Rejoice! It’s Friday and man, it’s been a week full of great ideas from our community on how to properly implement Microsoft’s Natal into gaming. Ya know how I know??? I find myself oddly optimistic about the potential (and I stress POTENTIAL) of Natal now that I’ve spent the last week reading and posting our community’s awesome ideas and even getting feedback in this week’s edition of Gaming Matters.
Well, ending on a high note, let’s take a look at today’s Member BattleCry which comes from EBA Member Gaurro and deals with facial recognition and Natal’s potential to enhance our gaming avatar’s like never before. Check it out after the jump and then chime in with your thoughts below.
Gaurro says:
Ok, here’s my Battle Cry for Natal. As most of you I’m a little bit skeptical about its potential to be a stand alone game experience. So I thought: what about its real potential to improve our actual perception of “online play” and the way all of us interact each other on the multiplayer side of a game?
If Natal is really capable of detect our facial expressions and our voice intonation (also distinguishing our voice from someone else’s in the same room, for exemple) it could be able to transfer them into the character we are playin’ with, almost in real-time (with or without customized characters). And it would be so for all the other players around us in the game world, porting our “feelings of that moment” into games, and in combination with its microphone, making that experience much more real-life like (mimicking our personality, our way to be, even within the game). A kind of “ultimate avatar”.
I’m not sure that Natal could detect and perform a real time lip-synch right now, but a generic one (mouth open/mouth shut based on voice-tracking) in combination with facial expressions could work well though.
Developers could create a bunch of little body animations that respond to our actual behaviour and feelings (performed by the character from time to time, not always, it would be invasive) without interfering too much with the gameplay.
Now, think about your favorite multiplayer game, and all your friends you use to play with, in this kind of situation… it would be like being together in the same room and talk about shit with a beer in your hands… ok, not a beer, an AK47 more likely, but in-game. (if I close my eyes I can already visualize a digitalized Brent in all his epic barbarian rage and awesomeness! I’m going to shit my pants…)
All these things with some other “moving detection potential” (that other axe-heads keep imagining and sharing) could really be a step forward.
I’ll not play as “Marcus Fenix” anymore, he’ll play as “Me”… I think it might be awesome.
Sorry for my english, but I’m sure you get the point.
END
Yes, we do get the point and “intriguing” doesn’t quite begin to justify the level of potential you’re bringing to the table. It’s topics like this that, originating from the gamers themselves, can really help direct developers towards proper implementation and delivering the things we really wanna see out of Natal. So, anyone else have a thought on the matter/ Let us know in the comments section below and if you have a different topic or Natal suggestion, then check out this week’s Member BattleCry page to SUBMIT A NEW TOPIC:
SUBMIT YOUR MEMBER BATTLECRY IN THE COMMENTS SECTION HERE.
That’s our Friday Member BattleCry, but check out EpicBattleAxe.com throughout the weekend for any news/features updates and of course stop by soon to see what next week’s topic will be for you all to discuss!
Cheers gang,
DK
Lol talked about that in comments before but DK… if you’re still sceptic. Think about ME2 where the caracter creation would be done through the Natal Camera… you would get to really be Shepard and f*** all the blue aliens you want as yourself.
Also for DK, NHL 11 or 12! Create a player would never be seen the same! You’ll really be on the ice!
Rainbow Six Vegas (2 I think) did offer this but it was really basic.
I’m not sceptic because Natal will only expand the possiblities of gaming… Yes, There will be SHIT, but the opportunity of something potent is there.
!!NATAL FEEDBACK!!
I had an idea that would be nice to see on both NATAL and the PS3 EYE. I actually started thinking about this when I saw the Step Backwards taken with the fighting in Final Fantasy 13.
It would be nice if they took a more Devil May Cry’ish approach to Final fantasy. Using natal or the PS3 Eye you could expand the fighting experience by having the EYE or NATAL trigger spells and summons by our actual body movements. At the same time allowing the actual controller buttons to be used for different attacks. Heavy, Weak, Pop-up. It would improve upon the battle systems and make the games more interactive and in depth.
although the avatar may look like you, you have no way of representing your personality, so the character may look like you but it wouldn’t interact in the game like you would. in all honestty half life is the closest we have getten to that so far because Freeman’s personality is defined by the feedback you give to the game (which has no effect on the game of course).
i’ll conceed that for a sports game as above it would be pretty cool, but it would have to be an improvement over that boxing game that tried it, or R6V, but for a plot driven narative it would be weird having your face on a character with a totally different personality.
and seriously, how vain do you want to be?!?!
we’re just talking about a Mii, Xbox or Home avatar playing a game aren’t we? i have to say my Home avatar looked a shit load like me cos i took a lot of time and it was cool, but i then deleted Home cos, well, for obvious reasons.
2 things: i saw this fairly recent thing on TV where a chap had a several laser scans taken of his face and full body motion capture and they made a 3d avatar using 6 IR cameras and a full studio which must have cost thousands. although he was impressed to a dergee he finished off by saying “but it looks like i’ve been struck down by a 15th century pox”. and you expect Natal to be any better?
also, if you can, watch the extras on the Incredible Hulk DVD (the one with Edward Norton) and look how they did the facial motion capture. it’s freaking ace. just watch it and you’ll see why Natal won’t be able to do this to any great effect, nor any home camera.
that said Panisonic are thinking about releasing a 3D camera, it costs £20+K, not $50.
anyway you’d have to map the skin on the model to express any emotions, eye brows etc.
last post about Natal, pretty sick of it already and it ain’t even out.
Sorry Superfartburger but I’m talkin’ about a whole different thing here and I think you didn’t get my point at all.
First of all, I’m not talking about interacting with the game and its single player mode (I have your same opinion on that), when I said “perception of online play and the way all of us interact each other on the multiplayer side of a game” I meant exactly this.
Second, an avatar doesen’t have to look exactly like you to be your avatar, I wasn’t even thinking about any perfect/professional replica of yourself in the game and we’re not just talking about Mii or other avatars of that kind.
Let’s make things simple:
If Natal (as Microsoft said) could recognize you and detect your expressions and feelings from your image and your voice… just imagine yourself in front of the camera, you (your face) on a side of the screen and “Nathan Drake” on the other side… you smile/he smiles; you’re laughing/he’s laughing; you close your eyes/he closes his eyes; you open your mouth/he opens his mouth and so on.
All these kind of animations can be prerendered but in the end the character (or avatar if you wish) is mimiking you almost in real time (I think that this, with a little effort by devs, could be possible with Natal). He’s not you but he’s acting like you, he represents you and your feelings of the moment in a place where you can’t go phisically. You’ll do the rest with your own voice to let emerge your personality.
So, now imagine it in a multiplayer game where you and other people are talking each other, all of yours avatar are mimiking each one of you (you are talking, they’re talking too in-game with expressions and all).
Take Gears of War: you and your buddy are under cover, he’s saying that he can easily snipe that guy before he does… you bet he can’t (while you’re chatting, your characters are doing the same)… so he exposes himself to aim and dies miserably, you start to laugh (your character too). With his brain at your feet you say: “Oh my God! I knew it”, Natal recognize this simple sentence (and your intonation) and your character puts an hand on his face while laughing.
This was just an example.
If natal can do the things they say it can do, then this won’t be any problem.
Man, there’s been alot of awesome ideas. The game developers should really take a look on what we’re writing. But they most likely will not.
The sad part is that the game developers is not eager to make a great game anymore, but to make money…
Sounds like a good plan but its sounding a lot like the other member battlecries on the subject in that it lowers natal to a sort of peripheral like your xbox live headset or a webcam on your computer; you don’t use it to game, but it could enrich your experience, especially online (where all of this data transmitting could have the potential for awesomeness). Only hitch I see is that not everyone has the internet speed to do all this crap, I can barely keep a decent ping playing HoN!