Slashdot Mirror
Tracking Gaming Stats With Video Capture Devices
galtish writes "M. Schrag has put together an amazing PC stat tracking system called 'Soul Calimeter' for use with the GameCube version of fighting game Soul Calibur II. The software is as yet unreleased, but uses a cheap video capture card to analyze the video feed from the console and create a stat database. It's not just stats, there's also a web browser-based front-end for analyzing the stats and starting circuit matches, and voice synthesis using AT&T Natural Voices for in-game commentaries on the action. His website includes pics of the stats screens, and samples of the synthesized audio commentary. Pretty sweet - I'd love something like this for the weekly Halo LAN matches..."
http://www.schaefer.nu/mirrors/homepage.mac.com/ms chrag/SoulCalimeter/
While his project is altogether useless and probably a complete waste of time, the site is well-documented, well written, and the project is very high in hack-value. More stories like this, please!
Obviously this is just the first step of this project. It looks like they can identify characters and health meters, as well as winners and losers, however the next obvious step is to identify moves on-the-fly so that a running commentary can be played. Also, since they are running video capture HW/SW, they could even have their epic fights saved and played back with computer commentary. Now that would be geeky!
I have been pwned because my
Running commentary on everything that happens in the office? Priceless!
"Hey, man, another coffee?"
"Hey, Aztec, you scored good in that meeting. Give ya a kickdrop and a sideswing. Need more stamina though..."
"Hey, Sandy, nice skirt you're wearing there! You already got ten eyeballs."
"Hey... WTF!? You can't unplug m-/$!
Ceci n'est pas une signature
the project is very high in hack-value
Wouldn't it be higher in hack-value if their method was to track the game's internal variables directly rather than trying to digitize the video feed and backward-engineer the variables?
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Reading the descriptions, it watches the health bars and the squares at the character select screen. Which would be simple enough image detection, since they're always in the same x,y coordinates.
It would be really cool if it could grok the movements of the fighters and say things like "Kilik delivers a fierce scissor-kick to an uppercut combo!".. But you cant have everything.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I must turn off my PS2 for playing Strip Poker!
What would be convenient would be something like this, but for playing poker for $$$ online. So the computer can advise (or even play for you).
"I advise you fold this marginal hand."
"There is a 45% chance that this opponent is bluffing."
etc.
This is a great idea. We were just thinking the other day about a video capture based stat tracking system for our Halo LAN matches. Sometimes large portions of our potential Halo-playing time are taken up by arguments about team balancing (AKA "team wanking"), but if a computer could analyze the stats and make balanced teams for us we wouldn't have to worry about that anymore. Stats on who's best/worst at killing who, and with what weapons, would be really interesting. Plus the automated trash talking would be great fun! Having a robotic voice affirm your greatness after you get a triple killtacular would just be that much more awesome :-)
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
Wow. As an avid Soul Calibur fan whose roommate is always talking trash, it'd be nice to have some hard stats to back up the asskickings.
If these guys don't make any movements towards sharing this with the general public, I very well may have to work on hacking up something like this myself.
If only they had bigger breasts. I'd buy it then.
"Saddam Hussein cavorts with terrorists."
Not really. This way its completely unintrusive. Indeed, even if there were different builds of the game, as long as the user experience was unaltered the hack would continue to work. That's a good thing.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
His website includes pics of ...
I'm giving it 5 minutes.
If you have never heard what AT&T Natural Voices sound like you should listen to the demos. I first discovered these over two years ago and although they haven't changed that much quality wise, they are the best synthesized voices I have ever heard.
-- paper
But then again, I guess that title works too, huh?
In the (sadly few) posts in this story I see an amazingly underwelming response to this achievement which, personally, I find rather amazing. Maybe it's because I've worked with image processing (CISP at Lockheed Martin during college) and appreciate how damn difficult reliable image recognition is, even when recognizing sub-images from a fixed (but still decently large) selection of image inputs.
/. in months. This is excellent work to solve a technically difficult problem in an unorthodox (and risky, in terms of complexity) way, and they do it with style (the commentary stuff is mint) and extensibility (the API is very open FWICT.) The only thing I lament is a lack of more detail (maybe that's the problem?), but I think the site has switched to simple static pages to minimize the slashdot effect (though probably not needed in this case) and I expect to be able to find more details
on a later visit.
IMHO this is one of the most clever and thorough hackings I've read about on
And I'm afraid I must disagree with your notion that somehow it is a shame that it was so difficult to do. Necessity is the mother of invention, and here it shows (and pays off) in spades. What, are we supposed to rally against Nintendo (and all console makers, for that matter) for failing to provide a port with some open API to scan internal game variables? Frankly, I'd be way less impressed were they to in fact do that by either hacking onto the motherboard electrically, or worse running the game on an emulator (MAME or such) and peeking at RAM.
Nothing like making a developer's life hell by making them interface it like this.
Eh? These are not "developers" and no console maker expects antyone to want (much less implement) anything like this! They are hackers!
Again, I just want to say that I think this is one of the most underrated and under-commented yet excellent stories I've read here in a long time, and I plan to revisit the site later to learn more. This may be applicable to many other things from security cameras and home automation to MythTV-type device commercial skipping.
Then again, maybe I just don't realize how easy it is to do real-time image processing with object recognition in a reliable way using cheap under $50 capture cards on a 1GHz Athlon these days. Were that the case, though, I'd expect to read more about such efforts. This is a first for me.
Thanks for reading. And no, I do not know the authors(s) and I've never heard of this until now.
everything in moderation
Documented proof of my ass getting kicked.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
When I first saw this earlier today I was completely amazed and excited. I happen to have a GameCube, and I love Soul Calibur II. I noticed that you couldn't download this thing, but didn't make much of it. I had contemplated emailing them to see if I could get a copy, or whatever, but then decided against it.
But the more I've been thinking about this, I'm really starting to think this is a hoax. Think about it: how many times have you seen something home-grown like this and not been able to download anything? Not the app, not the source code, nothing. It's usually the reason these things get web pages to begin with. Why brag about it if you aren't going to distribute it, or at least sell it. All we have for proof are some screen shots and some wav files.
I guess I don't really have proof that it's fake other than a feeling. It just seems like this is a rather over-the-top way of dealing with the problem. The update he provided after getting on Slashdot about buying iButtons and talking about wireless connectivity with a Zaurus seems even more fake to me.
Forget the whales - save the babies.
You're writing software to measure Soul Caliber. WHY isn't it called Soul Caliper?
Trees can't go dancing
So do them a big favor
Pretend dancing stinks!
The reason why there are so few comments posted is that everyone is still busy installing Linux on a dead badger.
Jeez, if there is one thing I hate about American society it's Trash Talk. Mindless (and usually entirely unjustifiable) braggadocio about imagined violent acts, usually done by pasty-faced milquetoasts as an accompaniment to something as far away from actual physical exertion as possible, like video games or pool, or attached to something like wrestling where it is even more ludicrous as the results are predetermined.
Mind you, I think I have just been traumatised by my last visit to America where I went to an internet cafe to read my webmail and had to sit beside about twenty 12 year olds literally screaming trash talk at each other as they played counterstrike. *Shudder*