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Projeto de investigação
Strategic Project - UI 527 - 2011-2012
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Autores
Publicações
Enhancing automatic level generation for platform videogames
Publication . Mourato, Fausto José da Silva Valentim; Santos, Manuel; Birra, Fernando
This dissertation addresses the challenge of improving automatic level generation processes for plat-form videogames. As Procedural Content Generation (PCG) techniques evolved from the creation of simple elements to the construction of complete levels and scenarios, the principles behind the generation algorithms became more ambitious and complex, representing features that beforehand were only possible with human design. PCG goes beyond the search for valid geometries that can be used as levels, where multiple challenges are represented in an adequate way. It is also a search for user-centred design content and the creativity sparks of humanly created content.
In order to improve the creativity capabilities of such generation algorithms, we conducted part of our research directed to the creation of new techniques using more ambitious design patterns. For this purpose, we have implemented two overall structure generation algorithms and created an addi-tional adaptation algorithm. The later can transform simple branched paths into more compelling game challenges by adding items and other elements in specific places, such as gates and levers for their activation. Such approach is suitable to avoid excessive level linearity and to represent certain design patterns with additional content richness.
Moreover, content adaptation was transposed from general design domain to user-centred principles. In this particular case, we analysed success and failure patterns in action videogames and proposed a set of metrics to estimate difficulty, taking into account that each user has a different perception of that concept. This type of information serves the generation algorithms to make them more directed to the creation of personalised experiences.
Furthermore, the conducted research also aimed to the integration of different techniques into a common ground. For this purpose, we have developed a general framework to represent content of platform videogames, compatible with several titles within the genre. Our algorithms run over this framework, whereby they are generic and game independent. We defined a modular architecture for the generation process, using this framework to normalise the content that is shared by multiple modules. A level editor tool was also created, which allows human level design and the testing of automatic generation algorithms. An adapted version of the editor was implemented for the semi-automatic creation of levels, in which the designer may simply define the type of content that he/she desires, in the form of quests and missions, and the system creates a corresponding level structure. This materialises our idea of bridging human high-level design patterns with lower level automated generation algorithms.
Finally, we integrated the different contributions into a game prototype. This implementation allowed testing the different proposed approaches altogether, reinforcing the validity of the proposed archi-tecture and framework. It also allowed performing a more complete gameplay data retrieval in order to strengthen and validate the proposed metrics regarding difficulty perceptions.
Model-driven Personalisation of Human-Computer Interaction across Ubiquitous Computing Applications
Publication . Madeira, Rui Miguel Neves Gonçalves; Correia, Nuno; Postolache, Octavian
Personalisation is essential to Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp), which focuses on a human-centred paradigm aiming to provide interaction with adaptive content, services, and interfaces towards each one of its users, according to the context of the applications’ scenarios. However, the provision of that appropriated personalised interaction is a true challenge due to different reasons, such as the user interests, heterogeneous environments and devices, dynamic user behaviour and data capture.
This dissertation focuses on a model-driven personalisation solution that has the main goal of facili-tating the implementation of a personalised human-computer interaction across different Ubicomp scenarios and applications. The research reported here investigates how a generic and interoperable model for personalisation can be used, shared and processed by different applications, among diverse devices, and across different scenarios, studying how it can enrich human-computer interaction. The research started by the definition of a consistent user model with the integration of context to end in a pervasive model for the definition of personalisations across different applications.
Besides the model proposal, the other key contributions within the solution are the modelling frame-work, which encapsulates the model and integrates the user profiling module, and a cloud-based platform to pervasively support developers in the implementation of personalisation across different applications and scenarios. This platform provides tools to put end users in control of their data and to support developers through web services based operations implemented on top of a personalisa-tion API, which can also be used independently of the platform for testing purposes, for instance.
Several Ubicomp applications prototypes were designed and used to evaluate, at different phases, both the solution as a whole and each one of its components. Some were specially created with the goal of evaluating specific research questions of this work. Others were being developed with a pur-pose other than for personalisation evaluation, but they ended up as personalised prototypes to better address their initial goals. The process of applying the personalisation model to the design of the latter should also work as a proof of concept on the developer side.
On the one hand, developers have been probed with the implementation of personalised applications using the proposed solution, or a part of it, to assess how it works and can help them. The usage of our solution by developers was also important to assess how the model and the platform respond to the developers’ needs. On the other hand, some prototypes that implement our model-driven per-sonalisation solution have been selected for end user evaluation. Usually, user testing was conducted at two different stages of the development, using: (1) a non-personalised version; (2) the final per-sonalised version. This procedure allowed us to assess if personalisation improved the human-com-puter interaction. The first stage was also important to know who were the end users and gather interaction data to come up with personalisation proposals for each prototype. Globally, the results of both developers and end users tests were very positive.
Finally, this dissertation proposes further work, which is already ongoing, related to the study of a methodology to the implementation and evaluation of personalised applications, supported by the development of three mobile health applications for rehabilitation.
Unidades organizacionais
Descrição
Palavras-chave
Contribuidores
Financiadores
Entidade financiadora
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
Programa de financiamento
6817 - DCRRNI ID
Número da atribuição
PEst-OE/EEI/UI0527/2011