Engineer Integrates Kinect with Garry's Mod

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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Engineer Integrates Kinect with Garry's Mod

Yelp Engineering has made the dream of Kinect [http://www.amazon.com/Kinect-Sensor-Adventures-Xbox-360/dp/B002BSA298/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1299872841&sr=8-1] integration with Garry's Mod a reality and now it wants to see what you can do with it.

You know what Kinect is and if you're reading this, odds are that you know what OpenNI [http://www.garrysmod.com/], the open source software released by PrimeSense, the company responsible for the 3D motion sensing technology in Kinect.

"OpenNI provides APIs for interacting with hardware as well as incorporating higher level computer vision modules that can recognize objects and gestures," he explained. "This allows us to solve really complex problems (like tracking skeletons in 3D space) very simply, since the heavy lifting is already done for us in OpenNI."

The Kinect integration with Garry's Mod consists of two parts, a backend based on one of the OpenNI example projects and a Lua script in Garry's Mod that parses the UDP packets generated by the backend. Boiles said that interfacing with Kinect through OpenNI is "super easy" but you'll have to take his word for it, since pretty much all of this technobabble is way above my pay grade.

It's fairly basic at this point but with the "proof of concept" complete, he is now giving away the code and inviting people to "branch it and hack it" into bigger and better things. Garry Newman, the creator of Garry's Mod, said on his blog [http://www.garry.tv/?p=2340] that he'd love to see Boiles' creation included with future releases of his software. I'm betting we'll see some pretty cool things from this mod in very short order.

Source: Mechsoap [http://engineeringblog.yelp.com/2011/03/after-hours-project-kinect-hacking.html] for the tip.


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SextusMaximus

Nightingale Assassin
May 20, 2009
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This is AWESOME.

Wish I could be bothered enough to get it, but it would be great to be able to spawn a combine and box his head.
 

HellspawnCandy

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Oct 29, 2009
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Ohhhhhhhhh man, I want a kinect so bad now. Valve should totally support the usage of kinect for Gmod.
 

Quaxar

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Sep 21, 2009
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Korey Von Doom said:
Notice how nothing awesome dealing with Kinect has anything to do with Microsoft.
Yeah, I wonder how they managed to sell actual games for it.
 

V8 Ninja

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May 15, 2010
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I need to buy Kinect. NOW.

...Wait, they're still over $100? F*** that noise. I could get dozens upon dozens of games on Steam with that kind of cash.
 

omicron1

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Mar 26, 2008
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Somewhere deep inside me, I like to believe that 83% of those Kinects Microsoft sold were sold to hobbyists, programmers, and people who make things like this... instead of the massive crowds of enthusiastic but inexperienced Wii graduates looking for new ways to play virtual tennis.

Now, if only they can invent a good way of moving around the world... something like, I dunno, the Wii nunchuck! Curse you, Microsoft! Curse your aversion to actual controllers and your hard-headed focus on innovation at the expense of gameplay!
 

Wolfram23

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Mar 23, 2004
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I will say that's awesome, although needs some work. But awesome.

Just to be a troll... +1 to PC gamers! lol
 

Baneat

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Jul 18, 2008
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V8 Ninja said:
I need to buy Kinect. NOW.

...Wait, they're still over $100? F*** that noise. I could get dozens upon dozens of games on Steam with that kind of cash.
Or a second xbox for the lulz

when the addon costs the same as a second-hand console, there's problems
 

Rad Party God

Party like it's 2010!
Feb 23, 2010
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That's quite impressive indeed, it looks like Kinect can be used as a low budget mocap camera.
I hope we san see a cool, or at least a decent machinima made with it.