square justice.

Also, this reminds me of the part of the patent that had two sticks attached by some sort of peripheral, that had it looking like some sort of Frankenstein DualShock controller. If that is accurate, you can probably expect to see it come in two's.

 

[JoJo13]

So from Sony's high def vid of the conference, this was the best look I could get of the top of the controller and the buttons and stuff there.

The top circular area is just empty at the moment, a shallow circular impression. I guess they could move things there or put something else there if they wanted, but right now, it's empty.

Then a bit down you have a big..something..in the middle (button? nub? it's hard to say IMO..it seems to be reasonably flat but it's also quite pronounced and defined), and then around it you have 3-4 smaller satellite buttons (know for sure they're buttons cos you can see him pressing alternate ones at different stages).

And then there's the analog trigger underneath. The 4 led indicators seem to be on the bottom.

So..totally subject to change, totally unconfirmed, but that's what the prototype seems to sport. There's other stuff further down the controller too, but practically impossible to make anything out from the vid.

Needs an analog stick on the device if that middle button isn't analog.

It does look like it, though, and that's a pretty damn awesome design from a gaming standpoint.

You don't have to move your thumb far to go from the analog stick to the buttons. That's always a bit jarring in certain games, but this essentially resolves it.

If they make sure that there's two triggers underneath, then this is fully backwards compatible with the DS3 if they add some sort of DPAD on it.

A really great design, IMHO.

 

[backbreaker65]

The controller should have analog sticks on the side where thumb rest naturally, the should buttons should rest underneath the sphere and the x, /\, [] and O button should be on top

 

[SSJ1Goku]

Nice mock up, I like it for the most part. Couple of changes:

- Analog sticks may be too low

- Face buttons on left side need to be changed to d-pad to differ from the right face buttons

- Start button (for pausing game)

- Home button (for XMB, I might be wrong about how this works because I do not have a PS3 yet.)

- L2 and R2 Triggers need to be under the grips

- IMO still needs to be a break away controller if possible, unification = simplifacation (no need for 2 controllers in sku, keep it simple)

 

[SSJ1Goku]

Also, this reminds me of the part of the patent that had two sticks attached by some sort of peripheral, that had it looking like some sort of Frankenstein DualShock controller. If that is accurate, you can probably expect to see it come in two's.

This one?

 

[PuppetMaster]

Quaz posted this in the Natal thread but it should be posted again here:
http://stanford-online.stanford.edu/courses/ee380/040121-ee380-100.asx

This is an extremely interesting presentation given by Richard Marks of SCE several years ago in the PS2 era. If you are the type who gets bored by technical presentations, skip to about the 1 hour mark. He starts showing off his research with the ZCam (build by 3DV the same company MS bought to do Natal).

It is quite interesting how Sony was building demos using this technology way in the PS2 era. They even built a game almost exactly like the ball blocking game MS demoed at e3.

 

[mr_nothin]

I think a lot of people are using the term 1:1 as an umbrella term for a number of things in their head rather than very specifically what it really means.

When I think 1:1, at least, I think of whatever being tracked being tracked in 6 degrees precisely..so that the movement of whatever is being tracked is mapped quite precisely.

Tracking arbitrary objects with a camera alone to a very precise degree at a very granular level is difficult. We saw pretty decent 1:1 mapping in the Natal demos, most of the time..but not always (e.g. 'bam') and not of smaller things that could provide a means for the player to be very specific about what they were doing e.g in the paint demo where hands were tracked instead of, more specifically say, fingers. Though finger tracking is possible - and we saw with Milo tracing through water with a finger and even eyetoy/PSeye does this heavily in existing software for it - it's not reliably precise, certainly not down to millimetres or anything. Tracing a finger is also pretty easy compared to, say, tracking arbitrary motion of fingers in a manner that could let you reliably infer a user's intentions. You may be able to some times, but whether that's good enough depends on your application. It's probably not feasible to track arbitrary movement of arbitrary objects easily with just a camera all of the time.

With the controllers you can track arbitrary motion, but only of the controllers of course.

Motion+ has errors in its location (which is measured relative to the starting position), but they're small. However, they can accumulate over time and become significant. According to AI Live even a small error rate (e.g. 1%) in gravity accomodation can result in accumulated 'off-by' errors of up to 40cm after just a few seconds. So it's best suited to short motion lasting 1-2 seconds, with resets wherever possible (you have natural opportunities for resets with shorter motions like slashing etc.).

This PSeye wand doesn't rely on self contained sensors (though it probably has them also), so positioning should be more precise in the first place, and it ought to accomodate prolonged continuous tracking without error. I think that was pretty well demonstrated in the tech demos where you had more prolonged continuous motion that significantly varied the location of the controller without a hitch. I suppose then addiitonally the eye can try to track other things of interest like Natal, but there again, it's gonna be way more difficult to do '1:1' precisely and robustly for arbitrary objects, even moreso of course than Natal due to even less data being available (no accurate depth reading).

Why did everybody skip this post?

 

[MirageDwarf]

Don't know if this has been already posted, but Sony said they have started shipping devkits.

Now, though, it appears Sony's motion-sensing efforts may be farther along than many thought. Speaking with GameSpot, Sony Computer Entertainment America senior vice president of marketing Peter Dille divulged that the technology--first revealed in a US Patent filing last fall--is already in developers' hands.

"We're a little bit past the research phase," he told GameSpot. "We're having conversations with the third-party community. The dev kits have started to go out to the third parties as well. They're working on the tech. They couldn't be more excited about it."

 

[Wollan]

One of the EA execs told that he had known about them (both Sonymote and natal) for the last 15 months and that they had samples in their offices they were working on.

 

[Bluemercury]

So now Third parties are excited.......:lol ....

 

[Raist]

Regarding the use of two wands, as far as I can tell it looks like they both have to have different light colors. I'm not sure they used both with the same color (maybe at some point with the dominos stuff, but again I'm not sure I'd have to check that.)
I quite don't understand why tho.

Also, this might be a bit off-topic, but what does Motion+ adds exactly? A couple of gyros improving the tracking of absolute movements?
I think Sony's advantage is that you don't need to point at the PSeye for it to track the position of your controller, which is not possible at all with the remote. So except if the controller is hidden from the camera, it can pick its position at any time. This is why it is more "true 1:1 IMO)

Regarding the depth now, I don't think the results should be different. Natal uses stereoscopic view, which is exactly like the human vision, and the Wiimote is some kind of reversed stereoscopic stuff. Since the PSeye has a single camera they had to use the ultrasound stuff.

When you think about it, Sony's solution uses a large range of devices to track the wand. The x,y position is trakced by the camera, but the gyros also help that. I mean, just rotating the wand 45° could be tracked by the camera alone for instance, but factoring the gyros in might help a lot. Overall I think that's why it looks to be extremely accurate, more than the Wiimote IMO and probably more than Natal.

 

[Raist]

So now Third parties are excited.......:lol ....

Well, that's kinda logical. I mean, now they could develop the same kind of stuff for all current hardware. That said, as the 3 systems are quite different (the closer ones being the wiimote and the sonywand, I think) it might not be that easy.

 

[PjotrStroganov]

I'd like me some high def archery with realistic physics and weather effects. Add MP and you've got me.

 

[Huggy]

I saw no sticks in/on the prototype, so I wanted two sticks.

Now I'm looking at this concept and I see four sticks.

If they go though with the concept... awesome.

 

[SSJ1Goku]

Quaz posted this in the Natal thread but it should be posted again here:
http://stanford-online.stanford.edu/courses/ee380/040121-ee380-100.asx

This is an extremely interesting presentation given by Richard Marks of SCE several years ago in the PS2 era. If you are the type who gets bored by technical presentations, skip to about the 1 hour mark. He starts showing off his research with the ZCam (build by 3DV the same company MS bought to do Natal).

It is quite interesting how Sony was building demos using this technology way in the PS2 era. They even built a game almost exactly like the ball blocking game MS demoed at e3.

Thankyou for posting that

That was awesome, I watched the whole thing. That butterfly demo was cool as hell and the dodgeball demo was seemed like an early version of what Natal showed.

 

[agrajag]

Sony's wiimote kind of looks like a penis.

 

[gofreak]

Regarding the use of two wands, as far as I can tell it looks like they both have to have different light colors. I'm not sure they used both with the same color (maybe at some point with the dominos stuff, but again I'm not sure I'd have to check that.)
I quite don't understand why tho.

Don't think they have to. I think it was just how they ended up. It's probably an easier case when they are different as far as the visual tracking goes, but if they're using the ultrasonic stuff, and ultrasonic between controllers, it should be easy to distinguish controllers without different led colours.

Also, the led colour can change, it's not 'stuck' with a certain colour. So if each does need to be a different colour the ps3 can automatically callibrate them to be different colours.

Also, this might be a bit off-topic, but what does Motion+ adds exactly? A couple of gyros improving the tracking of absolute movements?
I think Sony's advantage is that you don't need to point at the PSeye for it to track the position of your controller, which is not possible at all with the remote. So except if the controller is hidden from the camera, it can pick its position at any time. This is why it is more "true 1:1 IMO)

The motion plus stuff doesn't depend on any external sensors or beacons. So you don't have to be 'pointing it at the ir bar' for example. What it adds is internal gyroscopes to better aid relative motion tracking (as opposed to just the acceleremoter stuff in the original wiimote, and the pointer-y stuff). It's an improvement over the original but still has problems as documented earlier.

Regarding the depth now, I don't think the results should be different. Natal uses stereoscopic view, which is exactly like the human vision, and the Wiimote is some kind of reversed stereoscopic stuff. Since the PSeye has a single camera they had to use the ultrasound stuff.

Neither Natal or Wiimote are 'stereoscopic'. Natal's 'two cameras' aren't two homogenous cameras..there's one camera, one IR emitter, and one IR sensor. The IR emitter puts out pulses of IR that the sensor picks up, measuring distance by the time it takes for the IR to go out, hit a surface and come back. It doesn't use a stereoscopic solution in the sense of two homogenous rgb cameras looking at a scene from different angles.

When you think about it, Sony's solution uses a large range of devices to track the wand. The x,y position is trakced by the camera, but the gyros also help that. I mean, just rotating the wand 45° could be tracked by the camera alone for instance, but factoring the gyros in might help a lot. Overall I think that's why it looks to be extremely accurate, more than the Wiimote IMO and probably more than Natal.

Yes, the wands use a large range of (sometimes) overlapping data to achieve its results. From a motion tracking POV, also, M+ is 'more accurate' than Natal for the tracking of the wiimote, but it obviously can't track anything else, and it's only accurate for a couple of seconds between resets. It would also be more accurate than Natal always for 'pointing'. Natal like any camera-only/marker-less solution is going to have noisier data than approaches that have more precise data for certain points in a scene - that's the tradeoff of ditching controllers or 'markers'. Sony's approach has even noisier and less data than Natal when it comes to arbitrary tracking (no depth and poorer resolution), but it has absolutely precise data for its controllers in the scene.

 

[Panajev2001a]

What it adds is internal gyroscopes to better aid relative motion tracking (as opposed to just the acceleremoter stuff in the original wiimote, and the pointer-y stuff). It's an improvement over the original but still has problems as documented earlier.

Yes, they add gyros because it is easier to decouple rotation and translation sensing instead of using the accelerometers for both IIRC.

(gyros --> rotation on xyz, accelerometers [too jittery to use to measure rotations] --> translations on the xyz)

 

[Raist]

Don't think they have to. I think it was just how they ended up. It's probably an easier case when they are different as far as the visual tracking goes, but if they're using the ultrasonic stuff, and ultrasonic between controllers, it should be easy to distinguish controllers without different led colours.

Also, the led colour can change, it's not 'stuck' with a certain colour. So if each does need to be a different colour the ps3 can automatically callibrate them to be different colours.

Yeah, I know that. However, imagine you move both so that they eventually are aligned respectively to the camera, and have the same color. Could the system get eventually lost and confuse both controllers? But I guess the ultrasound com between both controllers should prevent that.
Speaking of ultrasonic stuff, I remember a video from a long time ago with a company showing a purely US-based motion controller (was Wiisports like stuff AFAI remember). Have they been involved in the development of the Sony wand?

The motion plus stuff doesn't depend on any external sensors or beacons. So you don't have to be 'pointing it at the ir bar' for example. What it adds is internal gyroscopes to better aid relative motion tracking (as opposed to just the acceleremoter stuff in the original wiimote, and the pointer-y stuff). It's an improvement over the original but still has problems as documented earlier.

Yeah, I know that too. But, I'm not sure it should be called "relative". Well, it is relative, but from the wiimote's on POV. It's not relative to the screen at all so it dones't overcome the pointing problem, I think.

Neither Natal or Wiimote are 'stereoscopic'. Natal's 'two cameras' aren't two homogenous cameras..there's one camera, one IR emitter, and one IR sensor. The IR emitter puts out pulses of IR that the sensor picks up, measuring distance by the time it takes for the IR to go out, hit a surface and come back. It doesn't use a stereoscopic solution in the sense of two homogenous rgb cameras looking at a scene from different angles.

Woah, this I didn't know, about Natal. I'm sure having two cameras would probably have been far more accurate. I'm really disappointed that MS had to show BS vids for the most complex stuff (that said, they did it for quite simple stuff too) so in the end I don't really know what Natal can do exactly. Overall it looked like they were not ready at all.

Yes, the wands use a large range of (sometimes) overlapping data to achieve its results. From a motion tracking POV, also, M+ is 'more accurate' than Natal for the tracking of the wiimote, but it obviously can't track anything else, and it's only accurate for a couple of seconds between resets. It would also be more accurate than Natal always for 'pointing'. Natal like any camera-only/marker-less solution is going to have noisier data than approaches that have more precise data for certain points in a scene - that's the tradeoff of ditching controllers or 'markers'. Sony's approach has even noisier and less data than Natal when it comes to arbitrary tracking (no depth and poorer resolution), but it has absolutely precise data for its controllers in the scene.

Yeah, sony's problem is that their 1:1 tracking won't be possible at all without the wands. But then again, I'm not convinced Natal will pull it off.


Thanks for the infos and stuff anyway, always a pleasure to read your posts

 

[Napoleonthechimp]

I don't believe in Sony or Microsoft's ability to pull it off. Then again I don't like most of the stuff Nintendo puts out.