Kinect thread(Avatar Kinect out now)

[chronovore]

I was offered a Kinect for free yesterday but turned it down - there's just no way I could play it without moving every piece of furniture in my living room around. (this was also why it was being given away). Who cares about a bit of convenience in the interface if it causes so much real life inconvenience. Half-baked.

who was giving it away?

My daughter kept interrupting my Kinectimals introduction, and I think it was confused about who it was supposed to be tracking, because she was causing the panther to lie down, while I was causing it to jump. Pretty weird.

our Microsoft chum, who beta tested it.

Hell, I'm planning on buying it, since I have a pretty large living room (we combined our kitchen/living/dining into a "great room"). Why didn't you bag it and then give it to one of your Tokyo friends? I'm sure someone would have wanted it! Or would it have been one of those awkward "Where is that Kinect I gave you?" moments over beers at Casa Cormacaroni?

[iconoclast]

The future of console gaming.

Fixed. No need to get too specific.

[chronovore]

Or would it have been one of those awkward "Where is that Kinect I gave you?" moments over beers at Casa Cormacaroni?

his X360 had just RRoD'ed under our care , he then cooked a massive turkey and was the perfect host despite his terrible loss - i think then taking his Kinect for nothing would have been taking the piss a bit !

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Please send turkey.

[close]

[Third]

maxy getting owned by Kinect:

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

[chronovore]

So, wait, when did JoyRide go from being a free, shared content, possibly microtransaction game to a disc-based, retail, nearly-full-price SKU? 

[pilonv1]

So, wait, when did JoyRide go from being a free, shared content, possibly microtransaction game to a disc-based, retail, nearly-full-price SKU? 

Once they announced it for Kinect I think.

[Stoney Mason]

So, wait, when did JoyRide go from being a free, shared content, possibly microtransaction game to a disc-based, retail, nearly-full-price SKU? 

My cynical mind says once they saw Mod Nation Racers and knew JoyRide was DOA. Might as well refashion it for Kinect and try to soak the idiots.

[Sho Nuff]

Think I'm gonna be That Guy and flip mine while the getting's good. I like Dance Central buy my backlog of Real Games takes priority

[maxy]

[youtube=560,345]#![/youtube]

 

[Shaka Khan]

On the one hand: Neat idea.

On the other: Would never buy any platformer using that type of craptacular controls. So sad it hurts.

[TripleA]

Poor Kinect, it needs Nintendo games to make it look cool.

[magus]

Poor Kinect, it needs Nintendo games to make it look cool.

Poor Nintendo Games, they needs Kinect to make them look cool.

[SantaC]

Poor Kinect, it needs Nintendo games to make it look cool.

Poor Nintendo Games, they needs Kinect to make them look cool.

yeah smb1 really needed kinect back in 1986

[magus]

that's the point, it was made 25 years ago! It was awesome back then, but todays standards i expect more out of smb1. And the controls sucks. Why do they need the need to not have waggle in a platformer?

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[The Sceneman]

fuck Kinect Adventures is so homo but the cheevs are so easy I cant resist playing the thing

[chronovore]

Think I'm gonna be That Guy and flip mine while the getting's good. I like Dance Central buy my backlog of Real Games takes priority

Crap, so I shouldn't even bother? It's not compelling?

My cynical mind says once they saw Mod Nation Racers and knew JoyRide was DOA. Might as well refashion it for Kinect and try to soak the idiots.

Once they announced it for Kinect I think.

There was never any real announcement about it though, huh? Man, I thought it would be a really interesting experiment for XBLA, to have a first-party title that was out there for everyone for free, meaning it would probably have a consistent online multiplayer group available, plus the ability to show off your Avatar Awards, so there's something driving that marketplace, PLUS it would be interesting data about micropayments driving a console multiplayer game... Darn it. I was curious how it would work out. Now it's just shovelware for a controller most people won't buy.

[AdmiralViscen]

So, since Channukah is almost here, my dad asked me what I wanted.  I said Kinect & he said, why don't we just get it today   To my surprise, the Target near me had 3 Kinect Sensors left I gotta say, it is pretty different compared to the Wii.  I was getting so into Kinect Adventures (and the Kinect Joy Ride Demo) that I had to take my asthma inhaler afterwards   I'll probably end up getting the various sports/"exercise" titles.

[Mupepe]

dear lord.  GAF?

[Stoney Mason]

http://majornelson.com/archive/2010/11/29/kinect-sells-2-5-million-in-first-25-days.aspx

2.5 million sold through.

[Dickie Dee]

btw, is Forza Kinect - Forza 4 w/ Kinect enabled, "Forza Adventures" with Forza 4 being a separate "core" project, or an actual gimped Forza sequel with none other in the works. Is this known yet?

[Stoney Mason]

btw, is Forza Kinect - Forza 4 w/ Kinect enabled, "Forza Adventures" with Forza 4 being a separate "core" project, or an actual gimped Forza sequel with none other in the works. Is this known yet?

No one knows for sure but I guarantee either way there will be a core Forza 4 with all the features you'd expect from that franchise released in the fall of next year

[cool breeze]

[youtube=560,345]5-w7UXCAUJE[/youtube]

this is really cool

[maxy]

Check this out

Razorfish has ported the DaVinci: Microsoft Surface Physics Illustrator  to be used with the Kinect. The prototype they have created is stunning. This seems like one of the best Kinect apps till date. The video is spectacular. Just watch..

http://vimeo.com/17358021

Kinect

[Cormacaroni]

cool...but not really doing anything a mouse couldn't, right? Left button for grab, right for release, that's it. There is zero 3 dimensionality to it.

[maxy]

Yeah,but they will be adding stuff
Kinect can see depth so it would be natural thing to do

http://emergingexperiences.com/

To date, many of the experiments in gestural interface development have not taken into account the hands. Unfortunately, the result is an experience that isn’t precise – users have no context of where they are interacting in the virtual space and 1-to-1 manipulation of objects in a scene proves difficult. By using an clenched hand to signify “grabbing” an object and an open hand to signify “releasing” an object, we are able to create experiences with an higher level of precision which can mimic a touch based experience. In fact, we’ve created a Kinect plugin to enable our entire suite of touch-based experiences to work with gestures – more videos to come!

Gesture-based interaction is great when touch isn’t practical. For instance, on a large screen projected display as shown in the video above it is difficult or physically impossible to control the entire area using touch. Using a technology like Kinect, we can create a virtual canvas in mid-air in front of the user. Interactions within this virtual canvas space are projected into the experience as shown in the DaVinci example.

To be honest, we had a blast playing with this experience. It definitely fulfilled all of our Star Wars fantasies of controlling objects with your mind. We’ll be adding more features in the coming weeks including the Darth Vader death grip. Stay tuned!

[maxy]

Something interesting

You knew it was coming. It was inevitable. And, yes, I'm talking about Kinect sex.

With almost any hot new tech toy, especially one with a heavy degree of interactivity--which Microsoft's motion-sensitive controller has in spades--someone is going to try to hack it and try to make it X-rated. The Kinect is no exception.

To date, there are no overtly sexual Kinect games on the market, though the folks who put together Kinect MotionSwinger (pretty NSFW) would like you to believe--for a moment at least--otherwise. But that's nothing more than a joke concept for a Kinect sex game put together with some imagery from Second Life.

Still, when it comes to finding ways to utilize new technology for, shall we say, lewd purposes, there are few people more qualified thank Kyle (qDot) Machulis, the dean of the underground sex-tech genre known as tele*****nics.

In a Sunday blog post titled "Kinect Sex--Because you knew I'd make this post sooner or later," Machulis finally brings his trained eye to the project that countless millions were surely waiting for him to get around to and evaluates the kink potential of the device Microsoft is hoping may breathe new life into its Xbox 360 video game console.

The question, as Machulis delicately puts it, is "How can I [have sex]" using Kinect?

As he quickly points out, Kinect most likely wasn't designed for such a purpose, and though the device was made to recognize even minute movements by a person's body, it's geared to look for our larger limbs, like arms and legs.

"Microsoft put a ton of work into making the Kinect track the human body as a whole, so you can play games by jumping and running and generally acting the...fool and feel like you're in the game instead of just sad," Machulis wrote. "Genitalia, for the most part, are not a major geometric feature of the human body when taken in perspective of physical size....Neither are they normally used in the control of video games, be they rated [for all] or [for adults only]."

Machulis said he experimented by waving a sex toy in front of a Kinect, and then by wagging his tongue around in front of it, and concluded that the graphics quality isn't very good, though the device was capable of picking up both the toy and his tongue.

Machulis wrote. "The pattern the Kinect uses to get depth data is made for picking up full bodies to control video games, and therefore isn't quite so good at picking up minutiae about those bodies."

Yet, Machulis also points out that because the Kinect is both very good at picking up hand-based gestures and capable of identifying discrete body parts like "manbreasts" (see video below), there is the distinct possibility that the device could be used to digitize--albeit with less than ideal graphics quality--simulated sexual motions

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20024024-52.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

[Herr Mafflard]

Pfft still not a viable substitute for the blow up doll.

[maxy]

Ahhhhhh

My elite xbot armor is slowly melting,i can't stop watching this vid...

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

Checked amazon to see the prices and.....we are doomed
Kinect games are slowly creeping up

From Amazon,360 only chart

1.Call of Duty: Black Ops   
2.Kinect Sports   
3.Dance Central
4.Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood   
5.Halo Reach

Currently Kinect hardware is sold out(standalone and bundles) and almost every standalone 360 sku(only few sku left)
Never saw something like that

Same song different performers...yes,i like that song and dance choreography

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

[Beezy]

leather jacket dude is obviously the best dancer there

[maxy]

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

[Dickie Dee]

ahh shit, time to start evacuating Echo Base.

[chronovore]

Wait, so if I want a Kinect I should not expect to find one in post-Christmas Silicon Valley? Can anyone tell me if they're region-specific?

[maxy]

Not related to kinect specifically
There is something even more menacing

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

Reminds me of Half-Life 2

Wait, so if I want a Kinect I should not expect to find one in post-Christmas Silicon Valley? Can anyone tell me if they're region-specific?

There is some website that can maybe help you,Kinect basically comes and goes...not sure about post-Christmas thing

http://www.nowinstock.net/videogaming/accessories/kinect/

AFAIK they are not region locked,not sure though...the only problem is the AC adapter(if you have old 360)

Device itself is region free...99.9% sure in that,games are just like normal 360 games

[magus]

reminds me of a giant mosquito
someone should have brought some DDT

[chronovore]

There is some website that can maybe help you,Kinect basically comes and goes...not sure about post-Christmas thing

http://www.nowinstock.net/videogaming/accessories/kinect/

AFAIK they are not region locked,not sure though...the only problem is the AC adapter(if you have old 360)

Device itself is region free...99.9% sure in that,games are just like normal 360 games

Thanks, Maxy. I don't quite understand your last qualifier, but if you meant they're just like any other 360 accessory, I'll say that it seems a safe bet. The controllers don't have any specific region coding.

I have a new 360-S, so it should be good to go for connectivity. I was just worried about "SORRY. THIS DEVICE'S REGION IS NOT SUPPORTED."  I guess DreamCast made me forever afraid of buying accessories outside my console's native region.

[maxy]

I don't quite understand your last qualifier, but if you meant they're just like any other 360 accessory, I'll say that it seems a safe bet.

Yeah,it's just a controller,not region locked.

Some games are region locked,though

[maxy]

Open source kinect drivers

PrimeSense seeks to democratise motion sensor development

Kinect sensor tech firm PrimeSense has released open-source drivers for the peripheral, and established an NI devices, applications and middleware organisation.

The open-source OpenNI Framework supplies an API for writing NI apps while also providing middleware that grants access to RGB-D sensors like Kinect and PrimeSense’s development kit PSDK 5.0.

PrimeSense has said that it planned on releasing the drivers at a later date, but brought that plan forward in light of the successes of Kinect ‘hacking’ community OpenKinect, which aims to make use of the sensor in as many different ways as possible.

Windows and Linux binaries for the NITE skeleton tracking library have also been released by OpenNI, with the intention of allowing for improved gesture applications creation.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/36558/Kinect-tech-firm-releases-open-source-drivers

MS silent blessing,smart smart

[chronovore]

Nutty stuff. Man some mainstream peeps "hacking" the Kinect could have direct benefits to the console development efforts.

[maxy]

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]
[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

 

[maxy]

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

Dancing Robots

Harmonix

[maxy]

Well,it begins

FIRST WORKING DEMO OF KINECT CONTROLLER FOR SEX GAMES INTERFACE!

USE MICROSOFT KINECT CONTROLLER & WINDOWS 7.0 TO CONTROL 3D SEX-SIM
Innsbruck, Austria - December 15, 2011 - www. 3DSexGames.com Announces Microsoft Kinect Controller Support

thriXXX software gmbh, the world's leading provider of 3D role playing game sex simulation videogames, is adding support for Microsoft's xBox Kinect device to its line of 3DSexGames titles available at www.3dsexgames.com.

Recent events in the Kinect Hacker community and the Open Sourcing of device drivers have enabled the Kinect device to be used directly from connected PC's operating on Windows 7. The Kinect interface provides another exciting interface option for users of the sex simulation software to control the experience in extraordinary new ways!

Controller free is the next generation of game user interfaces allowing users to use gestures, spoken commands, or objects to control in-game action that creates a completely new sex game activity and magical experience. "The Kinect Controller is astonishing new technology that allows users to experience cybersex like never before!" says Brad Abram VP of Business Development. "It's novel, sexy, social, age-spanning, crazy, and a rush to have virtual control at this level".

Users will ultimately be able to use full body or hand gestures, voice commands and even real world sex toy objects like vibrators to control interactions in-game and between two active participants. The technology is demonstrated in this video posted at www.gamerotica.com the official community for thrixxx games. The software in early alpha stage testing will be released in 2011 and made available as an option in all games using the thrixxx engine.

About

Thrixxx software gmbh has been building sex simulation software and games, for any sexual orientation, since 2003. Leading adult brands from around the world; Playboy, Hustler, Private, and others have White Labeled the game engine. Thrixxx games are available in English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, and shortly in Japanese, and Russian. Software can be purchased through affiliates who register at www.gameboxxx.com

http://www.gamernode.com/news/9940-the-first-kinect-sex-game-tech-demo-has-arrived/index.html

Kinda  pic inside,nothing serious though

There was a vid,but youtube deleted it
youtube

[maxy]

Well well

Microsoft is working to improve the accuracy of Xbox 360 motion-sensing add-on Kinect so that it could detect finger movement and hand rotation, Eurogamer understands.

Microsoft's Kinect team is said to be working "very hard" on a switching or compression technology that will allow a greater amount of data to pass through Kinect to the Xbox 360 console.

Kinect features are dictated by firmware so that they can be added and upgraded over time.

The depth sensor used by Kinect is also dictated by firmware – it is currently set at a 30 frames per second limit and a 320x240 resolution limit.

At a 640x480 resolution, however, Kinect could begin to detect fingers and hand rotation – an effective quadrupling of its accuracy.

The issue relates to the USB controller interface, Eurogamer was told. It is capable of around 35MB/s, but it only uses around 15/16MB/s.

This artificial limit is in place because multiple USB devices can be used at once on an Xbox 360. But Microsoft is working on a technology to allow greater throughput in this regard, Eurogamer understands.

If Microsoft achieves its goal it could double the spec of Kinect's depth camera with a simple dashboard update.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-12-17-source-ms-quadrupling-kinect-accuracy

Kinect is really destroying haters in everything...sales,accuracy,lag,etc

 

[maxy]

Of course that extra processing power will be needed,nothing is free in this world not even sex

But smart developers will do great things.

[maxy]

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

The Japanese are masters at weird cultural stuff, that is a well know fact. However, this latest craze takes the cake.

The latest craze in Japan is Hatsune Miku. Miku was planned as a marketing stunt for a text-to-voice application, but she quickly turned into a virtual pop star with hologram concerts and best-selling records.

Fans have since released the freeware application MikuMikuDance. MikuMikuDance completed the circle by making it possible for fans to create their own music videos to the music they’ve synthesized using the voice synthesizer application. Fans are now in complete control over the virtual artist. They can create the songs and music videos with her singing and dancing without any approval from the copyright owners (using them for commercial purposes is another matter). In a sense she is the first really open source artist.

This is really strange and interesting, but has originally nothing to do with the Kinect. However, when higuchuu added Kinect support to the MikuMikuDance application that is no longer the case. higuchuu may have created the first real time motion capture demo for the Kinect. Just like Andy Serkis famously did with Gollum, by moving the body the virtual character, in this case Hatsume Miku, makes the same movements. This is a much more time effective process than animating it manually.

The hack is not completed yet, as it only works for the upper body. However, higuchuu is still developing the hack.

[magus]

i wish my motion plus could do that instead of going out of calibration every 3 minutes *sigh*

[cool breeze]

The stuff people do on PC with kinect is really cool, but it also shows how low res and cheap it all is.  I kinda hope Microsoft sticks with it and releases a quality version of it with their next console, or at least other companies use the tech in their own way.  A tv that can be controlled without a remote would be neat.

[maxy]

Actually Aptina MT9M001(used in Kinect) has 1280x1024 resolution.

People are doing some really interesting experiments,copy-paste from some Isadora related forums

Hello All,

So over the weekend I was putting the Kinect to use in a proper theater space and wanted to share some of my findings. I was feeding the depth image from the Kinect into Isadora via the Kineme QuartzComposer plugin (v0.3), which worked reliably.

• The range of measurement is much more than I initially thought when I was trying it in my flat. We were able to clearly discern objects as far as 10m (approx. 30ft) away.

• The field of view is quite wide; I wasn't able to measure this precisely, but I can safely say it was about 10m when you were 10m away from the camera; in other words you get about 1m of width for each 1m of depth.

• The depth resolution seems to be something like 10cm or so in the situation I was describing above. We were attempting, for instance, to discern someone's leg when seated on a couch. Because the leg was not so thick, we were unable to reliably discern the front of the couch from the leg itself. What is unclear to me is if the depth resolution is finer when you are closer to the camera; I wasn't able to take the time to test that carefully.

• The edges on the depth image itself are quite coarse. We were attempting to do some masking based on the depth image, but it required a gaussian blur to get rid of the noise and other artifacts.

• One interesting trick was to use the Luminance Key actor to isolate certain depth ranges; you can determine what depths will be seen by changing the 'key bottom' and 'key top' inputs. This worked quite well, and allowed you to track -- and keep distinct -- multiple objects depending on their distance from the camera. This meant that we could track one person who was, for instance, 3m away and keep the person who was 5m away totally separate. (This required two Luminance Key actors with different settings fed to to separate Eyes++ actors.)

• Also, having a QC Kinect actor or in each scene was problematic; it would seem to lose the connection during a jump because one actor was being turned off and while the next was being turned on very soon thereafter. My solution was to put the Kinect actor in a secondary scene, and feed the video output to the other scenes via a Broadcaster actor.

Anyway, as I suppose is clear, this is a very interesting object to be sure. I look forward to seeing how other Isadora users make use of it.

[maxy]

Yep,it looks like everybody and their dog is working on something Kinect related,lots of buzz in scientific community

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

[demi]

I think its more funny that all this happened because of the open source drivers. MS of course, doesnt get it, and is clamping down on it.

[maxy]

I think its more funny that all this happened because of the open source drivers. MS of course, doesnt get it, and is clamping down on it.

I don't think they are trying to clamp down on it anymore,somebody probably realized,hey this is good for us
Prime Sense(their modified chip is inside) recently released drivers(skeletal tracking) for the thing,that tells a lot
They are probably now working as hard as they can to release Kinect XNA package

But yes,open source community helping MS to sell something,funny stuff

[magus]

guy hacked legs too

[youtube=560,345]#![/youtube]

[maxy]

In theory,yes,but it depends on actual components working together
Take note that Kinect is not actually hacked yet,open source community made drivers that command device output,but device firmware is still intact
Like,there is some function that gives you depth(z) data for requested pixel(x,y)

Depth data is calculated by Kinect,no skeletal tracking inside Kinect(unlike Prime Sense design that has no host burden)
Kinect still has a CPU(Marvell PXA 168),used for audio?,apparently they stream 6 channel audio inside Kinect...it has an accelerometer(Kionix KXSD9) too

If somebody finds a way to hack(flash) the firmware,this will get even more interesting

[maxy]

It was only a matter of time before Microsoft's continually-hacked Kinect became embroiled in a VR simulation of some sort, and while we're not riding light cycles quite yet, enterprising developer Nao_u has managed to put himself in the shoes (and short skirt) of a Japanese virtual pop icon. Mapping his every move onto the virtual skeleton of Vocaloid's Miku Hatsune probably won't impress you much at this stage of the game, but there's the little matter of what Nao_u did next: he hooked up a pair of Vuzix VR920 LCD glasses to see through the digital diva's eyes, too. Find the terribly cutesy video after the break, and fast-forward to 4:30 to watch Nao attempt to walk a narrow beam set atop a virtual skyscraper.

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

 

[MCD]

A real Kinect Vocaloid game for X360 might actually do shit in Japan.

[maxy]

So finally I've played Kinect,it was in some big shopping center.Same shitty game that MS was demoing from the start.
Device is very quick to pick different people,menus were easy to navigate,there where tons of people passing by(even in front of me) and device didn't seem to care much.
There is lag,noticeable lag,although the more you play you kinda adapt,weird feeling first time playing...though i doubt that those people bothered with calibration

There were kids messing with it,but of course when they saw that Elite Xbot is approaching they cleared the area ...Kinect was telling them to move backwards and they didn't seem to notice that,losers

I was surprised seeing Kinect there,they never never never never had anything xbox related to sell let alone demoed.PS3 was demoed there from day one(not anymore surprisingly),Wii was there for sale also from day one but zero xbox stuff until now...
They hooked it up to some huge ass plasma in the middle of TV section...
 

 

[maxy]

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

[maxy]

Dunno,maybe

"more accurate Wii"
pink dildo=lol
what is that?PS3 accessory you say,hmm,never heard of it

[MyNameIsMethodis]

How come we don't see the Move being used for neat shit like this?

Because the Move is system software not hardware based.

[Himu]

Obviously, Microsoft is sitting on a goldmine. Who knew some video game peripheral would be so useful for folks.

P.S. If PS Eye or eyetoy were the same as this, why haven't we seen either do this

Haha. That's the hilarity of all of this. Any gamer who has been following games for a while remembers Eye Toy and Kinect is essentially a suped up eye toy. But where Eye Toy fails, Kinect suceeded. It's all marketing. It's like how Guitar Hero and Rock Band were MEGA successes in the west when Konami did the same shit 10 years before with Guitar Freaks and Drum Mania but didn't have the brains to go all out and market it in the west.

also, kinect by itself is very VERY cool tech.

I'd say kinect will play a big part in interface changes in technology.

[maxy]

Any gamer who has been following games for a while remembers Eye Toy and Kinect is essentially a suped up eye toy. But where Eye Toy fails, Kinect suceeded. It's all marketing.

Wrong again,Kinect working principle is fundamentally different from Eye Toy.Nobody cared about Eye Toy because it was some shitty 2D camera,tons of them everywhere.
Sony could invest $10 billion in Eye Toy marketing,nobody would care

Kinect core is "class one laser product" and that makes it a 3D camera,2D camera stuff is secondary