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EyeToy PS2 Camera To Use Digimask For 3D Faces

Posted by simoniker on from the and-nothing-else dept.

Thanks to Gamesindustry.biz for its article indicating that Sony has teamed up with Digimask to allow full 3D models of gamers' faces to be used in PS2 titles, providing the player has an EyeToy USB camera. The Digimask technology "allows gamers to take a couple of snaps of their own head with EyeToy and have them magically remodelled into a fully animated 3D head", and a number of unannounced games are in development using this technology, which might allow "...players to put their own face onto a player in a football game, or to [theoretically] fight against digital reproductions of their friends in online games of SOCOM." GI.Biz does, however, note: "Of course, there is the eternal concern that mischievous gamers will take pictures of, well, other body parts, giving the 'Personal Head Creation' technology a bad name."

45 comments

  1. Figures... by hookedup · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Of course, there is the eternal concern that mischievous gamers will take pictures of, well, other body parts, giving the 'Personal Head Creation' technology a bad name."

    I can just see the discussion in game "Hey Jon, how come your smile is sideways....OH DEAR LORD"

  2. Personal Head by rogabean · · Score: 3, Funny

    "Of course, there is the eternal concern that mischievous gamers will take pictures of, well, other body parts, giving the 'Personal Head Creation' technology a bad name."
    Gamers doing this? I don't believe it!
    Give the "Personal Head Creation" a bad name? Obviously they didn't think too hard about the name they gave it did they?

    --
    "why don't you just slip into something more comfortable...like a coma!"
  3. Won't somebody think of the media? by Txiasaeia · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Methinks this isn't going to be regarded too highly in the press. "Now you can scan your head and your friend's head into the game and kill each other!" "They're encouraging murder because they're killing virtual representations of their best friends!" Etc. etc.

    As for the "mischevious gamers," I don't even *want* to think of what kinda "heads" they would appropriate in a game of SOCOM!

    --
    Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
    1. Re:Won't somebody think of the media? by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 1

      As for the "mischevious gamers," I don't even *want* to think of what kinda "heads" they would appropriate in a game of SOCOM!

      Are you sure you wouldn't want to play as Chairface Chippendale?

      --
      Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
  4. Perfect Dark by StocDred · · Score: 5, Informative
    Perfeck Dark for N64 was supposed to include this sort of thing using the Game Boy Camera... but it was removed at the last minute. The official reason was that it affected performance of the game, but it was so close to Columbine that many figured that was why Nintendo had the feature stripped.

    Obviously enough time has passed that companies aren't afraid to include "shoot your friends' digitized faces!" as a packaging bullet point.

  5. Concern?? by Itsik · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why is it that corporations always try and "shield" our lives from what they deem inappropriate.
    When you teach someone to use a hammer. That person can use it for what it was intended or he or she can bang someone's head open. That doesn't mean that we should not make hammers.

    1. Re:Concern?? by hambonewilkins · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But if that "hammer" is only designed and used to break open people's heads, then yes, we should be concerned.
      There are certain "hammers" that do not have other uses except for killing.

      --

      God Bless America. Why? Did it sneeze?
    2. Re:Concern?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are certain "hammers" that do not have other uses except for killing.

      yes, such as video games!

    3. Re:Concern?? by bigman2003 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Do you really think they give a flying fuck about shielding us?

      They don't want bad press- protests, or worst- Wal*Mart not carrying their game because it is inappropriate.

      The *really* don't care about the social impact. If you are concerned about the social impact, you probably are not running a *successful* business.

      (Yes, of course there are examples of morally correct successful businesses, and many of them are successful because being morally correct is their schtick...money from granolas is just as good as money from the rest of us. But in general, morals and profits don't run down a grassy hill together, hand-in-hand, singing folk music.)

      --
      No reason to lie.
    4. Re:Concern?? by Itsik · · Score: 1

      Notice that I put shield in quotes. Trust me I'm not that naive. I know what makes them tick. The reason I used the term shield is because some companies and even societies "moral" claims. That's all.
      I do agree with you, that in reality they don't care about the social impact.

    5. Re:Concern?? by hambonewilkins · · Score: 1

      No, actually, it would be pretty hard to use a video game to directly kill someone (bludgeoning?)

      --

      God Bless America. Why? Did it sneeze?
    6. Re:Concern?? by MMaestro · · Score: 1
      Corporations don't give a rat's ass when it comes to "shielding" our lives. Its the public opinion that they care about.

      If id Software sold Quake with the subtitle called "Kill All Freaks" and it made trillions of dollars, do you really think they'd care that you, Joe Average, complained about the terminlogy? Hell no, they tell you to fuck off. If you're the CEO of, say, EA Games; would you publish a WWII FPS sim called 'The Battle of Stalinrad' or 'The Slaughter of Russians at Stalinrad'?

      As for the hammer analogy, thats like saying requiring driver licenses should be abolished because the driver can use it for what it was intended. Or he/she can start running over random pedestrians on the sidewalk because he/she is too ignorant enough to stay in the road lanes. That doesn't mean we should stop making cars or put a speed cap on all cars preventing them from going over 5 mph.

    7. Re:Concern?? by dakryx · · Score: 1

      They're not trying to shield anyone if anything its their bottom line, money. All it takes is a parent group to decide to boycott and its all over news the bad press isn't worth it.

    8. Re:Concern?? by Itsik · · Score: 1

      Please note my response to bigman2003

  6. adult games by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How much do you wanna bet some japanese company is gonna use this for something a little less then apporopriate for children.

  7. Gives a whole new meaning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    to calling someone a "Dickhead".

  8. Protect the children! by jmlyle · · Score: 4, Funny


    You know, putting the head of an underaged person on a Lara Croft-type character body could probably get you throw in jail.

    --
    I have misplaced my pants.
    1. Re:Protect the children! by Carnildo · · Score: 2, Informative

      Nope. In a Supreme Court decision a few years back, it was ruled that digital representations of minors could not be classified as child pornography, since no real minors were involved.

      --
      "They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
    2. Re:Protect the children! by eliza_effect · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty sure it's exactly the opposite..

  9. Screenshots? by jtheory · · Score: 1

    No demo screenshots in the article... which is really too bad, because it would make an IDEAL Farq PhotoShopping candidate.

    --
    There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
  10. Distraction by aridhol · · Score: 4, Funny
    "Who was that ugly-ass man?"

    "I don't know. His nick was 'goatse', though"

    --
    I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
  11. Football? by Acidic_Diarrhea · · Score: 0, Troll
    "players to put their own face onto a player in a football game"
    Great, spend the time getting your face photographed correctly, get it mapped into 3D, save it, start playing a game, and realize...
    FOOTBALL PLAYERS HAVE HELMETS ON!!!

    This might work for other sports games but come on, football helmets make all this trouble pretty worthless.

    And don't get me started on what I think of NFL Street.

    --
    I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
    1. Re:Football? by simoniker · · Score: 1

      Heh, unless I'm taking the troll bait, GamesIndustry.biz in based in England, and so they actually mean soccer when they say football. Those silly Englishers - doh!

  12. I wonder... by RegalBegal · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    if they thought of actual gamers here. Who cares? The playstation publicly hasn't been doing well (A friend of mine works at a local LameFlop and daily people are exchanging them with games for credit for an xBox). I'm not going to spend any amount of money for a second rate webcam to scan my head, or anything else for a game.

    The PlayStation faithful scoffed at being able to put your own music into games with the xBox and certain titles. Now they have to contend with quite possibly one of the silliest things I've seen in gaming second two the Virtual Boy and on step above Nintendo's next flop the DS.

    Maybe I'm the only one, but I have a system to play games. I have an xBox because as far as CONSOLES go (I capped it because this isn't meant to be flame-bait for PC gamers to jump in on) it is the best. I'd like to think that these gimmicks aren't swaying the rest of mainstream gaming. Maybe I'm hoping for too much though...

    --
    "It'll destroy you if you try to make it mean anything to anyone but yourself." - Henry Rollins
    1. Re:I wonder... by StocDred · · Score: 1
      At one time, having two analog sticks on your controller was a gimmick in gaming. So were rumble effects. Sometimes gimmicks pay off, and sometimes they don't.

      The games that came with the EyeToy are a serviceable party game, and it's the kind of thing that attracts the interest of people outside the gaming world because it's moderately fun and cutsey. It's nice to see that Sony is trying to get other games to use the camera, so that it doesn't end up ignored. I'm sure there's more uses cooking than just slapping your head into a game. I read in some magazine, probably OPM, about the EyeToy folks showing off how the camera could be used to track the movement of an actual baseball bat to swing at a ball in the game.

      And Sony would probably take issue with your statement that it "hasn't been doing well." Your friend at the LameFlop isn't exactly a full study.

    2. Re:I wonder... by Aelfy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The EyeToy has already sold *millions* of units here in the EU, and the unit itself has been in the top ten selling games in the UK for 29 consecutive weeks. (http://www.elspa.com/about/charts/charts.asp?d=20 040117&chartType=17)

      They don't need you to buy it, the EyeToy is a hugely successful peripheral aimed squarely at the mainstream market.

      Support for this system in games adds value to those games for those who already own an EyeToy unit, regardless of whether they like that genre or have ever heard of that game.

    3. Re:I wonder... by RegalBegal · · Score: 1

      who said i full study? Granted he isn't on some gaming board but he is the guy on the stree so to speak. He sees what goes on every day with the average gamer.

      Yeah analog sticks and rumble packs were "gimmicks" but they enhanced game play. Not some cheesey aesthetic like the dude face i'm mud stomping at 3AM in SOCOM.

      Sony ISN'T doing well, they are looking for the next big thing to grab onto instead of innovating like they did in the 90s.

      You're going to find EyeToy and the game its packaged with on shelves with the VirtualBoy and dreamcast.

      --
      "It'll destroy you if you try to make it mean anything to anyone but yourself." - Henry Rollins
    4. Re:I wonder... by RegalBegal · · Score: 1

      There could be Volumes written on what does swimmingly well in Japan and Europe but does poorly here. David Hasselhoff and the Yugo come to mind :)

      --
      "It'll destroy you if you try to make it mean anything to anyone but yourself." - Henry Rollins
    5. Re:I wonder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      A friend of mine works at a local LameFlop and daily people are exchanging them with games for credit for an xBox.

      Now, what's the singular of "data?" Oooh! Oooh! I know -- anecdote!

      More to the point, both Sony and MS sales are down in FY03, only Nintendo has risen (due, of course, to aggressive price cuts).

  13. image recognition put to good use? by BeatdownGeek · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They could use the same image recognition stuff that PhotoShop uses to recognize currency, and modify it to recognize other... Er, heads.

    1. Re:image recognition put to good use? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But then what about the poor guy who can't use his real face because his PS2 thinks he looks like a penis? :D

    2. Re:image recognition put to good use? by Cyberop5 · · Score: 1

      photoshop's currency detection relies on characteristics of the bill to recognize it as a bill. I believe its the small diamonds in the background that give it away. Either way, there is some constant in each bill that it recognizes.

      Finding a universal constant in, umm, heads would be a disgustingly daunting task.

      --
      Urgo: "I want to live. I want to experience the universe and I want to eat pie!"
      Jack: "Who doesn't??"
  14. Virtual Light - Machinama? by stoolpigeon · · Score: 2, Interesting

    First thing this made me think of is when the guy in Gibson's "Virtual Light" pisses off the hacker kids and they put his face on a guy in a nasty S&M kind of porno thing. That was a kind of out there idea in the '80s but it is getting more and more possible.

    I would think the real kick in this would have less to do with getting your own face in a game and more to do with getting someone you don't like in a game. The machinama possibilities could be very, very interesting

    --
    It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
  15. DOOM and Bill Gates, LEGAL question ...? by justanyone · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Hey - does this mean I can model Bill Gates' head onto the shoulders of all the monsters that I kill in Doom and Duke Nukem and all those First Person Shooter games?

    I'm sure there's lots of people that would love to customize Doom and the other shooter games to add a picture of Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh (the alleged "big fat idiot deaf crackfiend" as I've heard various political 'extremists' call him), and other politicos.

    Likewise, this applies to Leisure Suit Larry and Grand Theft Auto - putting specific faces on the people in the games. This could get legally complicated, couldn't it...?

    I mean, since Cindy Crawford techically owns almost all of the images of her. Or, her photographers do. So, hypothetically, if I take a set of random headshots (prove which photographer took them!) grab data from it, encode it to become the prostitute character for Grand Theft Auto, then sell the product of this work as a derivative work, is it covered under copyright law as a derivative work, or have I stolen the likeness from the photographers?

    --
    Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
    1. Re:DOOM and Bill Gates, LEGAL question ...? by mobby_6kl · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You mean something like this? Osama model for ut2003 (theres a screenshot on that page)

    2. Re:DOOM and Bill Gates, LEGAL question ...? by cybergrue · · Score: 1

      Hey - does this mean I can model Bill Gates' head onto the shoulders of all the monsters that I kill in Doom and Duke Nukem and all those First Person Shooter games?
      People have been doing this for as long as there were mods. One of the first replaced all the monsters in Doom with Barney the purple dinosour.

  16. American Football? by ayahner · · Score: 1
    No, no no...
    You don't understand.
    Americans invented football!
    Europeans got confused by the title when trying to play, and accidentally created a sport like football, but you use your feet almost exclusively.
    Americans correctly called this sport "Socker" which, when bare-feet was deemed a politically incorrect way to play the sport, became, "Soccer"
    Also on the "created by Americans" list:
    • INXS
    • Sushi
    • Chess
    • Shakespeare
    • War

    Although we can argue about the whole chess thing...
    1. Re:American Football? by bigman2003 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Sushi- yes, I can see how we probably invented that.

      War- hell, nobody does it better, so we were probably the first.

      INXS- the guy was banging some hot chicks before he was killed in that mob hit, so probably they were really Americans. (That was when being Australian was cool- so it was all a sham...and that whole 'hung himself' thing...lies...why would you kill yourself when you can bang hot chicks?)

      Chess - Dunno about that one, probably invented by the Ruskies, or those sneaky Asians. *SOMEBODY* was fucking with my head when they said that the horsie should go straight, then crooked, or something like that. Yeah...definetly invented by someone sneaky..probably cheaters too.

      Shakespeare- Hmm...wasn't that a combo at Long John Silvers? I think it was 'all the fish you could fit on a spear' and two crab-cakes on the side.

      --
      No reason to lie.
  17. The concern about "body parts" is understandable by BigJimSlade · · Score: 3, Informative

    While I don't have a specific reference nearby, an arcade game in the 80's did something similar with a camera for a high-score board. I'm pretty sure a number of players with the initials 'ASS' caused the demise of this product.

    You know the old saying: Those who don't learn from history will do nothing butt repeat it.

    <rimshot />

  18. JUST SAY IT by LohRhyda · · Score: 0

    VAGINA! PENIS! BOOBS! I allready have movies based on this game.

    --
    EOU
  19. Two Heads by Zevets · · Score: 1

    Finally, I can have two different big headed characters!

    --

    Mod Wisely.

  20. Non-human "faces" by J_DarkElf · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Who's to say people will stop with humans? One could easily take a pic of their cat or dog and use that as an avatar...

    And we'll see the furries on the PS2 as well.

  21. Nintendo was going to do this with by donkeyoverlord · · Score: 0

    The Gameboy camera and the game Perfect Dark for the Nintendo 64, but if I remeber correctly some school shooting went down and Nintendo backed down on the idea. I hope Sony goes along with it, while the EyeToy is great it needs some more games/uses.

  22. I own XBox and I want... by quinkin · · Score: 1
    I own XBox and I want one of the damn things...

    Gimmick schimmick. Playing tennis against your mates, facing the aliens with your little brother, videos of YOU getting air of the halfpipe at Mt Bulla, MMORPG's where you can actually create yourself (or your cat, dog, potplant, genitalia - as other posters have noted...).

    Personally, I think the head of my two year old boy would be perfect in wrestling games...

    Q.

    --
    Insert Signature Here