Sonancia : sonification of procedurally generated game levels

How can creative elements brought from level design effectively be coupled with audio in order to create tense and engaging player experiences? In this paper the above question is posed through the sonification of procedurally generated digital game levels. The paper details some initial approaches and methodologies for achieving this core aim.The research is supported, in part, by the FP7 ICT project C2Learn (project no: 318480) and the FP7 Marie Curie CIG project AutoGameDesign (project no: 630665).peer-reviewe

The artist and the automaton in digital game production

This article analyses discourses around procedural content generation (PCG) as automation of creativity in the games industry. PCG refers to techniques for creating game content algorithmically, by manipulating data through sets of computational operations and parameters. By producing scalable results with combinatorial diversity, procedural generation is touted as the future of content, yet flouted as the harbinger of technological unemployment in game art production. Critical scholarship on automation suggests that the real danger is not job loss per se, but the constitution of an underclass of artists whose vital work of conditioning algorithmic outputs is denigrated as derivative and ‘manual’. Framed by liberal humanist ideas of agency, PCG naturalizes trade-offs where the autonomy of generative machines is contingent upon the automatism of its human conditioners. This qualitative analyses of talks on PCG at the Game Developers Conference (2015–2020) shows how procedural systems bifurcate the creative work of algorithmic cultural production into affective and mechanical forms of conditioning that map onto stratifications of racial capitalism. Affective tuning resists documentation and is reserved for artists with technomasculine forms of cultural capital; mechanical tuning is relegated to automatable and outsourced labour and relies on replicable technique that is considered artistic but not creative. This article argues that PCG’s reclassification of creativity through racialised dialectics of human agency and machine automaticity overlooks the autonomy of procedural systems. PCG pipelines are organised less around the agency of human toolmakers and more around the autonomy of systems that assimilate tasks in the management of complex networks of dependencies. Instead of pitting artists against machines, this analysis politicises automation’s racial stratifications by examining the momentum of more-than-human systems in which toolmakers and tool users negotiate granularities of control and degrees of concession

An engine selection methodology for high fidelity serious games

Serious games represent the state-of-the-art in the convergence of electronic gaming technologies with instructional design principles and pedagogies. Whilst the selection criteria for entertainment game engines are often transparent, due to the range of available platforms and engines an emerging challenge is the choice of platform for serious games, whose selection often has substantially different objectives and technical requirements depending upon context and usage. Additionally, the convergence of training simulations with serious gaming, made possible by increasing hardware rendering capacity, is enabling the creation of high-fidelity serious games which challenge existing design and instructional approaches. This paper highlights some of the differences between the technical requisites of high-fidelity serious and leisure games, and proposes a selection methodology based upon these emergent characteristics. The case study of part of a high-fidelity model of Ancient Rome is used to compare aspects of the four different game engines according to elements defined in the proposed methodology

A Framework for Designing 3d Virtual Environments

The process of design and development of virtual environments can be supported by tools and frameworks, to save time in technical aspects and focusing on the content. In this paper we present an academic framework which provides several levels of abstraction to ease this work. It includes state-of-the-art components we devised or integrated adopting open-source solutions in order to face specific problems. Its architecture is modular and customizable, the code is open-source.\u

Simulating Destruction Effects in SideFX Houdini

As movies, television shows, and other forms of media have progressed over the last century, the use of destruction sequences as a form of entertainment have seemingly grown exponentially. From ginormous explosions to cities collapsing, more destruction sequences have drawn people’s attention in ways that are quite captivating. However, as content producers continue to push the limit of what is possible, the reliance on practical effects starts to dwindle in comparison to the usage of computer generated scenes. This thesis acknowledges the trend and dissects the entire process of how a general destruction sequence is made, from the research and planning process to the actual simulation of the effects. Various methods are discussed in how to attempt the creation of destruction with a singular project in mind. The goal is to not only to complete the sequence, but to do so in an efficient manner that can rival a professional workflow

Extending a game engine with custom tools

Video games are primarily made using game engines nowadays with an ever increasing abstraction on the details of individual components. The research on the software development methods, software architectures and team and project management is a vast area of interest and has been applied to game development topics widely. However, there has been less focus on how to utilize and manage the individual game development components from the perspective of the entire development team and the creative process. In this thesis the game development is examined through individual game development components called tools. A definition of a tool is presented and their usage and presence in different popular game engines is explored. The tools are categorized to built-in, 1st party and 3rd party tools and their benefits and use-scenarios are compared against each other. In addition the thesis presents and adapts a "Tools Focused Development" methodology, which proposes a set of guidelines that aim to improve the possible benefits gained from developing and utilizing tools during development. The thesis also analyzes several built-in, 1st and 3rd party tools of a popular Unity game engine in the context of tools focused development, and their features and limitations are documented from the usage and management perspective. Finally the thesis reflects on how tools development was present in the development of a critically acclaimed commercial game Bucket Detective, and how their use affected the final completed game. The tools were found to be the source of emergent game design, and improved non-programmer participation in creating content along with making adapting to design changes easier from programmer standpoint

Fireside: Creating an immersive historical narrative through video games

Applied project submitted to the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, Ashesi University, in partial fulfillment of Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science, April 2019The emergence of educational video games have changed the perspective of many on video games as only an entertainment tool. Video games have been beneficial in improving language skills, reading skills and cognitive abilities of children. The traditional method of teaching and learning history in the classroom has made history boring and unlikeable for students. Although, methods like films and museums attempt to engage the student, they do not fully immerse them. To create an immersive learning experience for students, video games can be used as a technological tool. This project describes a video game: Fireside, which attempts to create an immersive learning experience for students in junior high schools for learning history.Ashesi Universit

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

Digital Twinning remote laboratories for online practical learning, Production & Manufacturing Research

The COVID19 pandemic has demonstrated a need for remote learning and virtual learning applications such as virtual reality (VR) and tabletbased solutions. Creating complex learning scenarios by developers is highly time-consuming and can take over a year. It is also costly to employ teams of system analysts, developers, and 3D artists. There is a requirement to provide a simple method to enable lecturers to create their own content for their laboratory tutorials. Research has been undertaken into developing generic models to enable the semiautomatic creation of virtual learning tools for subjects that require practical interactions with the lab resources. In addition to the system for creating digital twins, a case study describing the creation of a virtual learning application for an electrical laboratory tutorial is presented, demonstrating the feasibility of this approach

Genera Esfera: Interacting with a trackball mapped onto a sphere to explore generative visual worlds

Genera Esfera is an interactive installation that allows the audience to interact and easily become a VJ (visual DJ) in a world of generative visuals. It is an animated and generative graphic environment with a music playlist, a visual spherical world related with and suggested by the music, which reacts and evolves. The installation has been presented at MIRA Live Visual Arts Festival 2015, in Barcelona. Genera Esfera was envisioned, developed and programmed on the basis of two initial ideas: first, to generate our spherical planets we need to work with spherical geometry and program 3D graphics; second, the interaction should be easy to understand, proposing a direct mapping between the visuals and the interface. Our main goal is that participants can focus on exploring the graphic worlds rather than concentrate on understanding the interface. For that purpose we use a trackball to map its position onto sphere rotations. In this paper, we present the interactive installation Genera Esfera, the design guidelines, the mathematics behind the generative visuals and its results.Postprint (published version