hi i was wondering why i've never seen a game using a webcam as a controller (like eye-toy). are they to slow to use in games? it would also be kind of cool to be able to see your opponents when playing online. this shouldn't be to much of a problem with dsl internet connections or higher, should it?

With the possible exception of a poker game or something, I don't think that being able to see the other guys in-game would add much. Voicechat sometimes lags a DSL, and I think video on top of that would be even worse. Unless your game has a specific need for it, I think it's a poor choice. A costly knick-knack.

I had an idea a little while ago, while trying to learn directShow...
DirectShow can easily take a web-cam as an input device. It can also output as a direct3D surface (Texture). It would be cool to create a game where you use a webcam image as a texture for your character's face. (I know some games allow you to set still images to create your own character, but the web-cam would be a real-time, animated texture.) And, as a bonus, if you use speach recognition, you have free lip-sync with you character!

The only problem with this (at the moment) is that it's not practical. You could use it for a single player game (which would be pointless), but transmitting the cam-image over the network for multiplayer (Where it would actually be usefull) would eat up your connection.

Anybody have any other ideas how it could be used?