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

Jeff LeBlanc, MAK Technologies

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About MAKAbout 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

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Serious GamesSerious 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

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Serious Games HistorySerious 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

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SIMNETSIMNET

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?

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Sons of SIMNETSons 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!

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Seriously Unreal GamingSeriously 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)

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Game-LinkGame-Link

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DIS/HLA ProtocolsDIS/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

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DIS/HLA ProtocolsDIS/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

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Interoperability IssuesInteroperability 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)

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Types of Serious GamesTypes 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")

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Battle Command 2010Battle 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

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VR-ForcesVR-Forces

Object-oriented toolkit for Networked synthetic environments Requirements & operational analysis Simulation for strategic &

tactical decision-makers Embedded trainers Mission rehearsal

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MAK StealthMAK 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

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Demo Time!Demo Time!

Time for a demonstration of VR-Forces and Stealth

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In ConclusionIn 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?