So, tonight is when I make my first blog post. I'm not going to upload any images or anything just yet, I'll no doubt do some of that tomorrow, but I wanted to get a first post in anyways to just talk a little about what I'm doing.
I actually thought a lot about trying to patent this idea or make people sign an NDA to view it, but you know what? Screw it, I'd rather have people know what I'm doing and be able to talk about it than keep it "secret" or have people keep quiet about it. So if you like it, trumpet it about and make sure you at least whistle my name too!
The idea is to use light to control games; yes, it's been done before to an extent. It's not something entirely new, but no one seems to be taking advantage of it which I can't understand, it's very easy to do and has many cool applications. So, what do I mean by using light to control games you ask? I'll explain, but first an explanation about axis that will in turn help my own explanation! Of course, feel free to skip the next paragraph if you know how these things work. When you use a handheld controller, like one for most kind of video games consoles these days, they have at least one analogue stick. These analogue sticks have plenty of uses and the way they work is simple:
The stick has two axis that it moves on or two "directions". The two axis are x (left and right) and y (up and down). The x and y axis both have a number assigned to them, when the stick is not being used the axis value is 0, because the stick is centred. When the stick is pushed all the way up or all the way to the right, the axis value is 1 whereas if the stick is pushed all the way down or all the way left the axis value is -1. If the stick is not pushed all the way in any direction, then the axis value can be anywhere between the number -1 and 1 depending on where the thumb part of the stick is moved to or what angle/direction it is moved towards. An analogue stick has 360 degrees of rotation normally, so for example if the stick was pushed towards an angle of perhaps 45 degrees then both the x and y axis would have positive values, values above 0. If the analogue stick was pushed towards an angle of 285, then the x axis would be negative (because the stick is facing left) and the y axis would be positive (because the stick is facing up).
These axis values can then be used by programmers/coders to control certain aspects of a game, whether it be the movement of a character, vehicle or in-game camera. Thus concludes my explanation of analogue sticks and axis. Now that you understand a little more about axis, I'll back to my idea of controlling games with light and how that works. Currently I'm experimenting with a light sensor, they're used in things like corridors where lights need to come on automatically when it gets dark. By supplying 5 volts of power to one and attaching it to a PC via some form of USB interface board (a USB interface board is like an experimental games controller in this case, you can attach all forms of sensors, lights and motors to it) you can get axis values from it depending on the brightness of the room it's currently in.
The sensor I'm using is not very powerful, which is perfect, as it doesn't take in light that isn't directly applied to it. What this means is, even if you have curtains open and light coming into your room, you can put the sensor in a shadow of an object and it won't take in light. So, instead of moving an analogue stick to change axis values, we now have light. Covering the sensor up completely gives an axis value of -1 and shining a bright light into the sensor gives an axis value of 1. The sensor in this case only has one axis since the way the value is changed can only be changed in one way, light or not light. Using these values is just the same as using axis values from a typical handheld console controller, but way more fun and way more frustrating. I'll be posting up some images from my test application/game made with Unity tomorrow and then I'll get putting a video demonstration together as well!
For now, I hope this has outlined the work I am currently doing, if you find all of this difficult to understand then keep an eye on this space; the images and video demonstration I will put up will explain it much more easily than words! Ttfn!
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