Here is a little bit more info on interacting with Milo. Seems he can recognise color. In the demo Molyneux talks over it but you can hear Milo say "orange?" when he's handed the picture of the fish. Realising todays AI limmits, I think it's great we have something like Milo. If only to see if he makes it across the uncanny valley or where he falls in. I think "real" advances in AI may eventually come from knowledge gained by Blue Brain projects etc, not from gamedev.

I wondered about

">head tracking when I 1st saw the Natal demo. In the linked article he seems to mention something like it, though it's worded a bit awkward.

We'll see how well it all works, but I think it's great to see all three big companies working on different interaction technologies.

[Edited by - Kirl on June 4, 2009 12:39:39 PM]

Hah:

Quote: Obviously, there's still a long ways to go before Milo graduates out of the "Uber Seaman" that he is now, and I'm also curious to know what level of influence a nearby Lionhead rep had directly over the demo itself -- as attached to the Xbox 360 running Milo, was a laptop with a read-out/ eyes-on view of people using the camera. It was never really clarified what the nearby Lionhead rep was doing to and with the Laptop and the information being sent to it, by the game -- outside of verifying new people entering the camera range and initializing some of the various moments in the demo.

Here's an interview with Peter Molyneux about Milo and the demo:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/e3-project-natals-molyneux-and-milo-interview

Of course the video was for hype in large part and secondly to show off the system, I don't know why people seem to be getting so upset and hostile about it though. It obviously does show off some capabilities of the system and potential for different interactions.

As he says though a lot of it is just smart use of scripting to make the interactions appear not scripted, to give the illusion that the character is really listening and fully understanding. That's part of the 'game' and not just the demo, as it's part of any game.

With Milo he is only really listening when the chat bubble is comming up at the bottom and when doing so it's in the context of some specific event so interactions are limited in that bit. He also says that Milo does learn a bit over time and that the copy in the demo understands about 500 words.

Quote: Original post by NickGravelyn
I think Natal is great for everyone. Their demos showed it being the only input, which could be great for some things, but it could also serve simply to enhance other games.

For instance, the microphone allows you to give voice commands without sitting around with a headset on (something that I always hated).

The IR stuff gives better scanning and aligning of textures, like the skateboard in the demo video.

Face tracking could extend to knowing if the player's eyes or mouth are open or shut, or even advance to trying to detect expressions in the face. That could lead to different dialog trees or other things as you play the game.

A first person shooter could allow users to make swiping motions with their hands or controllers to do melee attacks or other actions.

Depending on the resolution and abilities of the device, perhaps going so far as to infer where the player is looking by tracking the eyes. Could be used to adjust depth of field to literally match where players are looking.

Not to mention all the nifty system-level stuff it can do. Having it sign you on just from seeing you. Maybe voice commands for playing music. I'm not real keen on the motion controls for navigating around, but it'll probably be nice for some people.

XNA/DirectX MVP?

No conflict of interest there...

Quote: Of course the video was for hype in large part and secondly to show off the system, I don't know why people seem to be getting so upset and hostile about it though..

It's awfully convenient to reveal a revolutionary AI that you can walk up to and have a realistic conversation with - just like a real person! - at a major trade show and then quietly follow it up with enthusiast interviews where you cop to the fact that it was almost completely scripted bs. Oh, but no big deal. You're supposed to blatantly lie at press conferences, right?

No regular person is getting excited over facial or tone recognition or that he's trying to apply some old tricks in a novel new direction. No, they are getting excited because they think he's invented the most amazing AI of all time (which if he had would be a gigantic revolution for all of mankind).

As far as I'm concerned Peter has shot straight past standard-business-hype and entered deep into con-man territory. And when you look at things like this you can tell just how profitable his little con is.

Effective business, no doubt, but I'm sure as hell not going to respect them for it and it doesn't help me get excited for the legitimate applications of the tech since it's pretty clear where their priorities lie. It'll be next E3 when we finally see something worth a damn, anyways.

No so called 'regular person' really cares whether it's an AI or well scripted and presented system, all they care about is the end result. No 'regular person' looking at that is thinking about AI results, scripts or any of that stuff that developers like us think of, they're just seeing a piece of software that they can interact with in a very unique way that appears to react intelligently to what they're doing.

And they didn't blatantly lie that I can see in their presentation, perhaps you can point them out. Perhaps some exageration but mostly they just didn't elaborate on points. That is completely expected from any marketing for anything and in society today perfectly acceptable and quite silly if that's what anybody is upset about these days.

Milo wasn't even listening for the majority of the video? That's lols all over. But looks like they are making this into an actual game, so you can't blame microsoft for the disappointment in not having a virtual child you can abuse as you want.

I am really keen on seeing how fighting games go with Natal. I would imagine 2 or more players would become quite dangerous actually, since most homes wouldn't be big enough to be able to move about as freely as you would need. Fatal Natal (I know it's meant to be pronounced Nuh taal :P).

Instead of bashing Milo- what are some things you want to see using Natal?

Quote: Original post by Yazilliclick
And they didn't blatantly lie that I can see in their presentation, perhaps you can point them out.

In terms of the Milo video, the guy says (after Claire 'caught' the goggles) "This wasn't acted..." Yeah. Right. [rolleyes]

[Edited by - MikeTacular on June 5, 2009 7:14:50 PM]

Quote: Original post by GMuser
what are some things you want to see using Natal?

I'd like a tennis game much like that in Wii Sports but with more depth.

Beyond that, I wouldn't be interested in any of the obvious uses of the device (such as for a fighting or martial arts or exercise game). I'd like to see Natal used in conjunction with an ordinary controller to enhance the control mechanisms in games rather than attempt to replace them entirely, which seems totally silly to me.

I was interested to see if Natal would have the immediate family appeal that the Wii did, so I mentioned it to my dad, who hadn't heard of it. He thought the idea was cool but didn't think it was a good idea for games. Now my dad's not much of a gamer at all, and that's exactly why I asked him. It'll be interesting to see if Natal can pull in the casual audience (and the "non-gamer" audience) the same way the Wii did.

A few of us were talking yesterday. One guy mention this and mention how it looked like a 1/2-1sec lag. It could make sense for some things but it wouldnt make sense for hitting a the brakes on a car.