|
|
Effects of narrative in the context of digital game-based learning for young children
Sýkora, Tomáš ; Brom, Cyril (advisor) ; Šisler, Vít (referee)
Research in the digital game-based learning domain has so far shown mixed results as to the use of narrative in educational games. The aim of this thesis is to help to answer the question of whether and to which extent it is reasonable to employ the narrative feature in educational games for young children. In addition to a literature review, the thesis presents an experimental study comparing two versions of a maths game that are the same except for for the richness of the game's story (a value-added study). The participating children (N = 67) from school year 2 and 3 (mean = 8.67 years, SD = 0.4 years) were given the opportunity to play a game for two weeks on touch devices: a game version with a simple narrative frame, or a game version with a rich story narrated through an interactive voiced comic, or a "placebo" game (control group). No significant effect of the rich narrative on the children's engagement, as reported by parents, was found (d = 0.45, p = .245). Furthermore, the two narrative condition groups did not differ in terms of in-game progress (Cliff's δ = 0.01), and the difference was neither significant for the number of solved game tasks (d = 0.08, p = .857), nor the learning gains (d = -0.25, p = .691) measured using a near-transfer maths skill test (pre-post design). Both narrative...
|
|
|
Plánování osobní historie virtuálního agenta
Kučerová, Lucie ; Brom, Cyril (advisor) ; Toropila, Daniel (referee)
Episodic memory is an important component of "minds" of many longliving virtual agents, because equipping such an agent with his personal history increases his e ciency and believability. So far, research on episodic memory modeling in the context of these agents has focused mostly on producing the memory content on-line, that is, when the agent is being simulated. In this work, we address a complementary issue, automatic generation of the memory content off-line. We see a possible need of a tool for generating memories that anticipate the start of the simulation. Hence we created a complex design method enabling a designer to specify high-level requirements on an agent's history and use planning to automatically generate this history according to these requirements. We detail the structure of the high-level language used for the description of the requirements and the part of this method that concerns itself with the planning. In a set of experiments, we tested the performance of several planners on our task and we present here the results we gained.
|
|
|
Adaptation of spatial navigation tests to virtual reality.
Šupalová, Ivana ; Brom, Cyril (advisor) ; Holan, Tomáš (referee)
At the Department of Neurophysiology of Memory in the Academy of Sciences in Czech Republic are recently performed tests of spatial navigation of people in experimental real enviroment called Blue Velvet Arena. In introdution of this thesis is described importancy of these tests for medical purposes and the recent solution. The main aim is to adapt this real enviroment to virtual reality, allow it's configuration and enable to collect data retieved during experiment's execution. Resulting system is using cooperation of Unreal engine, application in Java language and script engine. The work is also enabling to use Eyelink II device for measuring eye movements.
|
|
|
Unreal Tournament Twins
Burkert, Ondřej ; Brom, Cyril (advisor) ; Yaghob, Jakub (referee)
This bachelor thesis is focused on team cooperation of a couple of agents in the enviroment of Unreal Tournament (UT) in the fundamental team-play mode. I worked on realization of autonomous behavior, communication, synchronization of important informations and implementation of tactical operations. Better informed agent could deliver more sofisticated performance and credibility. I implemented the project on the framework made from the game UT, the middleware Gamebots, POSH (the architecture for making agent's logic) and the middleware Pogamut. When I succesfully finished implementation, I have made set of tests to find out the impact of some approaches on agents performance in the game. I found out that the level of cooperation affects the performance. Couple of agents who were cooperating only by sharing informations proved to be the most effective and suitable for the choosen mode of the game.
|
|
|
Reducing Complexity of AI in Open-World Games by Combining Search-based and Reactive Techniques
Černý, Martin ; Brom, Cyril (advisor) ; Dignum, Frank (referee) ; Pilát, Martin (referee)
Open-world computer games present the players with a large degree of freedom to interact with the virtual environment. The increased player freedom makes open-world games a challenging domain for artificial intelligence. In this thesis we present three novel techniques to handle various types of complexity inherent in developing artificial intelligence for open-world games. We developed behavior objects that extend the well-known concept of smart objects and help in structuring codebase for reactive reasoning, we propose and implement constraint satisfaction techniques to specify behavior from a global viewpoint and we have shown how adversarial search techniques can mitigate the need for complex reactive decision mechanisms when a large number of parameters has to be taken into account. The general techniques are implemented and evaluated in the context of a complete open-world game Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
|
|
|
Three virtual characters in a quarrel: an interactive model
Babor, Petr ; Brom, Cyril (advisor) ; Beneš, Jan (referee)
In computer games, with the ambition to tell a story are often cut-scenes, passages of games, where the player does not play, but only follows a part of the narrated story. This fact distract player from playing. These passages should be integrated as much as possible in the game itself. The goal of our work is to design, implement and test a model for creating cut-scenes with dynamic development and limited user interaction possibilities. We restricted the model to a situation where three characters arguing and we implemented it for the Pogamut platform. We use animations and emoticons as means of expression, characters do not speak by natural language. Movement is ensured by the steering rules from the project Steering Library. Dramaturgy and synchronization of scenes is controlled by a stochastic finite state machine. We made an experiment where the test subjects watched the generated cut-scenes and compared them with hand-made to evaluate the work. The results confirmed the assumption that the quality of generated scenes do not reach handwritten ones. However the test subjects still perceived them positively, because of the ability to influence their development. Implemented parts of the model can be used to create games and educational programs with social theme. Theoretical design of the model can be...
|
|
|
Simulace agregačního chování
Tomek, Jakub ; Brom, Cyril (advisor) ; Holan, Tomáš (referee)
Many breeds of cockroaches living in nature form aggregations. In this the- sis, we are looking for evolutionary advantages provided by the aggregation behavior. Because of the difficulty of testing evolutionary hypotheses on real cockroaches, we decided to use a multi-agent simulation instead. We present several models which test certain hypotheses coming from various areas of cock- roach life. Hypotheses on protection against predators, effective use of food from corpses of other cockroaches have been confirmed. Also, we provide an explana- tion of cannibalism among cockroaches. On the other hand, certain hypotheses were rejected, for example, the hypothesis concerning effective use of feces of other cockroaches. Our results may be used in further research on cockroach behavior. Furthermore, since aggregation as a general process appears in other areas of natural sciences, it is possible to use our results in them as well. 1
|
|
|
Plausible computational model of a rodent behaviour
Preuss, Michal ; Brom, Cyril (advisor) ; Vomlelová, Marta (referee)
Two different computational models are presented. These models simulate behaviour of a rat during a laboratory experiment focused on spatial cognition. First model arises from principles of reinforcement learning while second represents a method usual for models in computational neuroscience. The two models are compared with the results of laboratory experiments as well as with each other. Assets of both models and the possibility of combining the two methods are then discussed.
|
|
|
Editor for project IVE - objects and areas
Vorba, Jiří ; Brom, Cyril (advisor) ; Poch, Tomáš (referee)
The main goal of this work is to implement an editor for IVE which is the simulator of virtual humans developed at MFF UK. Our editor should primarily open up IVE for teaching of algorithms for control of virtual humans. The part of the work is also the search from field of tools for prototyping control algorithms of virtual agents in computer games and teaching applications. There is also introduced the project IVE itself. Also our own demo world was made for testing purposes and there arised two tutorials which are part of the extensive user documentation.
|
|
|
Drama manager by means of Petri Nets
Abonyi, Adam ; Brom, Cyril (advisor) ; Šerý, Ondřej (referee)
The results of virtual storytelling are used in interactive computer games or e-learning applications. The plot of a virtual story can be viewed as a distributed system, which was formalized by Carl Adam Petri in his work called Petri nets. This formalism was already used in the virtual storytelling area, but it was never used for describing a story in a virtual environment. In our work, we extend the basic Petri net model in a way which makes it easily usable for the specification of a plot of the story and for its progression. We also implement the model together with debugging tools. Moreover, we allow representing of stories using XML based format, which enables easy collaboration between the programmer and the author of the story.
|
guest ::
