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 Super Happy Fun Fun's 3D Tilt-a-World is more than just a great mobile game. It's the first implementation of GestureTek's EyeMobile Engine technology - a mobile extension of the company's Eyetoy and Xbox Live Vision technologies currently at work on the Playstation 2 and Xbox 360, respectively.
We spoke with GestureTek CTO and Co-Founder Francis MacDougall about the company's Eyemobile Engine, and it's potential impact on mobile gaming at large.
GamesOnDeck: First off, can you give me some general background on GestureTek and the EyeMobile Engine, for those unfamiliar?
Francis MacDougall: GestureTek is the pioneer and world leader in real time interactive computer vision applications, starting with the Amiga computer in 1986 as Very Vivid, Inc. We have issued patent and technology licenses to Sony for the PS2 EyeToy, and to Microsoft for the XBOX360 camera, as well as to vision enabled toys and other products.
The EyeMobile Engine includes three trackers which we call Shake, Rock, and Roll. These three trackers are available as a Brew Extension on the Qualcomm network, allowing developers to easily add gesture control to their games.
GOD: Can you explain a little more specifically how the technology uses a camera to sense movement? What if the camera is pointed at a varied (or not varied) backdrop?
FM: For Shake, we look at the amount of motion from one camera frame to the next, temper this by the scene complexity to create a uniform response, and provide a value to be used in the application. For Roll, we compare one camera frame to the next, and determine which direction the camera moved in between frames.
This amount of motion is converted into a “joystick style” input value for the game programmer to use. The tracking will not work in total darkness, since there is nothing to track at all. However, we find that even a plain white wall has a sufficient shading gradient for tracking. Clearly, scenes with large variation play into this form of tracking.
GOD: How do EyeMobile-enabled mobile games effect a phone's battery life, due to its constant use of the camera?
FM: We have not noticed a substantial impact. The light of the display has a far greater impact than the camera.
GOD: Tilting your phone to roll a ball is an obvious and intuitive use of the technology - what other genres or game concepts would benefit most?
FM: We are effectively providing a joystick input, so any game that can be driven using a joystick would be suitable. Snowboarding is a natural, also any racing game like motorcycling, etc. Target games like hunting and darts are quite effective, with GoSub60 coming out with a title in this genre shortly.
We’ve also looked at augmenting other game styles including golf, where highly accurate putting stroke measurement can be had, first person shooters, where the user needs to rapidly look around an environment (literally point and shoot).
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