I'm taking software engineering class.
I had to choose a project to work on, so I decided to make a hand gesture control system for games.
I learned opencv before, started trying out Unity and Unreal Engine, so I wanted to apply my knowledge for both.
So my question is, how can I pass output variables from opencv as inputs to the game engine?
I have absolutely no clue where to start from.
I have been working Augmented Reality for quite a few months. I have used third party tools like Unity/Vuforia to create augmented reality applications for android.
I would like to create my own framework in which I will create my own AR apps. Can someone guide me to right tutorials/links to achieve my target. On a higher level, my plan is to create an application which can recognize multiple markers and match it with cloud stored models.
That seems like a massive undertaking: model recognition is not an easy task. I recommend looking at OpenCV (which has some standard algorithms you can use as a starting point) and then looking at a good computer vision book (e.g., Richard Szeliski's book or Hartley and Zisserman).
But you are going to run into a host of practical problems. Consider that systems like Vuforia provide camera calibration data for most Android devices, and it's hard to do computer vision without it. Then, of course, there's efficiently managing the whole pipeline which (again) companies like Qualcomm and Metaio invest huge amounts of $$ in.
I'm working on a project that does framemarker tracking and I've started exporting bits of it out to a project I'm calling OpenAR. Right now I'm in the process of pulling out unpublishable pieces and making Vuforia and the OpenCV versions of marker tracking interchangeable. You're certainly welcome to check out the work as it progresses. You can see videos of some of the early work on my YouTube channel.
The hard work is improving performance to be as good as Vuforia.
I have a question about writing a script which can manage to play online games in different codes. I think the easiest to understand is when I say I need to make a platform on which Playstation as xbox players are allowed to play online Modern Warfare 3 together.
Mathematically it seems it is possible: at the end you have two different screens which project the same. On the platform, Sony and Microsoft players stream their code or screen to the platform and play together. Big problem is that you get it delivered in 2 different codes which you have to translate to one language in less than 0,001 second.
Honestly said I have to get into this stuff but I cannot get much further.
Do you have any tips, other forums or solutions for this problem? Maybe it is writing a new language? (Google is technically using it for Google-translating over the phone)
Depending on the game this might not be possible even in theory. Many console games use a peer-to-peer lock-step synchronization model for multiplayer. Games that use this approach only send each other the player input from the other consoles and rely on deterministic simulation (the same inputs produce the same outputs) to keep the systems synchronized.
This only works when the exact same compiled code is running on the same CPU for all players. Games with this networking model usually have periodic desynch checks to make sure that the different systems haven't drifted out of sync with each other. A desynch failure is usually considered a fatal error and either a bug in the game or evidence of attempted cheating by one of the players.
Other multiplayer games use a client server model and so it would be possible in theory to allow different consoles to play against each other. Reverse engineering the network protocol would be a formidable technical challenge however and it would be a difficult problem to get this to work reliably.
Even if you could solve the technical problems though you would likely have even bigger legal issues to overcome. Sony and Microsoft don't want to allow cross platform play so even though it would be possible in theory to make this work with a client server multiplayer game developers aren't able to implement it. A third party trying to make this work would likely have to deal with legal challenges from Microsoft, Sony and the game developer.
I am searching for a component to:
analyzing and comparing sound data
drawing the sound histogram.
Are there any guides or other suggestions on how to accomplish this?
You can check out the wavesurfer program:
WaveSurfer is an Open Source tool for
sound visualization and manipulation.
It has been designed to suit both
novice and advanced users. WaveSurfer
has a simple and logical user
interface that provides functionality
in an intuitive way and which can be
adapted to different tasks. It can be
used as a stand-alone tool for a wide
range of tasks in speech research and
education. Typical applications are
speech/sound analysis and sound
annotation/transcription. WaveSurfer
can also serve as a platform for more
advanced/specialized applications.
This is accomplished either through
extending the WaveSurfer application
with new custom plug-ins or by
embedding WaveSurfer visualization
components in other applications.
It can perform many different types of analysis, I have only used it for practicing Chinese tone pronunciation.
Can XNA and C# be used to create commercially feasible PC/XBOX games?
Is it the best approach for creating 3D games with C#? If not, what would be?
Actually you can do that but it is a little bit tricky.
You need to pass via an approval process by the "community" (XNA Creators club Online users).
You will also need to pay an Xbox live account plus an Xbox live developper licence.
According to XNA FAQ:
Do I need an XNA Creators Club premium membership to create games?
You don't need a premium membership to make games for Windows or Zune. However, you must be a premium member and in a supported region to create games for the Xbox 360, to release Xbox 360 games to Community Games on Xbox LIVE, or to peer-review submitted games.
Who can peer review XNA Community Games?
A member of the Creators Club whose premium (paid) account is in good standing and is a legal adult (for the countries we currently serve this means 18 years of age or older).
And:
Why does my game have to be peer-reviewed? Why can't I just send it to Xbox LIVE marketplace?
Peer reviewers help creators write better games, and protect game players from experiencing highly offensive or malfunctioning games. Peer reviewers will reject your game if:
Your game contains prohibited content, which is content not allowed on Xbox LIVE services
You misrepresent what is in the game play or in the promotional materials for the game
The promotional content for your game ( for example, the box art, description, banner or title) is not appropriate for all ages on Xbox LIVE Marketplace
The game crashes, it has too many bugs, or it is technically defective in some way
the faq is can be read here
If you want to do it simplier you can play with DirectX directly or even other libraries like SDL (for 2D games). Actually C# is very good for a variety of things and it gets better as the time goes.
A short answer to your first question would be, yes. It is entirely possible to create just about any kind of game with the XNA library. It can be used to make simple 2D platformers, or moderatily complex 3D shooters.
Depending on the game, the amount of logic you'll need to create for your game may vary.
Of course, while creating 3D games, you'll either have to create your own 3D engine, or get your hands on one pre made. XNA in and on itself does not provide an engine that would be fully usable out of the box. It does, however, provide wide variety of tool to help you in the process of making your own engine.
XNA is dedicated primarily to garage games, small projects with small teams, and hobbyists. Also, it's a really good learning tool for game architecture and 3D programming. But for commercial applications, there's a clearly huge gap between the XLA and the XDK.
Using the XDK allows you to access to a much deeper level of hardware, which is definitively a must if performances are an issue. Also, most of commercial game engines are developed for use with the XDK (the Unreal Engine, for example). The debugging and profiling system of the XDK is also an amazing tool which is not available using XLA.
So yes, it is technically possible to make commercial games using XNA, but the real world tends to prefer the XDK.
C# is not that much slower than C++, however C#'s memory management is not really Game friendly (in the AAA style). Never the less rendering is basically the same, as you'll be using DirectX I guess, so there is no reason a very professional game like Gear of Wars couldn't be made with C# (As a game dev my self, I've seen the source code for Gears of War, and can tell you this first hand). But you'll need great artists.
The real roadblock, is if your source is in C#, you have just locked your self out of other Platforms that aren't from Microsoft (Say Sony or Nintendo), but then again GoW is Microsoft bound, ASFAIK.
As for XNA, the best selling Arcade/Community Game Braid, was written in C++, but that's because the author didn't want to lock himself out of other platforms, and he had lots of experience and a large code-base that was already C++ based
XNA saves you a lot of the low level tedium associated with making games. This can be a huge time savings for a handful of people banging out games that don't need to push the hardware to its limit; however, most AAA games require a few people getting down and dirty with the hardware to push the limit as much as they can.
Having said that by no means does your game have to be AAA to be commercially feasible or fun - one could even argue it hurts more than it helps. Technology is rarely the bottleneck of making good games.
I doubt you will create the next Gears of War with it, but XNA works fine for many types of games. Most (all?) of the Community Games on XBox Live are created using XNA.