Computational Engineering Commons^™

Personality And Mood For Non-Player Characters: A Method For Behavior Simulation In A Maze Environment, Noah L. Paige

Master's Theses

When it comes to video games, immersion is key. All types of games aim to keep the player immersed in some form or another. A common aspect of the immersive world in most role-playing games -- but not exclusive to the genre -- is the non-playable character (NPC). At their best, NPCs play an integral role to the sense of immersion the player feels by behaving in a way that feels believable and fits within the world of the game. However, due to lack of innovation in this area of video games, at their worst NPCs can jar the player …

Real-Time Body Tracking And Projection Mapping In The Interactive Arts, Sydney Baroya

Master's Theses

Projection mapping, a subtopic of augmented reality, displays computer-generated light visualizations from projectors onto the real environment. A challenge for projection mapping in performing interactive arts is dynamic body movements. Accuracy and speed are key components for an immersive application of body projection mapping and dependent on scanning and processing time.

This thesis presents a novel technique to achieve real-time body projection mapping utilizing a state of the art body tracking device, Microsoft’s Azure Kinect DK, by using an array of trackers for error minimization and movement prediction. The device's Sensor and Bodytracking SDKs allow multiple device synchronization. We combine …

Towards On-Device Detection Of Sharks With Drones, Daniel Moore

Master's Theses

Recent years have seen several projects across the globe using drones to detect sharks, including several high profile projects around alerting beach authorities to keep people safe. However, so far many of these attempts have used cloud-based machine learning solutions for the detection component, which complicates setup and limits their use geographically to areas with internet connection. An on-device (or on-controller) shark detector would offer greater freedom for researchers searching for and tracking sharks in the field, but such a detector would need to operate under reduced resource constraints. To this end we look at SSD MobileNet, a popular object …

Dynamic Procedural Music Generation From Npc Attributes, Megan E. Washburn

Master's Theses

Procedural content generation for video games (PCGG) has seen a steep increase in the past decade, aiming to foster emergent gameplay as well as to address the challenge of producing large amounts of engaging content quickly. Most work in PCGG has been focused on generating art and assets such as levels, textures, and models, or on narrative design to generate storylines and progression paths. Given the difficulty of generating harmonically pleasing and interesting music, procedural music generation for games (PMGG) has not seen as much attention during this time.

Music in video games is essential for establishing developers' intended mood …