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EyeToy PS2 Camera To Use Digimask For 3D Faces
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."
"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"
"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!"
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.
Obviously enough time has passed that companies aren't afraid to include "shoot your friends' digitized faces!" as a packaging bullet point.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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!
They could use the same image recognition stuff that PhotoShop uses to recognize currency, and modify it to recognize other... Er, heads.
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?
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!
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:
Although we can argue about the whole chess thing...
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.
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.
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
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.
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You know the old saying: Those who don't learn from history will do nothing butt repeat it.
<rimshot
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
Finally, I can have two different big headed characters!
Mod Wisely.
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.
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.
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