By Frank Caron | Published: February 23, 2008 - 08:43AM CT
The PlayStation Eye is quickly becoming one of my favorite PlayStation 3 accessories. Video chat aside, both Eye of Judgment and Trials of Topoq offer some unique and enjoyable experiences that leverage the camera's tech well while still being fun to play. Nevertheless, Sony was keen on showing that developers have only just scratched the surface. Developers were demonstrating a variety of neat tech demos at Sony's pavilion on the Expo floor at GDC.
Catching many people's eyes was a fairly accurate face recognition program. As busy attendees flocked to and fro past the camera, small rectangles outlined faces and eyes. I stood in front of the unit and my face was instantly highlighted by a rectangle which began shadowing my face. I moved slowly, then quickly, and the rectangle stayed focused.
Noticing my interest, the booth attendant asked me to stand on a star marked on the floor in front of me and then switched to an application that demonstrated the potential for face tracking-powered 3D perspective views. Much like the Wii head-tracking hack that popped up a few months ago, the camera locked onto my face, and as I moved around, it shifted the perspective of the scene.
The other camera demo was much more sophisticated. I was asked to draw a tank on a piece of paper—the turret, body, and treads separately spread out—and to mark the point of rotation with a red marker. I was then asked to draw some geometrical shapes to form a level layout. I did both quickly and then placed them in front of the PlayStation Eye.
The software scanned the images and instantly added collision detection and animation to the scene in real time: the tank I'd drawn moments ago was now controllable with the SixAxis and was quite well animated: the canon shuddered with each fired shot, the turret turned, and the treads churned.
The cartoon tank game was incredibly impressive. I asked the developer on hand if the tech demos on hand would be hitting the PlayStation Store, if only as a free way to help boost camera sales and showcase the potential. "That's not a decision I can make, unfortunately," he told me. "But we'd love to see that happen."
Filed under: PlayStation Eye, PlayStation 3, Sony, GDC 2008, Gamingmore...
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VishR
Wonderful, the next thing I've to do is to buy a PS3!
February 23, 2008 @ 09:52AM
RobsDisplayName
Like racing wheels, the PS2 HDD and so on, hardware accessories not associated with a specific software title (like the instruments for Rock Band are) almost never find widespread adoption.
Without widespread adoption, it makes very little economic sense for a game developer to spend a lot of time and money to incorporate sophisticated support for the accessory into their games.
February 23, 2008 @ 10:01AM
Pradeep
Given the affordability of the Eye camera, the fact that it allows you to do video chat, has a great microphone so you can forgo the headset, and the number of games that are designed exclusively for the Eye, both retail sales and via PSN, it looks like it has a long and successful history ahead.
February 23, 2008 @ 10:39AM
Vipre77
The description of this tech demo sounds pretty sweet. Any chance of a video being put up to see it in action?
February 23, 2008 @ 12:48PM
Moonpie
no kidding... you've got to see this to understand it.
This is what google gave me in the video category. not sure what the policy is re: urls to other sites, but here ya go.
February 23, 2008 @ 08:11PM
m56
Fish Tank FTW! No pun intended; they drew the tank as being shaped like a fish in this video. Shows the treads and turret system.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=denLFS2SxXE
February 24, 2008 @ 12:47AM
t3g
Isn't it possible to use any PC USB webcams with the PS3 (outside of Linux I mean)?
February 24, 2008 @ 01:59PM
Moonpie
While the PS3 does recognize most USB cams, even the crappy super expensive XBOX 360 one, for a lot of things you might use a cam for, you need a Playstation Eye to play the Eye games. It's not a big deal though, the eye is pretty cheap and is a very good camera for low light and fast motion.
I imagine this game, if Sony is ever smart enough to release it (and I have my doubts) would require the Eye, and probably that stand that you get with Eye of Judgment, which doesn't come with the normal Eye. Which is lame.
I use my Eye with my kids all the time for the couple of good games and to make claymation movies with playdough. It's super easy and a lot more fun than most kids games (excepting wiisports, of course).
The Eye is overlooked... some of these "non-game" features really do make the PS3 a very nice thing for kids to play with.
February 24, 2008 @ 05:28PM
Nerfgun
The funniest thing I've overheard about the Eye/tank game demo is from the (many) 1UP podcasts covering GDC... apparently the tank demo literally has "dick recognition", i.e. you can't do the thing that most fratboys would do right off the bat, which is to draw a giant dong for a tank and have them fight. I don't know how I feel about that as a policy, but I do know that I find it hysterically funny that someone in Sony's advanced tech group was tasked with making sure that this demo wouldn't allow penistanks.
http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2008/02/23/gdc-sony-shows-imaginaitive-playstation-eye-tech
