This paper reports on results from a study of characteristics for 3D soft surrogate vehicle targets. Such targets are used extensively for testing and verification of optical sensor systems for Adv ...
This article proposes the Persona method. The goal of the prosposed method is to learn and classify the facial actions of actors in video sequences. Persona is based on standard action units. We use a database with main expressions mapped and pre-classified that allows the automatic learning and faces selection. The learning stage uses Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifiers to identify expressions from a set of feature points tracked in the input video. After that, labeled control 3D masks are built for each selected action unit or expression, which composes the Persona structure. The proposed method is almost automatic (little intervention is needed) and does not require markers on the actor’s face or motion capture devices. Many applications are possible based on the Persona structure such as expression recognition, customized avatar deformation, and mood analysis, as discussed in this article.
Traditionally, the evaluation of surgical procedures in virtual reality (VR) simulators has been restricted to their individual technical aspects disregarding the procedures carried out by teams. However, some decision models have been proposed to support the collaborative training evaluation process of surgical teams in collaborative virtual environments. The main objective of this article is to present a collaborative simulator based on VR, named SimCEC, as a potential solution for education, training, and evaluation in basic surgical routines for teams of undergraduate students. The simulator considers both tasks performed individually and those carried in a collaborative manner. Themain contribution of this work is to improve the discussion about VR simulators requirements (design and implementation) to provide team training in relevant topics, such as users' feedback in real time, collaborative training in networks, interdisciplinary integration of curricula, and continuous evaluation.
This article proposes the Persona method. The goal of the prosposed method is to learn and classify the facial actions of actors in video sequences. Persona is based on standard action units. We use a database with main expressions mapped and pre-classified that allows the automatic learning and faces selection. The learning stage uses Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifiers to identify expressions from a set of feature points tracked in the input video. After that, labeled control 3D masks are built for each selected action unit or expression, which composes the Persona structure. The proposed method is almost automatic (little intervention is needed) and does not require markers on the actor’s face or motion capture devices. Many applications are possible based on the Persona structure such as expression recognition, customized avatar deformation, and mood analysis, as discussed in this article.
This article proposes the Persona method. The goal of the prosposed method is to learn and classify the facial actions of actors in video sequences. Persona is based on standard action units. We use a database with main expressions mapped and pre-classified that allows the automatic learning and faces selection. The learning stage uses Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifiers to identify expressions from a set of feature points tracked in the input video. After that, labeled control 3D masks are built for each selected action unit or expression, which composes the Persona structure. The proposed method is almost automatic (little intervention is needed) and does not require markers on the actor’s face or motion capture devices. Many applications are possible based on the Persona structure such as expression recognition, customized avatar deformation, and mood analysis, as discussed in this article.
Virtual simulation offers a viable alternative to traditional educational and training practices, offering trainees the opportunity to train until they reach a specific competency level in a safe and cost-effective manner. One of the benefits of virtual simulation is the ability to provide the trainee with feedback regarding his or her performance in the simulation, thus providing the trainee the opportunity to monitor and adapt progress toward the goal. With respect to learning and development, it has been long known that feedback plays a vital role in learning; we learn faster and more effectively when we know how we are doing and what must be changed to improve our performance. Taking advantage of the benefits afforded by peer-feedback, here we present a preliminary study that examined the application of a customized social educational network—the Observational Practice and Educational Network (OPEN)—to facilitate peer-feedback with respect to recorded performances of a gamified virtual simulation session developed specifically for medical-based cultural competence training. A virtual simulation session was recorded and uploaded to OPEN, which then facilitated peer-feedback by allowing the peers and educators/experts to evaluate, provide comments, and generally discuss the recorded virtual simulation sessions. Questionnaires were employed to gauge the feasibility of a social educational network (OPEN in particular) to facilitate peer-feedback, as well as participant satisfaction with using and interacting with OPEN (i.e., examining the usability of OPEN).
The realistic representation of light within a computational domain is not a trivial task. Although several rendering approaches exist, the ray tracing technique is highly regarded as robust and realistic; however, its computational cost is still prohibitive for real-time games and other 3D applications. A modern tradeoff is to pair the ray tracing with the rasterization step, the former being responsible for generating complex lighting interactions, such as reflections, while the latter is used to generate less demanding visual effects, such as diffuse lighting and shadows. The stated framework has been studied by several authors, but it has not been shown to work both efficiently and accurately for highly dynamic scenes with deformable geometry. Stepping in this direction, this work presents a case study whose goal is to generate fast and realistic reflections on rigid and deformable body simulations using a hybrid approach that brings together the Screen Space technique with the GPU ray tracing algorithm and their respective main capabilities. The results show that not only realistic reflections can be generated at interactive rates, but also that the hybrid approach allows to achieve a certain level of scalability with respect to the number of triangles updated on every frame during the simulations.
This study presents a novel interactive face makeup system that aims to support users to improve makeup creativity. In this system, facial feature points were tracked by Kinect and mapped to the 3D face model. The makeup tools were developed for providing a tangible interaction. A face painting application was developed based on the Unity 3D framework. While users apply makeup, the program will generate color on the model, which synchronizes with the user's movement. The results will be mapped to the user's face in real time by using a projection mapping technique that allows users to see which color is suitable for their skin tone. Users can perceive a realistic makeup feeling from our touch detectable makeup tools. Moreover, by using a computer-based drawing system, users can undo, save, and load their makeup image and compare with other styles. A subjective evaluation was conducted to evaluate the users’ satisfaction. The results indicated that by using this system, users can find a suitable makeup style for themselves and get help increasing their makeup creativity.
With the ongoing prolific expansion of the size of the World Wide Web, the quantity of video content is also expanding. With this massive increase in size, users encounter a serious problem when trying to decide which videos to spend their time on. Moreover, as a result of our modern-day faster lifestyles, users wish to consume the contents of the video as quickly as possible. This article proposes a model, entitled Fast Captions , that enables users to consume the video more quickly with the help of closed captions. The proposed model incorporates a temporal summarization of the captions that helps in understanding the contents of the video more quickly. A prototype implementation of the proposed Fast Captioning model is developed with the Facilitas media player, which allows the user to select the playing speed and renders the video with summarized captions. The results of the experiments conducted with the implementation confirms the acceptance of the proposed Fast Captions model with an acceptance rate of 92%.
Recent years have witnessed independent game production rise to a prominent position in the digital game industry. Be it by the fresh, innovative take it brought to the scene or by its rebellious attitude towards what is perceived as mainstream, the term “indie game” has become somewhat of a buzzword. The following study displays a series of findings of research fieldwork aiming to advance the study of indie game development by investigating organizational and managerial practices commonly adopted by these developers. Relying on semi-structured interviews conducted with lead developers of seven Brazilian indie game firms, the connections, similarities, and differences among these developers’ firm structure and project management practices and those of the larger game industry is explored, utilizing the lenses of scope, organization, time, cost, and quality management as a starting point. Given the growing and significant relevance of the game industry as a whole, this empirical study offers pragmatic data on the still-niche research topic of indie games.
Voice acting is common in computer games in many genres. The recording and processing of voice acting is a time-consuming process that involves, for instance, voice actors, directors, audio engineers, and game writers. Changes to the script of a game after the voice acting has been recorded are expensive. At the same time, playtests of games without voice acting may give different results than testing where it is present. This creates a situation where improvements identified from play testing are either ignored or leads to extensive re-recording of voice acting. This article presents a design science research project where text-to-speech (TTS) synthesis is used as a substitute for recorded voice acting in the early stages of game production. We propose a set of design principles that have been evaluated in a sharp game production. Our results indicate several benefits of using TTS as a prototyping tool: It can be a source of inspiration for game writers, it gives good estimations on timing and pacing of the game, and it allows for early tests of how the dialog will be perceived by players. The quality and characteristics of the voices provided by the TTS system play an important role in this process. The rapid development in the speech technology field opens many future possibilities.
This article presents the development issues and evaluation results of a serious game called Caixa de Pandora (Pandora's Box, in English), developed to train health professionals to care for women in situations of domestic violence. The combat of violence against women in the health sector presupposes a change of attitudes with respect to identified cases, with the exclusion of discriminatory and oppressive practices on the part of care professionals. To change these behaviors and verify postures, Caixa de Pandora uses an approach focused on the affective domain of learning. In the same sense of verifying and guiding changes in behavior, the intelligence module of the game used a model based on psychometric principles in its design. The validation of the game by a statistical sample with health professionals identified changes in their conceptions about the subject after playing the game, thereby demonstrating its pedagogical potential to formulate new knowledge and to change behavior.
This research investigates the relationship between mindfulness and digital games, by identifying which aspects of mindfulness can be trained by digital games and which game elements influence factors of mindfulness. Games and interactive approaches with research evidence for their efficacy are presented for each individual mindfulness factor, as defined by the CHIME eight-factor model of mindfulness. Two experiments were conducted to validate whether games can improve mindfulness. First, an expert review was conducted, where domain experts rated the fit of games to their associated mindfulness factor. Second, a laboratory study tested the effect of games on mindfulness, revealing positive significant effects on state mindfulness. Elaborating on the research findings from all studies, a framework is proposed to inform the design of digital games for improving mindfulness, and implications plus limitations are discussed.
The development of a relevant model for measuring user enjoyment of video game play has received a great deal of attention in game-based and flow-based literature. EGameFlow, a self-report scale instrument created from the original game enjoyment framework proposed by Sweetser and Wyeth, provides a necessary and potentially useful tool for game enjoyment researchers. However, the scale itself is quite new. The utility of EGameFlow cannot be determined until its rigorousness has been verified. The purpose of this study was to test the validity, reliability, and applicability of EGameFlow for measuring players' experiences in video game play. A total of 167 participants played an interactive video game and then evaluated their game playing experiences via the refined 27-item EGameFlow scale, which included the following seven dimensions: concentration, goal clarity, feedback, challenge, autonomy, immersion, and social interaction. Confirmatory factor analysis, reliability testing, and discriminant validity checks were administered. Empirical results indicated that the refined scale was both valid and reliable. Implications of these findings and direction for future research were also discussed.
Procedural story generation has become an important research area due to its attractiveness to computer entertainment applications. Several approaches have been proposed to create procedural stories for games based mainly on logic programming and decision trees. These approaches use a set of possible events that are executed based on how the player interacts with the story. However, these approaches commonly use a fixed set of characters with predefined relationships. In contrast, in this article, we propose an approach that creates dynamic stories based on two networks: a handcrafted event network and a dynamic artificial social network created for each new story. This allows each story to have its own set of characters with a unique relationship network, resulting in an even wider range of possible stories. We demonstrate this with some examples and discuss how this approach can be implemented for interactive computer entertainment systems, such as video games.
Currently, there is a lack of systems development methodologies (SDMs) suitable for the development of location-based games. This research introduced a newly developed SDM to aid in the development process of location-based games, called the developmental methodology for location-based games (DMLBG). The DMLBG was based on SDMs most often used for developing mobile applications, as well as mobile and traditional games. Four case studies were used to test the DMLBG. During the case studies, independent games development teams used the DMLBG extensively to test the feasibility of the SDM. The results showed that the SDM did aid all four of the teams to successfully develop a location-based game. The teams documented the development process and gave critical feedback on their experiences. This feedback was used to revise and improve the SDM. The DMLBG addressed the lack of an SDM that is suitable for the development of location-based games.
