Network Traffic Adaptation For Cloud Games

With the arrival of cloud technology, game accessibility and ubiquity have a bright future; Games can be hosted in a centralize server and accessed through the Internet by a thin client on a wide variety of devices with modest capabilities: cloud gaming. However, current cloud gaming systems have very strong requirements in terms of network resources, thus reducing the accessibility and ubiquity of cloud games, because devices with little bandwidth and people located in area with limited and unstable network connectivity, cannot take advantage of these cloud services. In this paper we present an adaptation technique inspired by the level of detail (LoD) approach in 3D graphics. It delivers multiple platform accessibility and network adaptability, while improving user's quality of experience (QoE) by reducing the impact of poor and unstable network parameters (delay, packet loss, jitter) on game interactivity. We validate our approach using a prototype game in a controlled environment and characterize the user QoE in a pilot experiment. The results show that the proposed framework provides a significant QoE enhancement

Adaptive gameplay for mobile gaming

In this article we propose a game design approach to build context adaptive games. This approach is based on a model of the game structure and a generic adaptation model. Our method consists of designing different game scenarios involving different gameplay for the game then, game engine selects and proposes the appropriate one according to the context. We have conducted a pilot experiment in order to evaluate the effect of this adaptation on game and player satisfaction. We stated as hypotheses that context adaptation does not have effects on the game and player satisfaction. We have developed two versions of a mobile game and a virtual city to test these hypotheses. The results show that context adaptation increase the number of game objectives which are succeeded and decreases the number which are failed. However, player satisfaction is not always superior for the version that includes context adaptation

A 3D simulator for intelligent environment experiments

The advances in sensor networks, electronics and ambient intelligence make creation of intelligent environments (IEs) possible. However, on account of economic and logistic issues the implementation of physical IEs is difficult in research domain. That makes it harder for researchers to experiment new approaches in IE domain. In this article, we propose a simulator to build virtual IEs. Simulators are a good alternative to physical IEs. Indeed, virtual IEs does not require expensive resources. Moreover, researchers and designers can conduct experiments anytime and repeat scenarios easily. Our simulator provides users with a set of virtual sensors and actuators. Our virtual sensors try to reproduce behavior of physical sensors and to produce datasets with the same properties as those generated by real sensors. Our proposition contains a tool to build a home from scratch and a model to define scenarios and behaviors of occupants. It also proposes an interface to control occupants directly. Virtual sensors collect data and generate datasets. Scientists and designers can use these datasets to evaluate and design new approaches in IE domain

Level of detail based AI adaptation for agents in video games

This paper suggests multi-agent systems (MASs) for implementing game artificial intelligence (AI) for video games. One of main hindrances against using MASs technology in video games has been the real-time con- straints for frame rendering. In order to deal with the real-time constraints, we introduce an adaptation-oriented approach for maintaining frame rate in acceptable ranges. The adaptation approach is inspired from the level of detail (LoD) technique in 3D graphics. We introduce agent organizations for defining different roles of agents in game AI. The computational requirements of agent roles have been prioritized according to their functional roles in a game. In this way, adapting computational requirements of game AI works as a means for maintaining frame rate in acceptable ranges. The proposed approach has been evaluated through a pilot experiment by using a proof of concept game. The pilot experiment shows that LoD based adaptation allows maintaining frame rate in acceptable ranges and therefore enhancing the quality of service

Adaptive model of activities for ubiquitous video game

Les technologies et services mobiles font aujourd'hui partie de notre vie quotidienne grâce notamment aux ordiphones et ardoises numériques. Nous vivons actuellement la réalisation de la vision de Marc Weiser. Les fonctionnalités et les services rendus prennent le dessus sur les objets techniques. Dans cette thèse, nous nous intéressons à un type particulier d'applications informatiques: les jeux vidéo. Comme d'autres secteurs, les jeux vidéo doivent prendre en compte la révolution mobile, pour se réinventer et intéresser des joueurs. Cependant, les jeux sur support mobiles doivent faire face au problème du changement des conditions de jeu du joueur. Nous pouvons parler de contexte du joueur.L'objectif de cette thèse est de proposer un modèle pour la conception de jeu auto-adaptatif au contexte du joueur. Ce modèle doit être générique et permettre la création de jeux vidéo qui sont capables de modifier les activités et objectifs qu'ils proposent en fonction du contexte courant du joueur. Notre proposition se constitue de deux éléments clefs. Le premier consiste en un modèle générique des activités et des objectifs d'un jeu vidéo que nous avons appelé «composant de gameplay». Ce modèle est une formalisation du concept de boucle de jeu objectif, challenge, récompense. Ce modèle nous permet de représenter les objectifs et activités du jeu sous la forme d'un arbre. Le deuxième élément est un modèle de détection des arbres compatibles avec un contexte courant. Ce modèle se base sur des règles de contexte qui sont associées aux nœuds de l'arbre. Notre démarche consiste ensuite à vérifier que l'objectif représenté par la racine de l'arbre peut être atteint dans le contexte courant. Pour valider notre approche, nous avons réalisé une expérimentation en laboratoire. Nous avons également utilisé notre expérience sur l'utilisation des composants de gameplay dans un contexte industriel.Nowadays, the technologies and mobiles services are a part of our daily life thanks to smartphones and tablet computers. Currently, we live the realisation of Weiser's vision. The features and services provided are more important than technical objects.In this thesis, we are interested in a kind of computer applications: video games. Like other sectors, video games have to deal with mobile revolution in order to reinvent themselves and to interest players. However, video games on mobiles devices have to deal with the variation of playing conditions. We can call these conditions the player's context.The main objective of this thesis is to propose a model for the design of games that are able to adapt to the player's context. This model has to be generic and allow the game to adapt the proposed activities and objectives to the current context.Our proposition has two main elements. The first one is a generic model of the activities and the objectives which are proposed by the game. We have called this model "gameplay component". It is a formalization of the objectif, challenge, reward game loop concept. It allows us to represent a game as a tree.The second element is a model for detecting game tree which are compatible with a defined context. This model is based on rules which are linked with the nodes of the game tree. Our approach consist of checking that the objective which is given by the root of the game tree can be reached in the current context.In order to valid our approach, we have conducted a laboratory experimentation. We have also used our experience about using of gameplay component in a industrial context in order to do a case study

Modèle adaptatif d'activités pour les jeux ubiquitaires

Les technologies et services mobiles font aujourd'hui partie de notre vie quotidienne grâce notamment aux ordiphones et ardoises numériques. Nous vivons actuellement la réalisation de la vision de Marc Weiser. Les fonctionnalités et les services rendus prennent le dessus sur les objets techniques. Dans cette thèse, nous nous intéressons à un type particulier d'applications informatiques: les jeux vidéo. Comme d'autres secteurs, les jeux vidéo doivent prendre en compte la révolution mobile, pour se réinventer et intéresser des joueurs. Cependant, les jeux sur support mobiles doivent faire face au problème du changement des conditions de jeu du joueur. Nous pouvons parler de contexte du joueur.L'objectif de cette thèse est de proposer un modèle pour la conception de jeu auto-adaptatif au contexte du joueur. Ce modèle doit être générique et permettre la création de jeux vidéo qui sont capables de modifier les activités et objectifs qu'ils proposent en fonction du contexte courant du joueur. Notre proposition se constitue de deux éléments clefs. Le premier consiste en un modèle générique des activités et des objectifs d'un jeu vidéo que nous avons appelé «composant de gameplay». Ce modèle est une formalisation du concept de boucle de jeu objectif, challenge, récompense. Ce modèle nous permet de représenter les objectifs et activités du jeu sous la forme d'un arbre. Le deuxième élément est un modèle de détection des arbres compatibles avec un contexte courant. Ce modèle se base sur des règles de contexte qui sont associées aux nœuds de l'arbre. Notre démarche consiste ensuite à vérifier que l'objectif représenté par la racine de l'arbre peut être atteint dans le contexte courant. Pour valider notre approche, nous avons réalisé une expérimentation en laboratoire. Nous avons également utilisé notre expérience sur l'utilisation des composants de gameplay dans un contexte industriel. Nowadays, the technologies and mobiles services are a part of our daily life thanks to smartphones and tablet computers. Currently, we live the realisation of Weiser's vision. The features and services provided are more important than technical objects.In this thesis, we are interested in a kind of computer applications: video games. Like other sectors, video games have to deal with mobile revolution in order to reinvent themselves and to interest players. However, video games on mobiles devices have to deal with the variation of playing conditions. We can call these conditions the player's context.The main objective of this thesis is to propose a model for the design of games that are able to adapt to the player's context. This model has to be generic and allow the game to adapt the proposed activities and objectives to the current context.Our proposition has two main elements. The first one is a generic model of the activities and the objectives which are proposed by the game. We have called this model "gameplay component". It is a formalization of the objectif, challenge, reward game loop concept. It allows us to represent a game as a tree.The second element is a model for detecting game tree which are compatible with a defined context. This model is based on rules which are linked with the nodes of the game tree. Our approach consist of checking that the objective which is given by the root of the game tree can be reached in the current context.In order to valid our approach, we have conducted a laboratory experimentation. We have also used our experience about using of gameplay component in a industrial context in order to do a case study

A players clustering method to enhance the players' experience in multi-player games

Online multi player games are a kind of video game where players have to interact together in a same game environment through an Internet connection. In these games, the players are grouped in different sessions where they can only interact with the member of the session. In order to maximize the player's experience, game designers have to solve different issues. The first one is to maximize the number of players in the different game sessions. As these game are designed to provide the better game experience when the maximum number of players are in the session. It is important to avoid session with few players. The second one is to create session where the players have the same skill level. A too large difference between the level skills of the players can create frustration. In this short paper we focus on player's skill and present an approach in development to automatically detect communities of players in order to create game session. Our approach is based on game play component, user profile and player interaction with the different game play component. We describe the experiment scheme that has been designed in order to evaluate the impact of the proposition on player satisfaction

The virtual environment for rapid prototyping of the intelligent environment

Advances in domains such as sensor networks and electronic and ambient intelligence have allowed us to create intelligent environments (IEs). However, research in IE is being held back by the fact that researchers face major difficulties, such as a lack of resources for their experiments. Indeed, they cannot easily build IEs to evaluate their approaches. This is mainly because of economic and logistical issues. In this paper, we propose a simulator to build virtual IEs. Simulators are a good alternative to physical IEs because they are inexpensive, and experiments can be conducted easily. Our simulator is open source and it provides users with a set of virtual sensors that simulates the behavior of real sensors. This simulator gives the user the capacity to build their own environment, providing a model to edit inhabitants’ behavior and an interactive mode. In this mode, the user can directly act upon IE objects. This simulator gathers data generated by the interactions in order to produce datasets. These datasets can be used by scientists to evaluate several approaches in IEs

Modeling, learning, and simulating human activities of daily living with behavior trees

Autonomy is a key factor in the quality of life of a person. With the aging of the population, an increasing number of people suffers from a reduced level of autonomy. That compromises their capacity of performing their daily activities and causes safety issues. The new concept of ambient assisted living (AAL), and more specifically its application in smart homes for supporting elderly people, constitutes a great avenue of the solution. However, to be able to automatically assist a user carrying out is activities, researchers and engineers face three main challenges in the development of smart homes: (i) how to represent the activity models, (ii) how to automatically construct theses models based on historical data and (iii) how to be able to simulate the user behavior for tests and calibration purpose. Most of recent works addressing these challenges exploit simple models of activity with no semantic, or use logically complex ones or else use probabilistically rigid representations. In this paper, we propose a global approach to address the three challenges. We introduce a new way of modeling human activities in smart homes based on behavior trees which are used in the video game industry. We then present an algorithmic way to automatically learn these models with sensors logs. We use a simulator that we have developed to validate our approach

A distributed power management optimisation in wireless sensors networks

This paper presents a study on power management optimisation over a sensor network. We have proposed a set of management rules which are executed by each sensor of the network. These rules adapt themselves to sensors depending on their energy status and on the network energy. Periodically, each sensor computes its rules and decides how to behave (sleeping during a long period or not). An experimentation of these rules has been implemented, we used a distributed sort algorithm on the whole network. We have observed the network behaviour and noticed that the use of these rules allows to increase the average energy life up to 20 %