hello everyone. Until now input devices have been more or less the same since the first game was created. We have keyboards, mice, joysticks and gamepads but we are still playing in front of the tv. Some more exotic input devices are dance mats, fishing rods or racing wheels and they change the gaming experience. DO you think that future input devices will change the way games are designed? (c) 1982 Sinclair Research Ltd, 0:1

Voice recognition: I think this will be one of the input devices that will be a real aid to the world of computers, especially gaming.

Projectors (actually an output device): I see this as being another one of the big changes to come (once the prices drop a little more. I think that once a good quality projector can sell for $1000-$1500 -I think they''re almost there- more people are going to start using it). I think it''ll give designers the option to think outside the 19" virtual world they''re now limited to.

Virtual Reality: I think that the technologies that are now being used to capture motion (for example, the way they use actual athletes to get their moves; putting dozens of sensors on their body, then monitoring the movement those sensors make and relaying it to a computer model) might one day make it possible for players to use objects in real life to affect objects in the virtual world. Extreme example: player wields stick. Virtual player wields sword. Stick moves forward, virtual sword moves forward.

If it were up to me, I''d start to think of a player''s home as a personal arcade center. Don''t limit yourself to the idea of a player sitting in front of his computer with a mouse and keyboard in hand, but see him standing in front of a giant wall, with the virtual world displayed on the entire wall, the player holding objects that control virtual in-game objects, having multiple sensors placed on his body to record movement, using the player''s voice to carry out pre-set instructions or converse with virtual characters. Have the player use his VR gloves and to access in game control panels.

For now, I''ll just keep using my mouse and keyboard... and tiny 19" monitor. And keep on dreaming...

The ideas of using sensors to detect movement may very well be used to make more realistic movements in games in the near future.
It has already been used for the characters movements in the film Final Fantasy, so why not for games?

The other thing i wanted to say is that Sony has come up with some ideas and demos for the playstation 2 and ideas for a futur machine. The techology for photorealistic interactive ames exists (unfortunatly not or the pblic though),
Basically the player uses a webcam as the input devise. In one of the demos the aim of the game was to smash objects (bubbles, balls etc) with a swrd which you controlled by swinging a brightly coloured object around. The webcam could pick up the positions of the brightly coloured plastic wielded by the user and calculate what position it should be on screen and then move the sword on screen. Good idea
which i hope we'll see in games some time soon. It adds a whole new level of possibilities to games and its definatly a cool idea. I personally cant wait untill i can hit some virtual bubbles with my plastic sword.

Edited by - terabyte on August 19, 2001 4:05:23 PM

quote:
Some more exotic input devices are dance mats, fishing rods or racing wheels and they change the gaming experience.

The devices you list have all been around for ages, but havent made any real impact. The problem is that any developer who writes a game requiring a specific input device is immediately limiting his audience to those people who own or are prepared to buy that device. He can provide a method of playing the game which uses a standard input device, but then there is little reason to buy the exotic device. Hardcore players might fork out for the fancy thing to add to the gaming experience, but this will only be a small subset of the people who play the game.

quote:
Voice recognition: I think this will be one of the input devices that will be a real aid to the world of computers, especially gaming.

You are probably right here - microphones are cheap and come as standard with a lot of PCs these days. It wouldnt be difficult to set up a console with one either.

quote:
Basically the player uses a webcam as the input devise. In one of the demos the aim of the game was to smash objects (bubbles, balls etc) with a swrd which you controlled by swinging a brightly coloured object around. The webcam could pick up the positions of the brightly coloured plastic wielded by the user and calculate what position it should be on screen and then move the sword on screen. Good idea

I like this, because it doesnt require any fancy devices (web cams are cheap, getting cheaper and again, they come as standard with some PCs. It could also be quite fun, but would the novelty value last? Would players get fed up with waving their sword around, knocking mugs off their desk and hitting innocent passers by and go back to their keyboard and mouse?

Overall, I think that fancy input devices are more of a novelty than anything else, and the vast majority of users arent going to fork out for anything extra for their machine. There are exceptions, eg steering wheels do well because driving games are very popular, and using a keyboard just doesnt feel right for driving. I dont know how well the fishing rod thing sells, but I wouldnt buy a fishing game, let alone a special controller for it.

Dunno about anyone else, but I''m hoping for a ''helmet-with-electrodes'' input device sometime in the future.

I think the reason that input devices like dance mats, fishing rods, guns(which no one mentioned) haven''t taken off is that they limit the types of games they can be used with. After all you can''t expect a developer to make an RPG where the main item is a dance mat. Or use a fishing rod in a war sim. Devices like mouse and keyboard are universal and are already available to the public. As far as other techs are involved I think voice recognition can go a long way(expercially if the amount of bandwidth needed for internet use decresed), as would something like the power glove for SNES, and VR helmets(I mean good ones not the low qual available to public now). Think about the glove idea. When playing RPGs and war games you have a gui and the pointer is usually a hand. If some sort of sensor could be placed as input then you could point with the glove to play. Don''t know how but it''s possible.

I personally feel a 3d glove like those used in VR would be a good idea, one that conveyed the position of the wearers hand in real space completely into 3d space.

The craziest thing is that anyone with a basic knowledge of electronics could make a rudimentary one of these for themselves. All you''d need is three potentiometers and a series of hinged arms with a heavy base plate at one end and the glove at the other end, so you''d have something looking a bit like an anglepoise lamp.

Hook up the pots to the hinges, connect them through three a/d converters, and you''ve got three digital values to input through the parallel port of your choice. Convert the values to degrees(or radians), use a bit of GCSE level trigonometry and voila, you''ve got 3d coordinates.

You could also use the orientation of the glove as input, and put a pistol grip and trigger button in the glove, or even a track ball.

Force feedback would be a bit trickier, but you could rig something basic up with stepper motors.


If anyone here feels like messing with this, please post your results for the rest of us.

Sandman, i guess the novelty of all types of control mehods will eventually wear off.

I believethat a glove is a good idea but i still like the idea of using webcams.

I think if the developers put some thought into it they could achieve *a lot* with a webcam. The sword idea is good bt your righ, the novelty would wear off relativly quickly, but take a beat em up or boxing game for example:

You could have soe brightly coloured shoes ad cheap woolen gloves (or something like that) and then you could stand in front of your monitor punching air and watching your computer apponent gettig hit.
I can already think of problems with that idea, sure, nothings perfect, but if a developer put a little time into refining the idea, they''d come up with the best boxing game (or beat em up or football or whatever)

I believe that with a bit of imagination the webcam control method could be used for almost any game.
I dunno how you could use it for a strategy game but i can see it working for most sports games.


If anyone come up with any other input devises please let me know, i''d e very interested in what else you guys will come up with.

Well, the grand plan of any input device is to increase the level of immersion experienced by the player. The hard part with any immersive experience is always tactile feedback. Obviously it would be great to have a handle with gyroscopes at each end, like the pommel and ring of a sword, the handle of a fly-fishing rod, the end of an oar, a flight control stick, or the opposed ends of a Jo-staff.

But how can you pack enough gyro in a small enough package? Gyros make for great feedback for little energy - way better than the pager-motor excuse for feedback in most stuff today, but there''s always inherent problems.

Personally I foresee dance-mats coming back into play, especially in cases of personal traning or physical therapy. Consider a computerized karate sifu that knows how fast you step, if you are maintaining your balance, and how to improve your footwork. A super sexy rig might include an upper-body motion capture rig, if you wanted to go nuts, but the next evolution is going to be getting the feet back into the game.

What I really want is motion-capture anklets in a 24" footwell and an joystick expansion port. Step in, kick ass, step out

AND NO ''EFFIN USB, please. Serial is still serial, let''s give things a chance to be multithreading, neh?
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-WarMage
...anger shaped like a man...

The advantage I see with a glove device is that it can be used for more then one genre of game. Eventually the hype would die down some, but perhaps it would bring enough immersion to a wide enough variety to so many genres that going through the process of getting one and using it would be more appealing.