Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Virtually become Hatsune Miku with Kinect


While this blogger has yet to be truly impressed by any of the commercial applications using Microsoft's Kinect, the modding community has definitely created some impressive projects with the device. I think this one takes the cake.

Hatsune Miku is, for the uninitiated, the result of digital voice synthesizer program which can be used to generate vocals for custom made songs. She has since grown to International Pop Idol status due to the almost restriction free aproach Crypton has take to allowing users to release and liscense songs using her. Many users create music videos to accompany their songs. These videos usually are made up of cartoon animation, though more recently 3d model videos have arisen thanks to Miku's more technically savvy fans.

MikuMikuDance, a program used to make most of the 3d videos, has recently been patched by fans allowing it to be paired with the X360 Kinect allowing for motion captured video to be applied to miku's 3d model.

 
SiliconEra reports that there are still some bugs with the program, especially with lower body movement, but it is quite the impressive start indeed. Microsoft should be looking into more applications like these instead of party adventure games. Surely a Miku music dancing game would sell like millions of copies world wide.

This last video shows off more of the technical aspects of the program, many of which admittedly fly way over this blogger's head.

 


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