Interaction and Expressivity in Video Games: Harnessing the Rhetoric of Film

The film-maker uses the camera and editing creatively, not simply to present the action of the film but also to set up a particular relation between the action and the viewer. In 3D video games with action controlled by the player, the pseudo camera is usually less creatively controlled and has less effect on the player’s appreciation of and engagement with the game. This paper discusses methods of controlling games by easy and intuitive interfaces and use of an automated virtual camera to increase the appeal of games for users

Following a large unpredictable group of targets among obstacles

Camera control is essential in both virtual and real-world environments. Our work focuses on an instance of camera control called target following, and offers an algorithm, based on the ideas of monotonic tracking regions and ghost targets, for following a large coherent group of targets with unknown trajectories, among known obstacles. In multiple-target following, the camera’s primary objective is to follow and maximize visibility of multiple moving targets. For example, in video games, a thirdperson view camera may be controlled to follow a group of characters through complicated virtual environments. In robotics, a camera attached to robotic manipulators could also be controlled to observe live performers in a concert, monitor assembly of a mechanical system, or maintain task visibility during teleoperated surgical procedures. To the best of our knowledge, this work is the first attempting to address this particular instance of camera control.

Insulating phases of the one-dimensional t-J model with nearest-neighbor repulsive interaction

Using the deformed Hubbard operator approach, we analytically study weak-coupling phase diagram of the one-dimensional t-J-V model at half filling. In the case of small deformed parameter ζ(≪1), the interactions induced by the no double occupancy constraint are softened, accessible by the bosonization field theory and the renormalization group technique. The ground state exhibits insulating behavior of density-wave correlations. The bond-spin-density-wave (BSDW) and bond-charge-density-wave (BCDW) phases are realized in the whole weak-coupling regime while the charge-density-wave (CDW) and spin-density-wave (SDW) phases depend on V/J > (V/J) c or V/J > (V/J) c , where (V/J) c =1/4. Furthermore, our results are expected to adiabatically continue back to ζ=1. Copyright EDP Sciences, SIF, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011