Microsoft's Future of the Living Room Starring SuperTuxKart

New submitter Antoine.Stroll writes "Microsoft's concept of the living room's future doesn't include Master Chief apparently. In fact, it's starring several FOSS games including Red Eclipse and SuperTuxKart (video). Does FOSS just allow more possibilities for research and experimentation? SuperTuxKart had their 0.8 release last month. Go check out the website and download the game that Redmond's researchers couldn't resist. STK gets its Microsoft closeup at 48 seconds into the demonstration." This is the full room projection tech detailed in an earlier story about the patents Microsoft filed relating to it.

Comments

I think I saw Halo?

[Megor1]

At 55 seconds that looks like the halo shard gun or whatever it's called?

Re:I think I saw Halo?

[TheAngryMob]

As did I. Poster was a little too anxious to post, weren't they?

Re:I think I saw Halo?

[im_thatoneguy]

Definitely Halo. But it's telling that they only use the generic snow effect.

Why Open Source games? Obviously because they need a dual rendering path for the wide angle immersive projector's viewpoint as well as the high resolution HDTV viewpoint. Good luck getting Bungie to hand over the source code for Halo to work on a research lab project.

Re:I think I saw Halo?

[deadhammer]

Yes they are. And that's a huge problem if you want to look at their source code, as in Microsoft departments tend to be incredibly clannish and intra-competitive. So Microsoft Research has the following choices:

A) Spend weeks or months bickering back and forth with the gaming division for access to the Halo source code, or
B) Just grab some open source code and get on with it.

Re:I think I saw Halo?

[moogaloonie]

They have been a separate company since 2007. No doubt Microsoft does have the source to Halo as they hold the rights to the franchise.

Well it could be...

[tywjohn]

The R&D team prefer to use their money on say...R&D?

Master Chief

[Anonymous Coward]

Master Chief makes his appearance at 55 seconds into the video. If only for a second. And I'm pretty sure the "immersive" parts of it are just visual effects created for the following clip that carry over.

In their defense, it's really cool and I'm sure it's hard for even the Microsoft Research people to get access to the source code for Xbox games >.

Last thing I want

[Conchobair]

The last thing I want is Microsoft scanning my living room.

Re:Last thing I want

[ProzacPatient]

I don't know about you but I certainly don't mind if they defrag my living room!

Re:Last thing I want

[closer2it]

I don't know about you but I certainly don't mind if they defrag my living room!

I'm sorry, but in order to defrag your room is required at least 15% of free space. ;)

you had me...

[Anonymous Coward]

...at "Microsoft"

they needed source.

[gl4ss]

they needed the source code to mess around with it.. to do the outside of the screen stuff.

BUT.. if you had a projector, why the fuck use the tv.

Re:they needed source.

[SuricouRaven]

The ad appears to be showing some sort of rapid scanning and 3d compensation technology that allows for projecting an image onto a set of nonplanar surfaces (Like, say, living-room furniture) in a manner which still appears as a single coherent image when viewed from the player's position. It's a handy tech to have when you have an actual room for living in, rather than a room dedicated for gaming.

Re:they needed source.

[Immerman]

Seriously? It wasn't obvious from the video? It's a simple enough concept: TV = small area, high resolution, high color fidelity = primary vision. Projector = large area, low resolution, poor color fidelity = peripheral vision / situational awareness.

I'd been playing with such an idea for years, but never set it up for lack of games that supported multiple monitors with wildly different and overlapping fields of view. I'm glad to see someone with some clout is finally thinking about it. Of course I think I'll still be buying an Occulus Rift before a projector.

Re:they needed source.

[im_thatoneguy]

BUT.. if you had a projector, why the fuck use the tv.

Because if you had an HD projector you probably wouldn't set its FOV to be covering most of your room, you would focus it onto a narrow screen. And if you did set it to a wide angle projection the center of the screen would be very low resolution.

This is a good use of a high pixel density display in the center of your view and a low pixel display for your peripheral view where your eyes aren't very focused anyway.

Re:they needed source.

[simonbp]

And isn't it great that the creators of SuperTuxKart make that source code available. And wouldn't it be nice if Microsoft reciprocated and some of its source code available?

Re:All your IP is belong to us?

[ackthpt]

More like Microsoft may see their future survival as hinging on collaboration rather than confrontation.

Lord knows they've dropped the ball, missed the bus and done everything they can to paint themselves into a corner in the past few years.

XBox was supposed to be the gateway to them providing all the information services you need in your home (like anyone really needs to live like they would in Bruce Wayne's Bat-Cave.)

Sounds rosey, but honestly the paradigm wasn't how we used information in the house, that happened over 20 years ago, it's that we take it all with us and Apple has been eating their lunch.

Re:Low FOV

[VortexCortex]

I use a tool (glIntercept) when debugging my OpenGL products that lets me disconnect the camera and fly around in the scene, on any OGL software, even closed source. It works by pre-transforming the projection matrix, essentially creating an additional modelview matrix...

The XBox 360 inside has the same low level control over the graphics being rendered...

To make nice reflections we use something called an Environment Map, or Cube Map. It's the same sort of tech that Google Street View uses. To make a real time updating reflection where what's reflecting isn't a fixed env map, simply render the scene to a texture from the object's perspective with a 90 degree FOV in each 6 cardinal directions, and use them as the env / cube map for the object.

So, any vantage point can be converted into a full 360 degree render from that camera's position. MS could take advantage of this technology to send the images to each projector automatically, for legacy games, and/or provide an API so that devs can take advantage of the feature directly -- maybe have an equipment loadout on one wall, health display on the right, Radar on the ceiling, etc.

./supertuxkart: /lib64/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2

[hduff]

./supertuxkart: /lib64/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.15' not found (required by ./supertuxkart)

Seriously, WTF?

What is is about GLIBC_2.15 that makes it magic for opengl games? The STEAM Linux client has this requirement as well.

Re:Well, that's great, and it's a good achievement

[moogaloonie]

They should turn of skidmarks if they can't get them to emerge from the tyres for a start.

In the 3DS version of Gameloft's Asphalt, the skidmarks visibly hover above ground when 3D is on (and for some reason car shadows aren't even drawn in first person views). I've always loved the driving games in which if you do donuts in one spot, your oldest skidmarks eventually begin disappearing. I believe Asphalt3D may have this also...

Needler

[Qubit]

Don't ask me why I remember the name.....why can't I remember useful information, like my girlfriend's phone number?

Re:All your IP is belong to us?

[Mike Frett]

If I can help it, Microsoft will never be a part of my living room; or any room in my house. And yes, let's not forget how they channel money to companies to destroy FOSS while making it seem like they are not involved. That kind of behavior is unforgivable.