Hands-Off Preview: CamSpace

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Hands-Off Preview: CamSpace

Wed, Jul 9, 2008

Wii-like 3D motion control using only a webcam: too good to be true? GameCyte investigates.

Today, I kicked around a soccer ball... with a neon-orange highlighter pen. I tore through a dirt off-road racing arena in a beat-up old truck... using a green suction-cup-tipped Nerf dart to steer. I played the best game of solitaire I've had in ages... with a plastic yellow clothespin and the red foot to some long-lost laundry hamper.

I assure you, I'm not off my rocker; I just spent the day testing out the CamSpace beta, which lets you use an existing webcam -- and any sufficiently colored household objects -- to obtain full 3D motion control in the PC game of your choice.

In theory, CamSpace is supposed to work something like this: you place up to four colorful objects in front of any webcam; the software recognizes each object and assigns them patterns it can identify as your and your buddies move, twist and rotate said objects in 3D space; you launch the PC game of your choice; and finally, you have a blast by using household objects to emulate mouse, keyboard and/or joystick in your favorite games.

Theory is lovely, and so is this official CamSpace video. My experience with CamSpace, however, was not quite as inspirational.

After I finished installing the software on my (currently) Vista-equipped laptop, registering it with a serial derived from my PC's hardware fingerprint, and obtaining drivers for my collection of three webcams, the real step number one proved to be finding both a light environment and colorful household objects that would play nice with one another. I don't know exactly how CamSpace works, but one thing that became painfully obvious during my trials is that the program tracks color, and color to the near-exclusion of all other characteristics (like, I don't know, motion) your household object might display.

CamSpace objects

Depending on the quality of the webcam and the surrounding light, I found that CamSpace was frequently unable to tell a bright red piece of plastic from the peach-colored hand holding it, or the aforementioned yellow clothespin from a cream-colored wall. Also, no matter the camera you use, there needs to be plenty of ambient light in order for CamSpace to track them at a reasonable speed -- but not so much light that the objects wash out. I'm not exaggerating when I say it took over an hour to find a reasonable balance between light and color at my residence, and even afterwards I had to rely primarily on objects with unearthly bright colors (see green Nerf dart above) in order to get a consistent response. My Logitech QuickCam for Notebooks (circa 2006) dropped out at this early stage, as it just wouldn't provide a sufficient framerate.

Once I had objects that would reasonably track across my screen, it was time to get my hands-free gaming groove on. CamSpace has a handy featured apps page where users can post their own per-game presets (and links to the corresponding freeware titles) and since I didn't yet feel up to the challenge of making my own, it was there I attempted to find some instant gratification. CamSpace proved quite capable of handling the 2D, single-object games where you bat around a soccer ball or catch eggs in a basket, but then again, Sony's EyeToy has been pulling those kinds of tricks for years. I wanted something a little more contemporary... I wanted multi-touch. The featured apps page listed Mario Forever among those titles with a CamSpace-approved preset file, and I was all too ready to manipulate Mario with the tips of my fingers.

CamSpace solitaire

Somehow, I don't think Mario felt the same way -- at least not after I dropped him into bottomless pits for a good ten minutes straight. Even when CamSpace was reasonably responsive, it seemed far too imprecise to control a keyboard-based platformer, let alone perform as a standard Windows mouse (my next experiment). Windows Solitaire, on the other hand, was quite playable. With a steady hand, I rather enjoyed the multi-touch experience of grabbing virtual cards between thumb and forefinger, and depositing them on a waiting stack. It was certainly no easier than it would have been with even a laptop eraserhead pointer, but the visceral experience was worth the trouble.

At this point, having waxed poetic about solitaire and felt my manhood slipping away, I decided I wanted something with a little more muscle... and by far the most engaging demonstration available was Off-Road Arena. A full 3D dirt racing game, Arena's presets mimic the mid-air steering wheel a la Mario Kart Wii, but with the added bonus of being able to control the throttle by pushing the "wheel" towards the screen, and apply the brakes by pulling it away.

CamSpace off-road

While I didn't win a single race against the computer, Off-Road Arena proved to be an entertaining diversion -- especially after I stopped using my new Dell laptop's integrated webcam, which had great difficulty tracking even my trusty alien-green Nerf dart in 3D space. For the record, the ancient Intel Camera PC Pro (circa 2000) had no similar difficulty.

After experiencing what the CamSpace team had whipped up for us beta testers, I was eagerly anticipating the opportunity to build my own presets -- CamSpace calls them "emulations" -- for games nearer and dearer to my heart. I figured I could piece together a basic first-person shooter setup that I could transfer from game to game with little effort... but what I found waiting for me on the Emulation Authoring page was more than a little daunting for the average gamer.

CamSpace joystick

CamSpace has any number of tools to assist programmers and/or the incredibly tech-savvy to create control schemes: you can manually measure and calibrate each axis when emulating keyboard or joystick, add event triggers based on whether the user's object shakes in a particular direction or touches a region you define, even write specialized scripts in Lua from within the program. Of course, I have no idea what any of that really means when it comes to making my index finger into the trigger of a virtual gun... and considering the precarious lighting situation (it was hard enough to make the CamSpace-approved games work when I already knew how they were supposed to) experimentation here helped little.

In the end, I found that proper enjoyment of CamSpace has a number of prerequisites: a decent webcam, a well-lit room, uniquely colored objects and a working knowledge of simple programming -- most of which the average user may not possess. While I won't presume any further without obtaining a top-notch webcam, the software also seems to be too imprecise for games that require finesse.

As it currently stands CamSpace is very much a developer toy. I believe it will appeal greatly to those willing to wade through trial and error to produce quality emulations, and I could possibly even see entire indie games built around the free, motion-sensing software, but unless CamTrax Technologies shifts focus to help the end-user calibrate the software for their lighting environment (instead of expecting users to modify their living arrangement to suit a program), easily build presets for the individual games they'd like to play (might we suggest a tutorial?) and get rid of the company's misleading "any game, any webcam" slogan, CamSpace may be doomed to obscurity.

Here's to ongoing development and a thriving mod community proving me very, very wrong. I'll be keeping my eye on this one.

Editor's Note: We realize this is a beta, and are providing this hard-hitting preview not to bash the program, but to proactively engage its developers and potential audience with what we believe is valuable criticism.

Cam-Trax, CamSpace, EyeToy, homebrew, Johnny Lee, Mario Forever, Mario Kart Wii, motion control, Nerf, Nintendo, Nintendo Wii, Peripherals, Solitaire, Unreal Tournament, Wiimote

This post was written by:

Sean Hollister - who has written 825 posts on GameCyte.

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4 Comments For This Post

chesss Says:
July 10th, 2008 at 4:04 am
OK DUDE
I was sleeping through ur review.
keep it small dude, u talk a lot of offtopic girly chatter.

Secondly u have a crap camera,,, ur review shld shut then nd there.
camspace clearly states that u need a minimum fps of 30 for this to work.
Sean Hollister Says:
July 10th, 2008 at 11:11 am
@chesss: Thanks for the feedback, it's good to know some readers like shorter previews.

CamSpace's current slogan is "any game, any webcam" and our readers will want to know whether that is accurate. I would not be performing a worthwhile service if I didn't intentionally use a variety of average and/or older webcams to test out the software.

That said, two out of my three webcams were fully capable of 30FPS with proper lighting, and the results they provided informed the rest of my review.
t.a Says:
August 25th, 2008 at 5:13 am
where can i get this softwere and is it free?
Fred Says:
July 7th, 2009 at 8:35 am
Here you go:

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=camspace

GameCyte