Project

The major goal of this project is to develop a generic Design Pattern based methodology for specifying behaviors at a conceptual level for computer games and other interactive media applications such as virtual museums, virtual learning platforms.

The concept of pattern used today in the Game Design domain does not go beyond a structural textual description of a pattern. A pattern still needs to be applied in some way in the design and subsequently the solution offered by the pattern also needs to be implemented. As such, the current game patterns do not offer much support from a time and implementation point of view during the development process itself.

Some initial work on this topic has been performed in the IWT SBO VR-DeMo project. Here, the concept of pattern was extended in two ways:

1. A pattern should be a first-class conceptual modeling concept, i.e. it should be possible to use a pattern in a conceptual specification as any other modeling concept;
2. The pattern should be a generative pattern, which means that they should be defined in such a way that it becomes possible to automatically generate code from them.

In the CoDePA project, this approach will be elaborated further on and different problems need to be investigated and solved like:

• If a pattern is a first class modeling concept for behavior, it is necessary to investigate how and when multiple patterns can be combined in order to specify more complex behavior;
• It must also be possible to specify (add) new patterns when these become available.

Behavior needs to be more and more advanced nowadays. Virtual 3D environments are annotated with a lot of information that can be used by objects for various purposes and which may influence their behavior. Objects can interact with everything they can sense or be affected by this, and these interactions also can have an impact on the future actions of these objects. Next to interaction with the environment, objects can also interact with each other, communicate with each other, or even collaborate. The behavior is raised to the level where it is highly interactive and thus very non-deterministic. This is called smart behavior. The priority will be on the development of patterns dealing with this kind of smart behavior. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, smart behavior is very complex from a programming point of view and therefore providing a way to specify this behavior from a higher level of abstraction and in a model-driven way would be very beneficial. Secondly, being able to specify this type of behavior is imperative for creating the kind of interactive media applications that are targeted.

The concrete objectives of this project are thus as follows:

1. Developing a novel Design Pattern based conceptual modeling framework for the behavioral aspects of interactive media applications.
2. Identifying and specifying a number of behavioral patterns within this new framework, paying special attention towards so-called smart behavior.
3. The implementation of a prototype of an intuitive authoring tool (including the necessary debugging capabilities) supporting the approach developed and deployable in a true industrial environment.

The full text of the project proposal can be downloaded here.

The work performed in this project will be a continuation of the IWT SBO VR-DeMo (IWT 030248) project that finished by the end of 2007. The main goal of the VR-DeMo was to facilitate and shorten the development process of Virtual Environments in general and this by means of conceptual specifications. Within the VR-DeMo project, the conceptual modeling of behavior and interaction was an important issue.

More information on this project can be found in the following publications:

• Pellens, B. A Conceptual Modelling Approach for Behaviour in Virtual Environments using a Graphical Notation and Generative Design Patterns, PhD Thesis, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium, 2007
• Coninx, K., De Troyer. O., Raymaekers, C., and Kleinermann, F. VR-DeMo : a tool-supported approach facilitating flexible development of virtual environments using conceptual modelling. In Coutellier, D. and Fisher, X., editors, Proceedings of Virtual Concept 2006, Springer-Verlag, Cancun, Mexico, 2006