Automating Lighting Design for Interactive Entertainment

Recent advances in computer graphics, particularly in real-time rendering, have resulted in major improvements in 3D graphics and rendering techniques in interactive entertainment. In this article we focus on the scenelighting process, which we define as configuring the number of lights in a scene, their properties (e.g., range and attenuation), positions, angles, and colors. Lighting design is well known among designers, directors, and visual artists for its vital role in influencing viewers\u27 perception by evoking moods, directing their gaze to important areas (i.e., providing visual focus), and conveying visual tension. It is, however, difficult to set positions, angles, or colors for lights within interactive scenes to accommodate these goals because an interactive scene?s spatial and dramatic configuration, including mood, dramatic intensity, and the relative importance of different characters, change unpredictably in real-time. There are several techniques developed by the game industry that establish spectacular real-time lighting effects within 3D interactive environments. These techniques are often time- and labor-intensive. In addition, they are not easily used to dynamically mold the visual design to convey communicative, dramatic, and aesthetic functions as addressed in creative disciplines such as art, film, and theatre. In this article we present a new real-time lighting design model based on cinematic and theatric lighting design theory. The proposed model is designed to automatically, and in realtime, adjust lighting in an interactive scene to accommodate the dramatic, aesthetic, and communicative functions described by traditional lighting design theories, while taking artistic constraints on style, visual continuity, and aesthetic function into account

Developing serious games for cultural heritage: a state-of-the-art review

Although the widespread use of gaming for leisure purposes has been well documented, the use of games to support cultural heritage purposes, such as historical teaching and learning, or for enhancing museum visits, has been less well considered. The state-of-the-art in serious game technology is identical to that of the state-of-the-art in entertainment games technology. As a result, the field of serious heritage games concerns itself with recent advances in computer games, real-time computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence. On the other hand, the main strengths of serious gaming applications may be generalised as being in the areas of communication, visual expression of information, collaboration mechanisms, interactivity and entertainment. In this report, we will focus on the state-of-the-art with respect to the theories, methods and technologies used in serious heritage games. We provide an overview of existing literature of relevance to the domain, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the described methods and point out unsolved problems and challenges. In addition, several case studies illustrating the application of methods and technologies used in cultural heritage are presented

Serious Games in Cultural Heritage

Although the widespread use of gaming for leisure purposes has been well documented, the use of games to support cultural heritage purposes, such as historical teaching and learning, or for enhancing museum visits, has been less well considered. The state-of-the-art in serious game technology is identical to that of the state-of-the-art in entertainment games technology. As a result the field of serious heritage games concerns itself with recent advances in computer games, real-time computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence. On the other hand, the main strengths of serious gaming applications may be generalised as being in the areas of communication, visual expression of information, collaboration mechanisms, interactivity and entertainment. In this report, we will focus on the state-of-the-art with respect to the theories, methods and technologies used in serious heritage games. We provide an overview of existing literature of relevance to the domain, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the described methods and point out unsolved problems and challenges. In addition, several case studies illustrating the application of methods and technologies used in cultural heritage are presented

Dynamic Lighting for Tension in Games

Video and computer games are among the most complex forms of interactive media. Games simulate many elements of traditional media, such as plot, characters, sound and music, lighting and mise-en-scene. However, games are digital artifacts played through graphic interfaces and controllers. As interactive experiences, games are a host of player challenges ranging from more deliberate decision-making and problem solving strategies, to the immediate charge of reflex action. Games, thus, draw upon a unique mix of player resources, contributing to what Lindley refers to as the "game-play gestalt", "a particular way of thinking about the game state from the perspective of a player, together with a pattern of repetitive perceptual, cognitive, and motor operations" (Lindley, 2003)

DigitalBeing: an Ambient Intelligent Dance Space.

DigitalBeing is an ambient intelligent system that aims to use stage lighting and lighting in projected imagery within a dance performance to portray dancer’s arousal state. The dance space will be augmented with pressure sensors to track dancers’ movements; dancers will also wear physiological sensors. Sensor data will be passed to a three layered architecture. Layer 1 is composed of a system that analyzes sensor data. Layer 2 is composed of two intelligent lighting systems that use the analyzed sensor information to adapt onstage and virtual lighting to show dancer’s arousal level. Layer 3 translates lighting changes to appropriate lighting board commands as well as rendering commands to render the projected imagery

Projecting Tension in Virtual Environments through Lighting.

Interactive synthetic environments are currently used in a wide variety of applications, including video games, exposure therapy, education, and training. Their success in such domains relies on their immersive and engagement qualities. Filmmakers and theatre directors use many techniques to project tension in the hope of affecting audiences’ affective states. These techniques include narrative, sound effects, camera movements, and lighting. This paper focuses on temporal variation of lighting color and its use in evoking tension within interactive virtual worlds. Many game titles adopt some cinematic lighting effects to evoke certain moods, particularly saturated red colored lighting, flickering lights, and very dark lighting. Such effects may result in user frustration due to the lack of balance between the desire to project tension and the desire to use lighting for other goals, such as visibility and depth projection. In addition, many of the lighting effects used in game titles are very obvious and obtrusive. In this paper, the author will identify several lighting color patterns, both obtrusive and subtle, based on a qualitative study of several movies and lighting design theories. In addition to identifying these patterns, the author also presents a system that dynamically modulates the lighting within an interactive environment to project the desired tension while balancing other lighting goals, such as establishing visibility, projecting depth, and providing motivation for lighting direction. This work extends the author’s previous work on the Expressive Lighting Engine [1-3]. Results of incorporating this system within a game will be discussed

Game engines selection framework for high-fidelity serious applications

Serious games represent the state-of-the-art in the convergence of electronic gaming technologies with instructional design principles and pedagogies. Despite the value of high-fidelity content in engaging learners and providing realistic training environments, building games which deliver high levels of visual and functional realism is a complex, time consuming and expensive process. Therefore, commercial game engines, which provide a development environment and resources to more rapidly create high-fidelity virtual worlds, are increasingly used for serious as well as for entertainment applications. Towards this intention, the authors propose a new framework for the selection of game engines for serious applications and sets out five elements for analysis of engines in order to create a benchmarking approach to the validation of game engine selection. Selection criteria for game engines and the choice of platform for Serious Games are substantially different from entertainment games, as Serious Games have very different objectives, emphases and technical requirements. In particular, the convergence of training simulators with serious games, made possible by increasing hardware rendering capacity is enabling the creation of high-fidelity serious games, which challenge existing instructional approaches. This paper overviews several game engines that are suitable for high-fidelity serious games, using the proposed framework

Desktop 3-D Interactive Drama – Applying Design Principles from the Performance Arts.

Increasing emotional engagement in 3-D interactive environments is a hard, but important problem. It is important for its potential utility in increasing motivation, involvement, and engagement. These constructs are not only useful for entertainment applications, but also impact training and edutainment applications due to the impact of emotions on learning (Ulate, 2002; Wolfe, 2001). Many researchers have explored several techniques, including enhancing the story content to stimulate emotional engagement, developing new algorithms for dynamically creating stunning visual effects, and enhancing 3-D sound. Theatre and film have integrated many techniques that increase engagement, attention, and emotional involvement. In this paper, I describe a set of new design techniques integrated in an architecture that uses theatric and cinematic theories, specifically acting and screenwriting methods, to stimulate and improve emotional engagement in 3-D interactive narratives. In this paper, I discuss two research directions: (1) defining an interaction model for 3-D interactive narrative based on screenwriting theories, and (2) developing an actor-based agent architecture to simulate believable actions within an interactive narrative. The resulting architecture was implemented and tested within Mirage, an interactive story based on the Greek Tragedy Electra. Based on the critiques from several participants, I deduce that the resulting architecture presents significantly encouraging design techniques that can potentially increase emotional involvement and dramatic content of an interactive desktop 3D VR experience. The system and approach presented in this paper demonstrates an important new direction that adds to the set of techniques currently used and expand the design methodologies to include methods from disciplines, such as performance arts, theatre, and film

Towards a New Paradigm for Intuitive Theatrical Lighting Control

A simplified model of a lighting process applied in theatrical productions is one that involves two key players. The first is that of the lighting designer, to produce a set of intentions and plans for the scenes that define the show. The second, the lighting technician, has the job of translating these designs into practice using control equipment, luminaires, and other technical instruments. The lighting design often becomes a ‘working document’ subject to change and adaptation as the physical reality of the design becomes apparent, and the input of other stakeholders is considered. This process can be a valuable creative tool, and also a difficult technical hurdle to overcome, depending on a varied number of factors. A common frustration with this process is that either the complexity of the task, or difficulty in communication can make it difficult for the final creative vision to be effectively realised. Strains may also arise in the case of small, often touring, theatre companies where the lighting designer and technician may be the same person, and frequently one of the performers as well. Considering the design aspect, there can be challenges in ensuring efficacy of lighting plans between venues in touring productions, with 2D lighting sketches or even 3D computer simulations confined to the paper or screen. From a technical perspective, the role of the lighting technician in theatres and performance situations has included the operation of lighting control equipment during shows. The equipment has evolved over time but has, until recently, been grounded upon the basis of faders and the mixing desk. It is argued that this paradigm has failed to keep pace with the change in other interactive technologies. The on-going research described in this paper explores existing and upcoming technologies in the field, whilst also seeking to understand the roles and communication workflows of those involved in theatrical lighting to find the best areas to seek improvement, adopting principles of user-centred design. The intention of this research is to develop a new paradigm, and manifestation of it, using a control method for lighting or projection that allows a more intuitive form of operation in theatre productions, which will be scalable and flexible

Dynamic Intelligent Lighting for Directing Visual Attention in Interactive 3D Scenes

Recent enhancements in real-time graphics have facilitated the design of high fidelity game environments with complex 3D worlds inhabited by animated characters. Under such settings, it is hard, especially for the untrained eyes, to attend to an object of interest. Neuroscience research as well as film and theatre practice identified several visual properties, such as contrast, orientation, and color that play a major role in channeling attention. In this paper, we discuss an adaptive lighting design system called ALVA (Adaptive Lighting for Visual Attention) that dynamically adjusts the lighting color and brightness to enhance visual attention within game environments using features identified by neuroscience, psychophysics, and visual design literature. We also discuss some preliminary results showing the utility of ALVA in directing player’s attention to important elements in a fast paced 3D game, and thus enhancing the game experience especially for non-gamers who are not visually trained to spot objects or characters in such complex 3D worlds