Official Nintendo Fanboy Smugness & Gloating Thread

[Darkflame]

Heres a nice counter quote for all this "preset animation" nonsense;

The part about the controls that surprised us the most was that your virtual counterpart does a good job replicating the exact way you are holding the bat, showing the detail in capturing your movements.

~IGN

http://uk.revolution.ign.com/articles/707/707417p1.html

Interestingly, they say its one of the worst demos, but for different reasons.

This does not surprise me at all. To put it simply there is no 3d controller with the Wii. There are two lots of tilt, pitch, roll and linear accelerations, and a 2d screen position. There's no 3d position input for either controller. i.e. X, Y, Z of the controller itself.

Then how did the "push the controller towards the screen to perfrom a shield-bash" in the Zelda demo work then?

You can get that from the accelerometers. It's still not an X,Y,Z position.

It 100% for sure it knows its "depth" from the screen.

As I quoted yonks ago, IGN had a simplistic demo where a block moved forward, backward, up, down, left and right and side to side based on corisponding controller movements.

That and, they (Nintendo) explicitely stated it a few times.
Everything else is argueable except for distance from screen.
Thats a knowen, 3D, point.

(probably done by simple triangulation, imo)


Also, if you know angle, depth, and position on screen.....cant you work out the rest with a little bit a of trig?

I also want to pick up on the fact that Nintendo haven't shown a single innovative gaming concept,

Has *anyone* showed a single new gameing concept?

(also Nintendo showcased 3 new IP's, in case you missed. Disaster looked to be particularly new). Have you even been paying attention?

The changeing-landscape on excita-truck seems pretty new to me as well?
Or the 3D platform game-with-real-spherical gravity?


Also, you better be skipping over the DS in that statement, because in that case you would be even more wrong.

You clearly have selected eyesite.
Non of these concept may seem super-amazing, but they are fresh enough.
New gameing concepts just dont happen very often these days.

*goes of to play Truma Centre*

[Spoongod]

Quick point, if the controller does have 'depth' (I'm not getting into the does/doesn't debate), you'll have to calibrate it before you start playing. If that's not the case, you'd have to stand an exact distance from the console. As such, I don't think and triangulation will occur. Also, what would be the third node? You've a console and a controller, and you'd need another transmitter to 'triangulate' and they'd have to know exactly where one another were... too complicated, too potentially expensive. Just saying.

[Kemper_Boyd]

It 100% for sure it knows its "depth" from the screen.

Maybe but that's not three dimensions.

Thats a knowen, 3D, point.

(probably done by simple triangulation, imo)

Also, if you know angle, depth, and position on screen.....cant you work out the rest with a little bit a of trig?

I think it's possible that you can interpret the results from the different
sources, but I am sceptical that it would be accurate.

Also if you look at Nintendo's own site, it says things like 'motion-sensitive'
as well as 'wave' and 'point'.

http://wii.nintendo.com/controller.html

I also have some doubts over the claims that it can detect the position of the controller in 3D space. It's quite likely that under-telly bar has a emittor at each end which the controller can "see" as two points in 2D space. From that it's easily possible to determine the orientation of the controller, but mathematically impossible to triangulate the position in 3-space without another fixed reference point (without that the position could be anywhere on the surface of a sphere passing through the two points under the telly and the controller). My guess is that the controller can only sense orientation and the nunchak attachment can only sense linear motion through its accelerometers, no accurate 3D positioning.

I think teamonkey's probably right.

[D.J.Fudge]

I also have some doubts over the claims that it can detect the position of the controller in 3D space. It's quite likely that under-telly bar has a emittor at each end which the controller can "see" as two points in 2D space. From that it's easily possible to determine the orientation of the controller, but mathematically impossible to triangulate the position in 3-space without another fixed reference point (without that the position could be anywhere on the surface of a sphere passing through the two points under the telly and the controller). My guess is that the controller can only sense orientation and the nunchak attachment can only sense linear motion through its accelerometers, no accurate 3D positioning.

So how does the wario mini game where you put the controller on top of you head and do squat thrusts work then?

[Atty]

Quick point, if the controller does have 'depth' (I'm not getting into the does/doesn't debate), you'll have to calibrate it before you start playing. If that's not the case, you'd have to stand an exact distance from the console. As such, I don't think and triangulation will occur. Also, what would be the third node? You've a console and a controller, and you'd need another transmitter to 'triangulate' and they'd have to know exactly where one another were... too complicated, too potentially expensive. Just saying.

It looks like you have to calibrate with the screen on Mario Galaxy, by clicking at the floating mario in the centre of the screen.

Also, there is meant to be an ideal distance from the screen of a few feet or so that gives you a greater degree/subtlety of movement with the Wii remote and helps to stop your aim from ping-ponging around the screen due to the apparently rather limited angle of movement it can detect (I've heard as low as 30 degrees).

One slightly worrying thing is that reports suggest that the sensor bar works using IR, meaning it's possible to accidently drop your hands too much and have the bar and controller lose 'sight' of each other. Presumably this can be avoided by better positioning the IR bar, but it's still one more thing to set up.

It'll be quite interesting to see how Nintendo can minimise problems like this happening, be it through calibration stuff in-game or a rather lengthy manual. It just goes to show, the more sophisticated the technology, the more sophisticated the problems get.

[Kemper_Boyd]

So how does the wario mini game where you put the controller on top of you head and do squat thrusts work then?

That'd be the accelerometer again. It tells you the movement but not
the position.

[grue]

Maybe the controller has 2 reference points inside for the under-TV sensors to..ummm...sense

[Atty]

Frankly, the technology was always going to be limited, and as long as developers are aware of the limitations I don't see it causing too much of a problem.

The remote has pretty much proved itself usable for FPS and other aimy-things, Driving, Flying simulators, sports titles and so on, and as long as developers keep it's limitations in mind when developing a game, good stuff should happen.

It's easy to be dissapointed that the controller isn't the be all and end all, and that it has it's flaws, but Nintendo have already demonstrated that you can do some very smart, very new and very fun things with the pointer technology and that's all that matters.

I personally can't wait to see Pikmin 3 for Wii. The controller opens up a lot of cool new possibilities for controlling all those adorable little carroty blighters.

[Atty]

Maybe the controller has 2 reference points inside for the under-TV sensors to..ummm...sense

I think I remember hearing that the sensor bar had a sensor at either end, for some form of triangulation, but I may be mistaken.

[Darkflame]

Umm..I am not sure about accuracy at all, but if you have two points known, and an angle.

I am pretty sure the rest can be worked out.

2 points of reference (distance from) gives you an "arc" of possible positions, correct? Like the points where two spheres overlap?

Surely then, based on the angle of the controller, and its position on screen..a 3D position of at least some accuracy can be deduced?



As for configuration, yes a distance would have to be set if you want "real world" scaling of any sort...but that's probably never going to be needed in a game.

Id assume for the angle-sensing it it has some sort of reset/orientation function.

Much like analogue sticks self-config to know what center is when turning the cube/n64 on.

[Roobarb]

Heres a nice counter quote for all this "preset animation" nonsense;

The part about the controls that surprised us the most was that your virtual counterpart does a good job replicating the exact way you are holding the bat, showing the detail in capturing your movements.

~IGN

http://uk.revolution.ign.com/articles/707/707417p1.html

Interestingly, they say its one of the worst demos, but for different reasons.

Those reasons...

Unlike the other titles in the series, Baseball gave us trouble. Even though we had the baseball experience, we still had trouble timing the swings for the game. Unfortunately, Baseball was the least entertaining in the package, but still will be a good addition in a sports compilation.

...are very important though. Just faithfully replicating your motions with the controller makes for a sucky game, and going too far in the other direction with precanned movements also makes for a sucky game...

...the [tennis] game...takes away the ability to run to hit the ball, as all character control aside from serving and hitting is done via automatically. What that means for you is that your character is sent to the ball by the computer, making your only job to hit it when you get there. The idea of this function is ease of play, but it actually makes it too easy. When you take away the players ability to move to the ball, you take out the strategy of ball placement with the hits - What is the use of making a trick shot if our opponent is going to make it to the ball no matter what

The trick is to find the sweetspot in the middle where you *feel* in control.
I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo deliberately contrasted the two extremes with the Wii sports games to clearly demonstrate that it's not just a case of 'stick in a mems device and ship the sucker', which appears to be the stance Sony took. The art is in tuning the feel, and that's where you need to give your developers a lot of time to expiment with how to get the best out of the device.

It's also why i think the rumble and speaker will also greatly add to the usability and satisfaction.

And it's also why i don't care if the controller has 2D point + motion detection vs. absolute 3D positioning: it's irrelevant to good gameplay.

I'm also pleased to see Smash Bros doesn't try to use the Wiimote motion sensing just for the heck of it. Right tools for the job and all that. They've obviously learnt a lot from the DS experience.

On the subject of Smash Bros, you can see the difference between Wii and Cube graphics pretty clearly on IGN's Mario comparison. It may not be hi-def, but it looks pretty good

And Samus is looking mighty fine

[Darkflame]

Maybe the controller has 2 reference points inside for the under-TV sensors to..ummm...sense

I think I remember hearing that the sensor bar had a sensor at either end, for some form of triangulation, but I may be mistaken.

Yes..else why would it be a bar at all?

I agree with Pikmen 3 btw.

Just got my hands on #2 last week an its amazing O_O
Stunningly fun, and very very very unrated graphicaly.
The texture work puts it on par with Resident Evil 4, imo.

...are very important though. Just faithfully replicating your motions with the controller makes for a sucky game, and going too far in the other direction with precanned movements also makes for a sucky game...

I agree absolutely.

But I was just going away from the idea it was a techical reason to do with the controller, rather then a software choice.

As for games that "need" 3D positioning...well..I still want a Mario-Paint 3D thingy
Mario Sculpture.

And Samus is looking mighty fine

Yeah..thats one hell of a sexy shoot in the trailer where the suit explodes off

[Flabio]

To do triangulation you need 3 points in addition to your own position.

[Darkflame]

Then why wont my discription above work?

You work out an arc from what the sensor tells you. Then use the angle and position on screen.

One slightly worrying thing is that reports suggest that the sensor bar works using IR,

Sounds unlikely because theres multiple controllers :-/

The IR thing on the remote is for turning the machine off/on.
(power saveing).

[Roobarb]

As for games that "need" 3D positioning...well..I still want a Mario-Paint 3D thingy
Mario Sculpture.

Do you need absolute 3D positioning for that? You don't get absolute 2D positioning with a mouse...you get its relative movement across the table, and that works well for drawing.