Wow, that sure makes it clear that Natal has the same problems as Eye Toy. Red jumpsuits to make up for the fact that there's no entirely solid white colored room, including the carpet? I'm wondering how many real-world households Natal will actually work in. Good, at least, to see that Engadget is no longer looking entirely the other way. Or so they say.
A television studio isnt the same as a living room. And unless you live in the most trippy psychedelic-colored room on Earth, I would assume it will work fine.
No, and neither is an entirely white demo room. Did you look at the demo videos from E3? The room is completely white, all the way down to the carpet. That isn't coincidence, I suspect.
Even Engadget is saying that Natal seems to require a special environment in order to work, be it bright red jumpuits on you, as in this video, or a "uniform background behind the players", as in the E3 demos. Better yet, and entirely white room and bright red jumpsuits. That'll make it work stellar. I can tell you that my living room doesn't have anything even remotely like a uniform background anywhere.
During the show last night, Jimmy Fallon pointed out that the suits were not needed to play the game. He said it after they came back from the commercial break after playing the game.
Now, whether or not they wore them for the fun of it or because of the circumstances pointed out in Engadget's post, I don't know. But, Fallon did say they weren't necessary to use Natal.
So far Microsoft has had to have a special environment in the demos they've done. Is there some explanation for that that I'm missing? Did Microsoft think that white walls, ceilings, air conditioners and even carpets are the in thing now?
@ SteveJ: if by 'special environment' you mean one that doesn't include a live studio audience and a sea of professional lighting, you're absolutely right.
As long as you don't steal Merv Griffin's set, you should be okay at home.
@SteveJ: Ya, you're missing the part where they rented that room for E3 and most offices look like that. It wasn't necessary for Natal to work, it was just what was available. They even said so in that same video. What did you expect them to do, kick someone out of their house to demo it?
"Wow, you are just desperate for anything that shows Natal might not work aren't you?"
It's amazing how this has brought out this contingent of folks, who for some bizarre reason, really want this to disappear.
Sure the room needs to be "uniform", but that does not mean THX 1138 desolate, it just means a room without a lot of movement in the background, which is about 99% of all homes. I doubt it's going to mistake your couch for your hand.
Is it going on sale tonight? No! These guys have done a great job just on this. They have plenty of time to work out whatever kinks that come up.
Natal can work - they've shown that. The question is not can it work, but will it work (in a typical house)? The Eye Toy sure didn't, at least not in my house. I didn't remove all the furniture and paint everything white, though. Natal's early announcement is obviously an attempt to slow down Nintendo. I'm not convinced they are actually going to deliver anything, at least not on the Xbox 360.
"@SteveJ: Wow, you are just desperate for anything that shows Natal might not work aren't you?"
@Mark: And you are pretty desperate to show that it will. What's the difference?
And I thought Natal was supposed to be able to tell depth because of some sophisticated iR camera work and all that. Shouldn't it ignore the crowd in back?
It must be specially tuned to only work at a distance as well (White box on the floor)
If the environment doesn't matter they will not have any difficulty setting up a demo soon in which they can show that. If they can really make it work, at a reasonable cost, it will be fantastic. I do tend to be skeptical of Microsoft's often lofty claims, but not without reason. Promising the world and then under-delivering is their trademark.
By the way, I'm not really buying the whole red jumpsuit being necessary thing since
1: Jimmy Fallon said it wasn't and 2: It perfectly detected the states of their hands and showed each finger moving correctly in the avatar. They certainly weren't wearing jumpsuits over their hands so if you buy into the jumpsuit being necessary then that should have been impossible
@Andir3.0: Once again, a TV studio is a DRASTIC difference from a home. Not only do you have to worry about a very non-static background, but those multiple studio lights put out a LOT more heat than a typical home environment, which would screw up the IR.
The red jumpsuits help distinguish the individual on both the regular AND IR cameras.
It should actually be noted that even in such a restrictive environment, it was able to alter the avatar when a new player stepped up to the plate.
As I posted earlier, Natal won't be robust unless they add something or they use very expensive technology. There is a lot to go wrong when you move. Can you explain it to me why when people is making animation using a suit with dots on it. It is because they need it to be precise. Natal is not there yet IMO. You may say that they prove it..ect..etc.. by how much?
I'm not saying that it is not possible but Sony is taking a more robust way (using the balls controllers). So people always exited about new tech just like when wii was introduced back a while ago. So what did happen? People were disappointed with the wiimote. We have to wait and see.
PS: I don't understand why people here often not talking academically. You have to listen and think and learn not just believe what you see right away. Regards.
"It's pretty easy to find a hand at the end of a long red arm... even for a computer."
Yes, but it's pretty hard to correctly find the state of each finger on each of those hands. I don't really know the point of your post, it clearly shows that it can "see" the state of everyone's hands from that video... so what was your point again?
So don't stand in front of a sliding glass door on a hot day? Is that what you are saying? Don't even think about playing the game outside? (I know some people who do...) Hope that you don't have a heating vent on a wall behind you when you play?
Bright lights make it harder for the camera to pick up people?
"Finding which hand to track is harder than determining what finger is up when you find it."
Again pointless post. It could obviously see the hand and see each finger. If it was really having problems capturing anything that wasn't bright red then it certainly wouldn't have been able to capture as well as it did something as small and thin as a finger. I think you're confusing the camera portion of Natal(the only part that was ever in any doubt with respect to the red jumpsuits) with the software behind it.
It's not about only tracking red suits. The red suits make it easier for the camera to identify a body (a person's shape). Once you do that, finding their head isn't trivial. Finding their fingers is easy as well. If I handed you a picture of a camouflaged soldier laying in a field, it would make it kind of difficult to find his hand, would it not?
"If I handed you a picture of a camouflaged soldier laying in a field, it would make it kind of difficult to find his hand, would it not?"
I don't think you're getting that this isn't a human, it's a computer. Humans tend to overlook parts of a picture whereas computers are programmed to process the entire picture(they don't have the common sense required to overlook parts that seem to not contain anything important). Having on a red jumpsuit doesn't magically make your hands(or fingers) appear in a picture when they didn't before. And it's certainly more difficult to pick out someone's finger in a picture than it is to pick out their torso, arms, or legs(the only parts the jumpsuit was covering).
Okay, so you have this bright and hot light beaming down on a person standing in front of a (comparatively) cold, dark audience. Where in this situation would tracking that hot, bright person be harder for the camera?
Well, I can see I'm working with an idiot. Let me give you a lesson in anatomy Mark.
You see, there's this thing called a torso. It has two arms and two legs coming off it. At the end of each arm is a hand. Each hand has 5 fingers. So if you were a computer, looking for a person, do you scan the room looking for a hand? NO. You look for their body, identify an arm, look at the end of it for a hand... Tada! We found the fingers!
Now, put that body in a bright red jumpsuit and you make it easier for the camera to find the body with arms and legs.
Do you actually think the camera is looking for a floating hand with five fingers?
Obviously I'm talking to an idiot. Look at the video, the audience isn't behind them, the rest of the stage and the band( also lit by stage lights) is.
This discussion would be more interesting if you had a clue what you are talking about.
"So if you were a computer, looking for a person, do you scan the room looking for a hand? NO. You look for their body, identify an arm, look at the end of it for a hand... Tada! We found the fingers!"
Actually, that's not how they work. That's how people see things, not computers. Take a look at some of the video analysis software used by Stanford for their Grand Challenge car.
So the band is lit more than they are with hotter lights? I would assume that if both the players and the band were lit, they would both be hotter. Relative heat comes into play now... they should be closer to the camera. Even in an oven, you can identify the heating elements because they are warmer than everything else in the oven.
Or did you just conveniently leave that out of your argument?
Using the hot lights of the studio is not a valid argument is the whole studio is lit.
"Do you actually think the camera is looking for a floating hand with five fingers?"
Are you really that dumb that you don't get what I'm saying? If the camera can, at all, see the fingers then it would have no problem also seeing the much bigger and more obvious torso, arms, and legs. How are you not getting this?
I'm done arguing. It's obvious that the red suits were needed or they wouldn't be wearing them. The technology isn't ready and this is an obvious attempt at Microsoft trying to steal momentum from another competitor with a product that's not finished.
They've done it before, they are doing it again, and the Microsoft fanclub is obviously biting on it with full force. I'm surprised Saad Rabia isn't here as well.
Because mark... it's obviously using the red suits to help it find the hand in the first place... unless of course you and jon have intimate knowledge on the Natal algorithm you aren't disclosing.
Watch gizmodo's video of Natal. They show that the device works in a dark room and when the lights are flickered on and off. The system works on infrared as a range finding device so it does not need visible light. One of the Natal team members said on a blog post that the net result of the infrared hardware is a point cloud that represents the objects.
Relative heat is correct, the waste IR coming off the studio lights is likely enough to wash out the relatively minor differences that the distances would add.
Try this, put a candle 10 ft from a camera, now put another 20 ft away. Now shine bright ass lights on both of them, guess what, the camera is going to have trouble telling them apart.
"You have intimate working knowledge on the inner workings of Natal itself then?"
No more than you do.
So, when you assume you know how natal works you are right, but when we assume we know how natal works we are wrong?
Engadget and Joystiq both tried out the Natal demos. Were they wearing red jumpsuits?
Also, something that nobody has pointed out yet: The PS3 motion controller is a ball of light. It DOES NOT work in well-lit rooms. Fact. Yes, my "fact" is based on bias and conjecture--but that hasn't stopped anyone else.
have you ever even been on the set of a film or a show?
when you have literally 50,000 watts (probably more) of light, especially when the lamps are aimed towards the camera, shit is not going to work right.
since most of you are not in the industry, it makes sense to not to realize how much lighting can affect everything.
dont you guys think they're wearing the red suits just to be on the safe side so that natal has a lesser chance of screwing up infront of audience in a LIVE show??
How else are they going to hype up their new project? They're not going to reveal it and release it, they need to build excitement in the public. Every company displays products that are still being developed and tweaked. This has obviously been in development for quite a while. I may be giving MS a little too much credit, but I don't see them releasing this without making it for the average home. I'm sure they'll be testing this in a lot of different places and making sure outside elements such as lighting and such will not affect the game play.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
Wow, that sure makes it clear that Natal has the same problems as Eye Toy. Red jumpsuits to make up for the fact that there's no entirely solid white colored room, including the carpet? I'm wondering how many real-world households Natal will actually work in. Good, at least, to see that Engadget is no longer looking entirely the other way. Or so they say.
This is the exact reason why i am saying that microsoft is marketing this way to early. There is such a thing.
A television studio isnt the same as a living room. And unless you live in the most trippy psychedelic-colored room on Earth, I would assume it will work fine.
No, and neither is an entirely white demo room. Did you look at the demo videos from E3? The room is completely white, all the way down to the carpet. That isn't coincidence, I suspect.
It's because there are a bunch of moving people behind them. The background is suppose to be semi static.
Even Engadget is saying that Natal seems to require a special environment in order to work, be it bright red jumpuits on you, as in this video, or a "uniform background behind the players", as in the E3 demos. Better yet, and entirely white room and bright red jumpsuits. That'll make it work stellar. I can tell you that my living room doesn't have anything even remotely like a uniform background anywhere.
Templarion has a good point actually, all those moving people and cameras could confuse Natal(or make it think they're other players).
"It's because there are a bunch of moving people behind them. The background is suppose to be semi static"
And having solid white walls, ceilings and floors and no furniture helps too.
Come to think of it, "no furniture" shouldn't be a steep requirement for many engadget readers. ;^)
@SteveJ: Wow, you are just desperate for anything that shows Natal might not work aren't you?
During the show last night, Jimmy Fallon pointed out that the suits were not needed to play the game. He said it after they came back from the commercial break after playing the game.
Now, whether or not they wore them for the fun of it or because of the circumstances pointed out in Engadget's post, I don't know. But, Fallon did say they weren't necessary to use Natal.
@RobK: Shhh you'll upset SteveJ, he needs to believe that Natal can't possibly work in order to live.
So far Microsoft has had to have a special environment in the demos they've done. Is there some explanation for that that I'm missing? Did Microsoft think that white walls, ceilings, air conditioners and even carpets are the in thing now?
@ SteveJ: if by 'special environment' you mean one that doesn't include a live studio audience and a sea of professional lighting, you're absolutely right.
As long as you don't steal Merv Griffin's set, you should be okay at home.
@SteveJ: Ya, you're missing the part where they rented that room for E3 and most offices look like that. It wasn't necessary for Natal to work, it was just what was available. They even said so in that same video. What did you expect them to do, kick someone out of their house to demo it?
"Wow, you are just desperate for anything that shows Natal might not work aren't you?"
It's amazing how this has brought out this contingent of folks, who for some bizarre reason, really want this to disappear.
Sure the room needs to be "uniform", but that does not mean THX 1138 desolate, it just means a room without a lot of movement in the background, which is about 99% of all homes. I doubt it's going to mistake your couch for your hand.
Is it going on sale tonight? No! These guys have done a great job just on this. They have plenty of time to work out whatever kinks that come up.
Natal can work - they've shown that. The question is not can it work, but will it work (in a typical house)? The Eye Toy sure didn't, at least not in my house. I didn't remove all the furniture and paint everything white, though. Natal's early announcement is obviously an attempt to slow down Nintendo. I'm not convinced they are actually going to deliver anything, at least not on the Xbox 360.
Adding fuel to the fire!
Remember when the E3 demo showed multiple people moving while in a racing game on the couch???
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0IqdRTDJQc
So, has MS already changed one of Natal's future capabilities to something more realistic?
What don't you understand about it being a prototype? Besides, I'd wear a jumpsuit...Dignin style...
"@SteveJ: Wow, you are just desperate for anything that shows Natal might not work aren't you?"
@Mark: And you are pretty desperate to show that it will. What's the difference?
And I thought Natal was supposed to be able to tell depth because of some sophisticated iR camera work and all that. Shouldn't it ignore the crowd in back?
It must be specially tuned to only work at a distance as well (White box on the floor)
If the environment doesn't matter they will not have any difficulty setting up a demo soon in which they can show that. If they can really make it work, at a reasonable cost, it will be fantastic. I do tend to be skeptical of Microsoft's often lofty claims, but not without reason. Promising the world and then under-delivering is their trademark.
@Wiizer
No, again it's the dynamics of where this demo was taking place.
By the way, I'm not really buying the whole red jumpsuit being necessary thing since
1: Jimmy Fallon said it wasn't and
2: It perfectly detected the states of their hands and showed each finger moving correctly in the avatar. They certainly weren't wearing jumpsuits over their hands so if you buy into the jumpsuit being necessary then that should have been impossible
It's pretty easy to find a hand at the end of a long red arm... even for a computer.
@Andir3.0: Once again, a TV studio is a DRASTIC difference from a home. Not only do you have to worry about a very non-static background, but those multiple studio lights put out a LOT more heat than a typical home environment, which would screw up the IR.
The red jumpsuits help distinguish the individual on both the regular AND IR cameras.
It should actually be noted that even in such a restrictive environment, it was able to alter the avatar when a new player stepped up to the plate.
As I posted earlier, Natal won't be robust unless they add something or they use very expensive technology. There is a lot to go wrong when you move. Can you explain it to me why when people is making animation using a suit with dots on it. It is because they need it to be precise. Natal is not there yet IMO. You may say that they prove it..ect..etc.. by how much?
I'm not saying that it is not possible but Sony is taking a more robust way (using the balls controllers).
So people always exited about new tech just like when wii was introduced back a while ago. So what did happen? People were disappointed with the wiimote. We have to wait and see.
PS: I don't understand why people here often not talking academically. You have to listen and think and learn not just believe what you see right away.
Regards.
"It's pretty easy to find a hand at the end of a long red arm... even for a computer."
Yes, but it's pretty hard to correctly find the state of each finger on each of those hands. I don't really know the point of your post, it clearly shows that it can "see" the state of everyone's hands from that video... so what was your point again?
So don't stand in front of a sliding glass door on a hot day? Is that what you are saying? Don't even think about playing the game outside? (I know some people who do...) Hope that you don't have a heating vent on a wall behind you when you play?
Bright lights make it harder for the camera to pick up people?
Your logic floors me.
Finding which hand to track is harder than determining what finger is up when you find it.
"Finding which hand to track is harder than determining what finger is up when you find it."
Again pointless post. It could obviously see the hand and see each finger. If it was really having problems capturing anything that wasn't bright red then it certainly wouldn't have been able to capture as well as it did something as small and thin as a finger. I think you're confusing the camera portion of Natal(the only part that was ever in any doubt with respect to the red jumpsuits) with the software behind it.
You really are that dense aren't you?
It's not about only tracking red suits. The red suits make it easier for the camera to identify a body (a person's shape). Once you do that, finding their head isn't trivial. Finding their fingers is easy as well. If I handed you a picture of a camouflaged soldier laying in a field, it would make it kind of difficult to find his hand, would it not?
@ andir
"Bright lights make it harder for the camera to pick up people?"
Hot studio lights make it harder for an IR camera to pick up a warm body.
Your obtuseness floors me.
"If I handed you a picture of a camouflaged soldier laying in a field, it would make it kind of difficult to find his hand, would it not?"
I don't think you're getting that this isn't a human, it's a computer. Humans tend to overlook parts of a picture whereas computers are programmed to process the entire picture(they don't have the common sense required to overlook parts that seem to not contain anything important). Having on a red jumpsuit doesn't magically make your hands(or fingers) appear in a picture when they didn't before. And it's certainly more difficult to pick out someone's finger in a picture than it is to pick out their torso, arms, or legs(the only parts the jumpsuit was covering).
Okay, so you have this bright and hot light beaming down on a person standing in front of a (comparatively) cold, dark audience. Where in this situation would tracking that hot, bright person be harder for the camera?
Well, I can see I'm working with an idiot. Let me give you a lesson in anatomy Mark.
You see, there's this thing called a torso. It has two arms and two legs coming off it. At the end of each arm is a hand. Each hand has 5 fingers. So if you were a computer, looking for a person, do you scan the room looking for a hand? NO. You look for their body, identify an arm, look at the end of it for a hand... Tada! We found the fingers!
Now, put that body in a bright red jumpsuit and you make it easier for the camera to find the body with arms and legs.
Do you actually think the camera is looking for a floating hand with five fingers?
@andir
Obviously I'm talking to an idiot. Look at the video, the audience isn't behind them, the rest of the stage and the band( also lit by stage lights) is.
This discussion would be more interesting if you had a clue what you are talking about.
@andir
"So if you were a computer, looking for a person, do you scan the room looking for a hand? NO. You look for their body, identify an arm, look at the end of it for a hand... Tada! We found the fingers!"
Actually, that's not how they work. That's how people see things, not computers. Take a look at some of the video analysis software used by Stanford for their Grand Challenge car.
So the band is lit more than they are with hotter lights? I would assume that if both the players and the band were lit, they would both be hotter. Relative heat comes into play now... they should be closer to the camera. Even in an oven, you can identify the heating elements because they are warmer than everything else in the oven.
Or did you just conveniently leave that out of your argument?
Using the hot lights of the studio is not a valid argument is the whole studio is lit.
"Actually, that's not how they work"
You have intimate working knowledge on the inner workings of Natal itself then? (ie: not some Stanford idea on how to detect objects in a scene... )
"Do you actually think the camera is looking for a floating hand with five fingers?"
Are you really that dumb that you don't get what I'm saying? If the camera can, at all, see the fingers then it would have no problem also seeing the much bigger and more obvious torso, arms, and legs. How are you not getting this?
I'm done arguing. It's obvious that the red suits were needed or they wouldn't be wearing them. The technology isn't ready and this is an obvious attempt at Microsoft trying to steal momentum from another competitor with a product that's not finished.
They've done it before, they are doing it again, and the Microsoft fanclub is obviously biting on it with full force. I'm surprised Saad Rabia isn't here as well.
Because mark... it's obviously using the red suits to help it find the hand in the first place... unless of course you and jon have intimate knowledge on the Natal algorithm you aren't disclosing.
Watch gizmodo's video of Natal. They show that the device works in a dark room and when the lights are flickered on and off. The system works on infrared as a range finding device so it does not need visible light. One of the Natal team members said on a blog post that the net result of the infrared hardware is a point cloud that represents the objects.
@ andir
Relative heat is correct, the waste IR coming off the studio lights is likely enough to wash out the relatively minor differences that the distances would add.
Try this, put a candle 10 ft from a camera, now put another 20 ft away. Now shine bright ass lights on both of them, guess what, the camera is going to have trouble telling them apart.
"You have intimate working knowledge on the inner workings of Natal itself then?"
No more than you do.
So, when you assume you know how natal works you are right, but when we assume we know how natal works we are wrong?
Dude, go to bed.
Engadget and Joystiq both tried out the Natal demos. Were they wearing red jumpsuits?
Also, something that nobody has pointed out yet: The PS3 motion controller is a ball of light. It DOES NOT work in well-lit rooms. Fact. Yes, my "fact" is based on bias and conjecture--but that hasn't stopped anyone else.
I saw this in a vision I had of the future....the caption read:
"HUMAN PRISONERS REBEL AGAINST THEIR MACHINE OVERLORDS"
GOD FORBID A PROTOTYPE DOESN'T WORK LIKE THE FINAL PROJECT!
YOU NEED A RED JUMPSUITS FOR A PROTOTYPE? SHITSUX WII PS3 AND SEGA ARE BETTER!
have you ever even been on the set of a film or a show?
when you have literally 50,000 watts (probably more) of light, especially when the lamps are aimed towards the camera, shit is not going to work right.
since most of you are not in the industry, it makes sense to not to realize how much lighting can affect everything.
dont you guys think they're wearing the red suits just to be on the safe side so that natal has a lesser chance of screwing up infront of audience in a LIVE show??
@Andir3.0:
How else are they going to hype up their new project? They're not going to reveal it and release it, they need to build excitement in the public. Every company displays products that are still being developed and tweaked. This has obviously been in development for quite a while. I may be giving MS a little too much credit, but I don't see them releasing this without making it for the average home. I'm sure they'll be testing this in a lot of different places and making sure outside elements such as lighting and such will not affect the game play.