I didn't see this posted and I thought it was very interesting.

For those that don't know the Morphene system is a an advanced middleware animation system designed to be used with motion capture to create fluid game characters.  It's been used by companies such as Bioware, Eidos, THQ, Ubisoft and most recent by Ninja Theory in Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.  The company has now developed a Kinect module to take the raw motion capture data from the Kinect sensor and apply it to their advanced animation algorithms.

A couple of interesting quotes from this article:

"Kinect for Xbox 360 represents a completely new way to interact with your game. To make this kind of technology really shine, you have to integrate it seamlessly into your game animation system. This is what our Kinect module for Morpheme does. It means that animators and programmers can graphically author how Kinect data is used on their characters, and it allows them to use all the features in Morpheme like physics, IK, or advanced blends. What’s also cool is that you can prototype Kinect game ideas or controls quickly in Morpheme without having to get a dedicated engine going."

"Kinect for Morpheme is very cost effective in terms of the time and money it saves both compared to creating a similar solution in-house, as well as in terms of sheer reduction in iteration time. The tech has already been deployed in multiple studios, so we’re very optimistic for the months ahead."

They also think they can reduce the lag times seen in the first generation Kinect games:

"Lag times in Kinect are just not a problem with the right filtering algorithms, and with judicious use of motion input in different situations.

Morpheme helps with both, and it lets animators and programmers adjust and experiment with all the necessary settings graphically."

You can read the full interview here: http://www.develop-online.net/features/1031/The-tech-that-can-drive-Kinect

It certainly seems like Kinect is being taken seriously by the big boys which will hopefully lead some AAA titles using Kinect in the future.  I was playing Enslaved last night (people need to buy this!) and after spending a couple of days playing Kinect I was thinking how amazing it would be to have that functionality during some sections of the game.

I read about this the other day.  Definitely a good thing for developers.  The biggest thing in my opinion will be the filtering and smoothing of the skeletal data.  Don't care for the sometimes jankiness of the avatars.  Kinect Sports already does it a bit better than Kinect Adventures.

Awesome. According to them lag is all about the code, not the device. Good to hear.

Also, can't wait until I can move my fingers and my avatar does the same. After all the safe-cracking tech demo by Kudo proved it's possible [according to IGN]. Hope this helps make "taunting" a little more indepth, among other things.