Forum Discussion
Mad Genius Motion Capture System proof-of-concept prototype
What technology does Mad Genius Motion Capture System proof-of-concept prototype break-apart game controller use?
http://madgeniuscontrollers.tumblr.com
https://twitter.com/madgeniuscntrl
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R15NhJyPEc
Quote: "Skyrim Motion Sensitive Gaming with the Mad Genius Motion Capture System
Published on May 7, 2013
This is the proof-of-concept prototype of the Mad Genius Motion Capture System working with Skyrim on an XBox360. It is a game controller that can act as a standard controller and/or a motion sensitive controller. It has unprecedented tracking accuracy of +/- 1/100th of an inch.
The game controller in the video is only the proof-of-concept prototype. The final version will be wireless--there will be no cables from the controller.
Motion gaming can be added to any game, even if the game wasn't written for motion controller. It works with any gaming system--XBox, XBox 360, PS1, PS2, PS3, Wii, Nintendo, or PC. Add motion capture to any game, even if it's ten years old! Dig up your old games and play them again in a whole new way!
The XBox360 in the video has not been modified in any way. The Skyrim game software has not been modified in any way.
We'll be doing a Kickstarter to produce a finished, wireless version. Right now we're trying to get the word out. When we get it going we'll let everyone know!
This is just a sneak peak at some of its capabilities. Subscribe to be notified as more videos are uploaded!
Follow us at https://twitter.com/madgeniuscntrl
UPDATE: The time delay between moving the controller and swinging the sword or warhammer is part of Skyrim. It's not a delay in the controller. The controller fires the command as soon as the player has done the motion.
The same thing happens when you use the trigger on a "normal" controller. In Skyrim heavier weapons take longer to swing so the warhammer takes longer to swing than the sword. The trigger press on a "normal" controller or the player's motion STARTS the swing. The weapon takes time to move and this is part of the Skyrim software. It's not a delay in the controller response.
We'll be doing a response video in the next few days to address this question in more detail and answer others as well. Post any questions you have and we'll answer as many as we can."
http://madgeniuscontrollers.tumblr.com
https://twitter.com/madgeniuscntrl
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R15NhJyPEc
Quote: "Skyrim Motion Sensitive Gaming with the Mad Genius Motion Capture System
Published on May 7, 2013
This is the proof-of-concept prototype of the Mad Genius Motion Capture System working with Skyrim on an XBox360. It is a game controller that can act as a standard controller and/or a motion sensitive controller. It has unprecedented tracking accuracy of +/- 1/100th of an inch.
The game controller in the video is only the proof-of-concept prototype. The final version will be wireless--there will be no cables from the controller.
Motion gaming can be added to any game, even if the game wasn't written for motion controller. It works with any gaming system--XBox, XBox 360, PS1, PS2, PS3, Wii, Nintendo, or PC. Add motion capture to any game, even if it's ten years old! Dig up your old games and play them again in a whole new way!
The XBox360 in the video has not been modified in any way. The Skyrim game software has not been modified in any way.
We'll be doing a Kickstarter to produce a finished, wireless version. Right now we're trying to get the word out. When we get it going we'll let everyone know!
This is just a sneak peak at some of its capabilities. Subscribe to be notified as more videos are uploaded!
Follow us at https://twitter.com/madgeniuscntrl
UPDATE: The time delay between moving the controller and swinging the sword or warhammer is part of Skyrim. It's not a delay in the controller. The controller fires the command as soon as the player has done the motion.
The same thing happens when you use the trigger on a "normal" controller. In Skyrim heavier weapons take longer to swing so the warhammer takes longer to swing than the sword. The trigger press on a "normal" controller or the player's motion STARTS the swing. The weapon takes time to move and this is part of the Skyrim software. It's not a delay in the controller response.
We'll be doing a response video in the next few days to address this question in more detail and answer others as well. Post any questions you have and we'll answer as many as we can."
19 Replies
- I wasn't able to watch the video with sound, but I'll take a stab at how it works from what I can see...
Xbox Controller Input Emulation with magnetic tracking accomplished by a Single Coil+IMU in each controller. The IMU gets orientation and compensates for rotation when reading the analog signal from the coil. I say magnetic because of the base station on top of the TV, the seeming lack of optical fiducials on the controller, and the thick wires leading from the controller to that monstrous DAC unit. I say one coil because the black cylinder on the controller looks like one large coil, and it wouldn't be very patentable if it used three. EDIT: I also just noticed that the black cylinder is separated from the controller to reduce magnetic interference.
These are the unlikely theories:
Or it could be that the black cylinder is an IR fiduciary and you've hidden two small cameras really well in the base station.
Or the base station has one camera, and gets the z depth of the fiducial by comparing the velocity of the fiducial (in the camera) to the velocity of the fiducial as reported by an IMU on the controller using parallax.
Maybe something fun is happening where one controller is the magnetic transmitter, and the other is a receiver, and it gets the relative positions of the controllers. But that wouldn't need a base station on the TV.
Anyway, I'm really interested in price. How much? Right now it looks a heck of a lot more expensive than a Hydra, but the range is quite a bit better. Single coil
Good eye, I was guessing a disembodied Hydra stuffed into a 360 controller shell.
Current guesses:
1) Single coil sensor, single emitter-triplet, using IMU to guess orientation of sensor in order to infer range from emitter.
2) Single coil emitter, multiple sensors (maybe those copper-ish objects arranged around the TV?), using time-delay or relative field strength to detect orientation and position.- I don't think you can modulate a coil fast enough to do ToF on the magnetic field. However, I didn't see those other those things around the TV, but they very well could be for measuring field strength too.
As a side thought, it would be funny if they used an IMU to manipulate servos to orient a coil in the transmitter so it matches the orientation of the coil in the controller :lol: - Hmm, they said in their twitter feed that "the only magnets involved are the ones that hold the controllers together". Does that rule out electromagnets or magnetic positioning? Possibly. Krenzo has a promising RF tracking system (another thread here in VR Inputs), but I don't like the sound of that. Those things on the controllers are just too funky to be antennae, IR LEDs, or really accurate IMUs.
Perhaps they're detecting the minute gravitational fluctuations as you move your controller around. :lol:
I'm also wondering why they seem to be focusing on console input emulation. You automagically lose any absolute positioning benefits you might have by pumping the data through controller inputs. Perhaps it's a new dead-reckoning system (that's not inertial) which would mean that it's still useless for head tracking.
... I forgot about sonar, but somehow I feel like that would be a horrible idea as well. - Those totally look like coils on top, and there seems to be a wire that runs to them.
- That's a nicely thought out controller.
I think we'll start seeing alot of development on controllers/interfaces now that the rift is coming out.
Graphics technology has finally gotten to a point that it's very passable for immersion ... time for interfaces! - The latency is pretty insane. Unless heavily optimised (which admittedly is entirely possible) positional tracking using this would give you motion sickness in seconds I would think. Just look at the jumping part :)
- That latency looks primarily to be from Skyrim's handling of animation states. Skyrim was not designed to be used with motion controllers.
"edzieba" wrote:
Single coil
Current guesses:
1) Single coil sensor, single emitter-triplet, using IMU to guess orientation of sensor in order to infer range from emitter.
2) Single coil emitter, multiple sensors (maybe those copper-ish objects arranged around the TV?), using time-delay or relative field strength to detect orientation and position.
It looks like they are just tracking position, nothing in the video showed any orientation tracking.- They have posted another video now answering some questions regarding perceived lag / latency in the Skyrim video.
It basically explain their motion capture system have low lag, only perceived high due to Skyrim's animation/gameplay, and if native motion capture module and API was added into game engines then the lag would be much less than this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY2blRzi6mU"Drigien" wrote:
That may be, however unlikely, I do not think they would go though all that and not also offer orientation tracking too.
It looks like they are just tracking position, nothing in the video showed any orientation tracking.
In any case, Oculus Rift existing sensors already support orientation tracking, only missing absolute position tracking.
