Since early autumn me and some classmates have been working to realize a sort of virtual reality flashlight concept. We’ve been trying out all kinds of solutions, including IR LEDs and Wiimotes, but around Christmas we finally found the perfect tracking technology… the oft-overlooked Playstation Move!
We just tried it out with a sort of “virtual art gallery” application in a local library, here’s an uncut video from the event. I’m not providing any input at all, except pointing the “flashlight” around. There is some network lag but we’re working on reducing that.
Though similar concepts have been explored before, we haven’t found any solutions that work this well without requiring expensive motion capture equipment, cables or AR tracking markers. We call it Project Lykta, Swedish for lantern. The handheld unit is wireless, though when we shot this video it was still being charged for the main event.
I’m set to explore this concept further over the coming months in my master thesis, Creating emotive experiences through handheld projection mapping. Basically, I’m aiming to create a horror experience for two players using this technology.