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E3: Post-Natal Discussion Interview
Xbox 360 Interview by Ellie Gibson
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The highlight of Microsoft's E3 press conference - apart from Gepetto Molyneux and his talking boy - was undoubtedly Project Natal. As you'll know if you've read our hands-on preview, it allows you to play games using your whole body and invisible controllers, via a camera that sits under your TV.
So far, so EyeToy - but there's more to Project Natal than that. So the project director, Alex Kipman, told us while demoing how his shiny new technology can be used to play good old Burnout Paradise. Read on to find out more about how it all works and what the future holds.
Eurogamer: Were you already working at Microsoft when you came up with the idea for Project Natal?
Alex Kipman: I've been working at Microsoft for about eight years, so I've been there for some time. I took on the job of creating an incubation team to think about what's next for Xbox. Don [Mattrick] challenged us to think ahead - to think beyond, to be innovative.
We thought about a wide range of things and made a team effort within Xbox to figure out where we want interactive entertainment to go. After quite a collaborative effort we landed on this, and a lot of research and a lot of sweat blended into something I think we're all very proud of.
Claire - probably never imagined she would be in so many internet photo galleries.
Eurogamer: How does Project Natal work with Burnout?
Alex Kipman: Essentially we do a 3D body scan of you. We graph 48 joints in your body and then those 48 joints are tracked in real-time, at 30 frames per second. So several for your head, shoulders, elbows, hands, feet...
Say I'm tracking a wrist, which is what I do for Burnout. I can look at that on a single frame and I can see what direction, acceleration and confidence I have for that joint. Why is that interesting? Because it allows me to not only know where you are, but to know where you're going to be. This is how we do the directing and the predictive behaviour.
If you think about swinging a baseball bat, by the time you're halfway done with the swing, I know not only where you're going to end but when you're going to end. There are very precise and predictable ways so you can have that immediate payoff of my baseball bat hitting the baseball.
Molyneux and his new kid.
Eurogamer: So this technology isn't just for use with Arcade titles or specially designed games like Milo & Kate? It could be used to play regular games?
Alex Kipman: Absolutely. We see there being three types of game. We love the [existing] controller, it's not going anywhere and there will continue to be games that are specifically made to only work with a controller. We'll have games that are specifically designed to work only with Natal - not just arcadey games, but real, hardcore, triple-A titles.
Then you'll have some games that are essentially a hybrid - games that work both with the controller and with Natal. Why is that interesting? Think about a first-person shooter where I'm using the controller but I'm doing facial tracking by just moving around and looking round corners.
Or you could have a hardcore gamer like me playing a game with a controller, while a non-hardcore person sitting next to me enjoys the experience by playing with Natal. I could be having my Halo experience with the controller and the friend next to me, who's not a hardcore gamer, could be throwing grenades or driving the Warthog or doing any number of things with Natal.
We can track up to four players in the same way we track controllers. Each individual player will be able to choose - do I want to bind with a controller, or do I want to bind with my body, or do I want to bind with both?
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Vice.Destroyer
05/06/09 @ 10:13
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Good article. Is it wrong for my scepticism to dissipate? I am actually mildly intrigued.
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JohnnyWashnGo
05/06/09 @ 10:14
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'Or you could have a hardcore gamer like me playing a game with a controller, while a non-hardcore person sitting next to me enjoys the experience by playing with Natal.'
So, by admission, the technology is crap for playing games seriously, with any level of precision or accuracy? I do wish he would have said this to Nintendo before the Wii came out. Plus, I don't see how flailing around holding, pushing, pulling imaginary objects could be an enjoyable experience. Sounds like an invitation for muscle ache to me. |
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I assume you must be able to - but I'm surprised no one has asked whether you could sit on a couch and actually pretend to push the accelerator/brake pedals with your feet. I'm not so keen on the invisible steering wheel but a combo of controller steering and imaginary foot pedals might be cool...
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Wastelander
05/06/09 @ 10:22
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"I assume you must be able to - but I'm surprised no one has asked whether you could sit on a couch and actually pretend to push the accelerator/brake pedals with your feet."
They demonstrated that on the floor at E3 with a modified copy of the original Burnout. |
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I think it'll work best for 'hardcore' games when it's a controller + NATAL. So for a first person shooter, precise movement, aiming, and firing is on the pad, but you could put 'lean' or 'crouch' through NATAL.
Obviously it's not going to replace the precise control that a pad gives you for most titles that people on Eurogamer play, but the potential applications to other kinds of (mini)games is pretty fascinating.
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most recently on 05/06/09 @ 11:25
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Bigglesworth
05/06/09 @ 10:25
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How many joints are you tracking again?
And I bet by the end of that interview he wished he'd never mentioned Burnout. |
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Wastelander
05/06/09 @ 10:25
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Here's ArmA2 being played with a combination of traditional controls and 3D motion tracking.
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Surely you need at least a controller to move around 3D space. Fight Night would be great, ducking and weaving, but how would you move around the ring like a champ? You can only move so much in front of Natal. You would need a device to give you freedom in the 3D world. Wii has this solved with the nunchuck analogue stick. FPS's and the like, forget it. Way to difficult to control.
I'm a total skeptic at this point. I bought the 360 camera and it was hardly ever supported. |
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Wastelander
05/06/09 @ 10:55
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Yeah, it needs a little tweaking but the possibilities are cool, I liked the peering out round corners.
Even simpler stuff like thrusting out your controller and your guy doing the same with his rifle on screen, or giving squad commands with your hands would be cool little touches that would add to the immersion. Anyone ever play the Penumbra series? Imagine that but with your actual hands instead of the little cursor. There's so many cool possibilities with motion control now the other companies besides Nintendo are going to push it. It's been floating around in the mainstream for a while now so hopefully the best bits will filter back to the core gaming stuff. |
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Im more intrigued about Natal than before, now. I particularly like the idea of being able to use a controller AND Natal to interact with games; shooters would be awesome if you can move your head around to track the vision, but still use the controller and triggers for shooting etc. Driving could be mapped to the movements of the pad as a steering wheel, like in burnout but with you holding the pad in your hands, and things like grenades could be done with a simple arm gesture.
I'm really excited about it. If you just open your mind to the ideas a little, the scope of it is incredible, especially -for me- when it comes to the little things, like the idea of being able to make eye contact and talk to characters in RPGs. Imagine something like Morrowind's NPC interaction system, but with NPCs that can react to where you are, what you say, and the way in which you say it. |
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You guys need a bit of more imagination. No need to run on spot to make your chartacter move forward.
Why not just put your right foot a little forward to make your character move forward, put it even more forward he will run, put your right foot next to the left he stands still, behind the left foot he walks backwards. With the left hand you indicate the direction you want to go/look and in the right hand you hold a cheap plastic gun to shoot. Just 10 seconds of thinking, there are for sure even better more clever ways to handle it. I just imagine playing oblivion like this, grabing a sword on your back and fighting an enemy then putting it back. All this could be done. You need the map, just say map (voice recognition). You want to see your equipement, just say equipment, you want to change the spells you have equipped, just say it etc. c'mon guys, don't be so narrow minded. sometimes you sound like my grand-parents, everything was better when I was young, and so on
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Even something like in RPGs, having the characters turn to make eye contact with you or follow you as you shift in your seat, which is so minor... that would be cool. Or responding to your nodding and shaking your head. If Milo is capable of recognising a frown or a smile, how great would it be if your party members in a Bioware RPG could too?
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Doctor_What
05/06/09 @ 11:12
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I've got about 3 feet square of space in my living room. I strongly suspect that I'll never be able to play using this system. Ho hum.
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Wastelander
05/06/09 @ 11:20
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Take it to the next level then, instead of a simple melee thrust take your right hand and physically poke your finger into your enemy's eye.
Jesus, grow a fucking imagination. |
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I think it's be great coupled with the controller - no more messing around with TrackIR but you'd have to be careful to ensure you're still looking at the screen.
Someone could ask you a question in an RPG and you could either say yes or no, or nod or shake your head, or give thumbs up or down. You could make a door opening motion to open a door. You could scan your face into the game more reliably than with the Live camera. As has already been said, something like Penumbra would be perfect. If the price is right I'll be having it (I only used the Live camera twice - for scanning my face into Vegas 1/2). |
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studiosonic
05/06/09 @ 11:20
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For the people who think moving your head around while still having to fix your eyes on the screen, think again. I bought a head tracker for my PC a couple of years back. It was very cool (I sold it as it only worked with a few games, one of which was ARMA, and I stopped playing them) but it did involve me wearing a special hat for tracking - i looked like a right plum. Anyway, it worked really well with mouse/keyboard for your usual movememnts, and then just turning your head slighty in 6 axis (i.e. zoom in and out too by going closer to the screen) whie keeping your eyes fixed on the screen. You only needed subtle head movements. It basically did the 'mouse look' bit, so you could run forward while looking around, or sit in a helicopter steering with mouse/keyboard and looking around the cockpit with the head tracker. I got a bit sick playing it for long periods but then I was sitting right in front of my monitor. Sitting back on a sofa, with a controller, and not having to wear a silly hat for the tracking....and being able to track the rest of your body, not just basic head tracking....makes me giddy with excitement.
I have very high hopes for this technology. It will not only provide great new games using full body tracking, but also a perfect accompaniment for the traditional controller. |
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I can imagine that really this camera is going to be in its element when it comes to fitness games. Telling you exactly how well you're doing with your posture and speed during exercises. "Xbox Fit".
It'd be cool if I could scan my airsoft rifle in and use that as a "peripheral" for shooting games rather than hold an imaginary weapon. |
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beastmaster
05/06/09 @ 11:50
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All this stuff about things being natural? I'm sorry but it's unlikey you'll move to catch something that is just thin air. Your telling me that playing something like Forza is going to be more natural using thin air rather than a steering wheel with force feedback? Not in a million years pal.
However, I like the idea of navitaging through the dashboard without having to use a controller. To be able to flick through the marketplace, select what I want and then shout 'DOWNLOAD NOW!!' is fine by me. Edit: Will Rockstar do a version of Manhunt using this tech? Oh yes they will! Headbutt. kick, stab! Oh dear. It would be interesting to see how somethng like Endwar would work using this. But I fear an onslaught of Rayman Rabbid games.
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I am very intrigued by this technology and together with the voice recognition I think it has some very cool potentials. In the end though it comes down to what the developers come up with.
To me the potential is together with the controller. Not use Natal for every little control but combine it with the regular conrtoller. To me that's a more appealing that the Wiimote/Nunchuck/PS3 Wand control. In my mind this should work brillantly for an RTS. Simply gesture in the air in front of you like you would do if you pointed on a screen (Minority Report style) and circle around units, tap in the air to send units to places, do a movement with the hand to bring up an meny and tap in the air to select something etc. etc. But in the end the developers need to come through (just as they have to with the Wiimote/Wand). I think MS has given them some nice tech to work with though. /B |
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Wastelander
05/06/09 @ 11:59
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"Your telling me that playing something like Forza is going to be more natural using thin air rather than a steering wheel with force feedback? Not in a million years pal."
Nobody is telling you that... |
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Universal Hamster
05/06/09 @ 12:12
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While this does open up interesting possibilities, (it would be cool to have It putting your rock band avatars on stage, was my immediate idea) let's not forget that the lag is "not too bad", which of course means it's WAY too bad. Lag = useless for any serious gameplay.
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ManicDrunkMonk
05/06/09 @ 12:14
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There seem to be a number of stupid people on the Eurogamer forums who seem to be unable to read what has been said about NATAL. Some of them are even people who have seemed logical and reasonable in the past.
Idiotic comments about running on the spot to control an FPS, and the complete lack of imagination when it comes to a system quite this open-ended astounds me. This is the biggest hardware announcement imo since the DS was revealed. The only problem is that it seems unlikely to see the light of day until christmas next year. Colour me excited! |
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kangarootoo
05/06/09 @ 12:23
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It does sound interesting, and its proably wise to stop discussing Natal in the same sentence as Milo.
There seems to be what can only described as a fair amount of deliberate stupidity in thread. In other words, people saying things like "it will be rubbish for doing X because of Y", when in fact the only reason there is an issue is because the poster has knowlingly suggested a crap implementation. There are loads of ways in which this sort of control system could be effectively implemented. A few posters (already hell bent on dismissing this) writing up what are in essence badly thought out designs doesn't change that one iota. Sorry to pick on you dude, but... "Looking around with head movements would totally suck. You move your head but you still have to look straight ahead at your TV since your TV doesn't move around with your head. It'd be totally annoying and unintuitive." If you are crouched behind a wall and you want to see what is on the other side of it, do you... a) move your head upwards (or sideways, or whatever) b) keep your head stationery behind the wall but rotate it (for reasons unknown to all but yourself) I rest my case. If you want to find a way to suggest this is useless, I suppose a small amount of effort is all that is needed to contrive a suitable example. |
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kangarootoo
05/06/09 @ 12:24
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"There seem to be a number of stupid people on the Eurogamer forums who seem to be unable to read what has been said about NATAL. Some of them are even people who have seemed logical and reasonable in the past.
Idiotic comments about running on the spot to control an FPS, and the complete lack of imagination when it comes to a system quite this open-ended astounds me." Exactly. |
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"There are loads of ways in which this sort of control system could be effectively implemented."
In the theoretical space of all possibilities there probably are. Whether they will ever be discovered is another matter... Just look at how utterly unimaginative game developers have been so far with motion controls. A camera that can track 48 joints isn't going to change that all of a sudden... |
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Wastelander
05/06/09 @ 12:40
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No you're right, there's no point even trying something new, it's doomed to failure, we should all pack up and go home to our 14'' portables and nes pads.
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kangarootoo
05/06/09 @ 12:42
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@Les
I don't think we disagree. I often comment on the deluge of shite 3rd party Wii games, amply demonstrating as you say, that doing something useful with a motion control system is a challenging task. However, I am taking particular exception to some posters (who if they made a motion control game, would likely do the terrible job you are suggesting) having sufficient ego to write off a whole control system opportunity... purely because they themselves aren't up to the job of making it work well. I am in no doubt that some of the games using Natal (or the Sony wavey stick thing) will be poor products, but that will be the fault of the devs in question. As both systems have potential that can be unlocked by quality development. Are we to really stop innovating in this business because we pre-emptively assume all developers to be too crap at their jobs to use the innovations effectively? |
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"I think it'll work best for 'hardcore' games when it's a controller + NATAL. So for a first person shooter, precise movement, aiming, and firing is on the pad, but you could put 'lean' or 'crouch' through NATAL."
Finally! All the immersion of a joypad with all the convenience of Eyetoy! I think Natal will have some cool applications, but what they're not saying or demoing speaks volumes. If there's "prediction" and "confidence" involved in tracking points, is it precise enough to stick a cursor on screen? Y'know, like is effortlessly possible with the Wii Remote on my lap right now? As we're apparently going to be navigating the NXE with semaphore commands I'm guessing not. |
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"As both systems have potential that can be unlocked by quality development."
I personally think it's way too early to speculate much about either set-up's potential. What was actually shown of Natal was rather rubbish and all these people (including the ever gullible video game press) getting excited about a PR video saddens me.
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@Kangarootoo
The problem is that without adding some kind of conventional controller into the mix, Natal has extremely limited applications. And when you do add in a secondary controller you have issues of occlusion to worry about. And if you agree this is the case, is this *PARTIAL* solution really worth the reams of commentary it has generated? With any motion control system the intractable problem is the lack of physical feedback; Natal despite presenting itself as a fully physical input system in fact suffers from this worse than existing methodologies. Look at it this way: Its key feature is its ability to track multiple points in 3d space, however what it is incapable of is providing any kind of reactive feedback to the player's movements within that virtual space. And that, I'm afraid, is a deal-breaker as the disconnect between the real and the virtual worlds is larger - the human side is still subject to gravity, balance, and physical stress but the machine cannot provide any countering reinforcement aside from the usual 3d perspective shown in 2d on the video screen. |
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kangarootoo
05/06/09 @ 13:19
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""If there's "prediction" and "confidence" involved in tracking points, is it precise enough to stick a cursor on screen?"
Exactly. " What do you mean "exactly"? First off, perhaps it IS accurate enough. We simply don't know. If you mean "exactly, we should ask that question" then fair enough. But I'm not sure that was what you implied. Regardless, who said that being able to locate a pointer onscreen was a mandatory requirement for any control system? And lets not hold up the Wii as a cast iron example. I've used a Wii, and its pointer abilities are not really on a par with lightguns of 15 years ago. The key thing is that for most Wii games, the accuracy is not crucial. Equally, some of the ways Natal could be implemented may not require that precise ability either (yes I know an fps would, but the fps genre is not the centre of the universe). @GreyBeard Whether it is a partial, or complete, or unsuitable solution depends entirely on the job you decide to set it against. A shovel is a complete solution for digging hole, a partial solution for tending your garden, and unsuitable for trimming your roses. IF a developer decides to make Natal the primary and singular control system in a game for which it is entirely unsuitable, I would expect bad results. I say again, as I've always said, a badly implemented idea does NOT necessarily mean the underlying concept is bad. If I made a bloody awful driving game, would you then assume that driving games are just a bad lot to be best avoided? Natal is a concept, and its intelligent use is what will determine whether it is good or bad in each unique and independant situation. If it is badly applied, the result will be bad. And deciding how it functions as part of a complete control system is just one of the many decisions that might well seperate the skilled designers from the not so skilled. |
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hiddenranbir
05/06/09 @ 13:24
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Was hoping he'd talk more about the interaction from voice recognition.
Guys...does anyone else, like me, see a cool way to bring back those classic adventure games? Adventure games with natural conversation? (Because they already have parameters in how conversations need to go) |
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People keep going on about it not being able to compete with a force feedback steering wheel, well, try playing COD4 with a force feedback steering wheel and see how well you get on.
This is not the panacea for all controller woes, but a new way to do things we have already been doing for years along, with a way to do things we have not even thought to do because they simply were'nt possible with a standard controller. So yes, you can drive a car, but you can also shoot a gun, or swing a sword, or kick/throw a ball, or fly a plane, or shoot a bow, or juggle chainsaws, or chop a tomato, or throw a frisbee, or jump rope, or flap your arms to fly like a bird ect, etc..... and thats just the motion sensing stuff, without mention of voice/sound or face/pattern/picture recognition applications that will be deampt up for this thing. This is a controller that has very few limits in what you can do with it, and that is the exciting thing. |
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subtlesnake
05/06/09 @ 13:39
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"Look at it this way: Its key feature is its ability to track multiple points in 3d space, however what it is incapable of is providing any kind of reactive feedback to the player's movements within that virtual space."
Sure the system can only provide visual feedback, but I think the point is that as it is, games don't react appropriately to what the player is doing - the player has to actively communicate his intentions, via a set of 'digital' options, so that if you're talking to another NPC for example, he can react to the particular dialogue options you pick, but not to the subtle cues that determine how attentive you're being, for example. I think even something simple as being able to nod to other characters would make a big difference as how engaged you feel with them. So I see this device, not as trying to replace the traditional analogue control inputs, but as a way of giving developers more information about what you're actually doing; what your intentions are, what your mental state is. Ideally, you shouldn't have to think about what you're doing - there shouldn't be any defined set of 'controls'; rather you should do what feels natural to you, and the game should respond to that. Obviously that's a big ask but before this point the task was essentially impossible because developers didn't have the required inputs. Now at least we can start making baby steps towards experiences that can respond to the player in his embodied state, rather than the player as a mere-pusher-of-buttons. Microsoft deserve credit for getting the ball rolling. |
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