The NEW Build Your Own Arcade Controls
Main => Lightguns => Topic started by: severdhed on October 01, 2009, 12:52:59 pm
-
http://www.iconic-corp.com/gaming/g1/index.html
hey guys, i was looking around for console light gun solutions and stumbled upon this site. apparently it uses some kind of camera mounted at the screen to track the light gun. I is supposed to work with the PS2 and xbox, on any type of TV. instead of LED bars like the topguns, the leds seem to be on the gun, and the camera is mounted by the screen.
the buy link on their site is dead, but i did send an email asking about availability and pricing. they are kinda ugly, but if they work, i'd be all for it. i love console light gun games, but nothing works with my 102" HD projection setup. EMS claims that if i want to use the topguns, i have to attach thier LED strips in the middle of the screen, which is just unacceptable.
so, have any of you ever heard of this thing before....or better yet used one?
-
I read about them several years ago(2005) at E3 expo but they were called E-Real Games Inc. I never saw them released. they were working on a pc version that never got made it looked more like a gun. I was emailing them for a while and nothing. Maybe the new name will make a diff? But notice the gun references the ps2 and xbox not the ps3 or xbox360.
-
I can't get the web page to load from your link.
Encryptor
-
Me either. It WAS working, though.
-
But notice the gun references the ps2 and xbox not the ps3 or xbox360.
The PS3 only has ONE light gun game anyway so I'm not suprised there's no reference to it. Meanwhile the Xbox 360 has no gun and no gun games so why make a gun for it if there are no games to support it? I don't even know if the Xbox 360 SDK features a light gun library like the classic Xbox.
-
Yes, I have that Lightgun
instead of LED bars like the topguns, the leds seem to be on the gun, and the camera is mounted by the screen.
1) Because of that, the Lightgun is very Inaccurate, and requires A LOT of distance.
2)Because of that, only ONE lightgun is playable. 2 Players would require 2 "G1 Lightgun" emitting in different frequencies.
Resuming......crap.
Hope that helps.
-
I have the older orange one. I once set it up for DuckHunt with a front projection set up on my wall. (can't remember if the Xbox NES emulator worked properly with it, or if I only had it going on PC) While the setup was playable, the camera resolution and calibration causes the aim to jump around a bit no matter what you seem to be able to try. (kind of like the cursor on a Wii system) One of the problems with the LED setup on the gun is that there are only two of them (rather than three), which means that you must keep the gun at the distance and center to which you calibrate the camera in order to obtain expected results. In essence, the gun acts more like a positional type gun, and may as well be locked down like a turret, or the aim goes askew. In other words, this gun works OK with projectors but must be kept at XYZ location and pivoted to work well, which kind of ruins any spontaneity when it is held free-handed.
-
hmmm..i was assuming that it probably sucked, or i would already know about it. i am just really itching to play some gun games. i picked up Time Crisis 2 today for the ps2 for $5 at gamestop, and for now i guess i'll just be stuck playing on my 26" tv over composite video....sitting on the floor.
i'm just dying to play these things on my big screen. i do have ghost squad and House of the dead 2 & 3 for the wii...if i sit back about 15ft i can calibrate the gun accurately enough that i can disable the crosshairs and be pretty accurate. the problem is that the time crisis games are just so much fun, and the guncon 2 feels so much better than my Nyko wii gun. (although nowhere near as cool as the recoil gun on the real time crisis 2 cabinet i played tonight at the local pizza place).
i'm tempted to pick up an EMS topgun 2 and give it a shot... i'm hoping that the ultimarc aimtrak turns out to be as awesome as i am imaging it...which would let me play the older gun games on my mame cabinet, but i really want to play time crisis. I have time crisis 2 and 3, and i saw Crisis ZOne at gamestop for $8, so i may pick that one up too.
have any of you used the topguns on a large projection setup with any success?
-
hmmm..i was assuming that it probably sucked, or i would already know about it. i am just really itching to play some gun games. i picked up Time Crisis 2 today for the ps2 for $5 at gamestop, and for now i guess i'll just be stuck playing on my 26" tv over composite video....sitting on the floor.
I can tell you that Time Crisis is pretty sweet on my 27" Wega on component. :D
I think you may need to give up on this big screen enjoyment. The Time Crisis games get older and older so drive to support the PS2 for guns (Or for anything at all) is rapidly dwindling.
But you should be able to enjoy Time Crisis 4 on that projector.
-
yeah, but i don't currently have a PS3 yet....i'm sure i'll be picking up TC4 when i get one though. i guess i was just hoping that there would be a good gun game for the 360, but there isn't the wii is working OK, and there are at least a few gun games. i had problems at first getting them to track accurately, but once i modded my sensor bar to increase the range of it, it works beautifully. i can easily pull off head shots without the crosshairs now, as long as i sit back really far. i wish i could be a little closer, but even at 15ft away, the 102" screen seems plenty big enough.
i guess i'll just have to pick up the other wii gun games for now, or use my crappy tv with my ps2. i did hook up the ps2 to my friends 26" sony with component video, and it looked much nicer. i want to set up a gun cabinet eventually, i'm just worried that by the time i have the money and space for it, i wont be able to find a decent crt with component inputs.
also..when are they going to release duck hunt on the wii? i can't believe this isnt available yet
-
i guess i'll just have to pick up the other wii gun games for now, or use my crappy tv with my ps2. i did hook up the ps2 to my friends 26" sony with component video, and it looked much nicer. i want to set up a gun cabinet eventually, i'm just worried that by the time i have the money and space for it, i wont be able to find a decent crt with component inputs
I dunno if it'll be THAT hard. Just last night I picked up my 2002 27" Sony Wega with component. It was $90. Great condition, I'd say 'Arcade Quality' image, at least at 15khz. Granted at 99lbs something like this would need some serious bracketing to hold it into a cab.
-
I was finally forced to get the 37" Mitsubishi Multisync out of my living room (wimmins :blah:) and thought "what better time to set up a gun / dance platform system?" So I moved it into a freshly emptied part of the shop, built a monster of a stand to hold it, skinned it with printed vinyl, skirted in the stand with some nifty material and put about $100 worth of audio activated lights around it (for the dance / guitar games). Probably doesn't qualify as a full blown project around these parts, but with a PS2 connected in true RGB and a couple of Guncon2's with virtually every compatible gun game ever released, I'm satisfied. The GunCon2's are dead accurate on this setup, and it looks acceptable considering the time I have invested in it.
I have been hoarding this particular monitor for this purpose for years because I had an awful feeling that this was going to be the only way for a long time to get really good shooting game satisfaction. At least until some really new technology comes along to replace it on plasma and LCDs. It's still not here yet, IMHO. The methodology of using myriad combinations of video receivers and IR LED's (Wii, LCDTopGun, etc. ) seem to do ok, but it's still not on par with a real lightgun and a raster scanning screen.
The style of gun mentioned in this thread is pretty much a non-starter. The technology might have been ok as a pointer, with a cursor to follow and gauge movement with, but the attempt to apply it to a gun pretty much indicates a fundamental lack of understanding of the dynamic between gun and shooter. The "virtual bullets" flow down a tube, and therefore must strike the exact area of the screen where that tube would touch if it could be extended to the screen. Accurately capturing this angle with a single stationary camera is next to impossible, and even if multiple cameras were used, the results would likely be mediocre at best, and not worth the steps required to set up and calibrate such a system. The application of this technology to a gun is not so different from the way the "gyro" mouse devices were made to look like a gun. Yes, it might feel more like you are shooting, but in actuality, it's just a novel mouse pointer.
Gun mounted cameras are a much better solution, as pointing a camera and pointing a gun yield similar results. But the biggest challenge for this configuration is overcoming the disparity between the position of the real world markers (usually IR LED's, as they can be seen by the IR sensitive CCD, but are invisible to the human eye) and the on-screen target. In the arcade environment, things like marker placement in relation to the screen and shooter position tend to be tightly controlled. Therefore the system is "canned", and can, to a certain extent, make certain assumptions which provide for better accuracy. On a home setup, few assumptions can be made, as screen sizes, marker placement and shooter position all can vary to a pretty large extent. So the accuracy of these types of systems in a home environment rely on specific usage parameters and usually patented, or at least proprietary, calibration methodology based on specific marker patterns, etc... Unfortunately, deviation from the expected parameters usually results in a poorly performing or, in some cases, completely non-functional system.
The beauty of the old light guns is that all of the information which indicates where the gun is pointing is generated by the display. So the relationship with the screen is direct and requires far less extrapolation than other methods, which I am concerned will continue to be "hit and miss" :) I have a couple of thoughts about how to re-establish this direct relationship between gun and target on new displays, but they would unfortunately require specific software and some fast display technology, so it's not much use for getting the old stuff to work. :(
This really rambled on, but hopefully parts of it will help folks understand some of the ways the different guns out there work and how to recognize the type of technology used. It might also give an idea as what to expect in the way of performance from the methods mentioned, but one should keep in mind that implementation reigns supreme. For instance, not all raster scanning compatible guns work as well as the GunCons, and so on.
RandyT
-
hey Randy...got any pics of that gun/ddr setup you got? i'd love to see it.
-
i guess i'll just have to pick up the other wii gun games for now, or use my crappy tv with my ps2. i did hook up the ps2 to my friends 26" sony with component video, and it looked much nicer. i want to set up a gun cabinet eventually, i'm just worried that by the time i have the money and space for it, i wont be able to find a decent crt with component inputs
I dunno if it'll be THAT hard. Just last night I picked up my 2002 27" Sony Wega with component. It was $90. Great condition, I'd say 'Arcade Quality' image, at least at 15khz. Granted at 99lbs something like this would need some serious bracketing to hold it into a cab.
You probably won't be able to use GunCon style guns on that monitor. Sony Wega TV's are 100Hz and I could never get any guns to work with mine. There are guns that are listed as 100Hz compatible which should work, but the standard guns that you will typically find WILL NOT WORK.
-
You probably won't be able to use GunCon style guns on that monitor. Sony Wega TV's are 100Hz and I could never get any guns to work with mine. There are guns that are listed as 100Hz compatible which should work, but the standard guns that you will typically find WILL NOT WORK.
Uhh, tried it and it works fine. Using Namco's own Guncons, nothing third party. (I guess Guncons count as 'Second Party'?) Even tested it using the YPbPr component cables.
I believe you are thinking of high definition CRTs. 'Wega' is a pretty generic name from Sony really. While this is a high quality picture tube, with a perfectly flat face, this is still certianly a 60hz SDTV 4:3 tube.
-
Hmmm, I thought Wega's were all HD, but now that I think about it...I have seen a few that were just standard trinitrons. Well, those should be fine. As you've already found, the one you have is obviously 60Hz.
I wanted to get a gun for my Xbox, but nothing was made at the time that would work with my set. I did get a PS2 gun at one point and it didn't work. My Dreamcast also didn't work with guns.
-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FD_Trinitron_WEGA
-
Interesting. That TV lists my TV (KV-27FS100) as having auto 16:9 enhancement, but it seems to be manual. The manual confirms that it's manual with only 'On' or 'Off' options.
Not that that's a big deal.
-
Well it IS wikipedia, so mistakes happen.
-
Well it IS wikipedia, so mistakes happen.
I also wanna make sure I know what it means. It detects a 16:9 signal and automatically adjusts, right? Cause... I have to be honest, I didn't know you could transport that kinda data in a 480i signal.
Actually I can't get it to even STAY in 16:9 mode. I change the inputs, change back it's all back in 4:3 and in the OSD menus it says 16:9 Enhanced is off agian even if I had just turned it on.
-
well, i received an email back from them today...
Hi Nick,
Unfortunately we no longer manufacture the G1 Lightgun as we have recently closed the company.
Sorry for the disappointment.
Regards
Jonathan Jaffa
Just figured i'd let everyone know.
-
It was an ugly gun anyway. :D
-
One just sold last week (Sep 27) for $30ish on eBay. ;( Do an advanced search for completed items and search "Xbox gun".