Believable and Reactive Crowds in Next Generation Games

Abstract The creation of life-like believable characters is emerging as the central focus of next-generation game development and is viewed as critical to obtaining true mass-market appeal. Reactive crowd simulation is a critical component in creating believable character. The demo runs on a Xbox 360 and shows the following crowd behaviors. A typical downtown is populated with pedestrians and vehicles. The pedestrians mill about the town staying on the sidewalk and cross only at street corners (although some decide will "jay walk" from time to time). Occasionally, they will stop to talk with one another. Cars drive around the city and obey the traffic lights. The ambient behaviour is interrupted by traumatic event; in this case a terrorist pulls out a run and starts firing at the crowd who now move into a panic behaviour. Some crowd members run away immediately from the terrorist while others first cower in fear before running away. Crowd members who do not hear the weapon fire but see a panicking pedestrian may also panic or continue about their business depending on how "cool" they are. Vehicles also flee the terrorist and will drive on sidewalks and over pedestrians to save themselves

A Video Game Based on Optimal Control and Elementary Statistics

The video game presented in this paper is a prey-predator game where two preys (human players) must avoid three predators (automated players) and must reach a location in the game field (the computer screen) called preys' home. The game is a sequence of matches and the human players (preys) must cooperate in order to achieve the best perform- ance against their opponents (predators). The goal of the predators is to capture the preys, which are the predators try to have a "rendez vous" with the preys, using a small amount of the "resources" available to them. The score of the game is assigned following a set of rules to the prey team, not to the individual prey. In some situations the rules imply that to achieve the best score it is convenient for the prey team to sacrifice one of his components. The video game pursues two main purposes. The first one is to show how the closed loop solution of an optimal control problem and elementary sta- tistics can be used to generate (game) actors whose movements satisfy the laws of classical mechanics and whose be- haviour simulates a simple form of intelligence. The second one is "educational", in fact the human players in order to be successful in the game must understand the restrictions to their movements posed by the laws of classical mechanics and must cooperate between themselves. The video game has been developed having in mind as players for children aged between five and thirteen years. These children playing the video game acquire an intuitive understanding of the basic laws of classical mechanics (Newton's dynamical principle) and enjoy cooperating with their teammate. The video game has been experimented on a sample of a few dozen children. The children aged between five and eight years find the game amusing and after playing a few matches develop an intuitive understanding of the laws of classical me- chanics. They are able to cooperate in making fruitful decisions based on the positions of the preys (themselves), of the predators (their opponents) and on the physical limitations to the movements of the game actors. The interest in the game decreases when the age of the players increases. The game is too simple to interest a teenager. The game engine consists in the solution of an assignment problem, in the closed loop solution of an optimal control problem and in the adaptive choice of some parameters. At the beginning of each match, and when necessary during a match, an assign- ment problem is solved, that is the game engine chooses how to assign to the predators the preys to chase. The resulting assignment implies some cooperation among the predators and defines the optimal control problem used to compute the strategies of the predators during the match that follows. These strategies are determined as the closed loop solution of the optimal control problem considered and can be thought as a (first) form of artificial intelligence (AI) of the preda- tors. In the optimal control problem the preys and the predators are represented as point masses moving according to Newton's dynamical principle under the action of friction forces and of active forces. The equations of motion of these point masses are the constraints of the control problem and are expressed through differential equations. The formula- tion of the decision process through optimal control and Newton's dynamical principle allows us to develop a game where the effectiveness and the goals of the automated players can be changed during the game in an intuitive way sim- ply modifying the values of some parameters (i.e. mass, friction coefficient, ...). In a sequence of game matches the predators (automated players) have "personalities" that try to simulate human behaviour. The predator personalities are determined making an elementary statistical analysis of the points scored by the preys in the game matches played and consist in the adaptive choice of the value of a parameter (the mass) that appears in the differential equations that define the movements of the predators. The values taken by this parameter determine the behaviour of the predators and their effectiveness in chasing the preys. The predators personalities are a (second) form of AI based on elementary statistics that goes beyond the intelligence used to chase the preys in a match. In a sequence of matches the predators using this second form of AI adapt their behaviour to the preys' behaviour. The video game can be downloaded from the website: http://www.ceri.uniroma1.it/ceri/zirilli/w10/

PERUBAHAN DINAMIS FORMASI MENYERANG NPC PADA PERTEMPURAN MENGGUNAKAN HFSM

Real Time Strategy salah satu dari genre game yang menuntut visualisasi dan kecerdasan yang tinggi untuk memainkannya. Formasi pada sebuah kelompok pasukan menjadi salah satu penentu menang atau kalah dalam sebuah pertempuran. Formasi statis pada pasukan tidak berubah secara dinamis sesuai dengan keadaan kelompok NPC maupun lawan dalam kondisi unggul atau terdesak. Pada penelitian ini digunakan metode Hierarchical Finite State Machine (HFSM) untuk membuat perubahan formasi berdasarkan perbandingan parameter Hit Point rata-rata lawan dan bentuk formasi lawan dengan kelompok NPC sehingga berubah sesuai dengan kondisi di pertempuran. Dari beberapa percobaan yang dilakukan terbukti bahwa formasi dinamis dengan menggunakan metode HFSM menjadikan pasukan lebih kuat dan lebih cepat untuk memenangkan pertempuran. Pada percobaan 9 agen Batara melawan Kirna dengan formasi baris dimenangkan pasukan Batara dengan waktu 18,36 detik. Jika menggunakan formasi panah maka pertempuran dimenangkan oleh Kirna dengan waktu kemenangan 27,95 detik. Jika formasi diganti formasi “V” pertempuran dimenangkan oleh Kirna dengan waktu kemenangan 33,06 detik. Jika menggunakan formasi dinamis didapatkan data kemenangan lebih cepat dari formasi yang lain yaitu 16,88 detik dimenangkan oleh pasukan Batara. ============================================================ Real Time Strategy one of the genres of games that require visualization and high intelligence to play. Formation on a group of troops to be one determinant of winning or losing in a battle. Static formations of the force does not change dynamically according to the state of the NPC and the group of opponents in a superior or recessive condition. In this study used methods Hierarchical Finite State Machine (HFSM) to make lineup changes based on comparison of the average Hit Point opponents and group formations with NPC opponents to change according to conditions on the battle. From several experiments conducted proved that the dynamic formation using HFSM make forces more powerful and faster to win the battle. In the experiment 9 Batara agent against Kirna with rows formations Batara forces won with a time of 18.36 seconds. If using an arrow formation, the battle was won by Kirna with a time of 27.95 seconds victory. If the formation is replaced formations "V" the battle is won by Kirna with a time of 33.06 seconds victory. If using the dynamic formation obtained victories faster than other formations, namely 16.88 seconds won by troops Batar

Virtual Reality Games for Motor Rehabilitation

This paper presents a fuzzy logic based method to track user satisfaction without the need for devices to monitor users physiological conditions. User satisfaction is the key to any product’s acceptance; computer applications and video games provide a unique opportunity to provide a tailored environment for each user to better suit their needs. We have implemented a non-adaptive fuzzy logic model of emotion, based on the emotional component of the Fuzzy Logic Adaptive Model of Emotion (FLAME) proposed by El-Nasr, to estimate player emotion in UnrealTournament 2004. In this paper we describe the implementation of this system and present the results of one of several play tests. Our research contradicts the current literature that suggests physiological measurements are needed. We show that it is possible to use a software only method to estimate user emotion

A framework for crowd simulation based on the JMonkey game engine

La simulación de multitudes juega un papel crucial cuando se trata del desarrollo de entornos inteligentes. La mayoría de los investigadores desarrollan simulaciones usando motores de juegos comerciales a través de los editores que éstos proporcionan. Esto di culta el poder realizar una experimentación profunda sobre simulaciones de multitudes, y fuerza que la línea de investigación deba atenerse al paradigma de desarrollo propuesto por la herramienta. El objetivo principal del trabajo desarrollado es la contribución de un simulador de multitudes basado en 3D, con una arquitectura modular y extensible, adecuada para la experimentación con simulaciones de multitudes. Este framework se centrará de forma especial en la navegación y la coordinación de multitudes sobre un modelo realista del entorno, capaz de reproducir situaciones del mundo real. El simulador incluye implementaciones de algoritmos conocidos para el movimiento de multitudes, integrando también implementaciones de terceros. El trabajo tiene en cuenta la necesidad de representaciones visualmente convincentes de la simulación más allá de las representaciones 2D, utilizadas regularmente en la literatura. Para ello, se contribuye con extensiones a herramientas de terceros que permiten importar texturas, animaciones y mallas que mejoran la calidad de la simulación. El desempeño de la simulación se demuestra en un caso de estudio donde el desafío es encontrar una población cuyo comportamiento, dentro del simulador, reproduce un determinado tráfico entrante / saliente medido en áreas específicas de un edificio. Este trabajo ha sido financiado por el proyecto MOSI-AGIL (S2013 / ICE-3019) a través de la Gobierno de la Comunidad de Madrid y Fondos Estructurales Europeos (FEDER)

Playing against the grain: Rhetorics of counterplay in console based first-person shooter videogames.

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University London.Counterplay is a way of playing digital games that opposes the encoded algorithms that define their appropriate use and interaction. Counterplay is often manifested within the social arena as practices such as the creation of incendiary user generated content, grief-play, cheating, glitching, modding, and hacking. It is deemed damaging to normative play values, to the experience of play, and detrimental to the viability of videogames as mainstream entertainment products. Counterplay is often framed through the rhetoric of transgression as pathogen, as a hostile, infectious, threatening act. Those found conducting it are subject to a range of punishments ranging from expulsion from videogames to criminal conviction. Despite the steps taken to manage counterplay, it occurs frequently within contemporary videogames causing significant disruption to play and necessitating costly remedy. This thesis argues that counterplay should be understood as a practice with its own pleasures and justifying rhetorics that problematise the rhetoric of pathogen and attenuate the threat of penalty. Despite the social and economic significance of counterplay upon contemporary videogames, relatively little is known of the practices conducted by counterplayers, their motivations, or the rhetorics that they deploy to justify and contextualise their actions. Through the use of ethnographic approaches, including interview and participant observation, alongside the identification and application of five popular rhetorics of transgression, this study aims to expose the meanings and complexities of contemporary counterplay. It examines counterplayer testimonies that articulate the practices and rhetorics underpinning the creation of incendiary user generated content, grief play, glitching, modding, and hacking on the Xbox 360 platform in particular. This study represents a contribution to the field of game studies in an area so far underresearched, offering voice to a previously silent demographic, that of counterplayers. In focussing upon their practices, communities and motivations, this study challenges the framing of counterplay as reductively oppositional or hostile. Instead, counterplay is shown to be an act of seduction, a means of articulating identity, status and recognition, as an expression of hacker ideology, and as a re-engagement with the carnivalesque. These meanings, in addition to the rhetoric of pathogen, offer an expanded image of counterplay and the counterplayer that highlights the significance of counterplay within the context of contemporary popular and youth culture.Canterbury Christ Church University’s Staff Development programm

People tracking and following with a smart wheelchair using an omnidirectional camera and a RGB-D Camera

The project implements a new service that enables a smart wheelchair user and another person to have a normal talk while freely strolling around the environment, without the need of any interaction towards the wheelchair, called Jiaolong

Players Unleashed! Modding The Sims and the Culture of Gaming

Siirretty Doriast