Enhancing a Commercial Game Engine to Support Research on Route Realism for Synthetic Human Characters

Generating routes for entities in virtual environments, such as simulated vehicles or synthetic human characters, is a long-standing problem, and route planning algorithms have been developed and studied for some time. Existing route planning algorithms, including the widely used A* algorithm, are...

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Main Authors: Gregg T. Hanold, Mikel D. Petty
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2011-01-01
Series:International Journal of Computer Games Technology
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2011/819746
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author Gregg T. Hanold
Mikel D. Petty
author_facet Gregg T. Hanold
Mikel D. Petty
author_sort Gregg T. Hanold
collection DOAJ
description Generating routes for entities in virtual environments, such as simulated vehicles or synthetic human characters, is a long-standing problem, and route planning algorithms have been developed and studied for some time. Existing route planning algorithms, including the widely used A* algorithm, are generally intended to achieve optimality in some metric, such as minimum length or minimum time. Comparatively little attention has been given to route realism, defined as the similarity of the algorithm-generated route to the route followed by real humans in the same terrain with the same constraints and goals. Commercial game engines have seen increasing use as a context for research. To study route realism in a game engine, two developments were needed: a quantitative metric for measuring route realism and a game engine able to capture route data needed to compute the realism metric. Enhancements for recording route data for both synthetic characters and human players were implemented within the Unreal Tournament 2004 game engine. A methodology for assessing the realism of routes and other behaviors using a quantitative metric was developed. The enhanced Unreal Tournament 2004 game engine and the realism assessment methodology were tested by capturing data required to calculate a metric of route realism.
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spelling doaj-art-fb6fce1f712f4c729227466b05ad70fb2025-02-03T06:13:44ZengWileyInternational Journal of Computer Games Technology1687-70471687-70552011-01-01201110.1155/2011/819746819746Enhancing a Commercial Game Engine to Support Research on Route Realism for Synthetic Human CharactersGregg T. Hanold0Mikel D. Petty1Oracle National Security Group, Reston, VA 20190, USACenter for Modeling, Simulation, and Analysis, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL 35899, USAGenerating routes for entities in virtual environments, such as simulated vehicles or synthetic human characters, is a long-standing problem, and route planning algorithms have been developed and studied for some time. Existing route planning algorithms, including the widely used A* algorithm, are generally intended to achieve optimality in some metric, such as minimum length or minimum time. Comparatively little attention has been given to route realism, defined as the similarity of the algorithm-generated route to the route followed by real humans in the same terrain with the same constraints and goals. Commercial game engines have seen increasing use as a context for research. To study route realism in a game engine, two developments were needed: a quantitative metric for measuring route realism and a game engine able to capture route data needed to compute the realism metric. Enhancements for recording route data for both synthetic characters and human players were implemented within the Unreal Tournament 2004 game engine. A methodology for assessing the realism of routes and other behaviors using a quantitative metric was developed. The enhanced Unreal Tournament 2004 game engine and the realism assessment methodology were tested by capturing data required to calculate a metric of route realism.http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2011/819746
spellingShingle Gregg T. Hanold
Mikel D. Petty
Enhancing a Commercial Game Engine to Support Research on Route Realism for Synthetic Human Characters
International Journal of Computer Games Technology
title Enhancing a Commercial Game Engine to Support Research on Route Realism for Synthetic Human Characters
title_full Enhancing a Commercial Game Engine to Support Research on Route Realism for Synthetic Human Characters
title_fullStr Enhancing a Commercial Game Engine to Support Research on Route Realism for Synthetic Human Characters
title_full_unstemmed Enhancing a Commercial Game Engine to Support Research on Route Realism for Synthetic Human Characters
title_short Enhancing a Commercial Game Engine to Support Research on Route Realism for Synthetic Human Characters
title_sort enhancing a commercial game engine to support research on route realism for synthetic human characters
url http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2011/819746
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