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Let’s Get Serious: Gaming Techniques for Simulation and Training

Let’s Get Serious: Gaming Techniques for Simulation and Training. Jeff LeBlanc, MAK Technologies. About MAK. Who we are Founded in 1990; Based in Cambridge, MA Founders worked on SIMNET team Pioneer in adapting game technology for military tactical trainers What we do

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Let’s Get Serious: Gaming Techniques for Simulation and Training

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  1. Let’s Get Serious:Gaming Techniques for Simulation and Training Jeff LeBlanc, MAK Technologies ©MÄK Technologies, Inc.

  2. About MAK • Who we are • Founded in 1990; Based in Cambridge, MA • Founders worked on SIMNET team • Pioneer in adapting game technology for military tactical trainers • What we do • Develop distributed simulation tools & toolkits for developers • Use our tools to build military tactical trainers ©MÄK Technologies, Inc.

  3. Serious Games • Computer and video (console) games can be used for more than just entertainment • Education / edutainment • Marketing and advertising • Social policy and management • Training • The Serious Games marketplace is huge, rivaling the gaming or entertainment industries • Serious Games aim to provide training and education to the user, while also providing and engaging and entertaining experience • The latter supports the former ©MÄK Technologies, Inc.

  4. Serious Games History • Army Battlezone, by Atari in 1980 • Late 80s saw SIMNET, by BBN, distributed real-time simulation • Edutainment was tried as a business model in the 1990s. It failed to be profitable… • Marine Doom, 1998, early attempt at training • Serious Games Initiative launched in 2000 • goal: "to help usher in a new series of policy education, exploration, and management tools utilizing state of the art computer game designs, technologies, and development skills" • Use game development techniques and technologies to build ‘serious’ tools ©MÄK Technologies, Inc.

  5. SIMNET • Military simulations have tended to be a bit "heavy" • Dedicated hardware • Physical proximity • Expectations of mechanical accuracy • SIMNET changed that, providing a networked multi-user interactive simulation • Support for hundreds of simultaneous users • Grandfather of today's MMOs? ©MÄK Technologies, Inc.

  6. Sons of SIMNET • Close Combat Tactical Trainer (CCTT) • Improved visual displays, networking • Spearhead (MAK, 1998) • Used many of the same underlying technologies • Showed a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) PC could be used for training • Gamespot gave it a 7.4! ©MÄK Technologies, Inc.

  7. Seriously Unreal Gaming • Gaming technology began to drive the simulation world • America's Army (2002), initially released as a recruiting tool • Based on the Unreal 2 engine • Adopted as a platform to build trainer apps on • MAK Game-Link, a toolkit to allow Unreal games to interoperate with sims and trainers built to industry networking standards (DIS/HLA) ©MÄK Technologies, Inc.

  8. Game-Link ©MÄK Technologies, Inc.

  9. DIS/HLA Protocols • Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) is a standard conducting “massively multiplayer” simulations • Entity state information encoded into Protocol Data Units (PDUs) and broadcast over the simulation network • Damage state, direction/orientation vectors, articulations, etc • Entity Type information encoded as 8-bit enums describing platform, country, and capabilities • Example: “1:2:225:1:3”1” is a US F-16 Falcon • Dead Reckoning is performed between updates ©MÄK Technologies, Inc.

  10. DIS/HLA Protocols • High Level Architecture (HLA) came around in 1996, providing an object-oriented specification for distributed simulations • Communication is managed by a Runtime Infrastructure (RTI) • “middleware” • Individual members of the simulation are called federates. The total environment of the simulators is a federation. • The Federation Object Model (FOM) describes what the shared objects and events (interactions) are allowed in the simulation ©MÄK Technologies, Inc.

  11. Interoperability Issues • By adhering to the standards, simulations / trainers can be developed independently and work together • Important issues • Acceptable entity types • Models, if required • Terrain database • Coordinate systems • Thousands of entities • Expected visuals • Non-realistic display • Symbology (2525B) ©MÄK Technologies, Inc.

  12. Types of Serious Games • Social Impact Games lists over 200 games in a variety of categories: • Education ("Algebots", "MeCHem") • Public Policy ("Cyberbudget", "So You Want To Be a Brooklyn Judge") • Health and Wellness ("Ben's Game", "Re-Mission") • Business ("In$ider", "Virtual Leader") • Military training ("Battle Command 2010") ©MÄK Technologies, Inc.

  13. Battle Command 2010 • Staff planning trainer built using MÄK’s VR-Forces simulation engine • Users role-play staff officer positions in distributed game environment • Maneuver, Intelligence, Fire Support, Engineer, Logistics • Rehearse tactics & planning at brigade & below ©MÄK Technologies, Inc.

  14. VR-Forces • Object-oriented toolkit for • Networked synthetic environments • Requirements & operational analysis • Simulation for strategic & tactical decision-makers • Embedded trainers • Mission rehearsal ©MÄK Technologies, Inc.

  15. MAK Stealth • 3D virtual environment visualizer • Provide the “God’s eye” view of the total simulation • Built on the Vega Prime graphics engine • Game-like appearance, but different goals • Non-realistic rendering • Thousands of entities • Gigabyte-sized terrains ©MÄK Technologies, Inc.

  16. Demo Time! • Time for a demonstration of VR-Forces and Stealth ©MÄK Technologies, Inc.

  17. In Conclusion • The Serious Games industry is entrenched, and growing • Game technologies are providing a low-cost alternative to the old ‘do it yourself’ solutions • Be aware of, and involved in, existing standards • Questions? ©MÄK Technologies, Inc.

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