[BillP4wnS]

It might seem kinda fool, but what about a Kinect integration mod for Freespace 2?

You might ask yourself what kind of gameplay enhancements it could bring right? I thought of these:
- Cockpit view by moving the head
- Ship controlling by hands (look Forza 4)

Personally, I yet don't have the knowledge to realize such a thing, but it'd be really nice if someone decided to step up!

Also, be free to add your ideas.

[MatthTheGeek]

Wouldn't that require porting FSO to the XBox, unless kinect is compatible with windows ?

Also, we already have cockpit view by moving the head with TrackIR.

I must also add that I deeply despise all forms of "move to play" technologies.

[Deadly in a Shadow]

I must also add that I deeply despise all forms of "move to play" technologies.

[BillP4wnS]

The official SDK is right here:
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/kinectsdk/

Also, I  know the device had been hacked at release and someone had published the code, but I don't know where it is.

[The E]

Well.

Wouldn't that require porting FSO to the XBox, unless kinect is compatible with windows ?

Well, you can hook up the Kinect to a PC, that's no problem. Several people have already made open-source drivers for it.

Also, we already have cockpit view by moving the head with TrackIR.

Which is pretty much the extent of functionality you could get with the Kinect.

It might seem kinda fool, but what about a Kinect integration mod for Freespace 2?

That's not a "mod". That's more like coding in a fourth control variant. Which is hard, especially given that you'd want to preserve the balance between control variants.

You might ask yourself what kind of gameplay enhancements it could bring right? I thought of these:
- Cockpit view by moving the head
- Ship controlling by hands (look Forza 4)

How do you fire? How do you control wingmen? How do you select targets? What motions will be reserved for altering pitch, bank, and heading? How do you choose weapons? These are all controls that you'll have to implement, unless you want to play with a controller in hand.

Personally, I yet don't have the knowledge to realize such a thing, but it'd be really nice if someone decided to step up!

Also, be free to add your ideas.

This isn't going to happen soon. FS2 is, IMHO, utterly unsuited for motion controls. In addition, in order to do this right, you need a developer to have the Kinect hardware, experience with programming for said hardware, and crucially, an interest in this thing. I do have my doubts about there being a person with the   mentioned requirements currently in this community.

[Zacam]

Personally, I yet don't have the knowledge to realize such a thing, but it'd be really nice if someone decided to step up!

Uhm. What? No, I think I'll be definitely stepping -down- from this.

It's a nice notion, I'll grant you. And the Kinect is a -nice- piece of equipment. But you miss a lot of other elements at play here. Comms menu system, key-binding management for target selection (never mind targeting types), weapons selection, etc.

While the Kinect has it's place in many various forms of simulator, it would have to be an "Arcade" mode version of FSO at best to be able to be interactively handled by such a mechanism.

And if all you want is a pan-able viewing cockpit, a multi-monitor display and FreeTrack (or some derivative) will give you that and probably for much MUCH cheaper (if not in terms of purchase cost, in terms of coding requirements and dependencies to make it work)

Thanks for the enthusiasm, but unless somebody actually shows up with a dedicated and vested interest in making this happen, it's probably not going to. (And to further complicate the burden, they'll have to be able t odo it in such a way that it'll be maintainable after they leave, should they ever do so. Rather like what happened with DirectX. And speaking of which, how well does the Kinect currently operate on non-Windows platforms? If "Not at all" then it's definitely a no-go as we don't need a platform proprietary extension cluttering up our code thank you)

[BillP4wnS]

Personally, I yet don't have the knowledge to realize such a thing, but it'd be really nice if someone decided to step up!

It's a nice notion, I'll grant you. And the Kinect is a -nice- piece of equipment. But you miss a lot of other elements at play here. Comms menu system, key-binding management for target selection (never mind targeting types), weapons selection, etc.

Second thought: you're right, to play Fp2 with only kinect would be impossible. But an hybrid keyboard/mouse/kinect gameplay would fit, giving the same functions to the kinect as given to the TrackIR: head-tracking.

I'd also like to point out that 10 million units of kinect have been sold, it's a more popular and accessible product than the TrackIR.

[MatthTheGeek]

And then again, if it's only that, why not use TrackIR instead ? The code is already here, contrary to a potential Kinect support. Not to mention the cross-platform compatibility and proprietary code already mentioned by Zacam.

[The E]

Which is a waste of a Kinect, given that all you need to do THAT is a cheap webcam and FacetrackNOIR. (Not to mention that the Kinect wouldn't work well in that environment due to the focus of its camera being set up to focus on an area 2 to 4 meters away from the camera)

[Destiny]

Taking one of those military F-15 simulators and reprogramming it for FS would be more logical/interesting than Kinect, I believe. Even more if you have a two-seater so you can logically fly two-seater fighters in FS and yell at your friend to spam the X button and do the ETS.

[LoneKnight]

There's a reason most Kinect "shooter" games are on rails.

[IronBeer]

Even more if you have a two-seater so you can logically fly two-seater fighters in FS and yell at your friend to spam the X button and do the ETS.

Oh, THAT would be cool. Rather than a Radio Intercept Officer, you'd basically have an Engineer on board- somebody who could manage the ship's energy, make sure shields stay up where they need to be, while the brave pilot focuses entirely on flying.

[Marcov]

Er, but then we would have to sell it for a price, right?

And not all will be able to get it since we all live in different countries, correct?

So how are we supposed to use this?

[Polpolion]

IMHO even simple TrackIR would be incredibly disorienting without visible cockpits. While many FS2 fighters do have them, they aren't exactly pretty last I've heard. Which, to be fair, was a while ago. Anyway, I agree mostly with what people said here: kinect is an ineffective way to play FS2. Even with just tracking head motions it wouldn't be particularly useful for both the above reason and the fact that there are already much cheaper alternatives. If for some reason you really wanted to use kinect instead of buying a $30 webcam and using an existing tracking system, you'd either need to learn to code and write your own API for kinect tracking for the computer or convince some chumps to do it for you. Wait a minute...

EDIT: Two-seated gameplay would be cool, but I think you'd really need more stuff to do to really make it fun. I mean really, who wants to play with the ETS and do shield management for the entire game? It'd be really interesting to see what kind of stuff we could make up to have the second player do because it would force us to really stretch out the technology fluff of the universe.

[Destiny]

Er, but then we would have to sell it for a price, right?

And not all will be able to get it since we all live in different countries, correct?

So how are we supposed to use this?

We can only fantasize, man. It's a good fantasy though.

EDIT: Two-seated gameplay would be cool, but I think you'd really need more stuff to do to really make it fun. I mean really, who wants to play with the ETS and do shield management for the entire game? It'd be really interesting to see what kind of stuff we could make up to have the second player do because it would force us to really stretch out the technology fluff of the universe.

Assuming a 360-degree spherical visual simulator coverage, you'd need a submissive friend or someone who's really bored enough to sit at the back to do target spotting with his eyes, munch on chips, use the turret at the back, read a bedtime story to you, call the support ship, handle the landing, do the C-3-9 or C-4-1 or C-3-8, ETS, cycle weapon/radar range, edit the HUD, who knows. If not you could always grab the flightstick at the RIO's seat and mess up the dude at the front for fun. Better than Kinect I suppose

[Mongoose]

EDIT: Two-seated gameplay would be cool, but I think you'd really need more stuff to do to really make it fun. I mean really, who wants to play with the ETS and do shield management for the entire game? It'd be really interesting to see what kind of stuff we could make up to have the second player do because it would force us to really stretch out the technology fluff of the universe.

I know multiple people have raised the possibility of having a second player act as a gunner, which would probably play out like something of a rail shooter gameplay-wise.  It'd make sense for a bomber like the Medusa or Ursa to have someone handling that turret.

[Veers]

If it was done 110% perfectly, it would be pretty good but still would be basic FS, just running over ideas to access comms, ETS, and keyboard shortcuts is just a nightmare.

:Movement:
Head - fly ship (?)
left hand - speed control, ets control, comms, burners
right hand - weapon control, fire prim, fire sec, change, double.

Erg... even if it did come out..., I think I just lost interest.

EDIT - supports voice -

Alright, perhaps comms could be voice operated.

Still...

[BillP4wnS]

Kinect also supports voice-recognition...

[FSW]

Although it is unlikely that FS2O will ever natively support Kinect, it may be possible to use another program that uses Kinect inputs to emulate commands that FS2O does recognise.

I use the programs GlovePIE and PPJoy in order to play using a Wii controller.

[Marcov]

Maybe we could use Kinect for capital ship flying. You could have 18 people to fly an Orion and have each one man a turret and one to fly the ship.