Nintendo and tools company AiLive have teamed up to produce LiveMove, a "groundbreaking Artificial Intelligence product" available to Nintendo Wii developers that enables the Wii remote to learn.
[UPDATE: Nintendo and AiLive has given Gamasutra a copy of a tutorial video for AiLive LiveMove, which we are hosting for all interested parties to watch - it shows how the software works practically, and includes example gameplay from a test Wii game.]
The companies explain: "Instead of complicated programming, developers need only take a few minutes to train the Wii Remote by examples. LiveMove lets developers focus directly on creative work without the burden of onerous coding requirements, helping them quickly unleash the potential of Wii."
Further information is available at the official LiveMove website, which explains that the tool lets designers create a LiveMove move relevant to their game "in minutes" just by performing motions, and this motion can then easily be integrated into games.
The tool can recognize up to 40 different motions on 8 Wii remotes or nunchuks simultaneously using less than 5% of the Wii CPU, and total memory usage is typically below 700K. This means that creators can use LiveMove to recognize any motion for their Wii title, including complicated curves and nuances.
An example is given of putative game 'Zombie Cowboy', and it's explained: "Jane Programmer and Joe Producer are working together on Zombie Cowboys of Doom. Players need to draw their gun, whip their horse, lasso calves, pull back and snap the reins, throw their knife, and a few other cowboy-like moves. Joe wants to experiment with lots of different ideas for these motions, but he doesn't want to monopolize Jane's every last waking hour to program all his experiments."
What's more: "Jane sets up LiveMove in an afternoon and then tells Joe to do whatever he wants for the 12 different motions in the game. Telling LiveMove what Joe wants is easy; Joe simply performs the motions using the Wii controller. In twenty minutes, Joe has the first draft of all the different motions working in-game."
Genyo Takeda, Senior Managing Director/General Manager of Integrated Research & Development Division, Nintendo Co., Ltd, commented of the announcement: "In early 2006, I challenged Dr. Wei Yen and his AI scientists to develop AIware for the Wii Remote. When Nintendo’s development teams saw LiveMove, we instantly recognized how it would greatly increase our ability to explore and experiment with new concepts and make our lives easier."
He continued: "This revolutionary tool liberates the imaginations of game creators. We are more than happy to share this collaborative LiveMove tool with independent Wii software developers all over the world. From a cowboy’s lasso to a samurai’s sword or a chef’s cooking utensils, we just can’t wait to play the developers’ new, ‘unexpected’ applications."
More information on the tool is available at the tool's official website, and Gamasutra will have further details on this uniquely helpful Wii development enabler in the near future.
