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Advanced CG technology Advanced CG technology for Gamesfor Games

Hyewon SeoCGAL-CNU

ChungNam National University

OutlineOutline

• Games, serious games

• Game engines

• Character animation

• Future perspectives

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Computer gamesComputer games

• “Computer games have done more for the propagation of computers than any other softwares”

- Nolan Bushnell, Founder of Atari

Game?Game?

• The word has many specific meanings– Sport, childish play, mathematical models of

optimization or decision making,…

• Simulate, relatively cheaply and safely, situations which could in reality be much more expensive or dangerous

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Serious gamesSerious games

• Applications of game-based interface or interaction technology that extend beyond entertainment market

• Application area: education, training, healthcare, security, advertising, military, managements, policy, and much more!!

• Any computerized game whose chief mission is not to entertain

Serious gamesSerious games

• Many game companies and game makers see serious games as a very interesting opportunity. There are many reasons for that:

– Game companies have readymade technical solutions which can be used in serious games (3D engines etc.)

– Serious games offer companies a possibility to widen their range.

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Why Serious GamesWhy Serious Games

–– Game Game ttechnologyechnology

• Graphics

• Platforms

• Toolkits and SDK (AI, physics, network…)

• Gaming interface

Why Serious GamesWhy Serious Games

-- The ideasThe ideas• Intense competition has led to vast amount of di

fferent ideas– Situations: Participate in (all) wars, build cities, prohibit fire

s, conquer world/space, make career, simulate homes ….

– Roles: Field Marshall, knight, slave, fire fighter, soldier, hunter, police man, pilot, athlete, judge, doctor, mayor, CEO, hacker, alien exterminator, god(!)…

• Models for all sorts of things

• Studied, conceptualized and implemented these things in a simulated format.

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Why Serious GamesWhy Serious Games

-- Spread factorSpread factor

• We want to simulate things– Not just for entertainment

• Games and gaming can introduce Modelling & Simulation– education, politics, industries…

• Motivating Serious Games are easily sold and distributed

Why Serious Games Why Serious Games

–– The activity of The activity of ggamingaming

• A good gaming can provide:– Entertainment

– Intense and passionate engagement

– Structure

– Motivation

– Flow

– Learning

– Self confidence

– Adrenaline

– Creativity

– Social groups

– Emotions

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Current status Current status –– ItIt’’s happening!s happening!

• Games for serious uses spreading– Established and ongoing Projects (~40 per year)

– Media attention

– Organizations

– Workshop, Conferences and Gatherings• “Game Intersections” – Swedish workshop 2001

• “Education Arcade” – MIT&U.Wisc

• “Serious Games Summit”• NATO workshop: “Exploiting Commercial games for milita

ry use”, Stockholm 2005

• “Edutainment”, Hangzhou, 2006

• “Games for Health Day”, LosAngeles 2006

The military domainThe military domain

• Lots of $$$$$$• Eager to test many things• An interesting talk will be given this afternoon

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EducationEducation

• Educational animation• Sugaring the content • Game-based interface to

engage learners

Decision theaterDecision theater

• Learning and decision space – Arizona State University

– http://dt.asu.edu

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IssuesIssues

• Validity– Models simplifications/abstractions of real world

phenomena

– Simulation multiply uncertainties

– All simulations are subjective

– Validation of Modeling & Simulation is a very complex problem

• Large variance of realism– Acceptable realism is strongly dependent on the

purpose.

– No absolute value of realism.

Game engines &Game engines &Character animationCharacter animation

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Game engineGame engine

• “.. is the core software component of a video game. It typically handles graphical rendering and other necessary technology, but might also handle additional tasks such as game AI and collision detection between game objects, among other things. The most common element that a game engine provides is graphics rendering facilities (2D or 3D)…”

- from Wikipedia

(3D) Graphics engine(3D) Graphics engine

• “…Engines that only provide real-time 3D rendering are sometimes called 3D engines or graphics engines. A few examples are: 3DSTATE, Power Render, Genesis3D, Irrlicht, Ogre, Panda3D, and Antiryad Gx. Many 3D engines are designed for other purposes, often in addition to games. These are then coupled with physics engines.”

- from Wikipedia

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Game engineGame engine

• A set of APIS that supports basic functionalities for building and running game applications:– Real-time rendering graphics & sound

– Processing input from the device

– Real-world simulation• Collision detection, physics

– Character support• Appearance, movement, behavior, decision making

– Multiple players, networking

• Separated from game application development

Game enginesGame engines

• Quake3D• Unreal• Lithtech• Genesis3D • Jupiter3D• OGRE• 3D Game Studio• Dream3D

• Every engine has pros and cons

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Quake Quake

• By id Software• First person shooter game• 3D realtime rendering

– BSP, Gouraud shading, static lightmap

– S/W rendering (Quake) -> H/W rendering (Quake II)

• Derivative engines – DarkPlaces, Tenebrae, Telejano, Twilight Engine,…

• Games – Doom, Quake series, Half-Life,…

UnrealUnreal

• By Epic Games• First person shooter game• Powerful Light effect, more realistic shadow• Software renderer

– Supports many APIs (Direct3D, OpenGL, ..)

• Multiple platform (PC, PS2, X-Box,..)• Tools and interface• Games – Unreal, Unreal II: The Awakening,

Unreal Tournament series, Unreal Championship

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LithtechLithtech JupiterJupiter

• By MonoLith (later Touchdown entertainment)

• First person shooter game• Visibility management

– BSP, PVS

• Character animation– Skeletal animation, facial animation

• Crossplatform (PS2, X-Box)• Games – Sniper, No One Lives Forever,

FEAR,…

Dream3DDream3D

• By ETRI• Various genre• Character animation, physics• Multiple platform (PC, PS/2, WinCE PPC)• MMORPG server• Editors for indoor and outdoor

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RealReal--time rendering enginetime rendering engine

• LoD geometry systems

• Culling

• Light map

• Vertex/pixel shader

• Image-based rendering

Animation engineAnimation engine

• Character animation– PC (Player character), NPC(Non-Player character),

Monsters, etc.

• Other various objects

• Motion control – body and face

• Physics

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Character animationCharacter animation

• Characters carry the weight of the story or scenario!!

• Skeletal animation• Skin mesh animation • Physically-based (hair,

cloth) animation

• The pioneer and mentors are here today!!

Character modelingCharacter modeling

• Has been considered as off-the-engine task

• Time and effort consuming

• Will be integrated in the engine soon

• Research trends: automated avatar modeling, shape (+ movement) capture

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Skeletal animationSkeletal animation

• Keyframing

• inverse kinematics

• Motion capture

•Research trends: motion capture + user control,motion retargeting

SkinningSkinning

• Skeletal Subspace Deformation: calculate a vertex position by a weighted sum of joint transformations

• Research trends: improving the quality, automating the task

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Facial animationFacial animation

• Surface deformation-> Expression -> Emotion

• Text-to-speech, lips movement synchronization

Physics enginePhysics engine

• Racing games• Sophisticated character motion control• Character-object interaction

– Realistic collision handling

• Characters’ cloth, hair, etc.• Objects, nature

• Chris Hecker’s, Mathengine• PPU (Physics Processing Unit)

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AI engineAI engine

• Mostly applies to control of NPC

• Earlier, most of them were hard coded – if-then-else statement

• The CPU usage rate by AI engine is increasing (~over 30%)

Future perspectivesFuture perspectives

• Game content creation• Innovative interaction technology• Immersive gaming, serious games

• Fierce competition in the game engine market• Separation of game engine development and

game application development

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Thank you !!Thank you !!

Questions & Answers