VIDEO: It's World of Warcraft Using Kinect

A group at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies has developed Kinect middleware for off-the-shelf PC games.

Recently we reported that a Korean game developer plans to include Kinect support in its MMORPG Divine Souls. And as we've seen with a crop of hacks that have surfaced since the motion sensing device hit the market, unofficial Kinect support will eventually be available for all of our favorite PC titles-- even World of Warcraft.

As seen in the video below, Evan Suma and his team at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies has developed middleware for off-the-shelf PC games that enables the use of Microsoft's Kinect. Called Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit (FAAST), the "software framework" simulates virtual keyboard events based on body gestures.

"FAAST can be configured with a variety of body-based controlled mechanisms depending on the specific game," he says in the video.

In the sample shown below, the player is using Kinect to control his character in World of Warcraft. To move the character forwards and backwards, the player simply leans in the corresponding direction. To turn the camera, the user moves the left hand from side to side. The left hand can also be used to target an enemy by moving forward in a grabbing motion while the right hand can be moved to trigger different attack spells.

To download FAAST for Windows, head here. To learn more, check out the full 4-minute video as seen below.