Jun 122012
 

After the recent buzz over the news of a Project Diva F demo booth at E3, a North American electronics expo, people have been excited over the possibility of an international release of the game. Hopes of this were shot down when SEGA said they were NOT planning an international release. This was a letdown considering the demo of the game was completely translated, and even small things like a clip of the game seen in this E3 PS Vita software showcase.

But this may start to turn around, as there’s some news floating around that SEGA was testing the waters with the E3 demo and may actually consider the game for an international release. Even if it’s just through digital distribution (which would make more sense from a cost standpoint), it’s definitely something that we wouldn’t want to slip by. A user has opened up an online petition where people can sign their name to show support for the game. The current goal is set at 10,000 signatures (EDIT: Now it’s 2,000).

To cast your vote and signature, please click here. Lets show our support!

Jun 122012
 

A small Keio University group has developed a rather interesting method of tracking people’s facial movements in real time, using nothing more than a standard PC and a USB Camera. That’s right, no specialized hardware is needed for this to work. The method in which it works is pretty simple. The software locates several key points of a persons face, and then also locates the border of the face to allow it to detect the orientation of the head, as well as lip and eye movements.

In this demonstration video, you can see them testing the software with what clearly seems to be MikuMikuDance. They plan to develop the software so that it can be used by CG animation hobbyists as well as game developers. You can pretty much imagine this as something like Kinect, but for your face instead of your body. Using both of them combined could allow for pretty realistic model movements.

Any news on availability of the software is not yet known.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvievLytmrs]