Avatar Kinect 'hands-on' impressions

Announced back in January at CES, Avatar Kinect is the latest free Gadget to join the Kinect Fun Labs line-up - a library of mini-games developed to showcase Kinect's capabilities - which allows gamers to socialize over Xbox LIVE using voice chat and their motion-controlled Avatar. In its most basic form it's a Kinect-powered virtual world chat application. But those willing to look a little bit deeper will see the potential it has in the world of video podcasts.

Avatar Kinect offers a range of virtual environments - 24 to be exact - which are used as backdrops for conversations, from a talk show stage, news and entertainment stages, to more fantastical settings like a "magic" forest and even outer space. Once a stage has been chosen it's time to choose one of the four seating setups: Monologue (1 player), Interview (2 players), Panel (Half-circle. 1-8 players) and Conversation (Full circle. 1-8 players), and then you're ready to jump in and start chatting.

Thankfully, Avatar Kinect was "developed with sitting in mind", so you won't have to stand around while discussing the highs and lows of scrap booking in great length, but don't think you can just sit anywhere. One of the first problems I encountered while trying out Avatar Kinect is that it will not recognise you if you're sitting in a high back chair with arm rests. Sitting forward doesn't help either, so you'll need to drag that long couch you pushed out of the way to make room for Kinect's space requirements back into view, or find a sturdy wooden box. It's understandable that Kinect would battle to track someone who looks suspiciously like a chair cover, but it's annoying nonetheless. So box in place, I was ready to get my Avatar on.

I started off with the obligatory "wave hands around like a mad man" test, which revealed that Avatar Kinect struggles to keep up with mad men. We know all too well that Kinect hasn't got X-ray vision (yet), so moving your hands and arms out of view, say behind your back, is going to be an issue, but it doesn't explain why my elbow joints managed to forget that they were restricted to a 180-degree arc, or why my arms kept finding ways of misplacing themselves, clipping through my head or body like something out of Dead Space, even when moved in full view of Kinect. Of course, unless you want to host a Jerry Springer-type show, poor arm tracking isn't too much of a concern, but what is of particular importance in the medium of video, and especially in a talk show environment, is the need to convey emotion. And this is where Avatar Kinect has an ace up its sleeve.

Our faces can express a wealth of information, and when trying to create the next best virtual talk show, a dead pan, zombie cut out in place of your guest just isn't going to cut it. So Microsoft has given the Kinect software a face lift, allowing it to read and mirror facial expressions - albeit in a limited form. It does this by tracking three prominent points on the player's face: eyebrows, eyes and lips. And incredibly, it does it with a lot of success.

Eyebrow movements, opening and closing your mouth and even blinking is picked up by the sensor and mirrored on your on-screen Avatar. It's still fairly limited in its capabilities, and drama students won't be too impressed, but for the most part it worked to a high degree of accuracy, allowing participants to express a range of emotions through their Avatars.

The final piece to the Avatar Kinect puzzle is the ability to record and share sessions with the rest of the world. Recordings are limited to 5 minutes each, so you'll need to do multiple recordings if you intend on creating a longer show, but once recorded you can then upload them to kinectshare.com, and from there, you can download a wmv video to share on YouTube or anywhere else you fancy. There aren't many tools for those looking to do "special effects" while in Avatar Kinect, but you do have a small amount of control over the camera using the left stick, as well as having the option to deploy short "emotes" such as a cheering crowed or throwing a tomato at the screen, or more outlandish environment specific emotes, such as a meteor shower or jumping and singing gnomes.

The new facial expression support coupled with basic upper body tracking and voice chat provides a simple enough platform for those looking to try their hand at creating a basic TV show or video podcast, but currently it's a bit too limited for my liking, especially with the 5 minute recording limit, not to mention that the audio quality from Kinect's microphone is not suited for recordings. At the end of the day, most Xbox 360 users won't give Avatar Kinect a second thought - unless it's for the 50GS, of course - but it does give us another glimpse at the full potential of Kinect's capabilities, which hopefully will be utilized to better affect in upcoming Kinect games.

Pros: