So after heading into uni today...talked to the tutors about the bugs I had with my headtracking.
The bugs were nothing too drastic, but after a few if's and but's, and brainstorming I will be using headtracking with a panorama of a 3D orchestra rather than a realtime 3D environment.
this was due to three main points...
1. A panorama is easier to set up, and because a conductor does not walk through his orchestra it would still seem real as the camera would still change depending on where you look.
2. By using a panorama I get more time to work on the interaction and feedback aspect of the project. Which will be good for the critique in two weeks...
3. Using real time 3D constructed graphics from papervision was lagging up the application too much.
So thus decided to use a panorama...
How to go about it...
Well, originally i had a panoramic picture of an orchestra, however it was relatively hard to set up in paper vision properly as it was a cylindrical based panorama. Which would be alright, except papervision is still in strong development mode, the cylinder still needs some work...
One thing that was stable was a sphere in papervision...Once again, i would need a spherical panorama rather than a cylindrical one... It was then I noticed that 3DS max has an export to panorama feature...
However, after finding it too tedious to set up a spherical panorama within flash, I decided to go with something more stable...A cube
The cube was a smart choice, it was simple to set up, easy to apply the panorama, and when i did a test run with the camera looking over it...IT LOOKED REALLY GOOD!...
I will be posting some pictures on Friday, as well as some 3D renders of my mock up orchestra...
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Getting the IR info into my app
Okay, After connecting the wiimotes I needed it to tell my flash app where the IR points are...
I originally intended to use an open source flash library called google code wiiflash link
At first glance, it seemed awesome, which it is, however, I had far too many troubles getting it to read Infra Red Input. The
buttons, rumble, LED's and sound functions worked fine... just not the IR, which is unfortunately essential, so after seeing many examples of working wiimote apps i decided to go with what they were using...
THey were all using the wiimotelib library developed for C#
Not knowing much about C# was a small downer... but there was far more support and pre-made GUI's for it so it turned out to be a more stable option.
The problem was that i was making the application in flash, not C# and had to somehow get the info from C# over to flash in realtime so I could utilize it properly... along comes dekker who, and I quote.. "Wow, I can't believe how fun this is"... Im glad he had fun coding it...because it pretty much broke my brain...
Essentially the solution was a client/server in which C# would send over the IR info via a socket and the Flash app would read it...
this is the C# app i ended up using, it is from this site and, although it reads all input, I just have it sending the IR info over to Flash...
Picture of it in action(the colored dots are the IR from a wii sensor bar plus a calculated middle point)...
And this is a picture of the flash app in action with headtracking, at the moment it is just a bunch of planes i threw in using papervision3D...
It is still quite a bit buggy, but then again, that is just a quick and dirty "See if there are any communication errors" app.
Essentially there are two main bugs on my flash side, one being that it zooms in as you walk away...easily fixed by reversing the zoom math in the code.
The other bug being that i have not synced it to my stage properly, also easily fixed by some simple maths relative to the stage size...
All in all, this week has been ridiculously productive, I will have the headtracking working properly by Friday the 29th of August, so watch this spot :D
I originally intended to use an open source flash library called google code wiiflash link
At first glance, it seemed awesome, which it is, however, I had far too many troubles getting it to read Infra Red Input. The
buttons, rumble, LED's and sound functions worked fine... just not the IR, which is unfortunately essential, so after seeing many examples of working wiimote apps i decided to go with what they were using...
THey were all using the wiimotelib library developed for C#
Not knowing much about C# was a small downer... but there was far more support and pre-made GUI's for it so it turned out to be a more stable option.
The problem was that i was making the application in flash, not C# and had to somehow get the info from C# over to flash in realtime so I could utilize it properly... along comes dekker who, and I quote.. "Wow, I can't believe how fun this is"... Im glad he had fun coding it...because it pretty much broke my brain...
Essentially the solution was a client/server in which C# would send over the IR info via a socket and the Flash app would read it...
this is the C# app i ended up using, it is from this site and, although it reads all input, I just have it sending the IR info over to Flash...
Picture of it in action(the colored dots are the IR from a wii sensor bar plus a calculated middle point)...
And this is a picture of the flash app in action with headtracking, at the moment it is just a bunch of planes i threw in using papervision3D...
It is still quite a bit buggy, but then again, that is just a quick and dirty "See if there are any communication errors" app.
Essentially there are two main bugs on my flash side, one being that it zooms in as you walk away...easily fixed by reversing the zoom math in the code.
The other bug being that i have not synced it to my stage properly, also easily fixed by some simple maths relative to the stage size...
All in all, this week has been ridiculously productive, I will have the headtracking working properly by Friday the 29th of August, so watch this spot :D
Syncing the wiimotes
Okay, so my first main task is to implement headtracking.
For those who dont know, Head-Tracking uses two IR sources and a wiimote.
The wiimote tells the computer the location of the IR points and changes the
view perspective on screen.
I will get into the code side later but first to set up the bluetooth connection with my laptop...
Although I hear great things about bluesoleil, due
to complications with vista, I went back to a standard Toshiba Stack.
After installing the stack it was really quite simple to connect the wiimote
Essentially I opened the battery case, pressed the red sync button on the controller and hit the
search for devices button on my laptop. It found and registered in less than 30 seconds...
All connection and syncing went almost to smoothly for vista...but hey it works
For those who dont know, Head-Tracking uses two IR sources and a wiimote.
The wiimote tells the computer the location of the IR points and changes the
view perspective on screen.
I will get into the code side later but first to set up the bluetooth connection with my laptop...
Although I hear great things about bluesoleil, due
to complications with vista, I went back to a standard Toshiba Stack.
After installing the stack it was really quite simple to connect the wiimote
Essentially I opened the battery case, pressed the red sync button on the controller and hit the
search for devices button on my laptop. It found and registered in less than 30 seconds...
All connection and syncing went almost to smoothly for vista...but hey it works
Friday, August 8, 2008
Actual Sketches Coming Soon...
I will scan my original concept sketches on Monday, so watch this spot :P
Google Sketch-Up shots
Here are a few digital mockup's made in google sketch-up, not perfect, but hopefully you can see what my setup will be like...
The Idea...
Ok,
So I wanted to make something cool for Studio III that I can later develop further and perhaps commercialize...or more importantly get a job. Anyways, I fell upon the idea of "Conductor Hero", a fully interactive and accurate Conducting game, where you can conduct your favorite compositions from beethoven to Rachmaninoff.
The first idea i wanted to include was the concept of head-tracking, using a wiimote and two IR LED's to track the players head. This way the player can look at different parts of their orchestra and it also adds more realism to the game.
The second major idea was to include a curved screen for projection, this way it will compliment the head-tracking component.
finally, the gesture recognition for the Conducting itself, using the same wiimote as for the head-tracking, I can track a modified Conductors Baton's movements and record and analyze the users gestures.
I do not expect to have a 100% complete, rich graphic game. But I do intend to have the curved screen with head-tracking working, as well as some basic gesture recognition, this will get my concept across and hopefully lead to some special topics or similar.
and it begins...
So I wanted to make something cool for Studio III that I can later develop further and perhaps commercialize...or more importantly get a job. Anyways, I fell upon the idea of "Conductor Hero", a fully interactive and accurate Conducting game, where you can conduct your favorite compositions from beethoven to Rachmaninoff.
The first idea i wanted to include was the concept of head-tracking, using a wiimote and two IR LED's to track the players head. This way the player can look at different parts of their orchestra and it also adds more realism to the game.
The second major idea was to include a curved screen for projection, this way it will compliment the head-tracking component.
finally, the gesture recognition for the Conducting itself, using the same wiimote as for the head-tracking, I can track a modified Conductors Baton's movements and record and analyze the users gestures.
I do not expect to have a 100% complete, rich graphic game. But I do intend to have the curved screen with head-tracking working, as well as some basic gesture recognition, this will get my concept across and hopefully lead to some special topics or similar.
and it begins...
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