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Pretty neat idea.

Check it out.

Pretty darn cool, though I don't see how they will deal with multiple models in units. Plus, I don't see how it will deal with 3D terrain... perhaps they would have been better off with an overhead hood that projects down on the table, and uses RF Id tags to determine position of models.

Not that I could match what they have done thus far mind you

Honestly, I don't like it. One of my absolute favorite things is that Warhammer doesn't crash in the middle of a game.

Iorek wrote:Honestly, I don't like it. One of my absolute favorite things is that Warhammer doesn't crash in the middle of a game.

Isn't that why they roll dice at the end of the video?

Fun idea for a project, and definitely a possible future app for those cool interactive tabletops microsoft has been trying to sell the world on for years.

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/index.html

If 6x4 versions of these puppies become commonplace someday, it could make a really neat gaming table.

I wonder when the first board games coming up using this technology. Maybe in 10 years or so.

neat.

Symbio Joe wrote:I wonder when the first board games coming up using this technology. Maybe in 10 years or so.

It already happened.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/4746

I like the idea.

I wonder what the GW price markup would be for one of those boards.

over and out
Grindah

Grindah wrote:I like the idea.

I wonder what the GW price markup would be for one of those boards.

over and out
Grindah

Probably more than you wanna spend, great idea though!

Clearly a very cool little number.

But, unless the technology has changed since I last read about these things, they can't fesibly do a 6x4 table out of this. And I'm not sure how that'd work anyways.

That and no one wants to glue the proper transmitters to the base of every one of their minis... Not to mention the fun factor when you mess up.

"Holy hell. How did that lone guardsmen kill 10 Space Marines in one round of shooting?!"

"Hrm, let's check his stats... oh... I guess he's not supposed to be a Warhound..."

Personally, I'd want one just for my reserves and tracking squads. You could have your entire squads of reserves on the little interactive 'reserves' board, and when they're on the table you can go back to the board to log how well they've done, which casualties they've taken, and check their stats/upgrades/point costs.

I mean... you can already do that with pen and paper... but... my handwriting sucks.

I played that DND game once.

Hellish. Never again.

What? When you select a model, it brings up a window telling you stats and background, but in the shoot state it doesn't roll virtual dice for you to see if you hit or wound?

I cry, "Cheap!"

j/k

When I first saw the MS Surface table, and then later the better versions-this was one of my first thoughts. I love that with all that tech they didn't build-in a dice generator!

Working in the tech industry I've dreamt of the ultimate table, I just need 20K to build it. RF id tracking has gotten really good over the years, and adding a tracker to every model wouldn't be difficult considering all the other work that goes into building and painting them. I think I'll start another thread on the perfect game table...

what happens if someone spills their beer on it?

Necros wrote:what happens if someone spills their beer on it?

You draw straws.

mint

That is one hell of a project. Wonder what grade they got.

It is cool no doubt but at that point why not just play video games?

As for technical achievement... ehhh... simple program and DB... touch screen programs are in classrooms all over the states... nothing new here.

I'll bet their grade was not that high... B+ perhaps

A while ago I considered setting up a projector as I thought it would be cool to have one over the top of a normal 40k board (with terrain), and then basically just using it for atmosphere, so animating clouds of smoke across the table, adding craters and blast markings as the game goes on, perhaps blood/fuel/fluid spills and so forth. A camera could be rigged up too which would allow the measurements and stats to be displayed but I dont know why these people bothered using a token to indicate troops rather than just detecting where someone's hand is? Dice rolling would also have been useful, but only for those horde charges where you need cupfuls of dice, otherwise you would lose the fun of rolling (but would gain true randomness which is a plus).

Wow, that's pretty cool. Obviously, there is quite a ways to go, but I love to see new tech get gaming applications ;-)

The more I think of it, the more a laser projector for templates would be great. I say laser because you wouldn't want it to spread out if you held it 5 feet over the table, but there certainly could be otherways of doing that I don't know about.
Anyway, that would make it a lot easier to see what is affected by templates and the like, as you could just hold it over head, so things on the other sides of buildings etc would be clearly highlighted.
Not necessary, but it would be nice to have.

Isn't it technically impossible to have a truly random number generator? As a computer will always have some measure of predictability? I thought I'd read that some time back, when people were discussing this very thing.

Maybe they were talking out their ass...

I kind of remember that once as well, though it was in a C++ class, so maybe there is a new trick to it that works.

I would put forward that it will be more random than dice, which seem to have certain predilictions towards certain numbers, Chessex especially it seems. Either that, or all my practice rolling armor saves in my spare time is really paying off.

AlexCage wrote:Isn't it technically impossible to have a truly random number generator? As a computer will always have some measure of predictability? I thought I'd read that some time back, when people were discussing this very thing.

Maybe they were talking out their ass...

ok..ok comparatively true randomness compared to the heavily skewed GW/Chessex dice

Crikey Lego- you just gave me an Idea.

I am going to hook my projector up to the PC, try a little Photo-shopping, and see if I can't put 'virtual' obstacles on the field.


Neat........

Isn't it technically impossible to have a truly random number generator? As a computer will always have some measure of predictability? I thought I'd read that some time back, when people were discussing this very thing.

Well, depends on what you mean. A random number generator generates a sequence of numbers that when put in a graph will appear random with equal distrubution for all available numbers. What does this mean? Well, this means that you couldnt differ between the dice throws generated by a computer and the dice rolls generated by a perfectly balanced dice. But it is not, i guess, truly random since this sequence can be reset at any time and the exact same numbers will be generated again.

Usually you would have a "seed" for the random number generated, this would be used as a starting point for the generating function. A lot of people use the computer clock as a seed but I heard that the engineers at IBM hade a webcam taking pictures of three running lava-lamps and hashing the picture to get it as a value and then using it as a seed. A bit over engineered if you ask me...

Here is a good starting point if you want to learn more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_number_generator

over and out
Grindah

Grindah wrote:Usually you would have a "seed" for the random number generated, this would be used as a starting point for the generating function. A lot of people use the computer clock as a seed but I heard that the engineers at IBM hade a webcam taking pictures of three running lava-lamps and hashing the picture to get it as a value and then using it as a seed. A bit over engineered if you ask me...

I used to work for an online casino, and our random seed came from a combination of the clock and a sample of some crappy 80s pop song in mp3 format. It was funny to think that of all the millions of dollars flowing through the site, it could all be mathematically traced back to a crappy 80s pop song

For the skinny on "true randomness", visit www.random.com. They use atmospheric noise from a HAM radio, IIRC, to generate randomness and have the most killer coin flipper, list shuffler, and dice roller. Check 'em out!