[sldev] Body motion and facial expression tracking, Microsoft did it

[Philippe Bossut (Merov Linden)]

+1 on everything you said Ron. Spot on.

On the 6-8 feet of space, this is indeed a critical technical aspect  
of all those demos. Making the 3D reading work in the crammed space of  
a typical cubicle setting is very challenging.

Cheers,
- Merov

On Jun 2, 2009, at 8:02 AM, Ron Blechner wrote:

> Remember Microsoft Table? *grin*
>
> Whether the videos were demos ("fake") or whether they were proof of
> concept but functional, one thing I haven't seen pointed out is that
> the videos are filmed in a giant living room. I enjoy playing Wii
> games, which require 6 - 8 feet or so of space, and I'll quietly gripe
> about having to move a piece of furniture to get proper Wii bowling
> space. We all dream of the future "Virtual reality room" (a la
> Fahrenheit 451 or Star Trek: TNG) where the entire room is your
> entertainment space, but let's face it - this is a pretty high-end
> solution for short periods of simulation. Would you want to be
> standing up and using Second Life for more than half an hour? An hour,
> perhaps, if you're at a dance club maybe?
>
> Second Life is not a game platform; it's a 3-D metaverse platform. The
> distinction being that it's meant for a broader variety of uses, and
> doesn't have the optimizations and features that a strong game
> platform would really require. We don't generally log onto Second Life
> to go play soccer or space invaders; we log on to socialize, check out
> immersive educational and marketing spaces, to create, etc. And we do
> them all in this social, multi-user environment. This is key.
>
> Facial expressions and simple gestures are far, far more important
> than full-body simulation. Our common interactions in-world won't be
> enhanced a whole lot by being able to accurately show how badly I can
> dance in meatspace. It will, however, be greatly enhanced if my facial
> expressions can be simply translated to my avatar. It's this immersion
> building and person-to-person communication that's so key. And that's
> why I cheer on Philip when he notes: "Many of the same tricks can be
> done using a macbook or webcam, and that is what we are inspired about
> right now." Focusing on developing tech when a person is *sitting
> down* at their desk and from the shoulders up is absolutely a
> benefit-rich area to focus development on. I've encouraged Linden Lab,
> blogged about it, and will continue to wave the banner for this
> technology and implementation with Second Life.
>
> Regards,
>
> Ron / Hiro
>
> -- 
> Ron Blechner
> Chief Technology Officer
> Involve, Inc
> www.involve3d.com
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 9:09 AM, Soft <soft at lindenlab.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 7:49 AM, Carlo Wood <carlo at alinoe.com> wrote:
>>> On Mon, Jun 01, 2009 at 11:51:22PM -0700, Philippe Bossut (Merov  
>>> Linden) wrote:
>>>> calibration. Also note that the videos by MS are *not* demos (i.e.
>>>> live effective code) but staged shooting.
>>>
>>> I didn't want to mention that... but I bet that those videos are
>>> plain FAKE. Those are actors that trained to do those movements,
>>> and had to redo them many times before they got it to look a bit
>>> realistic (and still fail).
>>>
>>> I'm sure they got something to work, but those videos are not
>>> prove of how it will feel or be in reality imho.
>>
>> The first is labeled as a conceptualization (lower left toward the
>> start). The second video looks realistic to me. Note the lag and
>> wobbly positioning. They're not bad, but the first video would make
>> one think that MS had solved some problems usually solved with a  
>> bunch
>> of high precision cameras and dozens of infrared markers.
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