Despite Microsoft insisting you can squat, sit, or hang from the chandelier in front of Kinect and it will detect it, one developer has said the camera did not detect sitting positions despite what Microsoft said previously.
Can’t you see an elephant or do I have to paint her red?
According to Blitz Games’ Andre Oliver, the issue with the whole sitting fiasco was brought about by Kinect’s base node not being able to differentiate between skeletal models at the bottom of the spine and the couch – especially with knees bent in front of their core.
Per Oliver, speaking with Eurogamer, Microsoft has now updated the software used by developers, making it so the base node no longer detects the bottom of the spine but the back of the neck.
“It means that should the bottom of your torso get confused with the sofa, because your bum and your legs are enveloped inside the sofa, it doesn’t matter because your hands and arms are still working,” said Oliver.
“You can do most actions. A few months ago they changed stuff around. A lot of developers were like, ‘Oh my God! Everything’s broken,’ because all the nodes were moved. But then it was like, ‘Oh, actually, this is more logical.'”
Well, shouldn’t we lie down? Put paper bags over our heads or something?
While these changes in the software for Kinect are well and good, the change comes too late for add-on and launch titles coming in November. Going forward, new titles “won’t have a problem”, said Oliver.
Before the update, Oliver said developers creating titles with sitting or lying down had to create software for it, and Blitz was just one of the studios that added the option internally, so consumers could make proper use of its Kinect fitness game The Biggest Loser – just one of several games in development at the studio.
“It was one of those ones where it was probably borderline whether Microsoft would have fixed it for you or not,” he said. “We were talking to them last February saying, ‘Are you ever going to fix the libraries so it will work on the floor?’
“And they went, ‘Oh come on, that’s lying on the floor.That’s so rare. We’ve got other issues we’re dealing with.’ We said, ‘Okay, we’ll go write it ourselves.'”
Good thing the issue was addressed, otherwise, those buying fitness games would not have gotten yelled at when doing push-ups wrong.
Kinect would not have been able to detect any physical errors in form.
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