Topic: Sensor bar built in to the Wii U controller?

@HolyMackerel Well, all due respect but that's not at all how the sensor bar works. It's a lot less complicated than that. If you needed accurate distance measurements from the screen then you'd be right, the size between the IR points would need to be fixed. I'm sure if you went out and got a couple of IR light sources the sensor bar would work fine with the light sources at a variety of distances apart. Moving the lights closer is the same, to the Wii Remote and Wii, as moving further away from the screen.

And it's nothing to do with the size of the TV either. You can play the Wii on a cinema screen and you can play it on a tiny portable TV screen using the same sensor bar and it makes no difference to the usability of the sensor bar at all.

well there you go! and........

I was thinking the same thing or at least for, maybe, another point to "zero" the gyros on

@Skywake That's true, but I was talking about getting it to work with the impression of accuracy. (Which is important when playing games, no?) Wii remote pointing works well on all normal-sized TVs since they are all roughly the size. Very few cinema-sized TVs in the home. But, as an example, if the IR sources are placed really far from one another, then placing stamps in the Wii Photo screen (which does use the points to gauge distance) will cause them all to be scaled too large. If you scale the screen up to cinema size you'd need to set the IR sources further apart if you want the semblance of accurate aiming, like the video below, which is pretty freaking awesome:

The sensor bar they built for that is this size!

Similarly the Wii U controller screen is orders of magnitude smaller than normal TVs, so the IR beams must be really close to one another. (Which you said before, so... yeah.)

Uh, but this is all irrelevant and I'm rambling lol. If the sensor bar is on the controller, thumbs up to Nintendo for that. Now, how to get 4 people around the small screen and play Wii Sports without any injuries is the next issue...

@HolyMackerel
You might be surprised to hear me say this but I don't disagree with anything you just said...... except to say that it's not so much to do with accuracy or the ability to have the Wii judge distance accurately (rather than relatively as you mentioned in the photo stamp example) but its more (or all) to do with how far from the sensor bar you want to be.

The cinema example would've worked with an ordinary sensor bar BUT they wouldn't have been able to move around the cinema once it was setup. They would have to be relatively close to the sensor bar, which to work well would have to be quite a way infront of the screen. In the same way the Wii U screen could work with a standard sized sensor bar a fair distance behind the screen with the user being at a good distance from the Wii U screen.

Having said that it's probably best to scale the size of the sensor bar to fit the screen size so you can have the sensor bar at about the same "depth" as the screen. If you don't then you start to lose that "pointing at the screen" effect and it doesn't make as much sense. The only reason this happens is because IR points close together merge at a distance and IR points far apart disappear when viewed too close.

For the tl;dr: The size of the sensor bar only has an impact on the "optimal usable distance". Small is close, big is far.

Technically the Wii pointer could work with one IR point for basic pointer stuffs. You wouldn't have rotation and you wouldn't be able to do any distance measurements of any kind but it would work. You'd lose the ability to zero "roll" on the gyros without telling the user to put the remote on a flat surface, you'd lose the ability to do the rotation interation like things like, or at least I think it's how they do it, in Metroid Prime Corruption...... but it'd work.

@skywake Yeah, I see what you mean. You could set up the official sensor bar to be a fair distance from the cinema screen and pointing would still feel accurate, as long as you were the right distance away. (Which wouldn't be as fun as what they did in the video, but still. ) It's interesting isn't it? Since it's not actual 1:1 motion detection, everything is relative.

Nintendo will have designed the Wii U controller with that in mind, so I don't have any concerns there. I'm interested to see how Nintendo modified the sensor bar in the new controller - are the IR points that much closer together (which, as you said, may cause issues with the low res Wiimote IR cameras when at a distance) or did they reconfigure the Wii U's handling of pointing for the new controller's screen? But to be honest, it won't make much of a difference to the players either way.

As for having just one IR point on the controller, I don't think Nintendo would remove the extra functionality you get from having two points. Too many Wii games rely on them for rotation.

@HolyMackerel I'm not sure if the Wii actually does work with one IR point I was just pointing out that it should technically be possible. I should try it out . Still, I really doubt that they'd remove the second IR point considering how cheap IR LEDs are.

I don't think the IR points being too close on the Wii U remote will be much of an issue because I doubt that people will want to play games on it at very big distances (you'd be more likely to sit it on a coffee table than a far wall). Maybe for intense motion controlled games where you'd want to stand back, I guess we'd have to know what the working would be before we could say much on that. I'm sure Nintendo knows what they are doing though. One thing I am sure of, they'll have to make it work with current Wii Remotes.

@skywake I have actually tried using my Wii with one IR point covered and it does work. Pretty well too, if you're just using it for pointing. If you've ever pointed your remote too far off the side of the screen and noticed the cursor suddenly snap to a different position, that's because the remote's camera has begun picking up only one IR source.

Well I think we just answered the question on range then. Let me go through the whole thing

Pointer range is dependent on the brightness of the entire sensor bar only. If the IR camera can pick up the collection of IR LEDs that is the sensor bar, even if they are so far (or so close) that they look like a single point, the pointer bit will work. Most Wii games will work on the Wii U controller, assuming it's as bright, at the same distances as they do on the Wii itself. Practically there should be no difference.

The range for rotation or zeroing gyro (Wii Motion Plus) roll is a lot shorter. It starts at the point where both IR points are visible on the camera and it ends just before they merge into one point. This range changes depending on how close the points are and (I forgot this before) what horizontal angle you are viewing them from.

The "rotation" range is the same as range for measuring relative distance (never exact because of the unknown horizontal angle) with two points on the edge of the camera sensor being the closest and the bit just before they merge being the furthest. When they merge it's "unknown" because it could be so close you're only seeing one or so far away that they've merged.

and there you go!! Everything there is to know about the limitations of the sensor bar.

Excellent deductions. A couple more things to note:

Since it's a portable device, you'll most likely be playing it face-on rather than at a horizontal angle. It's convenient that the screen can easily be repositioned. However, playing Wii games in bed will be a pain, since you'll have to prop the screen up vertically. If not, you simply won't be able to play pointer-based games.

Just like the smaller effective distance for IR rotation sensing, IR distance sensing (like the aforementioned Wii Photo stamps) won't work with as much resolution (i.e. fewer detectable "zoom levels") when using the Wii U controller's screen since the IR sources are closer together.

Due to this rescaling they may also be more sensitive (and thus hyper responsive) to depth changes than when using the Wii sensor bar, especially when the points appear to merge in the IR camera's view. Fortunately this isn't an issue for most games, since depth changes are usually sensed via the Wii remote's accelerometer.

I'd rather use the controller to play wii games like NSMBWii that don't use the Ir sensor.

well skywake you were right: "Franklin: the thing that we're showing right now is having the new controller, the wireless new controller interface with the system, and having the Wii Remote interface with the sensor bar. There's also a sensor bar on the new controller, so your Wii remotes could read off of that." http://gonintendo.com/viewstory.php?id=160656

Hi all, first post. I have 3 ideas for the sensor bar in the new controller.

First: Prop the controller up with a stand and use the wii remote to interact with it AND the tv at the same time. Like taking content from one screen to the next or selecting an item on the controller and shooting on the tv.

Second: The wii u will come out with a head mounted display, something like this http://hd.engadget.com/2009/04/24/myvu-crystal-review/ this would connect to the HDMI port on the new controller. It would provide an immersive 3d experience and you still control with the controller in your hands. The headset would have gyroscopes and a camera like on the wii remotes that would interact with the sensor bar on the controller to provide accurate head tracking. This may be far fetched but it would be awesome! I would wear it no matter how silly i looked. This console is about U now... not just Wii

Third: depending on the distance that the controller can be from the console, you could potentially take the controller to another room and attach it to another tv via hdmi connection then play games using the sensor bar on the new controller for wiimote control.

I guess we now can have some 2 player LAN-parties on the Wii U without having to set up two consoles and two tvs. Bring on Starcraft 2.

Wario's woods won the forum. Now let's all go home and eat chicken breast.