Minecraft Maker Ant Farm

by Nirav Patel http://eclecti.cc and Will Nowak http://compbrain.net

This was a sort of last minute project for the 2011 Bay Area Maker Faire. Using a Kinect and OpenNI/NITE libraries, you can automagically generate Minecraft character skins that look like people.

I started off of one of the OpenNI samples, so this has to stick with the LGPL license that was in place on that. The MinecraftGenerator.cpp file is entirely my own, so that itself is public domain. The .egg is generated from ShnitzelKiller's Blender character rig from: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/9581-minecraft-blender-rig-%E2%80%93-show-off-your-skins-in-style/

As a warning, this is easily the worst code I've ever hacked together. I'm just releasing the code because there is no reason not to. The MinecraftGenerator.cpp file where the actual skinning occurs is probably the only piece that is salvagable. The application as a whole will probably not work for you, but in the event you really absolutely must try it, here's some stuff to get you started.

Requirements: OpenNI 1.1.0.41 NITE 1.3.1.5 Panda3D 1.7.1 OpenCV 2.1 libcurl imagemagick

Instructions: 0. Install the required libraries

1. Run make
2. Plug in a Kinect
3. ./build/antfarm build/SamplesConfig.xml
4. Move around a bit until the Kinect sees you, and enter the calibration pose
5. The skin should generate, at which point you can hit enter to save it.