Natal an Eyetoy Ripoff?

[Crashdown77]

 

JaggedSac said:
The differences are in the way that the software uses the camera output to map to an input for the game to use. In terms of the EyeToy, it is using algorithms that detect changes in colors and edges to determine movement. Detecting depth can be very tricky when using only pixel color information. This is most likely why it use the actual camera output for the game output as well. Such as just showing your video image as your character. Whereas Natal can easily translate the depth information into an avatar for any game.

Natal uses bursts of infrared light to determine the depth of each "pixel" of information. So a pixel will have both a color and depth associated with it. This makes creating a skeletal system possible and it makes precise depth detection possible. But it isn't just the motion detection that makes Natal interesting. It is the built in ability for developers to use facial and voice recognition out of the box. No development necessary on their part to do this. And it is all done on the on-board Natal chips, this way performance of the application is not drained by manipulating the hardware output.

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