Getting real with immersive sword fights

Date:
June 23, 2020
Source:
University of Bath
Summary:
Sword fights are often the weak link in virtual reality (VR)
fighting games, with digital avatars engaging in battle using
imprecise, pre- recorded movements that barely reflect the
player's actions or intentions. Now a team has found a solution
to the challenges of creating realistic VR sword fights: Touche -
a data-driven computer model based on machine learning.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Sword fights are often the weak link in virtual reality (VR) fighting
games, with digital avatars engaging in battle using imprecise,
pre-recorded movements that barely reflect the player's actions or
intentions. Now a team at the University of Bath, in collaboration with
the game development studio Ninja Theory, has found a solution to the challenges of creating realistic VR sword fights: Touche -- a data-driven computer model based on machine learning.


==========================================================================
Dr Christof Lutteroth, who created Touche with colleague Dr Julian Padget
and EngD student Javier Dehesa, said: "Touche increases the realism of
a sword fight by generating responsive animations against attacks and eliminating non- reactive behaviour from characters.

"Using our model, a game character can anticipate all possible fight
situations and react to them, resulting in a more enjoyable and immersive
game experience." The unpredictability of user actions presents a
major conundrum for designers of VR games, explained Dr Lutteroth, who
is a senior lecturer in Computer Science, director of Real and Virtual Environments Augmentation Labs (REVEAL) and co-investigator at the Centre
for the Analysis of Motion, Entertainment Research and Applications
(CAMERA). "VR games offer new freedom for players to interact naturally
using motion, but this makes it harder to design games that react to
player motions convincingly," he said.

He added: "There are different expectations for screen-based video
games. With these, a player presses 'attack' and their character displays
a sequence of animations. But in a VR game, the player input is much
harder to process." The Touche framework for VR sword fighting simplifies
the necessary technical work to achieve a convincing simulation. It
eliminates the need for game designers to add layer upon layer of detail
when programming how a character should move in a particular situation
(for instance, to block a particular sword attack). Instead, actors
wearing motion capture equipment are asked to perform a range of sword
fighting movements, and Touche builds a model from these movements. The
virtual version of the actor is able to react to different situations
in a similar fashion to a flesh-and-blood fighter. Game designers can
then fine-tune this model to meet their needs by adjusting high-level parameters, such as how skilled and aggressive the game character
should be.

All this saves game developers a lot of time and leads to more realistic results.

For the Bath study, 12 volunteers were asked to take part in two
three-minute sword fights: for the first fight, they used technology
that is currently available and for the second, they used Touche. Touche
had a strong positive effect on realism and the perceived sword fighting
skills of game characters.

Feedback from participants pointed to a convincing preference for Touche,
with current sword fights being described as 'unresponsive' and 'clumsy'
by comparison.

"Based on this, we are convinced that Touche can deliver more enjoyable, realistic and immersive sword fighting experiences, presenting a more
skilled and less repetitive opponent behaviour," said Dr Lutteroth. "I'm convinced this framework is the future for games -- not only for
sword fighting but also for other types of interaction between game
characters. It will save developers a lot of time." Javier Dehesa Javier,
who is based at the Centre for Digital Entertainment, interviewed game developers who had tested this new technology. He said: "Developers
see the Touche framework as an important practical step in the industry
towards data-driven interaction techniques. We could see this technology
appear in commercial games very soon." Video to accompany press release: https://vimeo.com/430682565

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Bath. Note: Content
may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Javier Dehesa, Andrew Vidler, Christof Lutteroth, Julian
Padget. Touche':
Data-Driven Interactive Sword Fighting in Virtual Reality. CHI
'20: Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in
Computing Systems, 2020 DOI: 10.1145/3313831.3376714 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200623111331.htm

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