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kinects or pseye ?

kinects or pseye ?

Postby DaftKai » 25 Apr 2013, 08:33

Is there a way you could have Skyline record motion data from some kind of cheap motion capture device like m$ kinects or pseye? ( or waaay better, my HD webcam? )

Also how is the development for Skyline going? :)
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Re: kinects or pseye ?

Postby SolarPortal » 25 Apr 2013, 09:12

currently there is no other input devices except for mouse and keyboard, but we do plan on expanding so we can use steering wheels, joysticks etc...
i shall add your request to the user requests list :D

As for skyline development. We are completing up a contract to earn some money. Development should begin properly in may where our main focus is to make skyline stable in most/all features to head more for the end release goal.
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Re: kinects or pseye ?

Postby DaftKai » 25 Apr 2013, 09:33

SolarPortal wrote:As for skyline development. We are completing up a contract to earn some money. Development should begin properly in may where our main focus is to make skyline stable in most/all features to head more for the end release goal.


That great news!! :D

I would also like to suggest if I may that for helping your engine gain some additional attention; if you created a interface with at least the m$ kinects that could map the recorded motioncapture data to a exportable .bvh or .fbx single animation file then your engine would do something that literally ALL indie developers would go nuts to get.

Have a look at extacymotion and you'll no doubt notice one thing ( like some other game engines ); their development and commitment to supporting their communities seems to have faltered most disappointingly. You could rake in those communities who are looking for real support from the developers ;)

Maybe offer your "kinects intuitive recorder kit" for say $49 USD. I know about a thousand people who would go nuts for it and since they would have to use Skyline in order to use the "kirk" system then they would get very familiar with Skyline and eventually start becoming dedicated Skyline indie devs ;)

Personally I'd pay $99 but I know that most indie developers would top out at $49 for an "impulsive buy it now" vs wait for several months at the $99 price.

** this would get extraordinary popular if you allow any user to buy and use the "kirk" system to export out in those two formats then you would be a dream come true for every indie game developer. (( 1,000 sales times $49 USD == ? )) If you offer it at $39 for a limited time ( the first 30 days ) then your sales would go even more insanely great!

** if you aren't star-trek fans then maybe you could call it the "Skyline Kinects Intuitive Recorder Technology" ( SKIRT ) ?

I'm just saying.. I can't find a good "affordable" software for recording motion capture data and I thought maybe I could convince you guys to build one :!:

edit: Maybe if you had Skyline fully stable in may "then" focused on a kinects system then you could start Skyline as Beta 1 ?
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Re: kinects or pseye ?

Postby DaftKai » 25 Apr 2013, 09:56

I would be happy to alpha test this for you! :D
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Re: kinects or pseye ?

Postby SolarPortal » 25 Apr 2013, 11:00

edit: Maybe if you had Skyline fully stable in may "then" focused on a kinects system then you could start Skyline as Beta 1 ?

it may take more than May to make skyline a stable product, this is just the direction we are heading now.
Our main focus is getting skyline to a releasable point with deployment first. Skyline has to become a game engine before we can develop new and more advanced features.

Great idea though, and would be fun to make in the future. :D
It will definitely need alpha tested when made ;).

** if you aren't star-trek fans then maybe you could call it the "Skyline Kinects Intuitive Recorder Technology" ( SKIRT ) ?

We are big star trek fans, great show.
"kinects intuitive recorder kit" - KIRK, well thought name lol.

I'm just saying.. I can't find a good "affordable" software for recording motion capture data and I thought maybe I could convince you guys to build one.

Its great to get ideas, and we will try at some point.

Keep up the great thoughts :D
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Re: kinects or pseye ?

Postby SolarPortal » 25 Apr 2013, 12:12

i've been looking into this and have found a library that could plug into the ogre3D rendering pipeline.
We don't actually have any tracking devices such as MS Kinect or pseye, to test this with.

i have logged it for the future, unless anybody has any hardware they would like to donate to the cause lol. ;)
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Re: kinects or pseye ?

Postby DaftKai » 25 Apr 2013, 12:37

SolarPortal wrote:i've been looking into this and have found a library that could plug into the ogre3D rendering pipeline.
We don't actually have any tracking devices such as MS Kinect or pseye, to test this with.

i have logged it for the future, unless anybody has any hardware they would like to donate to the cause lol. ;)


"Out of curiosity" if ( and it's a decent 'if' ) i had a way to get one donated to you; which specific hardware would you need to successfully create a motion-capture system that would also export mocap data in a single-animation .fbx, bvh, or something else that could be imported into fragMotion ? 8-)
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Re: kinects or pseye ?

Postby SolarPortal » 25 Apr 2013, 13:16

"Out of curiosity" if ( and it's a decent 'if' ) i had a way to get one donated to you; which specific hardware would you need to successfully create a motion-capture system that would also export mocap data in a single-animation .fbx, bvh, or something else that could be imported into fragMotion ?


sounds like we are getting serious here ;), i am going to invest more time in researching what is required, technology involved and low end companies that already market this tech.

Here is an example from the Ogre3d(our renderer) forums.
http://www.ogre3d.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=61571

The tech required of the top of the head would be the ms kinect, as there is already a library handling this as seen in the link above.
I also believe that it exports to .bvh format (unsure atm though).

Feel free to all users to post all research you have found, or know of companies that already do this for reference and market potential.
This sounds like a great idea.

@DaftKai: If you need to PM or email me direct then please do so.
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Re: kinects or pseye ?

Postby DaftKai » 25 Apr 2013, 13:35

SolarPortal wrote:
"Out of curiosity" if ( and it's a decent 'if' ) i had a way to get one donated to you; which specific hardware would you need to successfully create a motion-capture system that would also export mocap data in a single-animation .fbx, bvh, or something else that could be imported into fragMotion ?


sounds like we are getting serious here ;), i am going to invest more time in researching what is required, technology involved and low end companies that already market this tech.

Here is an example from the Ogre3d(our renderer) forums.
http://www.ogre3d.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=61571

The tech required of the top of the head would be the ms kinect, as there is already a library handling this as seen in the link above.
I also believe that it exports to .bvh format (unsure atm though).


That guy started working for m$ in july 2012, doh! I hope that wasn't m$ trying to kill his library, lol.

http://www.ogre3d.org/forums/viewtopic. ... 71#p412486
That post shows the ogre guy moving about; I really hope we can make the motions just stay in place with a specific bone.


SolarPortal wrote:
@DaftKai: If you need to PM or email me direct then please do so.


I have an opportunity to pick one up this weekend for cheap from a friend that owes me. I'll see what I can work out and then I'll send you a PM either way :)

Thanks for researching this! :D :D
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Re: kinects or pseye ?

Postby SolarPortal » 25 Apr 2013, 13:50

That guy started working for m$ in july 2012, doh! I hope that wasn't m$ trying to kill his library, lol.

http://www.ogre3d.org/forums/viewtopic. ... 71#p412486
That post shows the ogre guy moving about; I really hope we can make the motions just stay in place with a specific bone.


lol, it just shows that it can be done though :D

Would be good to get the animations as close as possible using the kinect for mocap, but it still wont be perfect. People spend thousands on real mocap systems that probably would still take alot of effort to set up.
But that doesnt mean we can't try :D

Does the kinect need to be a pc version or does the xbox360 one work on pc aswell?

I have an opportunity to pick one up this weekend for cheap from a friend that owes me. I'll see what I can work out and then I'll send you a PM either way

ok, sounds good ;)

Thanks for researching this!

Its always great to work in a new tech area lol.
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Re: kinects or pseye ?

Postby DaftKai » 25 Apr 2013, 14:08

SolarPortal wrote:
Does the kinect need to be a pc version or does the xbox360 one work on pc aswell?


I was just noticing that myself... My friend has a 360 kinects that he offered me for payment of a debt a few weeks ago. I don't have a kinects or pseye but I looked into it and realized that even I could make simple animations myself for as little as $149 plus the cost of the hardware which many indie devs already have.

Problem is $149 is pretty steep and $49 sounds muuch better, IMHO.

I also looked into my fragMotion a bit more and I believe that to get an animation to stay in place we just set a specific bone's pos/translation offsets all to zero throughout the animation. In theory anyway :)

I am really hoping the XBOX360 kinect will work on a PC as well but honestly I have no idea or where to find out. I've read posts over the months here and there about how some people "hacked" their kinects to work on a pc but I never looked any further into it.
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Re: kinects or pseye ?

Postby SolarPortal » 25 Apr 2013, 14:16

I am really hoping the XBOX360 kinect will work on a PC as well but honestly I have no idea or where to find out. I've read posts over the months here and there about how some people "hacked" their kinects to work on a pc but I never looked any further into it.


This is currently what i am researching, as it seems by hacking your kinect you can make work with a PC.
But still more searching to do lol
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Re: kinects or pseye ?

Postby DaftKai » 25 Apr 2013, 14:36

From what I'm finding, it seems like you can connect the 360 kinect to your pc and you just need an adapter or splice on a usb cable:

here are two videos of iterest so far:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJV9vJgyJgk
( this guy said that "if you get the kinects 'stand-alone' then it comes with a usb adapter )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ver1kJKOrww
( this looks dangerous but i guess who knows )
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Re: kinects or pseye ?

Postby SolarPortal » 25 Apr 2013, 16:08

been reading into things aswell, off MSDN page,
they say its not recommended but can be used for non-commercial use. For commercial use you must use the kinect with windows.
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/kinectsdk/thread/431dbec2-3533-4444-842d-93e83fae5b2b/

( this looks dangerous but i guess who knows )

lol way to risky. Wouldn't want to muck up. (kinect down the drain.. :S )

This is for window 8, but we aren't running that. This is just useful info
http://superuser.com/questions/488489/can-the-xbox-360-kinect-work-on-windows-8-in-place-of-kinect-for-windows
one of the answers posted with

I don't know about windows 8, but I've managed to get an xbox kinect working with windows 7. I used FAAST http://projects.ict.usc.edu/mxr/faast/ to set up keyboard shortcuts. It worked either through the kinect for windows drivers or ones from OpenNI - hopefully at least one of those routes will work through windows 8.


openNI contains the drivers for kinect it seems.

i have found a couple of adaptors for the pc, they are all just for older xbox's(looking on amazon.co.uk), it looks like the adaptor is the one used in the video you sent.
Unless its just because of the USB and AC Power that lets them connect, then using OpenNI and other bits of software, it can then be utilised(hacked as people are calling it).
Choice 1: This contains a comment about it working with PC
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crown-Kinect-Sensor-Adaptor-Xbox360/dp/B004TVO4BC/ref=sr_1_4?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1366902012&sr=1-4&keywords=pc+adapter+kinect

Choice 2: Another one, but not so sure about being PC.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kinect-Sensor-Supply-Adapter-Charger/dp/B008C3EK80/ref=sr_1_2?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1366902012&sr=1-2&keywords=pc+adapter+kinect

The information is all starting to come together.

Next to look at software side, find the drivers and bits people are using to hook it up with animation.
Then i'll look into software already using these systems :D
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Re: kinects or pseye ?

Postby SolarPortal » 25 Apr 2013, 17:14

just looking at ipisoft
http://ipisoft.com/

this is incredible and can see why it costs so much lol.
it would be great if we could make this level of tech, but this is in itself a full piece of software and has probably taken years to get where it is.
Will be hard to match :)
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