Wii Head Tracking

[TinCow]

This has simply blown me away, both with its amazing potential and with its simplicity. Watch the whole video.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw

His website is here:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/

[Husar]

Not really surprising after his last project wherehe already explained the IR sensor of the Wii remote. You can also buy those Track IRs for the PC for some time already although they're mostly used to look around in simulations as far as I'm aware. Oh and they're more expensive. What he shows here looks pretty nice but I cannot see the use of this yet. Yes, you get to look at the TV as some sort of window and it looks cool etc. but what practical use would that have in games? Except maybe controlling the game with your head instead of your hand.

[TinCow]

The practical use in games is showing the player a fully 3D environment without the need for a VR headset or red/blue goggles. Imagine playing Crysis of CoD and seeing projectiles and debris fly out of the screen at you. Imagine being able to peek around corners just by tilting your head. It would vastly increase the level of immersion.

In addition, it would also have the potential to make FPS games more athletic, along the lines of DDR and Wii Sports, both of which have become popular as alternatives to the boring old cardio workout. I'll take an hour of dodging bullets in Quake over 30 minutes on an exercise bike any day of the week.

[Husar]

I'm waiting for the Wii treadmill then.
And the full-3D environment is still confined to a 2D screen, like I said it looks nice, but there are those 3D goggles which may be better suited if you want that. And I dare to assume they're cheaper than a Wiimote + big LCD-TV

[Whacker]

God Tincow, this is OLD NEWS! Get with the times already!

This guy has some utterly amazing ideas. It's not really even so much for gaming, as much as for the business and consumer world and the implications for interactive applications and hardware. In all seriousness, I'd keep an eye on this guy, I think he's going to be one of the big movers and shakers in technology innovation in the next few decades.

Also Husar, there's already a treadmill for gaming, but it doesn't work like you think. You basically force the kids to walk and as they keep walking, it will supply power to their gaming consoles which will then stay on and they can play. You can limit them to certain amounts of usage per day too, and they have to walk on the treadmill to play. I can't find a link to it and Google was being a pain, but you can look around for it.

[Husar]

I agree this guy has some good ideas, I just found some of the others more useful than this particular one to be honest.

Of course I want a treadmill for realistic movement in shooters. That way the more corpulent players will also be forced to use sniper classes or their fat will be used up while playing.
I could also use some cardio training, despite being rather thin.

[TinCow]

God Tincow, this is OLD NEWS! Get with the times already!

Yeah, I was totally unaware of Track IR until I saw this, so the concept was new to me, even if not to the industry. I guess that's something of a commentary on Track IR's marketing department more than anything. Plus, you can get a Wii remote and tracker bar for $55, which is less than 1/3 the price of Track IR and eminently affordable for most gamers. Now we just need games that will support head tracking, since Track IR is supported by pretty much nothing I'm interested in.

[Whacker]

http://wiihacks.blogspot.com/

This guy is doing a good job of covering the overall Wiimote hacking scene, if you're interested in the whole picture (which includes Mr. Lee's efforts).

[drone]

Pretty cool stuff, this guy is obviously having way too much fun with his work.

Not sure how well something like this would work with FPS games, the slide/turn combinations on a 2D screen would probably be tough to work out. But for something like WiiSports tennis, FPS-style, it would be great. You could simulate moving around the court, but since you always look more or less straight ahead at the opponent it would be sweet.

[TinCow]

I think it would work fine on all conventional FPS games with one small modication: splitting mouselook off from weapon aiming. If mouselook was controlled by the headset while the aiming was still contolled by the mouse, you could aim someplace other than the middle of the screen, thus allowing you to peek around a corner with your head and pop off a few shots while most of the rest of you remains in cover. Movement would still be controlled by the keyboard.

[drone]

I don't know about that. For one, your example requires a mouse/keyboard, which requires sitting at a desk, which kind of defeats the whole purpose. Aiming with a WiiMote type controller would work though. But how would you turn? Implementing a 180 turn would be difficult, and with 1 2D screen I predict vomit.

[TinCow]

True, what I described would remove the athletics from the device and restrict it only to a 3D display. I suppose for a more useful athletic workout in a FPS, you would have to have two remotes, one in each hand. One would be for aiming and shooting, while the other would be for movement. As a PC gamer, I also cringe at the thought of that setup, but to be honest I already cringe at the PS and XBox remotes. Still, even the 3D perspective alone would be a nice addition to a game if you could get it for $60! Turning is still usually supported in most FPS controls, and it wouldn't be too inconvenient, for instance Q & E in a WASD setup. You might also be able to do something where you hold down a single key and it puts the headset into turn mode rather than freelook mode. The game turns your character in whichever way you look. Then release the key to go back to freelook.

[drone]

The Wii nunchucks would work well as you describe it - aim with one, turn controls on the other. I guess the main problem to solve for FPS games is the multiplicity of axis control. If moving up/back from the screen moves the game character, this must be married with forward/back controls, since the head tracking range is limited. The side to side movement would also be limited in range, and very confusing when married with a left/right rotation scheme.

As the guy described it in the video, head tracking is a way to look through a frame from different angles, the challenge now is to pair this with a way to move the frame around in space. I'm assuming this guy will have that solved in a couple weeks, he seems very dedicated.

[Husar]

Wiimotes on your feet...
I can already see motion capturing with Wiimotes.
But then I also see a small problem because the Wiimote has a forward-looking camera which has to be pointed at the sensor bar if I'm not mistaken, that would mean if you turn it too far into one direction, it will lose track of the sensor bar and thus you'd lose control. This problem would increase the closer the Wiimote is to the sensor bar and if I'm not mistaken, that's why the Track IR has such a sensor "bow" or array so it can cover a wider angle and thus find the infrared lights in a wider angle which should be useful if you're sitting close to it at a desk. Don't they recommend using the Wiimote 2m away from the screen anyway?

Also next up, infrared-guided missiles using a Wiimote.