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Forums - Microsoft Discussion - Lead developer exposes Natal inner-workings

Lastgengamer on 07 January 2010

Lead developer exposes Natal inner-workings

Alex Kipman offers more info on latency and software processes

Natal’s lead developer Alex Kipman has revealed that the upcoming peripheral will demand 10-15 per cent of the 360’s CPU resources.

He added that the device can recognise any pose in just 10 milliseconds – quick enough to suggest that the final product won’t suffer from lag issues.

And in under two-tenths of a second, says Kipman, Natal can recognise the body shape of a new user stepping in front of it.

"Natal has to work on the existing hardware without taking too much hardware processing away from the games developers,” added Kipman in an interview with trade publication New Scientist.

The lead designer added that he and his team had collected "terabytes" of data of people making poses likely to appear during game play.

Key body parts were meticulously identified in each image and frame, with all the data feeding into a computer rig.

According to Kipman, all the collated data resulted in a software package that can recognise 31 body parts in any video frame.

The software package itself weighs a mere 50MB, and is so sophisticated, says Kipman, that Natal can calculate where the player’s hand is even if its hidden behind their back.

“When we train this 'brain' we are telling it: this is the head, this is the shoulder. And we're doing that over millions of frames," says Kipman.

"When it sees a new image it can tell you the probability it's seeing a certain body part based on that historical information."

Microsoft confirmed yesterday that Natal would be released in 2010.



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Lastgengamer on 07 January 2010

Nice, not sure if all this info is new though.



NJ5 on 07 January 2010

Natal can calculate where the player’s hand is even if its hidden behind their back.


Put your hand behind your back, spin it around and make your own conclusions about the validity of this PR...

Oh, and 50 MB? If it occupies that in RAM, that's quite a lot, about 20% of RAM gone.

 



My Mario Kart Wii friend code: 2707-1866-0957

nightsurge on 07 January 2010
NJ5 said:

Natal can calculate where the player’s hand is even if its hidden behind their back.


Put your hand behind your back, spin it around and make your own conclusions about the validity of this PR...

Oh, and 50 MB? If it occupies that in RAM, that's quite a lot, about 20% of RAM gone.

 

The algorithms are said to be quite advanced.  It should be relatively easy for them to use your arm shape/direction to determine the location of your hand behind your back.  Probably not as exact as if the hand was visible, but fairly close.



Wyku on 07 January 2010
NJ5 said:

Natal can calculate where the player’s hand is even if its hidden behind their back.


Put your hand behind your back, spin it around and make your own conclusions about the validity of this PR...

Oh, and 50 MB? If it occupies that in RAM, that's quite a lot, about 20% of RAM gone.

 


He just said it can calculate where it is, not what it's doing.



Consoles Owned: Atari 2600, NES, Sega Genesis, Sega Saturn, N64, Gamecube, Wii, XBOX360

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NJ5 on 07 January 2010
nightsurge said:
NJ5 said:

Natal can calculate where the player’s hand is even if its hidden behind their back.


Put your hand behind your back, spin it around and make your own conclusions about the validity of this PR...

Oh, and 50 MB? If it occupies that in RAM, that's quite a lot, about 20% of RAM gone.

 

The algorithms are said to be quite advanced.  It should be relatively easy for them to use your arm shape/direction to determine the location of your hand behind your back.  Probably not as exact as if the hand was visible, but fairly close.

I don't know about your arm, but mine doesn't change shape when I rotate my hand.

Sure, it can pretend your hand is always parallel to your arm. But I'd hardly call that "calculating", more like "assuming".

 



My Mario Kart Wii friend code: 2707-1866-0957

nightsurge on 07 January 2010
NJ5 said:
nightsurge said:
NJ5 said:

Natal can calculate where the player’s hand is even if its hidden behind their back.


Put your hand behind your back, spin it around and make your own conclusions about the validity of this PR...

Oh, and 50 MB? If it occupies that in RAM, that's quite a lot, about 20% of RAM gone.

 

The algorithms are said to be quite advanced.  It should be relatively easy for them to use your arm shape/direction to determine the location of your hand behind your back.  Probably not as exact as if the hand was visible, but fairly close.

I don't know about your arm, but mine doesn't change shape when I rotate my hand.

Sure, it can pretend your hand is always parallel to your arm. But I'd hardly call that "calculating", more like "assuming".

 

Read what Wyku posted...  He never said they can track what your hand is doing, just the location.  You are arguing something they did not even claim.



NJ5 on 07 January 2010
nightsurge said:

Read what Wyku posted...  He never said they can track what your hand is doing, just the location.  You are arguing something they did not even claim.

 

If they mean that they know the hand is always at the end of the arm (which length is known), that's hardly a reason to brag lol.

 



My Mario Kart Wii friend code: 2707-1866-0957

selnor on 07 January 2010
NJ5 said:

Natal can calculate where the player’s hand is even if its hidden behind their back.


Put your hand behind your back, spin it around and make your own conclusions about the validity of this PR...

Oh, and 50 MB? If it occupies that in RAM, that's quite a lot, about 20% of RAM gone.

 

Not RAM. He is refferring to the size of the software. 50mb.



elticker on 07 January 2010

so then we will need a xbox 360 upgrade for this to run like xbox 360 specs increase slightly when natal is released I would love for it to be speced up before natal is released maybe with the halo reach console edition.