Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

This paper presents the authoring tool , which implements novel authoring methods for highly interactive edutainment applications. Both concluded work and ongoing and future issues are presented. Among the concluded work, a framework is described that integrates a hierarchic transition network with non-graph based methods, in particular with a rule-based system. This facilitates the authoring process considerably, and enhances the power to control the logic of an application.

Storytelling by a child, as a training activity, influences significantly a child’s linguistic abilities, logic and thought process, imagination, and creativity. There presently exist many software-based storytelling applications. However, most are deemed incompatible or not suitable to Chinese children. Due to the limited vocabulary of pre-school and lower-level grade school children, speech-based and pen-based input models are considered the most effective way of input. But now there is not an effective multimodal mode to solve the problem for children’s storytelling systems. In this paper, we propose a multimodal fusion framework that utilizes pen and speech techniques to incorporate both context information and linguistic attributes of the Chinese language into the design. Based on the proposed framework, we formulated specific methods of integration, and developed a prototype for our proposed system.

In film, cinematographic techniques are used in a concurrent sense, predominantly to achieve creative goals. The use of cinematographic techniques in edutainment applications would especially affect the modeling of virtual characters as well as the authoring and perception of interactive stories.

Terrain modeling and rendering is essential in construction of realistic virtual environment, for interactive computer games application. Advanced high resolution scanning technologies such as LIDAR enable us to obtain dense and accurate irregular terrain dataset. However, unlike the regular sampled dataset such as DEM and DTED, irregular dataset cannot be rendered in real-time due to random distribution of samples. Moreover, because they generally have huge amount of point data, it is very hard to manipulate them in consumer PC. We propose a fast and efficient terrain rendering method using large-scale irregular dataset for computer games application. First, it reconstructs the geometry by converting irregular dataset into regular one, through resampling input data with regular interval considering the spatial distribution of sample points. It can generate animated scene by applying quad-tree based rendering method to converted dataset. Experimental results show that its image quality is not deteriorated in comparison to the result of rendering reconstructed geometric models.

This paper describes how Genetic Algorithm can be used to control the level of difficulty in a game based on a user’s skill. An algorithm is proposed to control the difficulty of a game according to user’s propensity in our previous work [1], [2]. But the searching spaces are very narrow and convergence of chromosomes is also slow because the game progresses step-by-step and chromosomes are evaluated simultaneously while playing the game. Thus, a method is presented to expand the searching spaces and converge quickly on the Genetic Algorithm in the domain of sequential progress.

Simulation grid (SimGrid) is fit for the large-scale warfare simulation applications. Since stakeholders in warfare simulation include scenario developers, running & managing personnel and model managers, this paper firstly presents a special SimGrid framework which could be divided into three levels: application level, HLA/RTI level and model level. It then detailedly analyzes and describes how to search the model service based on warfare SimGrid architecture and its index integration mechanism. Finally, a model service location solution based on response order and access order is put forward. The service searching solution based on response order and access order is a good solution to rapidly search and locate necessary models in large-scale warfare simulation. The solution takes into whole account the access characteristics of warfare simulation models and its real-time characteristics, which greatly ensured the rapid service searching. In this solution, all kinds of parameters can be easily assigned and controlled. All buffer queues can be dynamically allocated according to requests of users. Obviously the solution can make great contribution to construct large-scale warfare simulation grid.

There are two main approaches, conservative and optimistic, for maintaining consistency in distributed network games. Under the conservative approach, players may experience network latency, depending on packet transfer delay caused by the send-and-wait and acknowledging processes. Under the optimistic approach, the processes do not wait for other players’ packets and advance to their own frames, hence there is no network latency. However, when inconsistency happens, the processes must roll back. This can cause irritation and confusion to players, and thus the game quality deteriorates. Overall, the optimistic approach may not be suitable for networked games. To overcome the network latency problem in the conservative approach, we propose a new system which can reduce the network latency and bandwidth requirements. Furthermore, the effect of the number of players in multiplayer game sessions is examined in detail with varying number of players. Experimental results with our proposed system confirm improved performances in latency and frame rate.

In this paper, we present an algorithm to imitate a game player’s play patterns using a real-time (); the examples of the patterns can be moving and firing units. Our algorithm to learn and imitate is possible to be executed during gameplay. To test effectiveness of our algorithm, we made an application similar to the Starcraft. By using our method, a game player can avoids tediously repeating labors to control units. Moreover, applying this to enemy agents makes it possible to play more difficult and exciting games. From experimental results, we found that agents’ ability to imitate a game player’s unit control patterns could make human-like agents, and also we found that adaptive game AIs, especially the real-time NE, are efficient in such imitation problems.

This paper presents a new computer supported remote learning and gaming method using Tele-Face Mouse system. The Tele-Face Mouse system is being developed as a teleconference system. It converts simple desktop computers to a teleconference system. The main advantage of the Tele-Face Mouse system is that it enables people to share a computer screen as a working space, and to interact with it using mouse pointers that followed by user face videos. By presenting that it is also the key point in remote learning, this paper shows that the Tele-Face Mouse system can be effectively used in remote learning and gaming.

It is not easy to develop a game that applies physical laws. In this paper we proposed a physics editor to make it easy to produce a physics game. The physics editor uses XML for processing attribute values of each object. This paper presents the architecture of the physics editor, and describes its detailed components. The physics editor provides an efficient method that is easily applied to physical attributes of all objects in the game. In this paper, we showed the process of a car’s creation, using the physics editor. The physics editor that is presented in this paper automatically creates physical objects, but it is limited to the rigid body for car racing.