Fog Speakers Fall 2009

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Increasingly, games and game technology are changing the space of our daily life. There is a growing effort both in the games industry and within academia to extend current approaches to game design in order to create types of experiences radically more engaging, entertaining and interactive than today's commercial games provide. Applications of these new designs and technologies will affect not only the way we play but also the way we learn, the way we work and the way we interact with our social selves.

The Fall 2009 Future of Games Speaker Series brings thought-leaders from around the country to NC State to describe their vision for games technologies and the use of games in every context. The schedule appears below.

Arnav Jhala, University of California, Santa Cruz

Tuesday, 27 October 2009 13:15

Towards Real-Time Adaptive Camera Control in Games

Watch the video: [here]

Abstract:

Information about video game environments is communicated to players through a virtual camera. Camera control in most games is fixed by designers and is mostly constrained to specific camera profiles like the First-Person profile where camera is under direct user control. It is difficult to design camera control in complex, dynamic 3D environments for different types of users in a way that doesn't interfere with gameplay experience. In this talk, I will describe two projects that attempt to address some of the challenges in designing camera system for games. I will first describe a real-time camera control system that uses potential fields for controlling camera position and view location. This representation is accessible to game designers and performs well in complex dynamic environments. In the second part of the talk, I will describe user experiments conducted to study the interplay between camera profiles, game information, physiological states, and affective preferences of players. Data collected from these experiments is being used to learn affective player models and to drive an intelligent camera system that can switch camera profiles to individually modulate challenge for players.

Speaker Bio:

Arnav Jhala is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science in the Jack Baskin School of Engineering at University of California, Santa Cruz. His research interests lie at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Media, particularly in the areas of Computer Games, Cinematic Communication, and Narrative Discourse. Dr. Jhala has previously held research positions at the IT University of Copenhagen, Institute for Creative Technologies at University of Southern California where he was part of the Leaders project developed in association with Paramount Pictures, Virtual Heroes, Inc., a leading serious games developer and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). Dr. Jhala holds a Ph.D.(2009) and M.S.(2004) in Computer Science from North Carlina State University, and a B.Eng. in Computer Engineering from Gujarat University in India.

Location:

EB2 Room 3211, NCSU Centennial Campus, Raleigh, NC.

Parking:

Visitors coming to this talk from off-campus locations should obtain a visitors' parking pass from the Centennial Campus Visitors' Center and park in the Partners Way Parking Deck. For Specific directions, see this map (pdf). Note that this map directs you to EB2. This talk is held in EB2, shown on the map adjacent to EB2.