Wiimote tutorial best practices: “Zack & Wiki”
Exemplary Work, Games, Wii
7/20/07
One of the things that’s apparent in this first generation of Wii titles is that many developers have underestimated how much attention needs to be given to instructing the user in how to hold and move the controller. Static icons don’t cut it anymore; you’ve got to have animation, and even then it takes some finesse, as simply playing a loop of the controller being waved around can still be confusing if the loop point itself unintentionally conveys some kind of gesture.
The best in-game controller tutorials I’ve seen to date are in the upcoming title Zack & Wiki. They actually show a little 3D animated guy (upper body only) holding the remote, along with text prompts. Seems like overkill at first, but it’s actually great because you not only pick up on controller movement, you also get posture and timing. When necessary, they can also switch to a first person view of the figure, or even a “disembodied hand” view to aid with object manipulation. Check out some videos of the interface in action, the game does look pretty fun.
I wonder, though, you think they’ll let you customize the guy’s skin color? I’m assuming he’s not a character in the game but is supposed to represent some kind of abstracted ideal human, which opens up a whole set of issues… many of which Anne Friedberg and I also ran into when picking silhouettes for The Virtual Window Interactive (and which we tried to skirt by letting users create their own). Gestural interfaces are increasingly going to require representation of the human form to explain, so whose form do we represent? Do we need an interactive 3D update to the 1974 AIGA/DOT symbol system?
My favorite Wii story
Wii
7/7/07
The Wii retains its aura of hipness, even eight months after the launch. Perhaps this is in part because the consoles themselves are still hard to find, but I suspect this continuing enthusiasm speaks beyond scarcity to address a whole host of compelling stories we’re longing to tell ourselves about high technology. Some see in the Wii the redemption of videogaming from couch-potatoism. Some see the invigoration of a industry in a creative slump. Some see the quicksilver of cool. Some see profit, some see fun. Some see a fad.
My own favorite story to tell about the Wii is the way it’s going to make possible an entirely new category of popular interactive art. I think that in the Wii a remarkable opportunity to broaden the reach of experimental interactivity has been almost literally dropped into our palms. Its celebrated controller is a brilliantly hybridized design that combines familiar and unfamiliar in a way which disrupts conventional expectations and creates a void into which the general public now expects experimentation to make consistent appearance. Not an insignificant achievement.
Nintendo is also teaching millions of people to judge interactivity qualitatively in ways they may not have considered before. It’s a short step for a Wii user to go from honing their gestures in WiiSports to thinking of themselves as a performer in a more explicitly artistic context. It’s all about the how—and what the controller does so beautifully is to decouple the how from hardcore training, which is what interactive “entertainment” feels like to many people. How no longer has to be only about adopting the hypertensive posture of the gamer in constant pursuit of decreased response time. How just got bigger.
Looking at the current crop of Wii titles, however, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the new How was an odd mix of play-acting, general goofiness and mostly failed attempts to one-up the hardcore. I enjoy many of these titles myself, but a quick search on the net reveals something of the real promise of this technology put to work in experiments which are not running on the Wii console, but through various hacks and workarounds that open its motion-sensitive capabilities to musicians, DJs, VJs, artists and others. (In fact, an entire sub-genre of online video has cropped up consisting of Wiimote-wielding geeks demonstrating their prowess in front of monitors glowing with a fresh hack—a sub-genre to which I was gratified to make my own contribution last week.)
I think it would be unfortunate if development inspired by the Wii continued to grow solely along these bifurcated paths. Most of the artists experimenting with the Wiimote are making tools for themselves or for other artists; many of the game developers are stumbling over each other trying to appeal to markets they haven’t historically been interested in. This leaves room for the contributions of those who see in the Wii something they’ve been waiting on for a long time, perhaps without even knowing it. Maybe their way, like the Wiimote itself, will be a hybrid combination of familiar and unfamiliar, old and new, common and uncommon.
I can’t wait to find out.
Wiimote type animation: “Swing”
Animation, Experiments, Flash, Wii
6/26/07
Greetings, programs. I’m launching erikloyer.com with a first foray into Wiimote-enabled work—a type animation experiment called “Swing.” Swing lets you use the Wiimote to waggle your way through syllables of text. When the syllables are written by Kurt Elling and you put on “Tanya Jean” (Elling’s brilliant riff on Dexter Gordon) in the background, you get…
Swing is made possible by the wonder of WiiFlash, which enables Flash to receive data from up to four Wiimotes simultaneously under Windows. Unfortunately, getting your PC set up to do this is not as straightforward as one would hope. If you’re feeling adventurous, though, visit the Swing page for more info (and a mouse-enabled version of the piece for the Wiimote-challenged).
Enterprising folks may be able to find other interesting uses for Swing. Let me know what you discover—feature requests are welcome.
Wiimote connection tips
It’s a testament to the brilliance of Joa Ebert and Thibault Imbert (creators of WiiFlash) that it’s even possible to connect the Wiimote to Flash at all, and I hope they continue their excellent work. Nevertheless, there are some pitfalls to be aware of—and here they are as I understand them:
Bluetooth hardware. Not all Bluetooth hardware will work with the Wiimote, so check the list of working Bluetooth devices before you buy.
Bluetooth software. The “stack,” or software that manages your Bluetooth connections, is another point of weakness. Consensus seems to be that the BlueSoleil stack seems to be most reliable (but not all hardware works with BlueSoleil—check the compatibility list above for details).
Server version. The latest beta of the WiiFlash server, 0.3, requires .NET to run. I’ve installed .NET but have never been able to get the 0.3 server to detect my Wiimotes, so I use version 0.2.
Playback. WiiFlash does not work when a Flash file is embedded in a Web page, only when it’s run in the standalone Flash player or viewed directly in the browser window.
Security. You may need to explicity tell Flash to trust the file you’re trying to run, which you can do using the global security settings panel. Click Edit locations -> Add location and then select the file or folder you want Flash to trust.
Not the end of the world, but not exactly a walk in the park either. I challenge anybody interested seeing more artistic work using the Wiimote to think about ways we can make this process easier for people. The Wiimote is a significant cultural artifact, and experimental Wiimote works should be accessible to as many people as possible.
Sample startup sequence. In case it’s helpful, here’s what I do to get things running on my Windows XP system:
- Launch BlueSoleil.
- Press the 1 and 2 buttons on the Wiimote simultaneously (this makes the Wiimote discoverable).
- Choose “My Bluetooth -> Bluetooth Device Discovery” in BlueSoleil (you only need to do this the first time).
- When the Wiimote shows up, right-click it and select “Refresh Services”.
- The mouse icon should highlight. Click it, and you should see a line connecting the Wiimote to the orange ball indicating an active connection.
- Launch WiiFlash Server.
- Launch the piece you want to view, either by double-clicking it or dragging it into a browser window.
Good luck! I’ll keep this post updated as new information becomes available.
