Change The Equation initiative

It has been announced that Activision Blizzard, one of the biggest gaming publishers, has joined the cross-industry educational intiative called Change The Equation which intends on promoting literacy in areas such as science, technology, engineering and maths. This is also known as STEM or STEM subjects.

This is an interesting development since the Change The Equation organisation is non-profit and also includes company from other wide-ranging sectors such as Time Warner Cable, Kodak, Intel and Xerox. Activision Blizzard obviously intends to concentrate on student interest in science and technology by using games and its own individual background. In a time where STEM subject areas are much needed, this is a very welcome move and it would be great if more large developers/publishers from the gaming field decide to also support this initiative.

Rise Of The Robots, worst game of all time?

I have recently revisited a game which I found particularly tiresome (yet very visually engaging at the time) when it first came out, as I will probably include a few lines about the 'worst' games of all time in one of my upcoming lectures at Bournemouth University this year.

I am referring to Rise Of The Robots, a game that was hyped as the new multi-platform fighting/beat 'em up sensation when released in the mid 90s, with claims such as high-detail 3D graphics, intelligent tactical opponents and even music from Queen's Brian May. Unfortunately, when released, critics and gamers alike found out that all of these claims were an overzealous marketing exercise.

Originally played this on my 386 PC and now on my new Blaze MegaDrive it is obvious why Rise Of The Robots went down in history as an appallingly bad game; even if you overlook the aforementioned flaws the game is practically unplayable (faring badly in comparison to contemporaries such as the Street Fighting games and Mortal Kombat) as it is so slow in response and with incredibly limited moves. Probably unthinkable to imagine that anybody could spend more than half an hour on Rise Of The Robots, it has managed to, nonetheless, make gaming history for all the wrong reasons so it may well be interesting to play it in order to avoid creating something similar!

Providing freedom of exploration with mobile navigation

PhD researcher Simon Robinson from Swansea University, UK and his colleagues have developed an interesting alternative solution to turn-by-turn navigation on mobile devices, enabling better exploration of cities. This comes in the form of a novel app that provides the user feedback on the general direction to take to reach a geographical target while at the same time leaving the precise route open to choice. The phone simply vibrates when it is pointing towards the target.

The prototype system was tested in a study with 24 volunteers, who were asked to traverse to a destination which was 1.5 kilometres away. Using the system, all reached the goal.

Read more about this work here.

PGCert completion

I have now, in my capacity as a lecturer at Bournemouth University, completed a PGCert in Research Degree Supervision. This programme provides a developmental journey which integrates a number of dimensions and reflects the changing nature of doctoral study. Participants are expected to be research active and have a level of research competence and awareness. Learning and assessment takes consideration of the students own specialist discipline and allows for the integration of theory to practice.

Consisting of two different units (and therefore assignments) my coursework, in the form of ~4000-word journal articles, focused on how the PhD code of practice affects completion rates and the supervision of professional doctorates in the UK.

Publication in the International Journal of Virtual Reality

I have been informed today that a publication I have co-authored, accepted at the 5th International Conference on Digital Media and Digital Content Management (DMDCM 2010) and seen in a previous post from this month will now also be included in a journal special issue. The publication is titled "Automating Terrain Texturing in Real-Time Using a Rule-Based Approach" and the journal itself is the International Journal of Virtual Reality.

The IJVR (published quarterly) is a multimedia publication dedicated to the cooperative development and application of diverse technologies associated with virtual reality. It is designed to disseminate relevant new information to professionals in all aspects of the field using the latest in publishing technology. All submissions related to virtual reality are welcome.

http://www.ijvr.org/

Limbo, another non-photorealistic game?

Another game that has caught my attention because of its stylised visuals is Limbo. Released by the independent developer Playdead Studios (based in Denmark), as downloadable content only, the game has caused quite a stir as, despite using a traditional 2D platform gameplay, it utilises unique black-and-white graphics and film grain effects to achieve a unique atmosphere.

This is a great example of how non-photorealism, combined with basic game mechanics, can create a huge impact even in the simplest of settings. Well worth checking out if you have access to the XBox Live Arcade where the game can be found.

Publication accepted at the 5th International Conference on Digital Media and Digital Content Management

A publication I have co-authored has been accepted at the 5th International Conference on Digital Media and Digital Content Management ((DMDCM 2010). It is titled "Automating Terrain Texturing in Real-Time Using a Rule-Based Approach".

The 5th International Conference on Digital Media and Digital Content Management (DMDCM’2010, originally called DMAMH) will be organized by the VR Committee, China Society of Image and Graphics. It will take place at Chongqing, China between the 18th and the 20th of December. The goal of the conference is to provide a forum for researchers in digital media, digital content, museum and multimedia community to describe recent advances, to exchange up-to-date technical knowledge and experiences, and to debate their views on future research and developments. Keynote speeches will be delivered by world-renowned experts in the field.

http://dmdcm.cqut.edu.cn/

CityEngine and National Geographic Megacities

For the recent National Geographic Asia's "Megacities" episode Worlds Away Productions was tasked with creating a 3D model of the city of Kaohsiung in Taiwan. This was achieved using an application I have blogged about many times before, Procedural's CityEngine.

As can be seen in the vid above, the results are impressive in terms of not only quality but also size/scale. The team has pointed out post-project that the CityEngine lent itself greatly to the tight production schedule (they had 4 weeks to complete the project) which involved the generation of 385 square kilometers.

Unreal engine on the iPhone makes an appearance

I have blogged about this before but now there is a fully interactive demo app to go with this so this is definitely worth mentioning again! Epic Games have made an interactive demo that anybody could download from the iTunes store, called Epic Citadel, showcasing exactly how the Unreal engine (version 3) could operate when ported on the Apple's device. This operates at the moment on iPhone 3GS, 4 and the iPad.

The results are very very impressive and miles away fron anything else seen on the iPhone in terms of both gaming but also 3D virtual world walkthroughs. If you have Apple's device I would definitely download this demo app to experience the shape of things to come in the world of mobile graphics, if not you can check out the fan-made vid above which showcases Epic Citadel in action (there's already tons of them on YouTube which shows the excitement around this release). Eagerly awaiting for the full Unreal game port now or maybe even something like Gears Of War!

Virtual Brisbane 3D model

From the Digital Urban blog, Virtual Brisbane is an interactive 3D model of Brisbane’s CBD and inner-five kilometres. Additionally, it is a fully spatially-accurate model, which has been built with the usage of aerial laser scans and imagery in order to give a photorealistic result and one that will gradually expand to cover the rest of the city.

The results are particularly impressive (as seen in the vid above) but what is more important and worth of special mention is the fact that the model runs within a real-time system fully capable of viewing GIS information through the popular (for everybody using packages such as Arc GIS) .shp file format. This, in turn, allows any other additional spatial dataset to be visualised and/or queried within the model. Finally, the Brisbane City Council have, to their immense credit, made this available for public consultation which can be of great benefit (and many application areas too) and definitely needs commending.

You check out virtual Brisbane here.

City Story, a 3D urban game on the iPhone

I am always interested in seeing 3D urban/city models on a mobile device, so here's a new and great effort. City Story is a free iPhone game similar to the classic Sim City where one can create an imaginary city with all the assorted features expected (such as businesses, parks, road systems and others). It also has Facebook interface adding a social element to the app.

Well worth checking out on your iPhone (or indeed iPad), it is available from the iTunes store here.

Creating 3D maps of buildings with backpacks

An interesting new project from UC Berkeley researchers produces a new backpack full with cameras and laser scanners that can enable its user (/wearer) to automatically produce a 3D map of any interior building by walking through it.

The prototype consists of equipped six laser scanners and four cameras that, respectively, map a building's interior and take photographs. These are then mapped onto the 3D model produced from the scans to generate the eventual, final model. While current production costs for the backpack are around $250,000, its creators claim the final design cost can be brought down to $20,000 and could, potentially, revolutionize automation in 3D interior model production for a number of application areas (architectural, gaming, military etc.).

Book chapter publication accepted

A book chapter publication I have co-authored with one of my former students at Bournemouth University has been accepted for publication at the soon-to-be-published Handbook of Research on Practices and Outcomes in Virtual Worlds and Environments, as edited by Harrison Yang and Steve Yuen. The publisher is IGI Global.

This handbook will include a variety of contexts and cover anthropological, psychological, pedagogical, sociological, and so forth approaches from both empirical and theoretical works on virtual worlds and environments.

It will serve, when published in late 2010/early 2011, as a research reference, a pedagogical/informational guide and a primary source in the area of virtual enviroments.

The target audience includes educators, e-business managers, trainers, administrators, and researchers working in the area of e-learning or distance learning in various disciplines, for example education, corporate training, instructional technology, computer science, library information science, information technology, workforce development, and undergraduate/graduate students in various e-commerce, e-learning, and other related programs.

The article, titled "Addiction in World Of Warcraft; A Virtual Ethnography Study", presents an investigation in determining whether players are addicted, or show signs of addiction, to the Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft. Criteria to ascertain addiction in World of Warcraft players were developed based on well-documented theories in the area. A questionnaire was used in order to obtain data for analysis.

This was distributed to a population of World of Warcraft players by use of advertisement on guild websites and on the official game forum. The results of the questionnaire show that 11.86% (n=21) of respondents matched the developed criteria of addiction in World of Warcraft. These respondents are considered to be addicted or are at “High Risk” of being addicted. This figure is confirmed by other studies of addiction levels in MMORPGs undertaken by existing research.

More info about the book itself here.

More news from QuakeCon; id releases Wolfenstein games source code

Following from yesterday's post about the iPhone version of Rage and megatexturing here's some more great news from id's QuakeCon 2010; id Software has released the GPL-licensed source code for two previous titles, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (released in 2001) and Return To Castle Wolfenstein (released in 2003, and still getting some airtime on my original XBox!).

John Carmack also suggested during his keynote address at the event that id will look at making the Doom 3 source code available as well (something people have been clamouring for for years now, I know I've been mentioning it in my lectures for at least a couple of years now). Great news for aspiring games programmers as previous id engines (the company has a great tradition of making them available, once out of date, to the public) have been used for many great mods over the years, particularly the Quake ones.

John Carmack showcases megatexture technique on an iPhone game

At Quakecon 2010 last night John Carmack presented an iPhone version of upcoming and long-awaited FPS Rage. Carmack, as a big advocate of mobile graphics and gaming, focused on a new graphics technique where the low-poly interior of the level was applied with a new feature he worked on, called the megatexture.

Megatexture technology is, according to Carmack, the process of designing a very large, often multi-gigabyte texture of very high detail. This is then spread across all of the game’s geometry with low video memory utilised. The demo level also showcased radiosity illumination (check the vid above) which makes it even more impressive. Can't wait to see how far id can stretch the confines of mobile graphics with this one personally, as the title has been in development for years and the company (and of course Carmack himself!) have a reputation for introducing state-of-the-art real-time graphics methods.

Sony Ericsson to be producing a Playstation phone?

Sony Ericsson is according to new rumours planning to launch an Android-based gaming phone which could quite possibly be using the coveted PlayStation brand. While rumours similar to this one have persisted for ages (literally years!) the timing now appears to be ripe, as there is also strong support and interest from Google themselves as the developers of Android to get involved in the gaming market (corroborated by some other recent Google moves).

The rumours mention a touchscreen with a slide-out joypad section with physical buttons and a touchpad, all powered by a 1GHz Snapdragon processor. More information, if this turns out to be true of course, will be released in the fall. Should be a very important development in mobile gaming and probably the only one able to take on iPhone's dominion in the area should it transpire.

Microsoft's StreetSlide, an improvement on Google's Street View?

Microsoft's StreetSlide is an improvement proposed by Microsoft researchers on the now very popular panorama-based Google Street View and Bing StreetSide (the latter being another Microsoft creation). While these two applications offer a great solution for egocentric, photorealistic navigation, they are obstructed by limited perspective and also motion which is anything but smooth.

Proposed in a SIGGRAPH 2010 paper, StreetSlide attempts to resolve these problems by allowing the user to slide along the facades looking for POIs and zoom back into a 'classic' StreetSide-type view at any time. The user can also flip the viewpoint to see the other side of the street or even turn corners onto new streets, as can be seen in the video above.

The creators of StreetSlide highlight the impact the application can make, particularly on a mobile device as it can broaden out the visual sense to cover a two-block radius. An iPhone version has already been created. Other improvements include space at the bottom of the screen for additional info, ranging from advertising to social networking information. Initial evaluation also suggests (N=20) that users can find a variety of places on unfamiliar streets 17 seconds faster on average using Street Slide, as opposed to Google's Street View.

GameiT EU project publicity roundup

The GameiT EU project that I am a partner in in my capacity as a lecturer at Bournemouth University (funded under the Leonardo Transfer of Innovation scheme) has its second meeting fast approaching. The meeting will take place in Stavanger, Norway between the 12th and 15th of September. I am looking forward to it as I've never visited Norway before.

Meanwhile, courtesy of the NettOp Norwegian partners of the project that are hosting the project, here are a few publicity web links that GameiT has received mentions in;

- http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=82163&CultureCode=en

- http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-07/uos-pwp072910.php

- http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/196403.php

- http://www.firstscience.com/home/news/education/playing-with-pills-page-2-1_88985.html

- http://www.physorg.com/news199615284.html

- http://www.computescotland.com/games-supplement-to-pharmacy-learning-3536.php

ECGBL 2010 conference publication accepted

A conference publication that I am the second author for, titled "Understanding the Game; An Examination of Ludoliteracy" has been accepted by the 4th European Conference on Games Based Learning.

Taking place at Copenhagen Denmark between October the 21st and 22nd, the Conference will address elements of both theory and practice of aspects of Serious Games and will attempt to offer an opportunity for academics, consultants and practitioners involved in this field to meet and exchange ideas. The programme for the event will include an extensive range of peer-reviewed papers, including keynote presentations from leaders in the field.

http://www.academic-conferences.org/ecgbl/ecgbl2010/ecgbl10-home.htm

Unreal Engine 3 cinematography camera system

Epic’s Unreal Engine 3 has been made compatible with a camera system which allows for the exploration of a created level as a movie director. Titled the Gamecaster GCS3, the system is akin to a professional video camera used by videographers in film production, operating however with/within Unreal (see video below to witness the system in action).

The GCS3 is now available to licensees of Unreal Engine 3 and the Unreal Development Kit with the engine customised to integrate better with this novel camera system. It's most impressive feat is the fact that it can instantly assist in the recording and playback of a cinematic scene within UnrealEd while at the same time "blending" with Unreal Matinee. A great solution which, looking at the impressive visualizations Unreal 3 is capable of, could untie the hands of many cinematographers that want to experiment with a game engine. Well worth checking out!