Online Exploration of Mayan Culture

This paper discusses various interactive techniques for online exploration of archaeological reconstructions using a specific JavaScript and XML based application. Specifically this paper focuses on a current research reconstruction of the Mayan city of Palenque set in the Chiapas, Mexico, which aims to evaluate user engagement immersion and understanding of certain "embedded" cultural artifacts and settings. The testbed for the ongoing research is the evaluation of a virtual archaeology project in Palenque Mexico using theories of cultural immersion as well as computer game engine technology and techniques

Spiritual Art : evoking the numinous using a 3D computer game engine

The Seven Valleys is an interactive 3D installation based artwork inspired by mystical writings of the Bahá'í Faith. Created as a modification of the firstperson shooter Unreal Tournament 2003 (Epic, 2003) it subverts the original paradigm of the game to create an experience of the numinous, which in spirit, is diametrically opposed to the original intent of the gameplay design. This artwork presents an exploration of, and allusion to, the often subtle and illusive concepts found in the sacred treatise The Seven Valleys (Bahá'u'lláh, 1991) in which the user engages in an experiential journey through the work. The user is faced with conditions and situations that provide motivation to question, explore and attempt to fathom the abstract sense of the numinous. Each of The Seven Valleys contains its own individual mysteries while at the same time contributing its part to the telling of a collective story.Master of Art

Modelling human behaviours and reactions under dangerous environment

This paper describes the framework of a real-time simulation system to model human behavior and reactions in dangerous environments. The system utilizes the latest 3D computer animation techniques, combined with artificial intelligence, robotics and psychology, to model human behavior, reactions and decision making under expected/unexpected dangers in real-time in virtual environments. The development of the system includes: classification on the conscious/subconscious behaviors and reactions of different people; capturing different motion postures by the Eagle Digital System; establishing 3D character animation models; establishing 3D models for the scene; planning the scenario and the contents; and programming within Virtools (TM) Dev. Programming within Virtools (TM) Dev is subdivided into modeling dangerous events, modeling character's perceptions, modeling character's decision making, modeling character's movements, modeling character's interaction with environment and setting up the virtual cameras. The real-time simulation of human reactions in hazardous environments is invaluable in military defense, fire escape, rescue operation planning, traffic safety studies, and safety planning in chemical factories, the design of buildings, airplanes, ships and trains. Currently, human motion modeling can be realized through established technology, whereas to integrate perception and intelligence into virtual human's motion is still a huge undertaking. The challenges here are the synchronization of motion and intelligence, the accurate modeling of human's vision, smell, touch and hearing, the diversity and effects of emotion and personality in decision making. There are three types of software platforms which could be employed to realize the motion and intelligence within one system, and their advantages and disadvantages are discussed

Cyclical Flow: Spatial Synthesis Sound Toy as Multichannel Composition Tool

This paper outlines and discusses an interactive system designed as a playful ‘sound toy’ for spatial composition. Proposed models of composition and design in this context are discussed. The design, functionality and application of the software system is then outlined and summarised. The paper concludes with observations from use, and discussion of future developments

Reinforcement learning for qualitative group behaviours applied to non-player computer game characters

This thesis investigates how to train the increasingly large cast of characters in modern commercial computer games. Modern computer games can contain hundreds or sometimes thousands of non-player characters that each should act coherently in complex dynamic worlds, and engage appropriately with other non-player characters and human players. Too often, it is obvious that computer controlled characters are brainless zombies portraying the same repetitive hand-coded behaviour. Commercial computer games would seem a natural domain for reinforcement learning and, as the trend for selling games based on better graphics is peaking with the saturation of game shelves with excellent graphics, it seems that better artificial intelligence is the next big thing. The main contribution of this thesis is a novel style of utility function, group utility functions, for reinforcement learning that could provide automated behaviour specification for large numbers of computer game characters. Group utility functions allow arbitrary functions of the characters’ performance to represent relationships between characters and groups of characters. These qualitative relationships are learned alongside the main quantitative goal of the characters. Group utility functions can be considered a multi-agent extension of the existing programming by reward method and, an extension of the team utility function to be more generic by replacing the sum function with potentially any other function. Hierarchical group utility functions, which are group utility functions arranged in a tree structure, allow character group relationships to be learned. For illustration, the empirical work shown uses the negative standard deviation function to create balanced (or equal performance) behaviours. This balanced behaviour can be learned between characters, groups and also, between groups and single characters. Empirical experiments show that a balancing group utility function can be used to engender an equal performance between characters, groups, and groups and single characters. It is shown that it is possible to trade some amount of quantitatively measured performance for some qualitative behaviour using group utility functions. Further experiments show how the results degrade as expected when the number of characters and groups is increased. Further experimentation shows that using function approximation to approximate the learners’ value functions is one possible way to overcome the issues of scale. All the experiments are undertaken in a commercially available computer game engine. In summary, this thesis contributes a novel type of utility function potentially suitable for training many computer game characters and, empirical work on reinforcement learning used in a modern computer game engine

Affective interactive narrative in the CALLAS Project

This full text version, available on TeesRep, is the post-print (final version prior to publication) of

Digital Twin for Emergency Traffic Management

69A3551747111The goals of this project include building Digital Twin city models, implementing real-time traffic overlays, and rendering mobility scenarios in extreme conditions. We have built digital twin models of downtown Pittsburgh, the UPMC STAT MedEvac helicopter launchpad, and the EMS commanding center. These models were based on 3D scanning of real-world scenes and rendered in Unity (a cross-platform computer game engine) and C++ environments. We have overlaid ambulance routing sample data on Digital Twins via the MQTT protocol, and we have tested it on our 3D visualization platform. We tested the helicopter launchpad model with normal pre-flight checklist procedures, and in extreme situations such as escaping fire incidents and deploying the fire-extinguishing-cannon. Small affordable IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) based 6-DOF sensor modules attached to the user\u2019s foot are used to implement realistic gait detection and avatar motion in the VR simulator

Developing Re-Usable Interactive Storytelling Technologies

Abstract: Despite the growing interest in Interactive Storytelling (IS), there have been only a small number of implemented demonstrators and few have attempted at developing a re-usable IS technology. In this paper we describe such an IS engine, which is the result of several years of experimentation in the field. The system is based on a game engine for its visualisation component, while the narrative generation component implements a variant of HTN Planning. After an introduction to the principles underlying the system, we introduce the associated production process and discuss authoring problems as well as tools we have developed to facilitate the use of the technology