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The Wiimote As Yoda Intended - A Lightsaber
Posted by
Zonk
on Wed Sep 19, 2007 11:55 AM
from the not-as-clumsy-or-random-as-a-blaster dept.
from the not-as-clumsy-or-random-as-a-blaster dept.
An anonymous reader writes "So what if the Wii can't handle the awesome 'next-generation' physics engine the other consoles will enjoy when Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is released? LucasArts announced today that Krome Studios is developing a version of the game for the Nintendo console, and players will finally get to use the Wiimote for its intended purpose — as a lightsaber. 'The sword-swinging action will be exclusive to the Wii version, and even then, it will only be available in an exclusive "duel mode." The description in the release says that this duel mode will be a multiplayer affair.'"
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Submission: The Wiimote as God intended - a lightsaber. by Anonymous Coward
[+]
Hardware: Wiimote as Multi-Touch Display Controller 107 comments
Tmack writes "While hard-hacks with the Wiimote are somewhat old news, this particular implementation is quite interesting. Using the infrared camera on the Wiimote, pens with LEDs instead of ink, and an LCD projector, Johnny Chung Lee of Carnegie Mellon University has created software to use them as a (relatively) cheap multi-touch display. Any surface onto which you can project becomes an interactive multi-touch display, as demonstrated in the video at the link. He has the software available for download, along with some other neat projects.
Lee has also documented another impressive Wiimote hack.
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let me be the first (Score:5, Funny)
Re:let me be the first (Score:5, Funny)
It's a trap!
Parent
Re:let me be the first (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:let me be the first (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:let me be the first (Score:5, Funny)
DOCTOR: So I am to understand that you were swinging the lightsaber around wildly while playing by yourself?
PATIENT: Yes!
DOCTOR: And you fell on your wiimote?
PATIENT: Yes!
DOCTOR: Wait a second...isn't there only lightsaber swinging in Duel mode?
NURSE: Busted!
RECEPTIONIST: There's someone here to see the patient...
MARIO: ITSA ME! MARIO! Yousa gotta no play witta da wiimote lika dat! Issa no goota for ayou digestion offa da lasagna! Shigeru'sa be amadd awitta us!
SHIGERU MIYAMOTO: No famry fun! No buttmote! You shame Nintendo pray!
(etc)
(sorry, I got off-track there)
Parent
Re:let me be the first (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Avast! (Score:5, Funny)
Arrr! I be thinking it be more fun to have an actual lightsabre, be it plastic I don't be carin', with the Wii controller attached some way, so ye be hackin' and slashin' (and no small bit o' swashbucklin'!) to the dulcet tones of sommon bellowin' 'Hey, you could poke an eye out with that thing!'
We be needing cutlasses and some fing piratin' adventures, too. oX|P-)
force feedback (Score:5, Insightful)
You'll never know if you hit something. I'm a sword fencer (2 kg bastard sword) and the experience is much more tactile then visual. Even if you consider that light sabres are much lighter than a real sword and don't have bars to protect your hand I doubt if fencing with a light sabre wii control will live up tu the experience of real fencing - even if it's just for show.
Parent
Re:force feedback (Score:5, Insightful)
Having said that, they could provide some sort of little vibration plus a sound coming from the Wiimote's speaker to simulate impact. Even in a simple game like Wii Sports, the baseball game provides some feedback (a noise coming from the Wiimote itself) to simulate when the bat makes contact with the ball, and that actually is enough to make it feel at least somewhat real if you're absorbed in the game. It really is amazing how much more "real" it feels when the sound from the strike is actually coming from the implement in your hand rather than from the speaker on your TV.
I think they can make this work. The Wiimote has surprising heft for something of its size, and that plus the speaker and the vibrations make it feel far more realistic than you might expect by looking at it.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
A Jedi can slice through a person with a light saber with no perceptible change to the momentum of the saber, so it seems likely that there is not a whole lot of tactile feedback in a "real" light saber either. I think the tactile feedback would probably be little more than it would be if one were slicing a hot knife through butter. So, fencing with a light saber in any context would not "live up to" the experience of real fencing because the weapons involved are too different.
Arr! I be proposin' an ele
Re:force feedback (Score:5, Insightful)
-l
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
A Jedi can slice through a person with a light saber with no perceptible change to the momentum of the saber, so it seems likely that there is not a whole lot of tactile feedback in a "real" light saber either.
The way you say this, it sounds like its from personal experience...
Besides the GP poster was likely talking about feedback when your opponent parries with his lightsaber. Its unlikely that he was referring to the tactile feedback of when his sword slices through people. If he was, it wouldn't be wise to argue with him.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
A Jedi can slice through a person with a light saber with no perceptible change to the momentum of the saber, so it seems likely that there is not a whole lot of tactile feedback in a "real" light saber either.
But I don't think anyone is asking to feel cutting through somebody's neck. This isn't Postal 3 we're talking about.
You want to feel when your sword hits the other, when your opponent pushes against you, when you have to block because you were blocked and can feel your opponent moving his sword to counter. With a wiimote the light saber will go through anyway and you have to just watch the screen to know. In any case getting a hit on the body will probably count as a point right away, instead of having to
Re:force feedback (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought the "dropping the lightsaber through the floor" gag on Robot Chicken was hysterical because I had that same debate with other kids in elementary school.
But back to the topic at hand, I can't imagine trying to do lightsaber combat in a video game with anything other than a motion-sensitive controller like the Wii has. I've never encountered any sort of video game swordfighting system that properly simulated what it would be like to realistically cross swords. My only question is how they're going to simulate the footwork. You're not just standing in one spot beating at the other guy with a lightsaber, you would be moving around and trying not to get boxed in.
Parent
Re:force feedback (Score:4, Informative)
The problem is that you really can't strike a balance (even the sword you describe, and assuming we're talking about period materials) because any blade that can withstand repeated lateral blows will be too heavy to achieve the speed necessary for an effective thrusting attack.
Parent
Re:force feedback (Score:5, Insightful)
> How do you get force feedback on those things?
Uhhhh by using the built-in functionality [wikipedia.org] of the Wiimote? That said, yes, it's just a vibration, but that vibration can tell you to stop wasting energy swinging through, etc.
-l
Parent
Re:force feedback (Score:5, Funny)
You feel the force through The Force, young padawan!
Parent
Re:force feedback (Score:5, Insightful)
Except another lightsaber, matie. Arr!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Not sure if this is a joke or not, but yes, the Wiimote is tracked in 3D space. The Wiimote uses the sensor-bar (a bar containing multiple infrared beacons that you place on top of, or underneath, the TV) to determine its approximate location, and sends this information back using Bluetooth to the Wii. The only issue with this is
remember sony, It's not the size of your swartz (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I see that your schwartz is as big as mine...
Re: (Score:2)
(long pause)
Bony.
Waggle? (Score:5, Insightful)
Finally (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a great move, but it still treats the Wii as an afterthought, with a unique multiplayer module tacked on to the core game. I'll still be pining for a real lightsaber game.
How about 2 sabers? (Score:4, Interesting)
Sure, using the nunchuck to use the Force is a cool idea, but being able to play as Darth Maul has its attraction as well.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Idea for the Wii controller (Score:3, Interesting)
How long before something similar could be put to use on a PC, for 3D/CG manipulation?
The very definition of... (Score:2, Funny)
But how do you handle it? (Score:3, Insightful)
That is what will make this "cool".
Freedom of (light saber) motion (Score:2, Funny)
If, as I hope it to be, it is 100% interactive, will you be able to kill your own character by tilting the wiimote towards you?
Re:But how do you handle it? (Score:4, Insightful)
As for what the Wii's capable of: they really have a lot of room to innovate here that unfortunately hasn't been explored:
-It could largely solve the 1-1 motion matching problem by having the Wii detect vertical tilt as it normally does (w/ accelerometer) and horizontal motion with the pointer. If your Wiimote loses sight of the sensor bar, it can just bring your saber back in at the next place it does detect it. There is quite a wide detection angle to begin with.
-When sabers collide, make either the player push himself back (as represented by his onscreen view), or the opponent bounce backward, or some of both, so that your living-room Wiimote position, despite having "gone through" where the opponent's saber should be, is still consistent with what he sees on the screen.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Lightsabre dueling (Score:5, Funny)
- How fast can they turn off and back on? By timing it right you could bypass a parry but turning it off...
- Lightsabre trap... to stop others from using it, make it look like the other end is the business end.
- While most other forms seem silly (especially the two-ended staff), putting it on a long pole would be of definite advantage in some situations. But why stop there? Can you imagine a pair of light-sabre nunchuku? HOw about a garden rake with one stuck on the end? Or why not a boomerang with twin-sabre action that turns them on a few seconds after it leaves your hand, then back off when it returns... the possibilities are endless..
Re:Lightsabre dueling (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
- While most other forms seem silly (especially the two-ended staff), putting it on a long pole would be of definite advantage in some situations. But why stop there? Can you imagine a pair of light-sabre nunchuku? HOw about a garden rake with one stuck on the end? Or why not a boomerang with twin-sabre action that turns them on a few seconds after it leaves your hand, then back off when it returns... the possibilities are endless..
geek: Oh wait wait! How about this! You know how Shredder has those blades all over and they're like sharper than katanas? How about this: he's got lightsaber emitters instead! He fires them up and he's a walking wall of death!
observer: You do realize that your uber-cool jedi ninja now looks like a walking Las Vegas neon sign?
geek: No, but think of the possibilities!
observer: Yeah. If he altered the color of the different blades he could pass for Rainbow Brite's dad.
geek: *stiffles sob* You asshole...
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
That's an excellent trap! Just persuade the other guy to use it, and he'll dismember himself without any further help from you.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Darth Traya, is that you?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Larry Niven's protagonists sometimes make use of a similar weapon - a monofilament wire wrapped in a stasis field to hold it rigid. In other words, a lightsaber with marginally more plausible physics :-)
Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"I have something here for you. Your father wanted you to have this when you were old enough, but your uncle wouldn't allow it. He feared you might follow old Obi-Wan on some damn fool idealistic computer adventure like your father did. It's your father's WiiMote. This is the weapon of a Wii Knight. Not as clumsy or as random as a Joystick, but an elegant weapon for a more civilized age. For over a thousand generations, the Wii Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times, before the PS3."
Awesome. So now I get to be on of the Knights Who Play Wii. Bring me a shrubbery, bitch!
Tacked on (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As a Swordsman... (Score:5, Insightful)
Uncomfortably Close (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, it links to Next-Gen which is fine, but if your summary lifts more than 50% of the phrases word-for-word, maybe you should be linking that, too.
I always thought a wiffle ball bat worked fine... (Score:3, Funny)
Oblig youtube (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wait a second... (Score:5, Funny)
You'd better disable the rumble feature before you chip your teeth!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
General Grievous, is that you?