Flapi: YDreams' augmented reality mascot

It's one thing to be held captive in a mixed reality universe with a bickering lady-friend, but we could probably stand to hang for awhile with Flapi. The aforementioned character is YDreams' own in-house mascot, presumably used in a variety of augmented reality testing scenarios. In the video posted after the jump, Flapi is controlled with a Logitech gamepad and comes eerily close to slapping hands with a perfect (human) stranger. Somebody should really tell the kid Earthlings aren't that bad.

[matthew @ Apr 19th 2008 9:57PM]

I dont get it

[zomg0t @ Apr 19th 2008 10:00PM]

Why does it suck?

[Rayan @ Apr 20th 2008 3:42AM]

Because your brain sucks !!!!!!!

[captainpease @ Apr 19th 2008 10:18PM]

awesome. great concept.

[Aguiluz @ Apr 19th 2008 10:53PM]

Bad implementation. :-(

When you can make holograms, that will be good. :-)

[Wwhat @ Apr 19th 2008 11:01PM]

Wow a computer character controlled with a joypad, why didn't nintendo think of th.. oh wait..
But wait it's blended in with a real person, why didn't the movie industry think of th.. oh wait..

[dg @ Apr 20th 2008 2:11AM]

You're correct. The significance is that they've achieved mixing reality and animation (like movies) AND doing so with live animation (like video games) AND live reality (like.... well, reality).

The fact that this isn't pre-recorded cinematics is what's amazing. It's live fake reality. Next up: stereoscopic contact lenses that allow this live fake reality to be constant, like actually being in the same room (or appearing so) as your friend in Europe. I'm sure this and the upcoming fiber optic "The Grid" internet will make this all too creepily possible soon.

[Wwhat @ Apr 20th 2008 2:45PM]

Well sorry but they've achieved such 'live animation" for years (maybe a decade) already, many science museum displays for kids already have that running for years too.
I just don't see anything new apart from perhaps the shadows on real 3D objects, but as I previously stated I'm not sure they aren't cheating a bit with that and pre-calculated the legs 'objects'.

[SOOPERGOOMAN @ Apr 19th 2008 11:09PM]

pretty cool how it continues the animation when going behind people. Il so like the fact that the shadows fall correctly even over uneven surfaces. tis will be a big boon for movies and casual games. imagine the kids babysitter on the BIG LCD's of the future interacting in real time with you and them. recognizing them and carrying on conversations. There is HUGE potential in this. Stay at home schooling, medicine, Playstation Games, etc. obviously alot less can be said about he former posters here.

[Wwhat @ Apr 19th 2008 11:34PM]

I have a sneaking suspicion about those shadows, some sort of pre-calculated setup.
And also the shadow goes the wrong direction compared to the scene, which is a bit odd since they control the whole setup and they could have filmed it from another angle to make it fit, and to show off the shadow

[captainpease @ Apr 19th 2008 11:59PM]

exactly. i thought people would get that without having to go into detail. guess i overestimated our fellow readers' intelligence.

[zomg0t @ Apr 20th 2008 12:13AM]

You have yet to answer my question.

[Reader @ Apr 19th 2008 11:27PM]

Not amazing, but kinda cool.

[schmoove @ Apr 19th 2008 11:53PM]

reminds me of a green screen

[dg @ Apr 20th 2008 2:17AM]

Yeah, I wouldn't doubt if some of it was pre-calculated etc. But it's only a matter of time before it's all live.

Kind of eerie to think what "reality" will be like pretty soon. Kind of like the Matrix, only not as cheesy.

[Bazza @ Apr 20th 2008 7:52AM]

Of course this would be great in the entertainment industry. It would help actors better interact with CGI characters in movies or tv shows instead of a green or white ball, and having to wait for post-processing to really assess their performance.

There are many other field this could be used for aswell when adequately modified for that purpose. Live interaction with digital characters or objects where the performer can see exacly what their doing at that moment in time.

Not bad.

[Shane @ Apr 20th 2008 8:56AM]

Sorry, but this has already been done a number of times in broadcast. Mixed reality on the TV screen has been around for a while.

Here is just one of the tools for doing this...
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=6837710&siteID=123112

Maybe I'm missing something but I really don't see what's so groundbreaking about this...

[dg @ Apr 20th 2008 12:32PM]

I think you are missing something:

Unless I'm mistaken, that link is to a piece of software used to make live animation character etc. This technology uses live animation mixed with live reality. Sure movies use reality and animation, but neither are live.

[Wwhat @ Apr 20th 2008 2:47PM]

Yap, seen it before years ago already, with live images.

[Shane @ Apr 21st 2008 10:50AM]

@dg:

Wrong...
TV DOES in fact do Real Time animated character interaction and has done it for quite some time.

I first saw this back at the NAB convention in 2005 from a company called Kaydara. Autodesk bought a company called Alias which subsequently bought Kaydara. Both Alias and Kaydara were involved in real time 3D character animation.

Once you have the real time character animation mixing it with real time images is relatively easy. TV has been doing Chroma Keying for years to put humans into CG images in real time.

It sounds like YDreams may be using existing tools and technology to develop innovative advertising techniques more than anything else.

I didn't see anything on their website that indicated they were doing anything more than integrating existing technologies for new applications.

[azz0r @ Apr 20th 2008 10:49AM]

I do wonder if tech like this in 30 years time will be used to set people up.

[keir @ Apr 20th 2008 3:55PM]

Quite a cool setup, I can't help feeling that this setup would work better if the screen and camera were arranged to look and work more like a mirror. The third person angle looks like its distracting the people who are interacting.

[Nelson @ Apr 20th 2008 7:47PM]

I'm scared of it, but again I'm scared of alot of things, like peanut butter, scary...