Show HN: Let your body be the gamepad using a webcam

#1

Post by hypernovawebant » Sun, Apr 16, 2023, 7:42 PM UTC

Hi HN,

I made a keyboard emulator that tracks your body pose and emits the key presses accordingly.

My main motivation was to make my kids move more on rainy days. I already made a couple of mini-games using the body pose [1-3], and those were definitely fun to make and play! However, once the kids learned the tricks, they got bored. I could only produce that much content myself, and soon realized that I lack time for churning out games.

Finally, I decided to tap into an endless pool of PC games, preferrably simple and less addictive ones like the Gameboy and DOS games.

This project has been also inspired by [4], which has been featured on HN recently.

[1]: https://github.com/mristin/pop-that-balloon-desktop

[2]: https://github.com/mristin/cactusss-desktop

[3]: https://github.com/mristin/ski-leu-desktop/

[4]: https://github.com/everythingishacked/Semaphore

Edit: clarified title; layout of references

Show HN: Let your body be the gamepad using a webcam
github.com

Re: Show HN: Let your body be the gamepad using a webcam

#2

Post by qbrass » Sun, Apr 16, 2023, 9:06 PM UTC

You should add "using a webcam" when describing it. It's one of those things that seems too obvious for you to mention since you made it, but isn't apparent to everyone else.

Re: Show HN: Let your body be the gamepad using a webcam

#3

Post by hypernovawebant » Sun, Apr 16, 2023, 9:27 PM UTC

qbrass wrote: post #2

You should add "using a webcam" when describing it. It's one of those things that seems too obvious for you to mention since you made it, but isn't apparent to everyone else.

Thanks, changed!

Re: Show HN: Let your body be the gamepad using a webcam

#4

Post by joshmn » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 12:58 AM UTC

This reminds me of the game I played on the family Compaq Presario back in the day. I think it shipped with the Logitech eyeball webcam. Volleyball or something — you'd hit the ball with your body, as intersected from the webcam capture. 8-year-old me thought it was the coolest thing.

Re: Show HN: Let your body be the gamepad using a webcam

#5

Post by sudovert » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 4:33 AM UTC

So Xbox Kinect? Just joking, very impressive.

Re: Show HN: Let your body be the gamepad using a webcam

#6

Post by mristin » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 6:29 AM UTC

sudovert wrote: post #5

So Xbox Kinect? Just joking, very impressive.

XBox doesn't work outside & in the class room. Now, I wouldn't advocate for playing computer games outside -- but this might be a nice gimmick for children's birthdays when celebrated in the garden.

A friend of mine uses these games in the classroom as a primary school teacher. Kids here all have a laptop, so when they get nervous, it's a neat way for them to make a break & move a bit. Apparently, this works well for kids with hyperactive tendencies. Kinect would be too complicated in that setting as you need to purchase & maintain 20+ Kinects.

Re: Show HN: Let your body be the gamepad using a webcam

#7

Post by hypernovawebant » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 7:22 AM UTC

This also works well if you want to practice dribbling in basketball, just tested it this morning: https://media.githubusercontent.com/media/mristin/body-gamep...

Re: Show HN: Let your body be the gamepad using a webcam

#8

Post by Am4TIfIsER0ppos » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 9:07 AM UTC

I too recall the Eye Toy. It was better as a webcam on my PC than it was connected to my PS2, at least until microsoft killed it by requiring signed drivers.