[UDKinect] Kinect API based on Kinect for Windows SDK

[Charli3]

Hello,

I have been working on an API to use the official Microsoft Kinect for Windows SDK with my UDK game and thought other developers might be interested.

You can download it and find detailed explanations at udkinect.com (http://www.udkinect.com).
It takes 30 seconds to setup
- copy the dll to UDK/Binaries/Win32/UserCode
- add UDKinectInstance.uc to your project
And you are good to go!

It's supposed to be super easy to use, with simple function calls like UDKinectGetSkeletonPosition( ... ).
(Learn more about it at udkinect.com/index.php/documentation/programming-guide (http://www.udkinect.com/index.php/documentation/programming-guide)).

I'll keep this post up-to-date with the next updates (audio integration, etc)
And if you want to add anything, feel free to get in touch!

http://www.udkinect.com/files/demo.jpg

Cheers,

Charlie :)

[darthviper107]

That's really awesome, thanks for sharing

[Chosker]

looks really nice so far!
for now, the only thing it does is give access to UDKinectGetSkeletonPosition, right?

[Charli3]

Thanks!
It does give easy access to the skeleton positions (individual bones) and the tracking state of the bones (Is the skeleton partially hidden?).
You can also play with the inclination of the sensor and some cool stuffs like skeleton smoothing and skeleton management via a simple user system (deal with cases where new skeletons are entering or leaving the frame and what to do with them).
I will soon send an update allowing to access the kinect frame from the sensor (depth and color image) in unrealscript. The audio part of the Kinect for Windows SDK is also on the list.
:)

[darthviper107]

When you say the audio part, do you mean voice control?

It'd be really cool if there was some way to access some Kinect functionality within Kismet as well.

[Charli3]

Yes, the objective is to get voice recognition :) (Always been fascinated by that)
There is also a fun feature that kinect offers which is the ability to get the sound source location. I think it's used on xbox to do noise cancellation. Apart from that it seems like a strange feature, but I am sure it's possible to take advantage of it to develop interesting new gameplay mechanics.

Using Kismet is a good idea! I will create the basic ones (control inclination, etc.). You can also create specific Kismet nodes for your project using the functions in UDKinectInstance.uc.

[darthviper107]

Voice would be really awesome. Does this require the Windows version of Kinect or can it still work with the Xbox version?

[kantaki]

sry if this sounds dumb, but where is the difference between your tool and NIUI ?

[Charli3]

Darthviper: you can develop with the xbox version of kinect (except if you want to use the near mode of the windows kinect). Of course Microsoft recommends to use the windows version but so far, it has been working just fine. The runtime version of Kinect SDK (so the end user, not sdk) will only be compatible with the kinect for windows.

Kantaki: you can have a look at this topic (http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/kinectsdk/thread/d79abef7-b13d-41ed-a11a-04ba63c134be) for the differences between OpenNI (that NIUI uses) and the Microsoft Kinect for Windows SDK (that UDKinect uses). It's on the Microsoft forum but some of the interesting comments come from OpenNI users as well, so it seems quite objective, I'll let you judge :)

[Nevellin]

Can I shake your hands? Seriously, I would do that if I could.
Thanks for sharing.

[Charli3]

Hi :D

I uploaded a new version with less bugs and more Kismet nodes.
You can now do through Kismet everything you could with UnrealScript --> Kismet reference (http://www.udkinect.com/index.php/documentation/kismet-reference).

Also, you can pay whatever you want and get the full C++ sources.

Hope your projects are going well, I can't wait to show you mine :)

Cheers!
Charlie :)

[darthviper107]

That's really incredible. I really want to start my project that I'm hoping to use with Kinect, have to finish some other stuff first though.

[Winwarproductions]

Wow--I'm so interested in learning more about this. I would love to try to implement this into my project some how and some way,
to kind of amp the direction I plan on taking. Seems as though you need to take an extra step for games with interactivity to peak interest now and days. lol.
So I will definitely keep an eye on this. Cool beans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKyTL_DrYqk