Check Out This Tutorial for Setting Up Real-Time Second Life Avatar Movement With a Kinect

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

If you happen to have a Kinect, Microsoft's body-tracking camera peripheral for the Xbox, laying around nearby, you might be surprised by what you can do with it in Second Life. Jessica Pixel posted a quick tutorial on her site yesterday for how to connect your Kinect to Second Life and animate your avatar in real time. It all boils down to Rinions and a special SL viewer that allow you to temporarily replace an avatar animation with animation data provided by the Kinect. The end result isn't seamless, but it's still pretty darn cool.

And while you have your Kinect hooked up, here's something else you may want to try...

Since the Kinect's initial release for the Xbox 360 several ways to connect it to programs like Poser and DAZ for makeshift mocap have been developed, including Motion Capture Assistant and Brekel Pro Body. I haven't tried either, so I'm not sure how easy it would be to use these programs to create poses or animations specifically for a second Life skeleton, it's something well worth looking into while your hardware is still hooked up.

Tweet

Janine Hawkins (@bleatingheart on Twitter, Iris Ophelia in Second Life) has been writing about virtual worlds and video games for nearly a decade, and has had her work featured on Paste, Kotaku, Jezebel and The Mary Sue.

Comments

[Jessica Pixel]

Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow. Thank you so much for the reblog!

[Arcadia Codesmith]

Virtuix Omni + Oculus Rift + Kinect puppeteering... holy crap, I think I've finally found a fitness program I can stick with! Now I just need a little capital...