Panagiotis Petridis

Developing serious games for cultural heritage: a state-of-the-art review

Although the widespread use of gaming for leisure purposes has been well documented, the use of games to support cultural heritage purposes, such as historical teaching and learning, or for enhancing museum visits, has been less well considered. The state-of-the-art in serious game technology is identical to that of the state-of-the-art in entertainment games technology. As a result, the field of serious heritage games concerns itself with recent advances in computer games, real-time computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence. On the other hand, the main strengths of serious gaming applications may be generalised as being in the areas of communication, visual expression of information, collaboration mechanisms, interactivity and entertainment. In this report, we will focus on the state-of-the-art with respect to the theories, methods and technologies used in serious heritage games. We provide an overview of existing literature of relevance to the domain, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the described methods and point out unsolved problems and challenges. In addition, several case studies illustrating the application of methods and technologies used in cultural heritage are presented.

ARCO - an architecture for digitization, management and presentation of virtual exhibitions

A complete tool chain starting with stereo photogrammetry based digitization of artefacts, their refinement, collection and management with other multimedia data, and visualization using virtual and augmented reality is presented. Our system provides a one-stop-solution for museums to create, manage and present both content and context for virtual exhibitions. Interoperability and standards are also key features of our system allowing both small and large museums to build a bespoke system suited to their needs

An Engine Selection Methodology for High Fidelity Serious Games

Serious games represent the state-of-the-art in the convergence of electronic gaming technologies with instructional design principles and pedagogies. Whilst the selection criteria for entertainment game engines are often transparent, due to the range of available platforms and engines an emerging challenge is the choice of platform for serious games, whose selection often has substantially different objectives and technical requirements depending upon context and usage. Additionally, the convergence of training simulations with serious gaming, made possible by increasing hardware rendering capacity, is enabling the creation of high-fidelity serious games which challenge existing design and instructional approaches. This paper highlights some of the differences between the technical requisites of high-fidelity serious and leisure games, and proposes a selection methodology based upon these emergent characteristics. The case study of part of a high-fidelity model of Ancient Rome is used to compare aspects of the four different game engines according to elements defined in the proposed methodology.

E-commerce transactions in a virtual environment: virtual transactions

E-commerce is a fundamental method of doing business, such that for a firm to say it is trading at all in the modern market-place it must have some element of on-line presence. Coupled with this is the explosion of the “population” of Massively Multiplayer On-line Role Playing Games and other shared virtual environments. Many suggest this will lead to a further dimension of commerce: virtual commerce.We discuss here the issues, current roadblocks and present state of an e-commerce transaction carried out completely within a virtual environment; a virtual transaction. Although technically such transactions are in a sense trivial, they raise many other issues in complex ways thus making V-transactions a highly interesting cross-disciplinary issue. We also discuss the social, ethical and regulatory implications for the virtual communities in these environments of such v-transactions, how their implementation affects the nature and management of a virtual environment, and how they represent a fundamental merging of the real and virtual worlds for the purpose of commerce.We highlight the minimal set of features a v-transaction capable virtual environment requires and suggest a model of how in the medium term they could be carried out via a methodology we call click-through, and that the developers of such environments will need to take on the multi-modal behavior of their users, as well as elements of the economic and political sciences in order to fully realize the commercial potential of the v-transaction.

Game engines selection framework for high-fidelity serious applications

Serious games represent the state-of-the-art in the convergence of electronic gaming technologies with instructional design principles and pedagogies. Despite the value of high-fidelity content in engaging learners and providing realistic training environments, building games which deliver high levels of visual and functional realism is a complex, time consuming and expensive process. Therefore, commercial game engines, which provide a development environment and resources to more rapidly create high-fidelity virtual worlds, are increasingly used for serious as well as for entertainment applications. Towards this intention, the authors propose a new framework for the selection of game engines for serious applications and sets out five elements for analysis of engines in order to create a benchmarking approach to the validation of game engine selection. Selection criteria for game engines and the choice of platform for Serious Games are substantially different from entertainment games, as Serious Games have very different objectives, emphases and technical requirements. In particular, the convergence of training simulators with serious games, made possible by increasing hardware rendering capacity is enabling the creation of high-fidelity serious games, which challenge existing instructional approaches. This paper overviews several game engines that are suitable for high-fidelity serious games, using the proposed framework.

Brain-controlled serious games for cultural heritage

This paper proposes a prototype system for cultural heritage based on brain computer interfaces for navigating and interacting with serious games. By analyzing traditional human-computer interaction methods and paradigms with brain-controlled games it is possible to investigate novel methods for interacting and perceiving virtual heritage worlds. An interactive serious cultural heritage game was developed based on commercial BCI headsets controlling virtual aggents in the ancient city of Rome. Initial results indicate that brain computer technologies can be very useful for the creation of interactive serious games.

Multimodal Mixed Reality Interfaces for Visualizing Digital Heritage

We have developed several digital heritage interfaces that utilize Web3D, virtual and augmented reality technologies for visualizing digital heritage in an interactive manner through the use of several different input devices. We propose in this paper an integration of these technologies to provide a novel multimodal mixed reality interface that facilitates the implementation of more interesting digital heritage exhibitions. With such exhibitions participants can switch dynamically between virtual web-based environments to indoor augmented reality environments as well as make use of various multimodal interaction techniques to better explore heritage information in the virtual museum. The museum visitor can potentially experience their digital heritage in the physical sense in the museum, then explore further through the web, visualize this heritage in the round (3D on the web), take that 3D artifact into the augmented reality domain (the real world) and explore it further using various multimodal interfaces.

The EPOCH multimodal interface for interacting with digital heritage artefacts

In recent years, 3D and virtual reality have emerged as areas of extreme interest as methods for visualizing digital museum artefacts in context, and particularly over the Internet. The technology associated with these new visualization techniques has until now been very expensive. The advent of cheap computing and graphics cards coupled with increasing Internet ‘broadband’ access has made possible the implementation of effective virtual museums both online and within the museum. Virtual museums are valuable for the end-user for efficient and remote learning about their local heritage in a diverse multimodal manner. Multimodal access to museum artefacts can help the user to better understand and appreciate the objects and stories that the museum brings forward, but also creates a closer psychological bond between the user and his past. If we now couple cheap computing technologies, 3D and virtual reality with appropriate 3D interaction techniques based on formal usability evaluations, museums are able to implement high fidelity exhibitions that are intuitive for the museum visitor. This paper reports on the latest technological additions to the EPOCH Multimodal Interface, which is used as an interaction interface that can be implemented as part of a virtual museum interactive system.

A level of interaction framework for exploratory learning with characters in virtual environments

This paper investigates a range of challenges faced in the design of a serious game aimed at teaching history in situ, through the use of an immersive, open virtual environment. In the context of this paper, such an environment is described as an exploratory, expansive virtual world within which a user may interact in a non-linear and situated fashion with the virtual characters that populate it. The main contribution of this paper consists of the introduction of the Levels of Interaction (LoI) framework, designed to assist in the creation of multiple forms of interaction between a user-driven avatar and synthetic characters. The LoI approach addresses the necessity for balancing computational efficiency with the need to provide believable and interactive virtual characters, allowing varying degrees of visual, interactive and behavioural fidelity. The Roma Nova project demonstrates a first implementation of the concept, showing in practice how the LoI are likely to foster more natural interactions between the player and the non-playing characters.

Essential features of serious games design in higher education: Linking learning attributes to game mechanics

This paper consolidates evidence and material from a range of specialist and disciplinary fields to provide an evidence-based review and synthesis on the design and use of serious games in higher education. Search terms identified 165 papers reporting conceptual and empirical evidence on how learning attributes and game mechanics may be planned, designed and implemented by university teachers interested in using games, which are integrated into lesson plans and orchestrated as part of a learning sequence at any scale. The findings outline the potential of classifying the links between learning attributes and game mechanics as a means to scaffold teachers’ understanding of how to perpetuate learning in optimal ways while enhancing the in-game learning experience. The findings of this paper provide a foundation for describing methods, frames and discourse around experiences of design and use of serious games, linked to methodological limitations and recommendations for further research in this area.