Show HN: Gamebody, a full-body game controller

[freedmand]

I’ve been doing something similar to control racing video games while biking on an indoor exercise bike. I convert pedal speed into brake and acceleration keys (there’s some middle amount of pedaling that’s neutral) with pynput. I used OpenCV for webcam input and MediaPipe’s models to convert lean angle into left and right keyboard presses, and head tilt into up and down. It’s really fun but the slight latency in recognizing my pose is tough for fast courses. Now I’m thinking about some Arduino with a sensor or low res IR camera or something else that could detect changes a lot quicker.

[grrdotcloud]

People like you exist and do stuff like that and yet no one has an upgraded version of the NES Zapper after all these years.

[berendka]

Wait, can you now do QWOP with real human body parts as input and ... finally run? that would be so full circle!

[fheisler]

Yep, arms and legs control "thighs" and "calves" - although I was roughly as bad at full-body QWOP as on a keyboard!

[gmac]

Reminds me of Pigeon Sim, using a Kinect and the Google Earth browser plugin (which is sadly now discontinued).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5ye9dfeu7c

https://github.com/jawj/pigeonsim

[mellosouls]

Considering his last (brilliant) project featured here, the semaphore keyboard madness, I'm not sure how serious this is but it seems there is potential for providing a useful API for AR/VR apps/games/experiences; I'm not sure the body is extensively served by Quest etc beyond hand and head tracking.

[fheisler]

Thank you! For those who missed that one: https://github.com/everythingishacked/Semaphore

To me, the main motivation beyond "because I can" is the accessibility of these projects: you just need some Python code and any webcam. I'd love to play around more with VR, but the owners of the leading systems aren't exactly known for their openness to external APIs... Maybe Google Cardboard is worth a revisit :)

[tough]

This reminded me of the full body keyboard controller someone else shared a few weeks back...

My ideas for body games are growing

https://github.com/everythingishacked/Semaphore

[roughly]

Same author!

[recursive]

I'm still sad the MS didn't stick to their kinect concept.

[dr_kiszonka]

Yeah, it is a pity. You can still buy their Azure Kinect DK Developer kit, though.

[j2bax]

I like your name! What is shacking?

[fheisler]

I shack you for noticing :o)

[doitLP]

“Everything is hacked”

[jncfhnb]

Time for the dark souls run I guess

[iasoy]

That's interesting, I always wanted to try something similar but put it off. I'll try it with my phone & see if I can get it working in small space but with ulta-wide camera.

[kylejrp]

"I'm the video game boy! I'm the one who wins!"

[0xfai]

Wow! I've built dozens of stabs at exactly this and the consistency you've achieved is really good! Cool. Very cool.

[iamflimflam1]

How well does pose detection work on people wearing baggy clothes. Or for "non gym" type bodies?

[fheisler]

Pretty well from my limited testing! For standing poses, it works roughly as well as a human in good lighting and contrast conditions - as in, in situations where you would have a hard time picking out where limbs are, Mediapipe will too. The more common issue is poor lighting, or clothing that blends into a busy background.

[topfloorboss]

this goes so hard. I think I would prefer this to vr.