Tutorials

Collada – an introduction

By: Andy Thomason, SN Systems, Sony Computer Entertainment

The Collada file format is a standard for information interchange within the gaming community. Collada represents graphics, animation and physics data as well as proving an extensible format for game specific extensions. Collada exporters are available for most of the common 3D editors and it is supported by graphics and physics libraries such as Bullet physics. This discussion focuses on its strengths and weaknesses in the commercial game development world.

Bio: Andy Thomason works for SN Systems, now a part of Sony Computer Entertainment, developing the compilers and tools for the PlayStation(R) range of consoles. Andy started writing games, operating systems and compilers in the 1970’s and spent all his pocket money on Z80s, 2708s and Veroboard. In the 80's he wrote the 3B2 publishing system, before returning to games and technology to work with Sinclair Research, Satchi and Satchi, ARC and Samsung on parallel computing operating systems and hardware. In the 90's he was a member of the Psygnosis technology group, moving to Rage Games for "B17 The Mighty Eighth", Confounding Factor for "Galleon". Recently he has been writing compilers and optimising games and middleware, such as Killzone 2, Fallout 3 and Unreal. When not fixing compilers, Andy is a keen mathematician and dad.

Emergent Gamebryo LightSpeed Workshop for Academics

By: Michael Callaghan, University of Ulster, Northern Ireland and Valery Carpentier, Emergent Game Technologies

Presentation: slides

Emergent's Gamebryo LightSpeed is a flexible, cross-platform game development engine and toolset used in 300+ game titles including Fallout 3, Oblivion, Sid Meier's Civilisation, Sid Meier's Pirates, Bully and Warhammer online. Gamebryo LightSpeed™ allows start-to-finish multi-genre/multi-platform game development focussing on rapid prototyping, rapid iteration and real-time updates while simplifying the game development process using a data driven framework. Emergent's academic programme offers registered educators free access to their cutting edge next generation technology for non-commercial activities such as teaching and research. This will introduce the Gamebryo toolset and development environment from both Art pipeline and Programming perspectives. It will discuss Gamebryo's place within the game development process, how Gamebryo complements and integrates with industry standard digital content creation and programming tools and will explore the extensive resources shipped with Gamebryo and their practical usefulness in an undergraduate teaching context. Emergent web site: http://www.emergent.net/

Speaker Biographies:

Michael Callaghan is a Lecturer in the School of Computing and Intelligent Systems at the Magee Campus of the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland. He leads the Serious Games and Virtual Worlds research team at the Intelligent System Research Centre (ISRC) on the Magee Campus of the University in Derry. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) UK, a member of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) and serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the IAOE (International Association of Online Engineering). His research interests relate to virtual worlds, serious games and remote experimentation.

Valery Carpentier has been programming computers from a very young age. He’s entered the video game industry in 1995 and has since worked on multiple game projects and middlewares. Passionate about technology, he has been involved in the development and commercialisation of multiple engines, on consoles and PCs. He is now a consultant for Emergent Game Technologies.

Measuring and optimizing player satisfaction

Presented by:

	Julian Togelius Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence (IDSIA) in Lugano, Switzerland.
	Georgios Yannakakis Center for Computer Games Research, IT-University of Copenhagen

This tutorial focuses on a range of approaches regarding quantitative player satisfaction (cognitive and affective) modeling and artificial intelligence (AI) for improving playing experience. Optimizing player
satisfaction is the second research focus of the tutorial. That is, given successful models of player satisfaction how can we adjust interactive systems in order to improve player experience? The purpose of the tutorial is to initiate (or further increase) an interest among ICE-GIC'09 participants in this newly established field.

There are indications of high interest from a growing research community and the game industry for player satisfaction capture and augmentation. In AI and Games research, the status quo is just now beginning to shift toward the perspective, advocated here, of applying AI to model and enhance player's satisfaction. This tutorial addresses this trend directly by investigating methods of modelling player satisfaction and adapting games to the desires of the individuals playing them. In this respect also, then, the tutorial is timely and significant. Building middleware - from the commercial game development viewpoint - capable of capturing player satisfaction in real-time will deliver products of higher commercial/marketing value and will automate specific game development processes like user testing. Researchers and game developers will find valuable research results for improving the quality of their games through player satisfaction modelling and optimization techniques covered in the tutorial. So far, there are promising results in small-scale games that can be used as a starting point. We will provide several successful game case-studies varying from Pac-Man and car racing to Mario Bros and augmented reality games.

Speaker biographies:

Georgios Yannakakis is Assistant Professor at the Center for Computer Games Research, IT-University of Copenhagen. His primary research interests lie in cognitive (entertainment) modeling, affective computing, neuro-evolution, dynamic game balancing, and real-time learning in video games. Dr. Yannakakis is the chair of the IEEE CIS Task Force on Player Satisfaction Modeling. He has been the chair of two workshops (SAB'06, AIIDE'07) on areas strongly related to player satisfaction in games and program committee member of several game related conferences and workshops. His homepage can be found at: http://www.itu.dk/~yannakakis/.

Julian Togelius is a researcher at the Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence (IDSIA) in Lugano, Switzerland. His research interests include evolving game-playing agents, modelling player behaviour, and evolving interesting game content, mainly using evolutionary and coevolutionary techniques. He also co-organizes the well-attended Simulated Car Racing Competitions for the IEEE CIG and CEC conferences. Julian's homepage is available from: http://julian.togelius.com/.

Audio for Games: An Interactive Tutorial

Presented by: Richard Stevens & Dave Raybould, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK. (email: r.c.stevens AT leedsmet.ac.uk; d.raybould AT leedsmet.ac.uk)

In this tutorial participants will gain an understanding of the unique issues that separate the creation of sound and music for games from that of more traditional linear media. In this introduction to the subject we will discuss a range of transferable concepts and give examples of their specific implementation within the Unreal 3 games authoring environment. Specifically we will look at the implications and challenges of interactivity, sample rate issues, randomisation, techniques for variation, concatenation, brassage, reactive ambience, musical transitions within an interactive context, and generative approaches to interactive music.

Speaker Biographies:

Richard Stevens is a Senior Lecturer and Teacher Fellow at Leeds Metropolitan University and is the coordinator for Masters courses within the Music, Sound and Performance group. He leads the MSc Sound and Music for Interactive Games at Leedsmet and his teaching and research interests include interactive audio for games, film sound and film music. He is chair of the international IASIG Game Audio Education Working Group that is currently developing guidelines for degrees relating to game audio. His creative output includes work as a composer and sound artist as well as a number of more recent interactive installation pieces.

Dave Raybould is a Senior Lecturer at Leeds Met University where he teaches sound synthesis, game audio, computer based performance, sound design and sound for film across both undergraduate and postgraduate music technology courses. His current research interests include the use of eye-tracking technology to analyse people's experiences of film, the use of computer based 'instruments' in a live performance context, sound diffusion, the use of computer games as interactive educational experiences and the creation of interactive audio/visual installations (most recently 'ReViewed' which was part of the 'RePossessed' exhibition). He is currently working on a textbook to be published by Focal Press based around the software package 'Reaktor'.

Artificial Intelligence
and Games Research
Network