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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."

18 of 45 comments (clear)

  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.
  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 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.

  9. 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?
  10. 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)

  11. 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.
  12. 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.

  13. 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 />

  14. 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.