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Augmented Reality Shaping the Future of Games
Slatterz writes "Microsoft's Natal can recognize a player's skeletal structure, and also perform some sophisticated translation of body physics into in-game movement. As a control mechanism this is fascinating, but the next step is to merge the game graphics with the real world. Now, basic examples of augmented reality (AR) are being shown using a mobile phone, unlike previous demos which have involved walking around with a large backpack strapped to your body. A game titled Arhrrrr blends live-action video overlaid with game graphics. The processing is taken care of by Nvidia's new Tegra platform, while the game's 'maps' are generated by pointing the phone's camera (in this case 5MP) at a 2D drawing/printout lying on a table. The end result is a 3D world which seems to spring forth in real time, with buildings popping up as players move around the game 'map.' This story shows two other interesting videos demonstrating AR, including the ability to add real-life objects into the virtual game world and have the gameplay respond and react accordingly."
I'm playing an Augmented Reality game right now. I'm driving my car, with my laptop on my lap, and my cellphone tethered to my machine. Uh oh, here comes another playe
This tech has huge potential. Just yesterday I was watching the video for the Gizmondo 'Catapult' Game. Very cool. I've been looking at virtual reality glasses, and the Vuzix VR920 is a stereoscopic headset that has 3d compatibility with some games as well as head tracking. Attach a couple of webcams and connect it to a portable computer and you can walk around viewing an augmented version of reality, such as having a Terminator-style red overlay with scrolling code and primitive object recognition as shown here. You'd look like a complete dork walking around with it in public, but it's neat tech nonetheless.
A co-worker and I were discussing how you could take a normal laser tag arena, paint all of the walls with patterns that can be recognised by intelligent systems, and combined with headsets you could have an augmented reality laser tag. In one round everything could be decorated in a futuristic theme with metal panelling, neon lights, another could be stone castle walls or a dusty Wild West theme. If the players are wearing patterned jumpsuits, you could overlay them with different skins so they appear to you as terrorists, zombies, whatever you want. You would need some pretty good tracking to calculate location so that people don't run into walls that appear further away and are able to shoot eachother with accuracy, but if implemented well it could be awesome.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
while the game's 'maps' are generated by pointing the phone's camera (in this case 5MP) at a 2D drawing/printout lying on a table.
So it takes a picture of a map and makes a ... map?
The end result is a 3D world which seems to spring forth in real time, with buildings popping up as players move around the game 'map.'
I've seen this before and it was nothing but a poorly executed gimmick.
You are seriously underestimating this. Technically, it would appear it recognizes a 2d image in 3d space, positions and orients it in that 3d space and then can displays some 3D model/animation associated with that picture. Yeah, not a technical miracle, but the biggest marvel is not what it does, but the fact it does it cheaply (processing power) and does it well.
I think their goal is to bring AR to the masses. It has a lot of applications, certainly outside of games. Did you watch the demo of them looking at the newspaper? Enhancing printed media is definitely a cool application. Imagine being able to hold your iPhone over your car manual and watch as a 3D diagram of a transmission explodes and reassembles itself. And the killer part of this is that it is running on a chip designed for phones; in other words, this is NOT one of those techs that you probably won't ever see in the real world. The demo shows it running well on a chip designed for the smart phones of TODAY. It will only take one killer app (probably not a game) and "AR" could be on millions of people's phones within a week.
Why point a device at a manual and watch the diagram? Why not watch the diagram on the device?
The tech is NOWHERE near being able to take a random 3D diagram to explode, nor will it ever be.
There is information lost in the 2D diagram.
If we're making diagrams with extra information for the reader (such as a different angle, or a colored height map or occlusion info), why not just make the fucking 3D diagram itself?
It's a neat gimmick, but it's just that. They looked at a newspaper and got... a dancing goober? A video? Why the fuck wouldn't I just go to the content directly if I had access to it?
Device points at thing.
Device recognizes thing.
Device checks database for content for thing.
Device populates content.
No content? Add gremlin for lols.
That's all the newspaper demo was.
I'd fucking just go straight to the content and skip the physical newspaper, and the dedicated device if possible.
It's neat, but it's a gimmick.
This is all just a slashvertisement for Tegra.