AWG Gaming and Simulation Wolfgang Hürst Utrecht University

Games – Some background information Huge markets For example, entertainment games: 2005: US$ 20 billions 2009 (estimated): US$ 30 billions

Games – Some background information Huge markets Not just for fun Source & copyright infos: M. Kam, A. Agarwal, A. Kumar, S. Lal, A. Mathur, A. Tewari, J. Canny. Designing E-Learning Games for Rural Children in India: A Format for Balancing Learning with Fun. Proceedings of ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, DIS 2008, Cape Town, South Africa

Games – Some background information Huge markets Not just for fun Not just for kids Source & copyright info:

Games – Some background information Huge markets Not just for fun Not just for kids Truly innovative and pacemaker for whole IT industry Source & copyright info:

Games – Some background information Huge markets Not just for fun Not just for kids Truly innovative and pacemaker for whole IT industry Games: highly competitive market  coolest, fastest, most realistic graphics needed Simulations: real-life experience is critical  realistic modeling of virtual worlds in real-time Key issue: “realistic”  knowledge needed How do objects behave, react, interact with each other, influence each other, etc.

Games and simulations – Problems and tasks Virtual characters Agents and avatars Knowledge-based annotation Body modeling, motor behavior, planning, … Simulation and animation Learning with simulated worlds Simulation of realistic training scenarios Interactions with the world Augmented reality 3D body model fitting, gesture recognition, … Adaptive game play

Games and simulations – Problems and tasks Modeling and creating virtual worlds Automate the creation of virtual worlds Complicated geometric algorithms Satisfy certain constraints Functional aspects of the elements Changing the model to achieve certain goals Changes over time Simulation based design Modeling for visualization  Knowledge about the real world needs to be considered and modeled (note: critical not only for simulations and realistic games but also, e.g., for fantasy worlds!)

Contacts and characteristics Contacts #contacts: 22 #questionnaires: 13 Characteristics Strongly heterogeneous application areas e.g., cell phone, console, augmented reality e.g., young users, adults, seniors e.g., fun, education, training cf. AWG members

Characteristics – Various applications Entertainment, e.g. FOCUS K3D AWG member Silent Bay Studios

Characteristics – Various applications Education, e.g. FOCUS K3D AWG member VSTEP

Characteristics – Various applications Serious gaming, e.g. FOCUS K3D AWG member TXchange

Contacts and characteristics Contacts #contacts: 22 #questionnaires: 13 Characteristics Strongly heterogeneous application areas e.g., cell phone, console, augmented reality e.g., young users, adults, seniors e.g., fun, education, training Huge variety of companies and institutions e.g., companies of diff. sizes, research labs, universities again, cf. AWG members, e.g. companies ( 1000) education/gaming/oil industries

Games and simulations – Conclusions Very heterogeneous field with various applications But: critical issue for all of them = creating realistic virtual worlds by modeling knowledge about the real world  Huge demand for knowledge technologies However, current usage very limited e.g. common ways to store and retrieve 3D models are Windows Explorer and Google!