To get a little bit variety to shaders I started another project on which I am going to work all the time I have absolutly no motivation for shaders.
I worked on it for about 3 days now from which the first one was just getting a bit into the stuff, the second was writing the dll and the third day was playing around with headtracking and trying to realize motion detection (my biggest problem with this is the background in my room and my bad webcam).

The idea is simple and I guess it is the same the wiimote uses. It is just getting the images from the webcam, looking for bright areas and getting the positions of their centers and sorting those positions within an array depending on the area size. These positions (up to 20) can then be accessed with Lite-C.

I am currently in the need of some LEDs to do further stuff with headtracking. My goal is to move the player completely with the head. And if I am able to do that, archieving the 3D effect which can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw
I don´t think that this stuff could really be used within a game, but at least it is a lot of fun playing around with it.

My try for motion detection for games like the ones for the eye toy or camgoo (www.camgoo.de) is creating a picture of the background without the player and comparing it with the current picture with the player, making differnces white and everything else black. It does basicly work but needs still a lot of work.

Here are two earlier screenshots showing the pointdetection:



And here is a short clip showing some first trying around with headtracking.
I just cleaved a flashlight to a cap which is used for the detection.
Sorry for the mess :P :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj_kS2hIw5U

I hope you like it
Slin

Looks very cool indeed. I think that if it can be made more reliable (Perhaps you could use a coloured light, thus allowing it to be more easily differentiated from background lights) it could definitely be used in a first person shooter.

...dodging bullets matrix style!...

Anyhow great work!

cartoon_baboon

I think its amazing, i would want this for all my games the experience is brilliant!

looks nice, it would be cool as the camera control, excpet u can;t see the screen when looking the other way

I don't understand how you want to use the head to move forward... can you elaborate? I only get the rotating idea.. not moving...

You can tilt or step forward to the screen. I assume you don't have to move forwards by using the head tracking motion though.

I plan to do it through moving the head into the direction the player has to go. The rotating could probably be used in a real game but I don´t think that the movement can really be done like that.


That is a great idea, at least for a minigame.
It works already very reliable as long as there is no bright light directly behind you (at least when substracting the background without the playing person).

Thanks for your comments

Nice concepts Slin
I know the shader world can be a lonely one thus needing some distraction can be necessary ^^
Looking forward to see more of this

Cheers

Frazzle

Most webcams can be easily modified to use infra-red, like the wiimotes.

There is a small glass filter inside of most webcams, this can be replaced by a filter like on the end of a TV remote control.

Not only would the modification allow the camera to detect infra-red light, but it would also prevent visible light from entering, thus replicating the sensor on the front of the Wiimote.

I tried the mod to an old digital camera, but got sloppy and it broke after working for a short while. Never take experimental projects to school with you.

what i'd do is make it track you heads movement not rotation so the screen rotates, but you wont have to look away, but when you move your head you perspective changes