MS: Natal will work with "all ethnicities" Related content
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Microsoft at CES 2010 - Project Natal
- Interview E3: Microsoft's John Schappert [24]
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MS: Natal will work with "all ethnicities" News
Xbox 360 News by Robert Purchese
Microsoft has responded to rather eyebrow-raising claims that Project Natal has problems tracking the movement of black skin, stating that the technology will "obviously work with people of all shapes and ethnicities at launch".
"Last week at E3, we gave a taste of what to anticipate when Project Natal launches. As we mentioned to everyone who had the chance to play, we were working with tech demos and, as we all know, these can be temperamental," Microsoft told Eurogamer.
"The goal of Project Natal is to break down the barriers for everyone to play, and it will obviously work with people of all shapes and ethnicities at launch."
The company pointed us towards a YouTube video of Sugar Ray Leonard - the retired African-American boxer - playing with Project Natal at E3 last week, and experiencing evidently no problems.
African-American videogames journalist N'Gai Croal was reported to have had problems steering Burnout Paradise using Project Natal during a demonstration at E3. Early reaction on NeoGAF claimed that the melanin in black skin interferes with near-infrared spectroscopy, which Project Natal apparently uses.
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Wastelander
10/06/09 @ 10:20
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Jesus fuck, do EG just take their info straight from GAF nowadays?
Near-infrared spectroscopy What that has to do with Natal I really don't know. |
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JohnnyWashnGo
10/06/09 @ 10:24
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"African-American videogames journalist N'Gai Croal"
Oh dear, that guy who cried wolf about Resident Evil 5... what a plonker. I can imagine the thought process now... 'Hmmm, this control system is a bit flakey and not really responding to my commands that well - it must be racist' Or, its just a naff control system prototype that you don't know how to use? |
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-2
desnt the youtube video show identical footage of gameplay as another vid? ie theyve edited either one or both "gameplay" vids with stock footage of identical crashes in the burnout example.
and on the topic of gaf; it seems eurogamer construct their reviews according to what will get the best reaction. Annoying one fanboy class, or appeasing another.
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Xbox 360 and Natal advert poster review comments might go along the lines of "5* product fun to play - generic games mag", "Truely innovative control approach - generic games review website" "Finally a games system that fits with our ideals - Nick Griffin"
Seriously though it was I doubt this will be true, and M$ would never release a product if these problems existed as it would be rightly be corperate suicide. On a side not, can you code up a post moderator script that auto ignores anyone who includes the words "first" in the first post would save me a click. Perhaps said script could also sign up said users email address to a load of spam as well just for good measure. |
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Markusdragon
10/06/09 @ 10:28
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This is a Better off Ted episode! Serously, a sitcom made a joke about this back in early April!
The hell!?! |
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daz_john_smith
10/06/09 @ 10:44
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Xerx3s
"African-American videogames journalist N'Gai Croal" You mean the same guy that screamed 'racism' about RE5 before he even played the game? Is he the one ot blame for the god-awful late addition of SHeva to Resi 5? |
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Here's a page on how the Natal technology probably works. 3DV are the people Microsoft have got to do the tech for them by the sounds of it. If I read it correctly (which I might not be!), they send out a wave of infra red and based on how long it takes to return to a 3d camera, they can judge depth within a particular field. Found this site listing a number of experiments carried out with infra red on white and (excuse the racist term which I in no way endorse) "negro" skin (it was carried out in the 50's). The one to look for is the one by Salthouse in 1958:
Stated that the amount of light reflected from caucasian and negroid skin was very similar and that the nipples of a caucasian appeared pale while those of a Negro appeared very dark. Concluded that the melanin pigment in negroid nipples was so abundant and near to the surface that it absorbed infrared. Mods: I can edit this post if you think the terms in it are too politically incorrect. |
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kangarootoo
10/06/09 @ 11:04
+1
@Xerx3s
"You mean the same guy that screamed 'racism' about RE5 before he even played the game? " What in the name of Worzel Gummidge has THAT got to do with anything? Are you suggesting he pretended to have problems steering the demo? |
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@Patch
I think that research seems to have been carried out by a closet homosexual. He seems to go on about nipples an awful lot, while only glossing over the fact that the light levels reflected were similar. In truth me and my friends have long noticed that the playstation eye and the microsoft cameras have great difficulty tracking black people. Unless you have stupid light levels and a pale background behind you, the cameras go ape shit and misread a lot of the motions. I can fully believe that Natal will have issues in this case. It's going to be down to microsoft to put a high enough resolution camera into Natal, to allow it to pick up black and Indian skin tones correctly. |
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Wastelander
10/06/09 @ 11:21
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"What about morbidly obese people who's arms and legs blur the line between limbs and fatty outcroppings."
GAF's intensive research can help you out there! |
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@Ryze
Yea we found that the eyetoy games played fine if we stood in front of the pale wall of my living room. In that case it didn't matter if you were black or white. When we moved in front of the dark brown sofa though. It only picked up the white players movements accurately and seemed to loose some of the black players arm motions. The camares are just not good in low light and so a dark room with dark skinned players equals a camera that thinks no-one is there! |
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"I can fully believe that Natal will have issues in this case. It's going to be down to microsoft to put a high enough resolution camera into Natal, to allow it to pick up black and Indian skin tones correctly"
It's (I think) a time-of-flight infrared camera though, so it'll work based on reflectd IR light rather than passive light reflection. That paper suggested IR reflection differences are negligable across skin tones, and only of slight interest if areas with large melanin content are being used to track body movements, which they're not. "Natal crap at tracking black people's nipples shock" isn't that good a headline though. |
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@Garulon
It isn't an infrared camara otherwise it wouldn't be able to do face recognition. I haven't had a chance to play around with one yet (My boss claims we are getting a few of them in for dev work) but, from what the poor guy assigned to it is telling me. It is a standard camera and a couple of other sensors for distance. An infrared camera wouldn't recognise anything and would bethrown out by the lights in a room. It would be competely blinded by a halogen bulb for instance! |
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It isn't an infrared camara otherwise it wouldn't be able to do face recognition. I haven't had a chance to play around with one yet (My boss claims we are getting a few of them in for dev work) but, from what the poor guy assigned to it is telling me. It is a standard camera and a couple of other sensors for distance. An infrared camera wouldn't recognise anything and would bethrown out by the lights in a room. It would be competely blinded by a halogen bulb for instance!
How about just a regular -and- an infrared camera? And a simple infrared filter in front of the lens would take care of all the other lights in the room. Your remote control works in a normal room too, right? |
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Doctor_What
10/06/09 @ 12:12
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Burnout Paradise runs at 60fps for the driving sections, and Natal runs at 30fps. Even if Natal is brilliant for playing racing games, it would still be half as sensitive as a normal controller.
It might also be worth mentioning that Burnout is pants when played with a steering wheel - it's designed for players who can flip to full-lock steering immediately, so if playing it on a real wheel is bad, imagine how bad it must be to play it on an imaginary wheel that samples at half the framerate of the game! :) Whether you're got black skin or not, that's going to screw up anyone's sense of control over a car! |
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Wastelander
10/06/09 @ 12:12
+1
According to Wiki:
"The depth sensor consists of an infrared projector combined with a monochrome CMOS sensor, and allows the Project Natal sensor to see in 3D under any ambient light conditions. The active depth-sensing range of the depth sensor is adjustable, with the Project Natal software capable of automatically calibrating the sensor based on the gameplay and environment conditions, such as the presence of couches."
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most recently on 10/06/09 @ 13:12
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rhubarbandcustard
10/06/09 @ 12:16
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I have great optimism for Natal but it will NOT work with all ethnicities.
Muslim women who wear the full face burka would presumably need to wear it for communicating with virtual men as much as they do when mixing in the real world. As Natal presumably needs more than eye contact to work I would like to take this opportunity to accuse Microsoft of Islamophobia. |
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I'm guessing the IR camera will only pick up light of a specific wavelength, so interference from other light sources shouldn't be a problem. After all, if they couldn't remove interference from IR guided missiles, the Americans would have all kinds of trouble aiming at things; they'd start hitting the wrong targets... oh, never mind.
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