Neoseeker : News : Microsoft Research unveils IllumiRoom, new Kinect feature that takes immersion to a new level

Microsoft Research unveils IllumiRoom, new Kinect feature that takes immersion to a new level

Lydia Sung - Wednesday, January 9, 2013 1:28pm (PST) Like +my favourites

Forget the game, just watch the freaking lights

We've seen TV monitors that light up, but Microsoft is taking this whole immersion thing to a whole new level. Microsoft Research has been keeping busy, and at this week's CES in Vegas, showed off IllumiRoom, a proof-of-concept project involving the Kinect peripheral and lights. Lots and lots of lights.

The whole idea behind this "augment" is to create a more immersive gaming experience, as the video below shows. Here's a brief (and likely simplified) explanation for how the whole thing works:

IllumiRoom uses a Kinect for Windows camera and a projector to blur the lines between on-screen content and the environment we live in allowing us to combine our virtual and physical worlds. For example, our system can change the appearance of the room, induce apparent motion, extend the field of view, and enable entirely new game experiences.

Our system uses the appearance and the geometry of the room (captured by Kinect) to adapt the projected visuals in real-time without any need to custom pre-process the graphics. What you see in the videos below has been captured live and is not the result of any special effects added in post production.

All very fascinating. Now here's the actual video. Impressively enough, none of the effects you see were added in post-processing; it's all real time.

Pretty fun to watch. Granted, I'm wondering if all of this might be a tad overwhelming in practice, but hey, it's a cool concept. Won't even need to leave a light on for late-night gaming sessions.

Source: Microsoft Research

Alternate Source: All Games Beta

Sections: Microsoft Consoles, Console Games

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1 thumbs! ^

bluexy Jan 9, 13

This... this isn't my holodeck at all.

0 thumbs! ^

LloydToS Jan 9, 13

bluexy seems we have to wait a little while longer.

0 thumbs! ^

DedValve Jan 9, 13

THAT SNOW.

0 thumbs! ^

LOD-squa Jan 9, 13

Some random crap MS is going with. I hate it how they keep focusing on the Kinect.

0 thumbs! ^

Duncan Idaho Jan 9, 13

remember kids dont mix this with LSD, less you want to wind up in a murder spree and shot down by cops (the man who stare goats reference)

0 thumbs! ^

Shadow of Death Jan 9, 13

Not bad, really. Having little explosions or fire effects is a nice touch, though I think projecting a muted or wireframe extended version of the game might be a tad much though.

0 thumbs! ^

Lorx Jan 9, 13

Wow, that is...that is really cool. That is...wow.

0 thumbs! ^

Nightmare Samurai Jan 9, 13

This is going to fail for so many reasons.

0 thumbs! ^

ashantiqua Jan 9, 13

So... You need a projector in addition to your main display?.. and if so, the projector then must also project over the main display as well....

Kinda cool though. Not sure if it warrants an investment in an additional projector, and projectors kinda suck during the day unless you can really block light out of the room well, but.... Id love to try it sometime, somewhere

0 thumbs! ^

lKasHl Jan 9, 13

IMO this is an pretty innovative and perhaps awesome idea, assuming its inexpensive and able to be widely implemented. The projector doesn't look like it needs to be of high quality (expensive) since you're still focusing primarily on the tv, its not like peripheal vision has quality perception.

It'll be interesting to see what resolution the games need to run at, everything they demo'd seemed low on resource consumption, something more demanding would probably be a slideshow. Then again they could render 1080p 60 FOV for the TV and for the remaining FOV remove texture density, tesselation and all the other goodies that you wont notice to keep GPU wastage in check.

Doubt this will compete against the Oculus for enthusiasts though.

quote ashantiqua
So... You need a projector in addition to your main display?.. and if so, the projector then must also project over the main display as well....

I'd assume since it has the Kinect doing a preliminary scan of the environment it'll be capable of recognising the display and not projecting on that area.

1 thumbs! ^

DedValve Jan 9, 13

If you can design a proper horror game around this, holy shit.

3 thumbs! ^

Redemption Jan 9, 13

I think this is really impressive, but should be used properly and sparingly. I don't like how some of the demo shows it extending the actual in game graphics into the room, but I really like how it might add some effects, like extending lens flare and lighting tricks, adding snow to the room, or showing contrails and bullet trails.

0 thumbs! ^

Batman Jan 9, 13

Ded Valve, you're everywhere

Who are you working for? Penguin?

0 thumbs! ^

harbin Jan 10, 13

How much will that cost if it is made? I doubt it would be cheap although all it is is a TV with a project on it. Still I image it would look amazing in 3D especially if utilised to the max. Also wonder if Microsoft would extend it to the PC line, or whether they'll just restrict it to the Xbox.