straightdope.com— How exactly does the Nintendo game "know" where you are pointing the gun on the screen when you shoot ducks?!? Very mind-boggling!
Nov 15, 2006View in Crawl 4
Well the first clue for me was that the gun never emitted any light, even when I turned the TV off and the room lights off, but kept the game running. Nor did my Captain Power XT-7 jet.It then occurred to me that maybe the gun was a camera of some sort because of the lens they had inside. I figured this out when I was 11.What helped was that I had a Captain Power playset with the XT-7 fighter jet (actually a light sensor/gun), and one of the "turbines?" wouldn't rack up points when I covered it. Plus the jet would rack up points in the afternoon no matter where I fired on the screen, because the sun would shine through the living room and reflect light. It was then it dawned on me that maybe the opposite occurred.
Oh I think I got it... You don't believe that the Wiimote contains an infra-red camera because IGN and Wikipedia didn't say so? You think I made that up to sound smart?I had first figured that out by myself yeah, but I wouldn't have stated that as a fact before I could find definite proof of it.Look at the video found in this page: <a class="user" href="http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/11/wii-setup-and-interface-walkthrough-video">http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/11/wii-setup-and-interface-walkthrough-video</a>At around 7:00 in the video, the Wii shows on screen what's being seen by the Wiimote infrared camera, live. Unfortunately the Engadget guy is wrong when saying it's what's being seen by the sensor bar, it's the opposite, the Wiimote sees the sensor bar via its IR camera.The sensor bar shouldn't be even called a sensor bar, it only contains 2 IR LEDs that emits infra-red, it doesn't sense anything. This can be evidenced on some videos of the bar filmed in dark condition, where video cameras gets sensitive to infra-red light and showed the two IR LEDs.As for the neural net part, I wrote "presumably" to show it's speculation on my part. But it makes sense, it would be easier to train a neural net to correlate images of 2 LEDs with the position, than to try to make a program that does it and can cover almost all possible angles and conditions.
Ehm... just a little late correction to my post: When I said Gumshoe, I was talking about "Wild Gunman". The NES version of the game is rumored to be released for the Wii virtual console.
What iss more magic on the NES is how low level the programming was; <a class="user" href="http://mindripper.net">http://mindripper.net</a> they had to make a game from the chip and byte level, now its all made with 3D programs and C.
shrimpcrackersNov 15, 2006
Well the first clue for me was that the gun never emitted any light, even when I turned the TV off and the room lights off, but kept the game running. Nor did my Captain Power XT-7 jet.It then occurred to me that maybe the gun was a camera of some sort because of the lens they had inside. I figured this out when I was 11.What helped was that I had a Captain Power playset with the XT-7 fighter jet (actually a light sensor/gun), and one of the "turbines?" wouldn't rack up points when I covered it. Plus the jet would rack up points in the afternoon no matter where I fired on the screen, because the sun would shine through the living room and reflect light. It was then it dawned on me that maybe the opposite occurred.
dnabeastNov 15, 2006
I so hope we'll be able to import our Nintendogs to go hunting with us.
delmonteNov 16, 2006
Oh I think I got it... You don't believe that the Wiimote contains an infra-red camera because IGN and Wikipedia didn't say so? You think I made that up to sound smart?I had first figured that out by myself yeah, but I wouldn't have stated that as a fact before I could find definite proof of it.Look at the video found in this page: <a class="user" href="http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/11/wii-setup-and-interface-walkthrough-video">http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/11/wii-setup-and-interface-walkthrough-video</a>At around 7:00 in the video, the Wii shows on screen what's being seen by the Wiimote infrared camera, live. Unfortunately the Engadget guy is wrong when saying it's what's being seen by the sensor bar, it's the opposite, the Wiimote sees the sensor bar via its IR camera.The sensor bar shouldn't be even called a sensor bar, it only contains 2 IR LEDs that emits infra-red, it doesn't sense anything. This can be evidenced on some videos of the bar filmed in dark condition, where video cameras gets sensitive to infra-red light and showed the two IR LEDs.As for the neural net part, I wrote "presumably" to show it's speculation on my part. But it makes sense, it would be easier to train a neural net to correlate images of 2 LEDs with the position, than to try to make a program that does it and can cover almost all possible angles and conditions.
nmaster64Nov 16, 2006
Everybody knows Nintendo systems run off the magic of the laughter of Japanese children...
bigmogNov 16, 2006
Here's another bit of trivia. If you play Duck Hunt on a B&W TV, you can't miss. Everything will count as a hit.
raindogmxNov 17, 2006
@yeahbuddy Grat video! I always wanted to see how R.O.B. worked. Now I know it was fun only topped by watching paint dry.
delmonteNov 21, 2006
Ehm... just a little late correction to my post: When I said Gumshoe, I was talking about "Wild Gunman". The NES version of the game is rumored to be released for the Wii virtual console.
kiraevoFeb 11, 2008
What iss more magic on the NES is how low level the programming was; <a class="user" href="http://mindripper.net">http://mindripper.net</a> they had to make a game from the chip and byte level, now its all made with 3D programs and C.
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