It’s not all video games, indie developers, and eSports superstars at PAX Aus. Like your local fish market, vendors pump music and shout to be heard and show their wares to excited gamers.
We arrived at the Razer booth as they were giving away swag in the form of shirts, key-rings, Mouse-pads and even a full on mechanical keyboard or two.
Our first contact was with Lalor McMahon who ran us through what Razer has on display at PAX this year and the exciting things they’ve been working on.
Our attention (and Razer’s) was mainly on their new developments for the OSVR and the Stargazer Camera. We mostly talked to Lalor about the Stargazer camera and Razer’s point of view on the current trajectory of eSports.
Interview with Lalor McMahon at PAX Australia 2016
Click the video below to watch.
For info on the Open Source Virtual Reality (OSVR) software Razer is building, we’ll show off our second interview, stay tuned!
The Razer Stargazer Webcam
This webcam is aimed straight at the heart of gaming, specifically YouTubers and Twitch Streamers, though there is some love for Unity developers too.
The Stargazer webcam (and associated software) can do some nifty tricks. The main being Dynamic Background Removal.
Dynamic Background Removal
This was on display at PAX Aus and it’s crazy to see the throng of people behind you removed in real time.
With a moving background of changing depth, it wasn’t perfect. However, with a static background of a bedroom or office, this thing would easily find its footing.
“Do away with costly and space-consuming physical green screen setups, when all it takes to achieve a professional-grade stream is the Razer Stargazer. With state of the art depth-sensing technology, you’re able to remove your background or switch it up entirely. This creates more viewing space for the game and gives your viewers a more engaging experience.”
3D Scanning
Taylor mentioned this could be an interesting tool for developers to use. It allows you to take a scan of your face or an object and port it into Unity. Already my mind is running wild with ideas of scanning my face and putting it on my game avatar (after some touch ups of course).
NBA2k16 appears to already offer this integration when it comes to putting your face on your own custom athlete.
Facial/Gesture Recognition
Facial recognition software isn’t new. We’ve been watching movies that had face scanners and even as far back as Windows 7 there were some laptops you could sign into using your webcam.
Razer Stargazer taps into the Windows Hello software to allow you to unlock your computer by using the precise details of your face.
And while we’re not quite at Minority Report level motion gestures yet, Stargazer does allow you to launch apps and play motion detection games with specific gestures.
Next up though, I want to combine these features for Facial Gesture Recognition. If Windows throws a system tray notification at me and the computer detects my frown, I want that notification to disappear and think twice before bothering me again.
Maybe I’ll need to wait for Cortana 2.0 and the Razer Stargazer Elite for that functionality.
I god… I only just realised saying the full thing out loud that Razer Stargazer seems like the start of a weird rhyming chant.
Read up more on the Razer Stargazer boombazer on their website.
