5 ms·

Microsoft’s ‘RoomAlive’ transforms any room into a giant Xbox game

102 points by kenrick95 12y ago

ekianjo 12y ago
Interesting project, but projectors always have the issues that they project shadows as well and unless you have every area filled in a redundant way, you will end up breaking the illusion when you enter the room and project your own shadow. On top of that, I am not sure if there's much to do, game-wise, in such an environment. EDIT: I'd be more excited with Full Room VR experience, using Kinect devices everywhere to detect your movements, hands and so on.
- Alterlife 12y ago
  The shadows would not break immersion if they are part of the game. Either a significant part, such as the shadow is a representation of the player which needs to dodge light bullets.. Even if the shadows are not a significant part of the game, the player character and all the objects in the room both projected and real need to have a shadow in the game world. Instead of the computer having to calculate and render every shadow the projectors will take care of the shadows for the real objects as a side-effect.
  - ekianjo 12y ago
    > Instead of the computer having to calculate and render every shadow the projectors will take care of the shadows for the real objects as a side-effect. I'm not convinced, since the abundance of projectors around the scene is going to create multiple shadows all around - therefore you do have a problem of an innatural amount of shadows, just like on a football field at a night game, with 6 or more shadows around a single person.
- cm127 12y ago
  Even more distracting than the shadows would be the fixed perspective. Unless you include some form of head tracking, the immersion will never feel real. Unfortunately, it'll limit one person per room. Classic example of head tracking: http://youtu.be/Jd3-eiid-Uw http://youtu.be/Jd3-eiid-Uw
  - baddox 12y ago
    Using the same idea as 3D projection, you could support multiple people per room, but with reduced frame rate and the requirement that they wear glasses.
  - kevingadd 12y ago
    With 6 kinects in a reasonable configuration, I imagine you could achieve some decent head tracking. Probably not good enough to be convincing, though.
- soylentcola 12y ago
  There are a couple of dev teams working on something similar with Kinect(s) and Oculus Rift. The two main applications I've seen are VR "movies" that would record a scene with both video and depth information which would allow you to walk around in a recorded "scene" as it plays back. The other is focused on using depth cameras to capture depth and video information and then compress and transmit it to create a more immersive form of telepresence. I think that sort of thing is a much "bigger" application of VR technology than the gaming focus that it's starting out with. Gaming makes sense as a starting point since there are already engines and frameworks in place for generating 3d content that can be rendered from different angles to create the 3d illusion. Still, I look at it like the early nickelodeons and parlor games seen at the advent of motion pictures. I think it will be much more useful when you can place small, inexpensive depth cameras near the top of each wall of a room (for example) and use that to capture depth and video information. That could be used to build a real-time 3d map of a room and people in the room and used in recorded or live communication. I think it's already at the point where this stuff can be done in a prototype form but as head-mounted displays and processing hardware is refined, it will be able to move from something requiring ski goggles and beefy workstations to streamlined specs and consumer-electronics base station appliances.
leoc 12y ago
Looks like a poor man's CAVE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_automatic_virtual_environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_automatic_virtual_environ... for your bedroom. They should have called it the ManCAVE. ;)
craz 12y ago
Maybe not as a gaming experience. But this could be super cool in the kitchen. Imagine having your recipe or cooking video projected onto the bench or wall and follow you around as you prepare the meal. No more worrying about getting food on your laptop.
- ChuckMcM 12y ago
  You realize of course that 'in the kitchen with recipes' is like the Cold Fusion of computers right? Ever since Altair first talked about "your very own microcomputer" there has been a "and you can have all your recipes at your fingertips in the kitchen" meme to go along with it. And it has never happened. Seriously, its like the anti-app or something.
  - craz 12y ago
    Is it really that far-flung of an idea? A modern tablet will get you 90% of the way there. Google Glass would get you the rest.
    - ChuckMcM 12y ago
      No not a far-flung idea, and I would agree the iPad (or perhaps simply tablets) are perhaps the most successful here[1]. The observation though is that it is almost always thrown out there as the thing that it going to be really killer and it never is that thing. The Honeywell advertisement is a great example. [1] My wife would use her iPad more for this if she could write notes on it. I'm looking at a Note pro for that application, and of course being able to pull up info from the filer rather than the 'cloud'.
  - Alterlife 12y ago
    It has already happened. My wife uses an ipad rather than a cook-book in the kitchen all the time. Besides, no well prepared meal is complete without a pic of the completed work uploaded to facebook :-) .
    - prawn 12y ago
aaron695 12y ago
Obvious game killing issues - Any game that would be fun to play would be too dangerous to sell. I can't see it narratively being more immersive than a simple computer screen/tv. To much disjoint from things in the room/3D open space would stop that hypnotic state people get when concentrating on a screen. Applications outside games might be interesting. Commercial venues for interactive stories perhaps.
higherpurpose 12y ago
This doesn't look anywhere near as immersive as VR.
TeMPOraL 12y ago
I want that for our Hackerspace. It reminds me of the recent Bret Victor's talk, "Seeing Spaces". http://vimeo.com/97903574 http://vimeo.com/97903574 http://s3.amazonaws.com/worrydream.com/SeeingSpaces/SeeingSpaces.pdf http://s3.amazonaws.com/worrydream.com/SeeingSpaces/SeeingSp...
tuxidomasx 12y ago
How will they handle someone casually looking up/around? I have a projector and sometimes I accidentally walk infront of it, facing the bulb. The light is unpleasant when shone directly into the eyes.
higherpurpose 12y ago
Since when is TheVerge a good source for HN? (just as it's starting to get hated in others places - Reddit - no less)
mratzloff 12y ago
And you only need six projectors, six Kinects, and all light-colored surfaces!
ctaglia 12y ago
This reminds me a black mirror episode!

102 points by kenrick95 12y ago

Interesting project, but projectors always have the issues that they project shadows as well and unless you have every area filled in a redundant way, you will end up breaking the illusion when you enter the room and project your own shadow. On top of that, I am not sure if there's much to do, game-wise, in such an environment. EDIT: I'd be more excited with Full Room VR experience, using Kinect devices everywhere to detect your movements, hands and so on.

Alterlife 12y ago
The shadows would not break immersion if they are part of the game. Either a significant part, such as the shadow is a representation of the player which needs to dodge light bullets.. Even if the shadows are not a significant part of the game, the player character and all the objects in the room both projected and real need to have a shadow in the game world. Instead of the computer having to calculate and render every shadow the projectors will take care of the shadows for the real objects as a side-effect.
- ekianjo 12y ago
  > Instead of the computer having to calculate and render every shadow the projectors will take care of the shadows for the real objects as a side-effect. I'm not convinced, since the abundance of projectors around the scene is going to create multiple shadows all around - therefore you do have a problem of an innatural amount of shadows, just like on a football field at a night game, with 6 or more shadows around a single person.
cm127 12y ago
Even more distracting than the shadows would be the fixed perspective. Unless you include some form of head tracking, the immersion will never feel real. Unfortunately, it'll limit one person per room. Classic example of head tracking: http://youtu.be/Jd3-eiid-Uw http://youtu.be/Jd3-eiid-Uw
- baddox 12y ago
  Using the same idea as 3D projection, you could support multiple people per room, but with reduced frame rate and the requirement that they wear glasses.
- kevingadd 12y ago
  With 6 kinects in a reasonable configuration, I imagine you could achieve some decent head tracking. Probably not good enough to be convincing, though.
soylentcola 12y ago
There are a couple of dev teams working on something similar with Kinect(s) and Oculus Rift. The two main applications I've seen are VR "movies" that would record a scene with both video and depth information which would allow you to walk around in a recorded "scene" as it plays back. The other is focused on using depth cameras to capture depth and video information and then compress and transmit it to create a more immersive form of telepresence. I think that sort of thing is a much "bigger" application of VR technology than the gaming focus that it's starting out with. Gaming makes sense as a starting point since there are already engines and frameworks in place for generating 3d content that can be rendered from different angles to create the 3d illusion. Still, I look at it like the early nickelodeons and parlor games seen at the advent of motion pictures. I think it will be much more useful when you can place small, inexpensive depth cameras near the top of each wall of a room (for example) and use that to capture depth and video information. That could be used to build a real-time 3d map of a room and people in the room and used in recorded or live communication. I think it's already at the point where this stuff can be done in a prototype form but as head-mounted displays and processing hardware is refined, it will be able to move from something requiring ski goggles and beefy workstations to streamlined specs and consumer-electronics base station appliances.

leoc 12y ago

Looks like a poor man's CAVE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_automatic_virtual_environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_automatic_virtual_environ... for your bedroom. They should have called it the ManCAVE. ;)

craz 12y ago

Maybe not as a gaming experience. But this could be super cool in the kitchen. Imagine having your recipe or cooking video projected onto the bench or wall and follow you around as you prepare the meal. No more worrying about getting food on your laptop.

ChuckMcM 12y ago
You realize of course that 'in the kitchen with recipes' is like the Cold Fusion of computers right? Ever since Altair first talked about "your very own microcomputer" there has been a "and you can have all your recipes at your fingertips in the kitchen" meme to go along with it. And it has never happened. Seriously, its like the anti-app or something.
- craz 12y ago
  Is it really that far-flung of an idea? A modern tablet will get you 90% of the way there. Google Glass would get you the rest.
  - ChuckMcM 12y ago
    No not a far-flung idea, and I would agree the iPad (or perhaps simply tablets) are perhaps the most successful here[1]. The observation though is that it is almost always thrown out there as the thing that it going to be really killer and it never is that thing. The Honeywell advertisement is a great example. [1] My wife would use her iPad more for this if she could write notes on it. I'm looking at a Note pro for that application, and of course being able to pull up info from the filer rather than the 'cloud'.
- Alterlife 12y ago
  It has already happened. My wife uses an ipad rather than a cook-book in the kitchen all the time. Besides, no well prepared meal is complete without a pic of the completed work uploaded to facebook :-) .
  - prawn 12y ago

aaron695 12y ago

Obvious game killing issues - Any game that would be fun to play would be too dangerous to sell. I can't see it narratively being more immersive than a simple computer screen/tv. To much disjoint from things in the room/3D open space would stop that hypnotic state people get when concentrating on a screen. Applications outside games might be interesting. Commercial venues for interactive stories perhaps.

higherpurpose 12y ago

This doesn't look anywhere near as immersive as VR.

TeMPOraL 12y ago

I want that for our Hackerspace. It reminds me of the recent Bret Victor's talk, "Seeing Spaces". http://vimeo.com/97903574 http://vimeo.com/97903574 http://s3.amazonaws.com/worrydream.com/SeeingSpaces/SeeingSpaces.pdf http://s3.amazonaws.com/worrydream.com/SeeingSpaces/SeeingSp...

tuxidomasx 12y ago

How will they handle someone casually looking up/around? I have a projector and sometimes I accidentally walk infront of it, facing the bulb. The light is unpleasant when shone directly into the eyes.

higherpurpose 12y ago

Since when is TheVerge a good source for HN? (just as it's starting to get hated in others places - Reddit - no less)

mratzloff 12y ago

And you only need six projectors, six Kinects, and all light-colored surfaces!

ctaglia 12y ago

This reminds me a black mirror episode!