Could Our Gaming Soon Become A Virtual Hybrid?
July 5, 2011 by dracs
Monobanda, a design group who focus on designing interactive artistic/game hybrids, may jut have provided us with a glimpse of the future of wargaming with their sand box proof of concept shown in this video.
This technology allows you to mould any terrain you wish and then allow you to virtually interact with it, also projecting an image of what you are virtually doing over the physical terrain (stop me if I'm getting too technical).
Now look at this from a wargaming perspective. In the future when you wish to game you might find yourself scanning your gaming table and then send CGI versions of your armies marching over the physical surface.
Of course some of you might not yet be quite willing to give up your models for virtual representations, however this merging of the physical and the virtual could be the perfect direction for PC strategy games to go. Think Dawn of War only 100 times more awesome!
What do you guys think of this? Think it looks promising? Think there is any chance we might start seeing this in the future?
BoW Sam
I’m surprised its taken this long. DnD’s ‘virtual table’ thing that was touted when 4th edition came out (I have no idea if its ever seen the light of day) is a similar, if less extravagant, concept, meaning playing games with people regardless of where they are actually located. For wargaming, I’m not so sure, painting minis is more popular than actually playing the games, so I cannot see a shift to virtual armies ever really taking over the hobby, however, I think having the option to play ,virtually, against anyone in the world would be a great addition to… Read more »
wow! how cool is that? i´m speechless!
I’m interested in seeing the possibility for game tracking. Explosion markers working out kills etc.
Could we see even an eye of the beholder (the video card game) type thing for miniatures games…
Game tracking would be a useful thing, especially at tournaments I should think.
Animated smoke, burning vehicles etc would certainly add to the atmosphere, at least on the virtual version of the game.
I do think tabletop wargaming would benfit from PC interaction , it could provide things like noise and backgorund explosions , lighting effects. I have seen PC effects used for RPG , projecting maps onto tabletop from above , and now maybe with Xbox Kninect it could detect where a model is placed on a table and move mosnsters towards it. For me , Wargaming is abouit the3d aspect , I dont enjoy painting ,I enjoy the fighting , I dont have more than two colurs and a wash on my troops really , I want to skirmish. so I… Read more »
Does nothing for me! This combines two elements of the hobby which I dislike the most – making terrain and video games…. Ugh! Now, if somehow you could play with your real models on virtual terrain that somehow created itself as a tangible 3D gaming table, now you’re talking!! Holo-deck anyone?
I doubt the technology is there for what you propose yet, but if you and a long-distance friend had the same scenery pieces (AT-43 shipping containers/wall sections for instance) this tech could allow you to place them in identical positions, and work out line of sight between models, show movement/weapon ranges etc, so you could both play a game on a table against a semi-virtual army that exists thousands of miles away.
Interesting indeed – I’m sure there is a company already doing some hybrid virtual/table-top thing, but I don’t think it took off very well.
That would be Ex-Illis.
http://www.beastsofwar.com/ex-illis/
It’s vaguely interesting to see this sort of thing, but it doesn’t seem terribly new. Seems like this sort of interactive software has been kicking around in the development circuit for some years now, and although it crops up now and again it’s yet to really get anywhere. Ex Illis had a related idea, and look where that went.
“Pure play without goals” (their tagline at the end) sounds like a lovely marketing soundbite, but rather tedious in practice and not at all the world of gaming I personally want to explore.
Jake
http://www.quirkworthy.com
I agree… It looks neat, but it doesn’t really do anything. As is, it looks like the thing that would amuse me for all of 15 minutes. However, the possibilities it offers are interesting, wargaming-wise.
BoW Romain
Very cool.
Don’t want to sound like a Luddite but inevitably will…
Am not seeing any value in this which I admit is prolly down to my lack of understanding what it is supposed to be for.
It looks pretty but is it just a 3D scanner?
Essentially. It looks like the kind of thing a Kinect would do, using an infra-red camera to work out depth, then rendering the observed object in 3D.
There’s a few interesting possibilities where the software is concerned.
Very nice and interesting, would be perfect for capturing and enlivening battle reports.
The main question for me is when the whole accessories make playing the game with miniatures having a point.
Its just a heightmap scanner, running an environment in what looks like Blender.
With an overhead projecting the image of the heightmap mesh to the surface of the sand.
Nothing really new, could work for displaying firing and hits, but the cost would be prohibitive for most people.
This, unfortunately.
Drop the projector and just observe the results on a computer monitor, and you’re sorted though, the depth measurements can be done by a Kinect.
Augmented Reality is something really awesome that i would love to see in wargames and almost anything in life !
Does the price include the child labour shown in the footage?
I doubt this will happen, removes the whole concept of miniatures.
Why on Earth would you need your own terrain for that?
If you want to play a wargame on a computer just install Dawn of War or something. There is no advantage in having your own gaming board scanned if it’s just a computer game in the end.
3D printing of custom models: this is a real technology that would add something to wargaming, not the other way around.