Philips Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy - Manual (Page 89)

Trigger Happy
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virtual players will respond to physical knocks and
tackles through a system based on detailed mechanical
models of the human musculo-skeletal system, rather
than through predetermined animations. Motioncapture
techniques, based on filming human actors and
digitizing the results, synthesize “realistic” movement
from the outside, and so in-game possibilities are
strictly limited to those that have been filmed in the
development studio. Physical modeling, on the other
hand, synthesizes movement from the inside, from the
interaction of fundamental parts, and so allows a
theoretically infinite range of character movement.
Other Mathengine demonstrations include a ball
bouncing onto a slatted rope bridge, whose resonant
swings and twists differ every time according to where
exactly the ball was dropped; and a string-puppet
articulated elephant, controlled just as in reality by a
wooden cross from which the strings hang, and which
can be tilted on two axes by manipulating a
motionsensing joypad attached to the computer. One
begins to have an ever stronger sense of moving
objects, rather than mere patterns.
Mathengine provides a software development kit
for games designers and other industries that allows
the developer to use “real,” very accurate and